making music with an iPad

Tom since you asked that question about sampler/slicers an interesting new app called Reslice came out -- you should look at it

that's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you! Dude you rule

I have refined my technique

1. download Figure
2. employ child labor as previously discussed
3. download AudioCopy, AudioShare and ReSlice (seriously why does iOS have the audio-alimentary canal of a ruminant, audio is not cellulose, APPLE (lol get it ruminants love apples))
4. C+P whatever the future came up with into ReSlice
5. oh word y'all I'm a genius

6. I'm back where I started because I still need a new non-work-issued computer to record this stuff into dammit

Can't you just perform into audioshare and export the WAV?

Figure looks hells cool. New social media challenger

Figure is a blast, I just wish it had a few global fx (which as it turns out, ReSlice does)

When I was researching figure a year or so back I just remember it seeming like it had a couple limitations that would nag at me so I've never gotten it

Add step 6 to the above: import into SECTOR: wheeee!

Kind of want to just blow the rest of day making less-busy Figure loops specifically for cutting up and flim-flamming in SECTOR now

I haven't read up on Sector yet
People are going crazy for KRFT right now which a really need kind of build-your-own MIDI clip-launching/parameters-morphing surface erector set. But way easier to get going with than that sounds.

I got fed up yet again with Gadget's 16 bar pattern length limitation (sound qua sound it's my favorite iOS pseudo-DAW for sure) and am back to my old steady Caustic again. Bought a high quality soundfont of Jupiter 8 patches from Digital Sound Factory which I'm deploying in there, such joy.

A recently debuted synth app I immediately fell in love with is TF8, which presents its keyboard as four rows of chiclet tiles a la guitar fretboard, with multiple extremely useful modes of pitchbend to apply to chiclet-wiggling and super gorgeous built-in FX options. And a neat arp.

Need in my first paragraph should have been 'neat'

I desperately need a better option for editing than the crappy thing that comes with AudioCopy. What's best?

Yeah no one likes Audiocopy. Audioshare, on the other hand, is totally essential for me as

--simple recorder of other apps
--hub for sending all manner of files to other apps
--simple editor for trimming and dynamics processing audio files (note that you can overlay a bpm grid over your waveform which really helps when trimming stuff for looping purposes)
--converter of mp3s to full res wavs as demanded by most of the sampling apps, and vice versa if I want to email someone a project from an app without having to go to the dreaded itunes file sharing interface

How complex is the editing you want to do?

I think I'm going to sell my iPad mini, I just wasn't able to integrate it into my workflow (although Fieldscaper did make it onto a record).

Yeah, I bought a bunch of apps and tried to hook the iPad into my synth setup, but I never really got into it. None of the sounds sounded that great compared to my actual keyboards and synths, and none of the iPad stuff was that fun to just play.

It sounds like I just need to learn to use AudioShare better

I don't have actual keyboards or synths (outside of a piano and an old microkorg I got recently), but I kinda have similar feelings re drum machines in terms of "integration" and being "fun to play" vs. an actual drum kit

When I get a real desktop machine again I can see how loops and stuff will end up in Ableton etc. but since I'm in music-cave limbo for a while yet I'm also workflow-agnostic

I can definitely see how instruments and tools designed with a touchscreen in mind are 4000% more appealing than emulators of classic machines, if you haven't been checking out stuff like sector, figure, or TC-11 then you may be missing out

Drum kit is obv more fun to play, but much more frustrating to record in a satisfying way.

I can't see anything being as fun as actual drumming, but there are iOS instruments which are definitely as fun for me as playing my actual guitar. Mainly the ones that leverage a kind of two handed fretboard approach with deep synthesis.

Jon not Jon + any other skeptics, if you have Sector + AudioShare already in the toolbox, just go ahead and get Figure. It's so fast to make a new weird loop and chop it up into even weirder loops; the only annoying part is having to use AudioCopy as an export pass-through.

🗻

laughed hard

Jon not Jon + any other skeptics, if you have Sector + AudioShare already in the toolbox, just go ahead and get Figure. It's so fast to make a new weird loop and chop it up into even weirder loops; the only annoying part is having to use AudioCopy as an export pass-through.

I would kill for Figure midi export. Like even just .mid files, let alone as a controller or whatever.

Have we discussed KRFT here?

OK I know this isn't ILPeople-Making, but my kid now folds her drawing paper in half and puts a grid of apps on one side, then draws an app interface on the other side. Today she drew the Figure song / file screen.

I mentioned KRFT a couple weeks ago itt -- it is a brilliant concept and it's really lighting ppl up and I wish it fit better with what I want to be doing right now. I'm just not in a looping patterny place right now.

I'm really stuck on trying to get at this non-grooving molto rubato kind of basking rhapsodic feel... I can hear/see it but the dance-gauged tools of iOS and my own anxious temperament and muscle memory keep pushing things toward squirrelyness...

Check out what my son made with KRFT:
https://soundcloud.com/djisbister/bip-05-reflection-by-benjamin-isbister

He's been getting REALLY into it, and making way cooler stuff than I've made so far.

Dang, that's really cool. It would take me forever to make that from scratch on my computer, what am I doing with my life, etc.

Like, I listened to the new Pearson Sound EP right afterward and barely noticed the transition.

:)

I gotta spend more time with KRFT obv!

just got it. will see what we can make of it tonight!

If you want to play with my kid's surfaces, his username is bip_05.

oh neat! I found one of his right away. Reminds me of Spacetime Continuum.

I'm trying to make detuned noisy stuff with it and but it is very slow going so far

Novation have a new, free app called Groovebox which is pretty good fun.

