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I want to dabble in electronic music
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So I think I want to dabble in electronic music. Questions:
- So many genres! I think I’d be good at slow jams, almost smooth jazz like.
2 I come from acoustic music background. So I’m used to playing every part in with a keyboard. However do most people program notes in? Or use a sequencer?
- If so to #2, how to use a sequencer with a DAW or host? I feel I need to maybe buy stuff
My apps
Audiobus 2
AudioShare
Auria Pro with Q2, C, L, R, Timeless Saturn Volcano
Cubasis 2 with no extras
Garageband
SampleTank with American Acoustic
Patterning
Neosoul keys
iGrand
Galileo 2
Synthkit
Synthmaster player
Syntronic free
Animoog
Model 15
Nanologue
TF7 with one IAP
EOS2
Haaze
Notion
Comments
Get AUM. Get Rozeta. Keep it simple to start. Explore and have fun. Music is fun.
That does sound fun😁. Seems like generative sequencing is the main workflow?
Get audiokit SynthOne. Free!
Subjective but I find AUM has a much more smooth workflow.
Keep it simple, just use a few elements and spend time adding effects as part of the performance. You have everything you need already it’s just needs your time.
Good for you!
I had a BIG anti-climax with AB3.1 where Pro-Q 2 simply refuses to work properly
(Every time I add it as an effect it kills the audio and also messes with the midi-clock?!).
It works perfectly in all other hosts on my Air 2, iOS11.4.1...
I don’t use rozeta for the generative plugins but you can.> @Max23 said:
If it works for you then great.
Or Korg Gadget. I think Gadget is a perfect way to force yourself to think in repeating/evolving loops - which is probably the hardest thing if you’re coming from a live performance keys background.
I know from (jazz) piano-playing friends that the minimalism aspect of electronic music is quite difficult to submit to.
Gadget’s on sale and is tempting. My only hang up is the closed system. I’ve got DAWs and synths so it kinda feels like buying what I already have🤔
You said it perfectly! I’m having that feeling of “I’m not really playing this therefore it’s not enough”, Feels like cheating if arpegiators are doing most of the work! but I think I have to just jump in and try😬
Virtually everything on iOS is suitable for electronic music, so using what you already have makes a lot of sense. I just mentioned Gadget because the designs of some apps are more conducive or guiding into the direction of electronic music than others. For example, using a linear timeline UI like Cubasis will likely tempt you to play much more like you're used to than a loop/pattern-based UI. So you're looking for a UI that will give you culture-shock (to shock you out of your comfort zone), but not necessarily a long learning curve.
Makes since. Thanks for the advice! I wonder if Rosetta would help with that culture shock
Also some of the great electronic music was not done on DAW’s and very little gear.
I started on guitar/ bass, have always mainly been a singer. And I dont care too much about the 'cheating' sense, what I appreciate as a listener is the final product. But that includes the human elements, the human nuances in accents, swing (not the swing knob, but really playing with a more complex groove), and even subtle imperfections if you will. But often incorporating some velocity effect in a patch and just playing parts without quantization gets me there. So yes it is recorded into a sequencer if you will, but recording it, from a user, functional perspective, is not much different than recording audio. But correcting midi mistakes is easier than audio. This is quite style dependent, so not a 'right v. wrong' answer I realize.
Relatedly, arpeggiators, I intellectually appreciate the value of arpeggiators. But I don't often write anything that has a straight arpeggio. Or if I do, it is more counter-melodic and thus not too fast just to play (again back to the nuance). But where they are super handy....I just use simple ones, e.g. no note change 16ths or 8ths as pseudo strumming/fast picking.
This chap, Eddie Cochran, in an alternative timeline where he hadn’t died young would quite clearly have abandoned his guitar and wholesale adopted synths and sequencers as soon as he would be introduced to them a few years after he died in our timeline. Listen to the systems oriented composition and performance in his music – quite clearly crying out for sequencing. In this alternate timeline, he becomes famous again for his synth style, and Kraftwerk become more influenced by him than The Beach Boys (which in our timeline is a primary influence of theirs).
