Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
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What apps work for you with full song compositions?
Just wondering if many of you use a single app or a consistent group of apps for composing songs. As most of you know, I typically use Different Drummer with SoundCanvas, and more recently Auria Pro, but I still have difficulties getting full songs with these combos.
Comments
I've easily made full songs with gadget, nanostudio, samplr, egoist and GarageBand
Gadget is the easiest, by far, and has the nicest workflow, but it doesn't play well with others, so Auria always ends up being the hub that everything revolves around.
I play the field with apps trying lots of different combos to get different sounds and ideas but I would never consider anything of mine finished until it gets just as much time, if not more, in Samplitude on the PC.
I write the song in Notion, export it as midi, import into Auria Pro. Then I re-record the guitar parts in Auria Pro. I make a decision about what to do with keyboards and drums, whether to record them live again, or just use the midi. I tend to use Thumbjam for samples for percussion and strings, though that will be less necessary going forward, with what is in Auria Pro. I have been using GeoShred on my latest piece, and really like it. I also use Midiflow to split out the notes from my Percpad to get them into different channels in Auria. I have mostly been using Saturn and Timeless plugins to get guitar sounds in Auria.
[obvi]
I tend to get more done with Caustic. I'm having fun with modstep and may focus on that for a while.
I have difficulties making full songs but Gadgets gets me furthest that's for sure.
Gadget.
But then also, recently some semi live recorded stuff in
Great feedback. Thanks all. @syrupcore - I couldn't find the Obvi app
Wrote a song the first time I opened Gadget. Exported stems to Auria.
Wrote a song the first time I opened Beathawk. Exported stems to Auria.
Wrote a song the first time I opened Tin Pan Rhythm. Exported stems to Auria.
So as long as I can get stems into Auria, I think there are some great compositional tools out there
With Garageband iOS (everything but mastering, which was done in my Mac):
With Auria 1.x (using other apps alongside it for the synthesised sounds, and Drum Perfect when an acoustic drum feel was needed):
With Auria Pro (same as with Auria 1.x):
Garageband songs tend to be simpler, because it doesn't offer many resources for audio editing, and usually take a lot of time and effort to finish, and to get a balanced mix for them takes time, patience and luck.
another Gadget guy here - nothing else has come too close.
But sometimes I get tired of the sounds in Gadget and am too lazy to sample from other apps and get those loops into Bilboa or Abu .... I've been searching patiently over the past several months for a "Gadget-type" workflow or something close (watching @Matt_Fletcher_2000 s experiments have been great - I almost went with MTS a few weeks ago...as his thoughts/workflows with music seem very much aligned with mine in many ways. )
So when I feel like doing things differently I often go back to using Loopy HD combined with many other synths, drum machines, effects, etc. When I make a track this way, I often start with a drum loop in 1 slot of Loopy (could be something I programmed myself and copy/pasted into Loopy, or a downloaded drum loop, or whatever). Then I pick a synth and find a good bass sound and get a bass loop recorded to Loopy (either played manually or I use another AB enabled sequencer of some kind). Then I keep throwing on synth textures or melodies, sometimes turning off a couple of the loops playing in Loopy. I fill up the 12 slots in Loopy, then I delete a few loops and resave the project with a new name and keep adding more loops - sometimes I end up with 5 or 6 variations of projects. If things have gotten to this point, Then I audiocopy the loops from Loopy and paste them into Auria (or Garageband a few times before I had Auria) and arrange from there.
@funjunkie27 I put my whole song together in one of the SessionBand apps. Then I can have the whole structure laid out--intro, verse, chorus, verse, break, instrumental, etc. all the way to the end. I insert the drum rolls so I always know where I am in the song. I find it useful to have that structure all finished before I begin recording. And to be honest, it keeps me in rhythm. (When I worked on the computer I did the same thing with Band-in-a-Box). I export the separate tracks to Auria and then start playing my own stuff on the other tracks. Eventually I will take some of the SessionBand tracks out, but some I will leave.
I am new to Auria, so so far I have only done a test this way--just one verse and chorus. The tracks are sitting there while I learn how to use Pro Q2 and Pro C2 and DrumPerfect Pro (whenever that gets here). I plan to put that up and get some feedback before I go back and actually do the full song. At that point I can change the key and BPM.
This.
Works even better if I write a miserable four rhyming lines about how she done me wrong first.
Song of the Month Club, baby. 2016 is calling you.
Some excellent approaches here. Being the simple sort though, having access to videos of these approaches would be amazing.
GarageBand for my DAW, Music Studio & ThumbJam for my keeper 'sound bank' apps, w/ bs-16i to deal with MIDI files and as a sound bank, albeit GM or GS in nature. I'll go after Guitarism if I need more of that sort of thing.
Don't be such a Negative Ned - there are still two perfectly good days left in 2015
Lol!
Hey, I'm all for it. I'm a last minute/last day kind of fella. Whatever gets you half over the line....
@JohnnyGoodyear Ah, yes, that old familiar rush of finishing your last 500 words on a 1000 word paper about a book you've only just read the front and back inside flaps on while your grade school classmates file into class while also hiding said paper from the teacher's eye and scoring yet another A 'cause Karma's already decided this will all come back to haunt you in your twenties but you have nooooo idea so SCORE!
I hear you, but I wasn't that kid. I was always the one who got 'could do so much better if you made an effort' scrawled across my paltry papers. It's only later in life (time running out) that I've picked up the pace. A bit.
If you wait 'til the last second, it only takes a second.
That is my problem with iOS... there is no app at all for this for me. But in the past it was always NanoStudio, later BeatMaker 2. Today i would choose Auria Pro i think.
^Wise words^
Loopy. Everything else are just sound generators for material to create sets for it. Its fun to put the pieces together and fun to see how they sound together at a later point in time, depending on the playback sequencing.
Auria Pro can pretty much be used to build a song from the ground up, because of Lyra and Twin. Check out the first of the three songs I made using Auria Pro (the three last songs of my previous lengthy post).
All the best!