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How can I make this all easier and focus on creativity and music?
I am a musician, primarily bass and drums, trying to unleash my creativity and art without getting sucked into the geekiness of the technology. I'm also a bit of a geek and a gadget nut so this is hard. I'm looking for ways to get my songs down using my bass, maybe a keyboard, electronic instruments and as little software as possible. I'm imagining a way to use an intuitive drum machine, my bass guitars and perhaps an actual keyboard instrument to get basic tracks down, then be able to edit and expand on those tracks to produce demos and perhaps take to a seasoned engineer/producer to continue the process and produce music that could be released publicly. I'd like to do my stuff on an iPad as much as possible. I've used Loopy, a few drum machine apps and Audiobus a bit and have a good interface for my bass and guitars. The struggle I have is that A.) my musical training and perspective is oriented around formal musical notation and charting (Aka I read music) vs digital music creation, and B.) I get frustrated when the technology and software gets complicated and gets in the way of the creative process. That kills my mojo.
Can anyone recommend some technology, instruments and software that can make this easier for me than trying to learn DAW software, programming etc.? I'm not looking to just cobble together pre assembled parts and call it music. I want use my own personal talent, get my stuff down then collaborate with others.
Is this unrealistic in today's world?
Thanks
Comments
If I'm understanding you correctly, all you really need is a quality interface for your physical instruments, and some recording software.
Here are a few options for recording software:
http://audiob.us/get/1025/AUM
http://audiob.us/get/8/MultiTrack
http://audiob.us/get/367/Master-Record
Welcome to you @Bassheart.
Many of us, from different corners and ages, deal and discuss the nut of your issue a lot here. No doubt some folks will have specific suggestions, but I can assure you that a good dig about in the threads will reveal many of the topics you may be interested in well chewed over. While we are fond of the forum, the search mechanism isn't the best, but Google does the trick very well.
Thanks for the suggestions and comments. I am in fact new to the forum and will pidddle about a bit....all input is welcome and appreciated.
Hey Bassheart I'm new here too. Best of luck with your musical pursuits. I can vouch for multitrack daw, it's very good and fairly straightforward to use
Have you tried Garageband?
If I were starting out again, I would advise myself to seek out others to do the technical stuff while I focused on what I'm best at. That said, I haven't the musical talent to attract that sort of partnership without a healthy dose of cash up front and so I would still be stuck learning to do all this stuff myself. If this is your situation, welcome aboard!
The reality is that there is no software, or app out there that is going to just get out of the way and let you do your thing. Some software is just more agreeable, or not, depending on your mental proclivities, which is why there are so many DAW offerings and why one person will love one app, while the next person can't stand it.
The bottom line is, you're going to have to invest a good amount of time learning the technical stuff well enough that it becomes easy enough that you just don't have to think about it anymore. That's the only way I've found to effectively get the software out of the way of the creativity. If you think about it, it was no different learning to play an instrument; it took lots of practice to get to where you didn't have to struggle with the technical aspects of playing it.
Anyway, my best advice; pick a DAW and get to work learning to use it. Or, find someone else with a DAW and ask/pay them to record you.
Good luck!
To make multitrack recordings you're going to have to learn some sort of DAW, but learn the bare minimum. I've done albums in software that I only scratched the surface of. As soon as you can press a button and record a performance you're ready to start.
A super trick is google your question and add site:forum.audiob.us to your query.
Also, say intitle:fabfilter, or whatever it is that you are looking for.
Thanks.
I kind of figured that would be the case and am looking for recommendations on some DAW software that is intuitive for someone of my perspective and orientation. Also looking for some good keyboard and drum machine app recommendations. I need a physical playability aspect to create and don't want to just program everything. Don't get me wrong, I know and appreciate the fact that programming is part of music now. I work with software every day and can use it effectively. I geek out with gadgets way too much. But there's a primitive love affair I continue to have with a piece of wood with strings on it, amplified warmly and played with groove. I need to incorporate that instinct into my music creation.
Like someone else said: have you tried GarageBand for iPad? It is very easy to understand.
Thirded: GarageBand sounds like the perfect fit.
It's a basic and easy to learn DAW, and it comes with plenty of great virtual instruments. You could, if you were more disciplined than the average user on this forum, just use that and nothing else...
i am just starting out. so every second spent toiling about routing, plugging in various combos of adapters, cables, settings etc is valuable. but i have spent WAY more time trying to explore the capabilities of the software and hardware i possess than actually making music.
you have to crawl before you run but god damn i don't ever remember anyhting that made the sun come up faster than this whole process.
nothing that didn't involve listening to someone's life story while chainsmoking cigarettes at least .
I've tried GarageBand a bit a while back. It seemed like something geared more for non musicians to use and have fun with. I'm looking for something that can take real instrument inputs and have decent DAW functionality. Is that what it does now if needed? Any tutorials out there on it if so? Thanks
with a good formal background it's not unlikely that you also have a (or at least some) degree of rhythmic stability.
In that case the grid based focus of most DAWs may not be ideal - it tends to suppress individual groove characteristics.
While the iPad is probably the greatest audio notepad ever, it's (unfortunately) no real fun as an arranger. Don't consider this a final verdict, as software ever changes, but imho that's the momentary situation.
You can get pretty far in mixing with Auria Pro, but cutting audio fragments is not so great.
It's just about choice of weapons - use what fits your workflow best.
