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Music apps for the musically untalented?
Howdy Folks,
I'm new to the iPad and music making in general and I'd like a list of apps that don't really require a lot of talent to get going in. My interest range from BOC, Infected Mushroom, Apex Twin ,EDM, trap etc.
Thanks,
Mike
Comments
Gadget. Figure.
Most of them! Only half serious. You can't go wrong with the harmony apps though like Navichord, Soundprism, Chordup, etc.
Thumbjam is a must have. You can do a lot with it. And sound like a professional..
Novation Launchpad, blocs wave.
I amuse myself for hours with Blocs Wave, SoundPrism Pro, ChordUp, etc - all perfectly responsive to my very limited talent...
BOC — Blue Oyster Cult??
Go for innovation: Samplr, Fugue Machine, Figure, TriqTraq, and Gadget for sure. These apps are enjoyable and don't point up your musical shortcomings. PATTERNING. Seek Beats and Elastic Drums are rhythm makers, but they are synthesizers, and you are not restricted to realistic-sounding drums. Elastic in particular has amazingly, uh, elastic effects.
Addictive Pro - makes its own sounds easily. Great arp.
Egoist - Happy accident machine par excellence.
Xynthesizr - Randomish notes ahoy.
Oscilab - making patterns sometimes makes decent music.
I'm guessing BOC is Boards of Canada, rather than Blue Oyster Cult.... (Buck Dharma is one of my main guitar influences. Yay, Buck!)
But for the musically untalented, I'd recommend getting a guitar or piano. Give it a go -- yes, you'll stink for a while, but everyone does, and it's totally cool. I'm happy to listen to someone who stinks, if they're playing an instrument with a bit of passion and emotion. Some of the great blues guitarists were all about passion and emotion. IMO, learning a traditional instrument will give you a little-something-extra, and your music making will be more satisfying.
You don't need to become a virtuoso on a traditional instrument. I've been playing guitar for more than thirty years, and am barely out of the stink range; it didn't come naturally to me, but I'm too dumb to quit, and it's fun to play. And I really do think it helps, even if your music focus is on things that you'd create with a sequencer or sampler.
Auxy.
iKaossilator
+1 what @SecretBaseDesign said: (and not just the BOC shoutout) get a guitar, piano...
I guess I come at this as an "educator" (yikes) As I mentioned on another current thread, I expose my students (elem age, "exceptional needs") to various iOS music apps including instructional ones-
including Audiobus, midiSTEPs, thank you very much (my 4th graders instantly understand those two apps, and how they play together by the way) and .
It's lovely fun to watch, and hear them putting their hands on music...
I have a hardware keyboard in the room too. They're fascinated by the apps I use for my stuff (I can project the iPad screen and plug in speakers while I fool around...) and they have definitely enjoyed some of the music making apps designed for children, but what they ask for most often, and spend hours and hours on in the course of school year, is the keyboard.
it's a bog-standard Yamaha digital keyboard from 2004 with 300+ classic 80s-90's Yamaha patches, rhythm accompaniment, a full arrangement of "Englishman in New York" etc etc. Its pretty Cool but I often wish it was just an old spinet. it would be a severe reduction in available patches but it's obvious that what they dig is as much the hardware as the software. how much more so if it was wood, ivory, metal... The way it strikes them, having a free go at making music with musical instruments, reminds me that digital music making isn't magic to them the way it is to me, that's how they do everything, on a screen.
Dude just summed up my whole life!
Awesome fun and easy to get cool stuff done with half of your brain tied behind your back.
Thank you for all the wonderful suggestions, I really like Thumbjam so thanks High5denied.
I'll be taking a look at all the app suggested. I really didn't know where to start so again thanks pointing me in the right direction. I'm sure I'll have tons of questions in the next few weeks.
Well, I must agree with Figure since it's great for novices and professional musicians alike. It's a brilliant musical scratch pad.
One you master Figure and wish to expand what you can do, Gadget is the next natural step. Get to know each Gadget and how they function. Expand your sonic palette further with iM1 and Korg Module.
Also, Jakob frequently features Gadget and Figure in his videos and currently has a couple videos dealing with DnB production in Gadget. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFPiLpzd4cKOsBS9CIu3xg His informative product demonstrations are some of the best. I also recommend thesoundtestroom's youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/thesoundtestroom The site may he gone, but Doug's still occasionally at it, and the entire channel is a major wealth of information.
