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Going (back to) Gadget
Appologies if this is a boring non-thread but it struck me over the last few months I've travelled from predominantly ONE APP music making (Gadget in my case) to dabbling heavily with MULTI APP music making (combinations of Genome, MTS and Auria driving various synth and drum apps).
However for the track I'm working on now I have returned back to Gadget (bringing in a few vocal samples - and intending to take into Auria for mixing).
Actually, despite all the advances in midi in Auria and AUs in MTS... plus Link...etc - it's still creatively/workflow wise much smoother running in Gadget. Mainly due to zero set up time each session, and the ability to throw in new synth/drum tracks so easily without getting performance issues. The UI is also, as we know, outstanding.
I'm wondering how I'll be making music in a years time. All in Gadget? All in Auria or MTS? Or a smoothed out MULTI APP approach? Maybe AUs? Certainly until recently I wouldn't even consider the multi app approach because it was so clunky. But MTS and Auria Pro have made things a lot better recently.
I'd be interested in other people's thoughts or experiences.
Comments
One of the things that you don't get in Gadget (besides audio tracks of course) is a selection of different playing surfaces. I often use Guitarism for strumming, and Thumbjam, GeoSynth and now GeoShred for more expressive lead lines. Gadget is great for simple note entry and editing, but lacks anything like these more expressive ways of working. Just a thought as to why you might want to use other apps.
Midi workflow is best in an app like Gadget or in a desktop DAW like Reason or Ableton for the reasons you mentioned. But with all the great synths, drum machines and effects on iOS we'll always look for ways to take advantage of the whole arsenal.
I've run into many midi inconsistencies and different kinds of complications with my DAW apps and sometimes it just eats too much time to be worth it.
Right now I'm trying to minimize midi in my iOS DAW workflow baking all the midi tracks into audio once I'm happy with a part or even just recording the audio. Maybe that'll reduce the time wastage.
I usually use midi apps to record the midi in gadget, just midi arm the channel you want to record. I use guitarism mainly
I've been watching your struggle Matt to find a new workflow as good as Gadgets. I was hoping you'd find something... I continue to stick with it. Really hoping for some new Gadgets or audio tracks soon though. I'm finding Modstep is getting close to the vibe of Gadget though. Need to play more (and hopefully it becomes a bit more stable).
@Matt_Fletcher_2000 This shines a light on the fact that almost every app is in some way a potential Shiny New Toy (often resulting in very real cool sound generation) and there is (literally) a never-ending stream of incoming Toys but at the end of the day the almighty WORKFLOW is king in terms of translating inspiration into finished work or even workettes.
The beauty of Gadget is that it's such a potent closed environment. Even if one does post production elsewhere (Auria often the case) Gadget is still a contained, learnable and very capable DAW. The more time goes by the greater I find the gravitational pull towards the idea of a closed environment.
Part of me (re)thinks that the iPad itself IS the closed environment and every app is a sub-window of the "iPad DAW" but at least for now it's not true for me personally so I find myself Truly wanting to meld with apps like BeatHawk, Egoist and perhaps unprecedentedly so now Sunvox alone and at one time. Somewhere within each app is an equation: Potential + Fluidity = Expression. Add the side-orders of controlled reliability and a level of happy-accident territory and and you've (I've) got the DREAM DAW. ..If only in theory. (but Sunvox is as close as I've gotten and is close enough).
Gadget turns me quite conventional & the shift is unintentional. I had to choose my fetish for weirdness over the convenience of Gadget.
Modstep is the only app I have used over the past year that gave me that same fun and productive buzz like I got when first using gadget. While it requires a little more set up and planning I find once you have a couple templates it's off to the races gadget style in terms of creative flow
Good to hear @AudioGus Modstep certainly deserve bonus points for the quick updates so far and wealth of new features coming soon too
Lol. Being a guitar player, I'm just starting to get into midi with Auria Pro. At this point in time, between writing in notion, and recording in Auria, I don't really see a need for much else. Picked up GeoShred, and I love it. But the only guitar modelling tools I have are Flying Haggis and Amplitube, and I really don't feel the need to get more of those.
To be talented is to break your own rules and surpassed your rules. You are good at certain limited range! IMHO! You are very dutiful to your doing, Matt!
Yes, One man can not handle all the differences, styles! But, we are the followers of uncertainty in chaos. So be glad at what you are doing always and never and ever regret what you are doing on this changing world.