I would say if you can play, that's the best way to write any kind of music, including EDM and electronica. Play the riffs, the basslines, the melodies, and the chords. That's were the joy is to be found anyway, and the best tunes as well.
If you write by playing/performing the process is a lot more organic than drawing notes into a piano roll or letting the arpeggiator or randomizer do it for you. You might occasionally come up with something cool with generative processes, but it's a lot less fun and engaging than actually performing the music yourself IMO.
That’s my struggle in trying to decide to buy a sequencer or not. Seems like I don’t need one. If there’s a terribly difficult passage I can’t play, I could draw it in
You've already got GarageBand, that has a sequencer. I write most of my music in GarageBand, it's an awesome writing environment. Rather than draw in the difficult passages just use the quantization tools to fix the timing mistakes (or just move the bad notes manually in the piano roll), best of both worlds that way.
I play everything live direct into the sequencer, always. Have done for years.
…at about 72% speed, of course.
Why not start with the most classic of sequencers, iOS version of the Roland sh-101, you sort of play the sequence yourself via a keyboard. You can learn a lot from this method.
https://appsto.re/de/pQIS7.i?uo=4&at=10l4Ky&ct=forum
Every time I have played some keyboard riffs in front of an EDM-based musician they would usually say "I wish I had learned to do that as a kid."
Then they play me their music and I really get that there's more than one way to do anything. Keyboard skills are like touch typing in a sense. Very productive for writing in the pre-computer world but not the only way to produce text and communicate.
I shared my Korg keyboard with my nephew in 1990 and today he
builds and sells vintage Analog Synth products, runs a EDM Music Label with mostly vinyl and some downloadable products and has a music studio with $10,000 worth of gear. He says my playing of that Korg and what could be done with it changed his life. He still can't play keys or read music but he found a way to get his muse organized and has really done well following his path without a single "music lesson". Teenage Engineering sends him new products to beta every year and he works their booth at NAMM every year since he lives close. He lives and dies with sequencers.
You sir do NOT need one but you could certainly program one
because you know how harmony, rhythm and melody combine to move people.
Agree with @richardyot Jam the notes in live and then use that to create a base to create with. It’s easy to sort out timing and bumb notes, but not so easy to try to program music with feeling.
Yeah random sequences have their place too, but they are often just idea starters for when the brain really isn’t playing ball lol
Obviously this is what I suggest, but do whatever works for you - it’s only yourself you have to please at least until it becomes a business
If like myself you find you never quite reach a destination, just make sure that you are really enjoying the journey. If it’s a fun journey than the end result becomes less dominant. You will just keep coming back for new experiences. New journeys. More fun
I wish I could really play keys, but not necessarily for electronic music.
For most [not all!] subgenres of EM it's simply too easy to overdo it when you're actually playing it...
I would really try to experiment with the minimum number of 'notes' you can get away with - and then try to find other ways to 'fill the voids': create syncopated rhythms using hamfisted multitap delays, ratchet a few drums, layer a kick with a bass (or tune the kick to double as a bassline). Use some subtle (detuning) pads in the background.
And it's all about the buildup. Add up layers, then peel them away, rinse, repeat...
That’s my preferred workflow on circuit and Digitone too, but unfortunately within AUM there is no sequencer that can be played and recorded live... or please tell me I am missing one. SPA does not do the trick
I discovered that, when I turn @brambos Kosmonaut into looper mode and set the 4 heads to 0, 25, 50, and 75% percent I kinda have a little live looper I can use like that. Tell me which app I am overseeing
BTW, really great advices here, everyone!!!
I think that applies to most genres of music (although of course this is a personal and subjective statement). Simple melodies are usually the best, and overplaying muddies the message. All of the really great, truly memorable, riffs are dead simple, melodically and harmonically. You need to be able to sing it in your head and remember it after the first listen for it to be really effective.
I think what composing by jamming achieves is more inspiring rhythms, that you don't get from machines. IMO rhythm is the the thing that makes a riff or melody groove.