Yeah I am seeing it described as a less hobbled Figure

New and exciting for me this week is a new synth in the Minimoog style by the wonderful developer ApeSoft who did the brilliant iOS incarnation of the VCS3 Synthi. It's more than just a Mini homage-- it's got a feature where you can load a WAV sample which then warps the oscillator frequencies in some odd way, and a step-based waveform in the LFO options, and the ability to double tap almost anything in the app to assign it a dedicated LFO. The app is an Audio Unit so you can deploy multiple instances of it in GarageBand or Cubasis or whatever.

Following soon, it sounds like, is an (also Audio Unit enabled) app called Ripplemaker from the same developer who did Troublemaker and Phasemaker -- this one is his take on 'west coast' buchla style modular synthesis. THAT I can't wait for.

Also, KRFT now has virtual MIDI Out!

Yeah I am seeing it described as a less hobbled Figure

New and exciting for me this week is a new synth in the Minimoog style by the wonderful developer ApeSoft who did the brilliant iOS incarnation of the VCS3 Synthi. It's more than just a Mini homage-- it's got a feature where you can load a WAV sample which then warps the oscillator frequencies in some odd way, and a step-based waveform in the LFO options, and the ability to double tap almost anything in the app to assign it a dedicated LFO. The app is an Audio Unit so you can deploy multiple instances of it in GarageBand or Cubasis or whatever.

Following soon, it sounds like, is an (also Audio Unit enabled) app called Ripplemaker from the same developer who did Troublemaker and Phasemaker -- this one is his take on 'west coast' buchla style modular synthesis. THAT I can't wait for.

Also, KRFT now has virtual MIDI Out!

the Apesoft synth is called Mood ftr

Really excited for Ripplemaker!

I know!

Durrr me forgetting to name the apesoft synth. Pronounced 'mode' of course, cute.

Holy crap Ripplemaker is under App Store review already and might be available this weekend!!!

Holy crap Ripplemaker is under App Store review already and might be available this weekend!!!

I've bought every Bram app on launch and have had zero regrets. Can't believe how quickly this one seems to have been developed.

got newish iPad mini!

Novation Launchpad is pretty promising in terms of an app for playing live w/samples

Playing live with multiple apps running things seems too tricky for me ... is that something people do even?

Hey that's great! I have an iPad Mini 3 and it has been able to handle any apps I've thrown at it.

Performing with multiple simultaneous apps - this is definitely something people do but it's a bit overwhelming to me too. I think people tend to use AUM for this (it's kind of a virtual mixing board which can host disparate apps at once on separate busses) or something like Infinite Looper (where you can have a bunch of different loops each sending virtual MIDI to a different app and use it to launch certain loops, pause other ones, switch to alt version of loops, etc).

I find this kind of thing more manageable with a groovebox type setup like Gadget where I can sculpt a little lineup of synth patches and get them looping along together at uneven loop lengths all within the same app, and then add a final Gadget synth I use to improvise over the phasing repetitions.

Sarah, I definitely think you would love Ripplemaker--which is out today!-- and also iVCS3 for sure, they are both deep and crazy enough to generate a real performance from without using anything else.

Korg has a half-price sale on Gadget, etc at the moment (having doubled the prices in three years, tbf).

The Korg iMono/Poly is still discounted through September 30. It sounds pretty goddamned amazing

Yeah I got it, it's fantastic

The iMono/Poly is terrific. Are all the Korg soft synths this good?

The only one I've tried is iWavestation and it's one of my favorite synths: Others I rate highly would be Model 15, Mitosynth, Phasemaker, and Nanostudio's Eden. I'm also pretty sure I like SynthScaper, but I still suck at it. I haven't tried iMono/Poly yet. Recently bought Zeeon and like that one a lot so far.

What's everybody's favorite DAW app (or environment)? I've tried Nanostudio, Beatmaker 2, SunVox, KRFT, Modstep, Garageband, Infinite Looper, and various combinations of those + AUM and/or Audiobus 3. I can't seem to hit the sweet spot. If Nanostudio was more open, allowed AU/IAA inserts and audiotracks, it would be hands down my favorite. Looking forward to Nanostudio 2. Haven't tried Beatmaker 3 yet. I gravitate toward long linear tracks and realize that my desired workflow is pretty similar to (the PC version of) FL Studio.

I feel like most iOS apps push me toward a pattern-based ultra repetitious techno style. The most fun I've had is with probably just doing long meandering ambient style tracks with a midi sequencer or two using AUM as a host + mixer.

Have you tried the Cubase one? That's what I would use if I was still messing around with apps, it seems the most like a traditional DAW.

NanoStudio 2 is going to be just what the doctor ordered for both of us, I think. I’m totally with you on needing iOS DAWs where I can just start a linear soliloquy and go as far as I want. I never get anywhere with the pattern based ones. Just a great weird 8 or 16 bar groove that I never do anything with. As it is, NanoStudio 1 is the one I’ve gotten the most “me” tracks completed in.

The revamped version of FL Mobile (FLM3) is pretty great for linear, actually, at least once you buy the IAP polysynth. I’ve only made stuff with the (very nice sounding) onboard synths and not audio or IAA, though.

On iPad, MultiTrack Studio (geert bremmers) is really great. Supports AU, lets you fluctuate tempo, gives you the choice of standard keys or a fretboard layout for the onscreen keyboard, and also supports soundfonts.

I bought Gadget to entertain myself while travelling and it's hugely impressive. The sequencing is a bit fiddly but the range of sounds is good.

I would love gadget to death if I could only have a linear ‘record as long as I want’ mode.

I love the Phoenix and Dublin gadgets a lot; of the extra purchase ones, the bass guitar and odyssey ones are crucial (the bass guitar one has a more expressive, easier to play onscreen keyboard than the rest and the odyssey one has by far the best sheer sound quality

Is that the ARP Odyssey you’re referring to?