I don't see Gadget do any good for you. For others, yes, but not you!
You can learn much out of it!
Tried to make Gadget work, had big hopes that the clip launch gui worked the way Live's (and Bitwigs) works. Liked having access to all the Korg sounds, the automation of every possible param, the sweet piano roll scheme. (Not big on the blue, but killer piano roll) But the ultimate fail for me is how the clips and scenes were laid out. Deleted it a while ago. Synthesis was another issue- I want a scheme that lets me use all the amazing iOS synths. (Including iMS 20, iPolysix).
Kept Electrify NXT, which does clip launch the way I was looking for, also sampler instrument, drum sample box, and WAV clip-launch and -warp like I'd been looking for. Also has an onboard FM synth (something I missed inside Gadget)
Per @Matt_Fletcher_2000 got into Genome and the idea of iPad as meta DAW. Lots of apps snd connections to manage, not to mention delightful iOS MIDI but still worth it.
Modstep looks like the next level of this approach, for which I have high hopes.
I swing between:
the all in one clip launch app (for me Electrify NXT),
the DAW as DAW (great iOS synths in live or via stems/clips, and stems imported from groove apps including Electrify, Beathawk, Praxis Beats)
and the iPad as DAW. (centered around clip launch sequencer, streamed into, or stems sent to, DAW)
then there's Sunvox, which is all in one,but not clip launch, a live synths/samplers source and clip resource for DAW as DAW, clip resource for Electrify NXT, and a set of synths and samplers for iPad as DAW.
Can't see reinstalling Gadget...I do forsee Link, and coming AB innovation making life easier.
Looks like you are writing an ordained sun script! Lol
Zolotov cocktail
Thought I was the only one who didn't get along with Gadget. Every possibility I'm just clueless...but say you prepare a 16 bar scene than flub some notes in the last bar, its right painful to MIDI correct that flub. In Cubasis I would loop the problem bar and just correct while it plays. Couldn't find a way to isolate a bar like this in Gadget. The work arounds I've seen folk post in this forum seem pretty time consuming or really don't fit this scenario. Got Gadget thinking it would make track making quicker but for me it seems more cumbersome.
Yeah, it's a pain waiting through 15 bars - I don't know why Gadget won't let you position the start point. But apart from that I agree with some of the other posters comments about the power on ONE closed but potent environment. I always used linear DAW's and never really got apps like REASON (even though I wanted to because it seems so cool) - so I wasn't expecting Gadget to "click" with me, but it's definitely my favorite on iOS. The workflow is awesome for the most part and the all-in-one approach with full automation is just brilliant - load your project and continue working - no setup or switching, I like that
If they embraced AU's and all our synth apps implemented that as will - that would be SOOO cool
I'm goin' back to Gadget, Gadget, Gadget
I'm goin' back to Gadget
I don't think so
I never left .It was all I could do.
I've got a fair few tracks I've started in Gadget, so I'm planning on finishing them there too.
My frustration with Gadget's lack of FX (in part) prompted me to buy Auria Pro. While it looks a real powerhouse, I'm currently finding it a bit tricky to adapt to it's piano roll (though I understand there's an update on the way) and the CPU meter starts to climb pretty quickly when multiple instances of fabfilter synths and effects are added ( I should say that I'm nowhere near creating a full track setup in AP, so please bear that in mind, these are just my observations so far)
Back to Gadget, 16+ tracks on my Air2 are no problem and it's getting more stable with each update and the simplicity of the piano roll very much works for me.
Gadget is brilliant for fast laying down of ideas, The way you can add instruments and scenes, and then play the scenes in any order you want in realtime is amazing, however it is lacking in areas that mean I don't use it for full production, and either end up exporting midi into Cubasis, then programming or finding sounds in other synths that match the Gagdet ones (not as hard as it sounds if you have iPolySix, iMS-20, Module and iM1), or more often than not just use Cubasis from the start.
The features that Gadget really needs for me to be happy using it and it alone for full production are
Higher than 44khz sampling rates are important if you want really good results from amp simulators, particularly if you want good distortion. (it seems odd that you need a good audio stream in order to make it sound distorted, but the more information those algorithms have to work on the better the results) This is not limited to Gadget, a lot of apps are 16 bit 44k audio.
I must re-iterate here though what I said at the start, it is brilliant for getting ideas down quickly and easily and I have made many great sounding (to me
) tunes with it. I just can't make the tunes I really want to make by only using Gadget.