I'd much appreciate a 100% IOS solution, because a Windows PC constantly annoys me, but then my most effective tools happen to run only under that crap of an OS.
I don't mind as after boot the software runs in full screen mode anyway and I ignore the rest.
Whatever you plan to do, forget about 'capabilities' or technical features of DAW applications.
Don't invest a lot of time to 'understand' and stay away from rules.
There's a lot of bullshit (imo 90%) on the net, tutorial bla bla and misinformation on YT.
An open mind and most importantly the will to UNDERSTAND principles behind processes by LISTENING (!).
No need to be able to explain things precisely in math terms or similiar.
There's also no need to tweak tracks (eq and effects) ad inifinitum - in fact that's the most common source of failure.
Audio will work without all those knobs - they are cool to be available IN CASE you need them, but are no requirement to get things done.
GarageBand can definitely function as a basic DAW, many professional musicians use it for demos. It's easy to learn, just dive in and do a project with it. If you want something more fully-featured then Auria and Cubasis are good options.
Here are some tutorial videos for Auria and Cubasis. Maybe, watch through them and see which one seems more workable for you.
Auria:
Cubasis:
The links are to playlists if you click through to youtube.
Thanks everyone. Great input and advice. I really appreciate it. Any thoughts on the best services/software for collaboration with others?
I've not used it, but this is one I've heard of. http://songtr.ee/welcome.php
I highly recommend AUM and it's counterpart, AudioShare. Sounds like it's just what you're looking for.
I would go with an Audiobus AudioShare AUM Harmonicdog MultiTrack DAW setup for a good intuitive workflow that won't get you bogged down with fripperies and option paralysis.
@Bassheart , I feel your pain, I really do. I started more or less where you are now.
Given your description, the simplest workflow I can think of is:
Use a mic to record your bass amp, other audio efforts etc.
Plug mic(s) into a hardware USB soundcard/preamp/whatever
Plug USB thing into iPad via CCK with extra lightning port for simul-charging
Capture your recordings on iPad with TwistedWave Audio Editor (super intuitive easy app)
Edit audio with TwistedWave til you like it.
Export to MultiTrackDAW (super intuitive easy multi track app).
Tweak til mix is fabulous.
Export fabulous mixdown to wherever you want.
Links:
Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter
http://store.apple.com/xc/product/MK0W2ZM/A
USB thing, if you don't already have one, I recommend Shure MVi as a likely candidate:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shure-MVI-LTG-Digital-Audio-Interface/dp/B011BV9P34
(bonus, has a (included) direct-to-lightning cable option)
TwistedWave Audio Editor by TwistedWave
https://appsto.re/gb/GCx7x.i
MultiTrack DAW by Harmonicdog
https://appsto.re/gb/15qOt.i
Alternatively, you could record directly into something like the Zoom H4n Pro, transfer audio from SD card to iPad, then proceed as above with TwistedWave.
Link: Zoom H4n Pro
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-Handy-Recorder-Tripod-Bundle/dp/B01G2X1JJY/
These are all my personal opinions based on my experiences, i.e. nobody paid me shit for this.
I sure hope that helped!
Thanks! I'll check this stuff out. Much appreciated
@Bassheart , please do report back so I can know what ultimately worked for you, I'd really appreciate your update(s).
How do you track in TwistedWave? It's not multitrack.
Twisted does the edit part, for arrangement the sections are exported to Multitrack-DAW
MTD has a surprisingly good mixbus, don't be mislead by it's humble visual appearance
Garageband has a special feature: the projects can be opened in Logic Pro. Things can be tracked and arranged in Garageband, then the original poster could pass off the project to an engineer for mixing on Logic.
Otherwise you would want to finish mixing in the program you tracked with, switching DAWs in the middle of a project is not smooth, and the labor can get manual, and geeky quick. One exception might be Cubasis ->Cubase.
If you stray from garageband or cubasis, look closely at the project export options, to see if you are locked into that DAW for the duration of the project.
Hilariously on point.
Garageband is the key. Where you feel "geared for non musicians" is where te fun is. For the PITA workflows there is logic or solutions like Auria. Full fledge, lots of features, slow (and boring IMO) workflow compared to chips and bits of gb, loopyhd, blocs, launchpad... better? Worst?
Different POVs and needs. Also you can use Logic Remote in junction to desktop and make the transition painless.
At the end iOS has most of the desktop (even the pain lol) but otherwise desktop hasn't touchscreens and funny workflows (like touch directly the audio material itself with fingers)... yet.
mouse-wheel-point-click may not be funny, but it beats finger-point-swipe time by at least a factor of 5
I'm really curious how long you can sustain an edit job on a tablet, that means sample accurate cuts without help of crossfades.
As far as I'm concerned I can go on the trad way for 3 hours without any sign of strain.
I bet after half an hour you won't even be able to properly point at the target because the muscles holding your arm weight are exhausted.
During edits my mouse is rarely moved more than 1" sideways, index finger scaling by wheel, hand rests on table.
@Telefunky I draw for a living, I can hold my arm up for the whole day if need be. I'm not convinced that the mouse is necessarily better than touch for long periods. If you're sat at a desk, maybe, but in a comfortable chair touch should be just as usable - it partly depends on the UI of the app and if they've made the workflow usable. Doing sample accurate edits in Auria is OK IMO, certainly no worse than the desktop, and zooming in and out with touch is better than with a mouse for me, even with the scroll wheel.