Audiobus and Audioshare are two apps I'd recommend (since Audiobus is more flexible than Interapp Audio and you can record your output from Figure into Audioshare as well as use Audioshare to store samples and MIDI files and the like).
Not sure what you mean by untalented. You mean unskilled, but you want to gain musical skills using an iPad? Or you feel your musical potential is limited no matter what? Or you feel you missed out the day they were passing out music genes, but you still like to make noise?
For the non-musician, I think Blocs Wave is a fun app for taking what musicians in a studio somewhere played, and then pasting bits together to make your own arrangements. The SessionBand apps are good for quickly entering a chord progression and getting automatic accompaniment tracks. If you like to noodle around on the screen playing melodies, fire up ThumbJam and play on top of what you put together in BW or SB. It really depends on what you’re looking for. Gadget and Figure are also great if you want to create more of your own music from scratch... Gadget, if you're ambitious to do complete instrumental pieces within a single app.
You bet! Have fun with it, and, like SoundPrisim and some others, you can control most, if not all of the ios synths with it. Which is good for me, cuz I can play guitar, but I suck at the Keys. Lucky for me my 9 year old son is taking piano lessons! I'll be putting him to good use in a few years. lol......
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Such apps also help those of us who are not virtuosos with real world instruments, yet do possess sonic imagination. It could be said that they are the perfect tools for making music in the digital age.
Figure, Auxy etc. Not Gadget at all ! ( imho )
Also gotta give a shoutout to the mighty Xynthesizr. Stupidly easy to get massive harmonies going and then transpose them all over the place for accompaniment patterns
skram
Put anything through Turnado- keep pressing the random dice as you play it and eventually something will turn up.
There are a number of apps out there that - once you get over the learning curve - can be great sources of inspiration, if not outright usage. I still go back and play with Oscilab once in a while because I recognize that it kicks a bit of ass, but it is sort of deep for one of my simple needs.
I would like to make a couple of suggestions based on my lack of musical knowledge or talent - I have played with a bunch of apps over the past few years trying to see which apps could help me move forward in learning to play music somehow (anyhow)!!
Figure is a great start - it is fun - easy to create something and has some capability to help you understand elements of playing music within a fixed tempo and scale - but provides a great playground to create and develope - It's free and is ableton link loaded if you want to start adding on and developing an app arsenal ....
Soundprism is a great way to play something and to use as a source of understanding scales as well as knowing how to play the (basic) chords on a piano/keyboard.
In the beginning I used this (in scale tool of sound prism) to pick out notes that would work in creating a 303 style bassline in the "bassline" app.. It was something that really helped me to understand a very basic idea of theory I guess...
Now with Ableton Link - I would suggest DM1 or Patterening since you could "link" bassline and Dm1 or Patterning to play in time and play along with Soundprism.....
----It will give a quick satisfaction of generally understanding how it can come together in time and in key.....
these are all relatively cheap apps and easy to find YouTube tutorials to get you started..
Xynthesizr is another app that is great to play around with - it's fun and can teach you that you can play something but can have you playing with sound design and synthesizer basics (it's fun and can do a lot under the hood)
Samplr could be a great app - it's a different way of playing - it's visual and incredible to play plus Doug at the sound test room did a great video tutorial..
Boarderland Granular is similar as a visual experience with samples - except it requires loading your own samples into it (it comes with a very small file of included samples.
Moodscaper falls in here too - it's sounds good,,,
I do think gadget is a great all in one app - it's layered in how complex it can be - It might be overwhelming for a novice ..... Not sure..it would be a lot for someone just beginning I think,
Same with cubasis - there are a lot of tools in the app that could help someone discover ways to make music but it's so layered in the complexity and would take a lot of investment to navigate with confidence ...
My main suggestion about getting started is not to get I a habit of thinking every app will help you move forward in discovereing your coarse - I do believe littlewoodg is correct
In investing in a midi keyboard and learning some keyboard after you invest time in figure and Soundprism - it will help you understand practicing and actually playing an instrument.
There are a lot of ways to create music (watch Mr Bill Tunes - he literally is creating a collage of sound within a daw - not iOS ) where Aphex Twin is doing something completely different. That is the beauty of IOS..it's inexpensive to purchase an app to discover you can find ways of creating something musical - it's finding some apps that you connect with and helps you answer your desire to make music..