I am now using ModStep as the start point of a project, with Cubasis as my end point for production, so I am eager to see how this compares.
First lol of the day, many thanks...
And thanks @AndyPlankton, you reminded me of what I'm actually up to with Auria Pro, Cubasis, and MTS (DAW as DAW)...
because they've all got near top tier, or full on top tier synths inbuilt (or AU which feels more inbuilt than synths IAA and AB linked) -
and they have the nicety of audio tracks - mostly used for import of WAV clip into a track, but often just for rendering their own synths for clips, (as in sweet drum synth sounds)
I can use these the way I used Gadget: self contained ecosystems. As brilliant as these 3 are at being part of iPad as DAW, with slick AB and IAA (and Link soon come!), they each work as selfcontained one stop shops, albeit with actual ported-from-vst big boy synths, myriad fx options and routings, actual mixers.
Only thing they lack is that other compositional mode, Live- or Bitwig-style clip launch that I want side by side with timeline mode. That "lack" is a big reason I go outside each ones (bigass) sandbox, to integrate with something like genome, now modstep. Other (pure joy) reason for linking to the bigger AB IAA kingdom being my beloved 50+ synth and groove box stable...treating these powerhouses as self contained ecosystems wasn't possible until they felt as quick workflow wise as Gadget is out of the box. I'm there now with MTS, it'll be a while with AP, but when these monsters become as quick as sketch pads, no need for a lesser interim sketchpad, except for fun, or to zero in on one compositional mode as in Electrify NXT, (clip launch) or Beathawk (mpc+), both of which stem export.
Then there's Sunvox, not so much a sandbox but a Teraformed planet unto itself (that also has clip and midi export)
Depends on if you have a myopic approach to apps or myopic approach to music.
I know it's a fine line.
But, I just think there is level of spontaneity that is diminished when one puts parameters of creativity in a predetermined "box" - so to speak.
Very good point, sometimes the 'fences' prevent creativity, sometimes they spawn it !
I've never got on with Gadget. It's a great program, and Kudos to those who do great work with it and who do not find it pushes them in one direction or another. I'm not a big fan of scene/clip based DAW tools since they don't fit my developed workflow, so, I don't work well with Gadget. Auria however I love :-) (And Cubasis too). My younger son who is a jazz pianist is, among other things (classical pianist, guitarist, bassist, drummer), also a beat producer and does all of that work in Gadget currently - and very well too.
But personally I find Gadget somewhat constraining (same as I do Live) and it doesn't work well for, e.g., classical music production for me. Nor Blues, nor Rock, nor Ambient. Again, not saying you can't (or that people haven't) produced works in such musical genres with Gadget - I've heard some great Gadget tracks that broke out of the perceived mould. But my personal workflow for such finds its expression far more easily in a more traditional DAW approach.
Again - I think Gadget is a great tool. I've removed it from all my iPads though currently.
This...
I know Rim is improving the piano roll a lot. So I'm confident about that part.
The weight of Twin2 instances is a little bit of a problem for iOS though. Ideally Fab Filter would optimise it a bit - although I don't know how likely that is to happen.
Slightly off topic Matt, but I think AP may well come into its own with Lyra regarding CPU use / many parts.
I'm new to DAWs like AP and MTS, so still learning. I haven't reached the point yet where I can say they work for me or not. I've played with Gadget a lot, and it's very good for what it's good for---putting together ideas. I don't play an external instrument or sing, so I need no audio tracks. I'm loving EDM these days, but I also tend much more to conventional, traditional music and how it's typically made. I've been able to complete whole roughly mixed songs with Gadget, relying a lot on Module and iM1.
The reason I want a real DAW is because Gadget is limited in the obvious ways. All the great sound generators on iOS and expressive ways of playing (iFretless, Geo Shred...) And then Gadget is frustrating when doing simple things like Undo, copying and pasting stuff between tracks, playhead positioning, track and scene naming, precise automation, global tempos, quantize after, swing, standard mixing features... etc., etc. Gadget to me is for playing around. It's a long way from being a DAW for someone who's used to making music in a conventional way. I'm really hoping there's an iOS DAW I'll love, and I'll continue to use Gadget as a sketch pad.
Thanks. I've no doubt it's considerably lighter on resources - but I like using proper synths I can use for sound design, tweak, modulate etc. That's one of the most fun bits for me.
The path of least resistance as far as creativity goes is a two edged sword
However..that which enables our own unique gifts to flow best is of course favorable...