Nanostudio 2: what makes it so popular?

[Deleted User]

I've only had NS2 for three days so I'm probably under qualified to make a detailed case for it...but:

My brief history trying to make electronic music started with FL Studio on PC, then I went dawless and got a bunch of Korg Volcas and and mixer then I moved to the iPad and used BM3 for two years and then @jwmmakerofmusic sold me on trying out NS2 even though he wasn't really trying to sell me on it. But I was curious enough and frustrated enough with BM3 that I jumped in. DAWs are tools and obviously what works for one person may not work for another depending on your personal workflow. Over the years of FL and hardware I got used to using synths, drum machines and sequencers to compose tracks. Lately in BM3 I've been recording audio to the timeline from synths and drum machine apps simply because I couldn't load enough instruments into BM3 to do what I wanted without freezing and crashing the app. NS2 has been much better at handling several external instruments at a time and letting me work the way I like to work. With that said I'm also impressed with the included synth, drum machine and effects and could create tracks with just those and be happy.

Things that stand out so far:

• The mixer is much more flexible then BM3 and makes it easy create busses, sends, returns etc. It makes more sense and is more intuitive to me coming from other software and hardware mixers I've used.
• The UI feels much snappier and more responsive to me then BM3 running on my older ipad mini with A7 chip. Simply scrolling the timeline and zooming in and out on BM3 feels clunky to me and in NS2 it's smooth and fast. That's a little thing but when you spend a couple of hours at a time working on a track it saves me a lot of time and frustration. BM3 always feels like it's taking me out of the zone because things aren't responding the way I expect and I don't get that feeling in NS2. Another seemingly small thing is that all of the knobs and sliders in NS2 seem much more accurate and I can fine tune things easier. I'm a little OCD about numbers so it's important in my brain to be able to accurately move a fader down exactly 2 db for example and I can do that without and issue in NS2 where as in BM3 I could never get a fader to go to exactly -6 for example and it would always be -5.8 or -6.3 etc. Again that's something that probably doesn't matter in the grand scheme but in my head it matters and it something that every other DAW I've used can do without a problem.
• The responsiveness of the UI means that arranging and moving clips around in the timeline feels much easier then BM3 and drawing and editing automation also feels easier and more accurate. Getting automation points to an exact number in BM3 is something that frustrated me like the mixer and it is quick and easy for me to do in NS2.
• I like the fact that NS2 has a tempo and time sig track so you can can change tempo and time sig within your track. I don't think BM3 has that option but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I don't usually change those things within a track but it's a nice option to be able to explore.
• The file manager is much better then BM3. Recently using BM3 I found that I would delete projects or old samples/recordings and then there would still be files showing up in the browser in BM3 even though they don't exist in File Browser any more. I tried deleting things both in the BM3 app and in file browser on iOS and some things would still show up in BM3's file browser and even if I try to delete there they won't delete. That goes back to my ocd but I don't want my browser cluttered with files I'm never going to use again.

I also missed out on the sale and didn't feel like waiting to see if there would be a black friday deal but I was considering moving to Cubasis so for less then half that price I am very happy with NS2 thus far

kinkujin

Do we have any clue when native audio functions are coming to NS2?

jwmmakerofmusic

@kinkujin said:
Do we have any clue when native audio functions are coming to NS2?

That is something I've been wondering too. @dendy ?

espiegel123

@kinkujin said:
Do we have any clue when native audio functions are coming to NS2?

No. Matt learned from his first mistaken guesstimate. He will be wise to say nothing until the release is imminent. This is the sort of thing that can take a lot longer than you anticipate

[Deleted User]

@Faland said:

@yug said:
I finally purchased NS2 a week or two ago. Any good video tutorials on it?

Yes, I found many. Also by our good Doug Woods, @thesoundtestroom who, as always, is our living manual.

@wim said:

@yug said:
I finally purchased NS2 a week or two ago. Any good video tutorials on it?

Oh heck yeh. https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/discussion/366/tutorials-tips-tricks#latest

Thanks, guys. I'll check those when I'm back home

[Deleted User]

@rms13 said:
I've only had NS2 for three days so I'm probably under qualified to make a detailed case for it...but:

My brief history trying to make electronic music started with FL Studio on PC, then I went dawless and got a bunch of Korg Volcas and and mixer then I moved to the iPad and used BM3 for two years and then @jwmmakerofmusic sold me on trying out NS2 even though he wasn't really trying to sell me on it. But I was curious enough and frustrated enough with BM3 that I jumped in. DAWs are tools and obviously what works for one person may not work for another depending on your personal workflow. Over the years of FL and hardware I got used to using synths, drum machines and sequencers to compose tracks. Lately in BM3 I've been recording audio to the timeline from synths and drum machine apps simply because I couldn't load enough instruments into BM3 to do what I wanted without freezing and crashing the app. NS2 has been much better at handling several external instruments at a time and letting me work the way I like to work. With that said I'm also impressed with the included synth, drum machine and effects and could create tracks with just those and be happy.

Things that stand out so far:

• The mixer is much more flexible then BM3 and makes it easy create busses, sends, returns etc. It makes more sense and is more intuitive to me coming from other software and hardware mixers I've used.
• The UI feels much snappier and more responsive to me then BM3 running on my older ipad mini with A7 chip. Simply scrolling the timeline and zooming in and out on BM3 feels clunky to me and in NS2 it's smooth and fast. That's a little thing but when you spend a couple of hours at a time working on a track it saves me a lot of time and frustration. BM3 always feels like it's taking me out of the zone because things aren't responding the way I expect and I don't get that feeling in NS2. Another seemingly small thing is that all of the knobs and sliders in NS2 seem much more accurate and I can fine tune things easier. I'm a little OCD about numbers so it's important in my brain to be able to accurately move a fader down exactly 2 db for example and I can do that without and issue in NS2 where as in BM3 I could never get a fader to go to exactly -6 for example and it would always be -5.8 or -6.3 etc. Again that's something that probably doesn't matter in the grand scheme but in my head it matters and it something that every other DAW I've used can do without a problem.
• The responsiveness of the UI means that arranging and moving clips around in the timeline feels much easier then BM3 and drawing and editing automation also feels easier and more accurate. Getting automation points to an exact number in BM3 is something that frustrated me like the mixer and it is quick and easy for me to do in NS2.
• I like the fact that NS2 has a tempo and time sig track so you can can change tempo and time sig within your track. I don't think BM3 has that option but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I don't usually change those things within a track but it's a nice option to be able to explore.
• The file manager is much better then BM3. Recently using BM3 I found that I would delete projects or old samples/recordings and then there would still be files showing up in the browser in BM3 even though they don't exist in File Browser any more. I tried deleting things both in the BM3 app and in file browser on iOS and some things would still show up in BM3's file browser and even if I try to delete there they won't delete. That goes back to my ocd but I don't want my browser cluttered with files I'm never going to use again.

I also missed out on the sale and didn't feel like waiting to see if there would be a black friday deal but I was considering moving to Cubasis so for less then half that price I am very happy with NS2 thus far

Thanks a lot!

dendy

I would not compare too much NS2 with BM3 (at least not as competitors) because they both excel in something else and both apps do have own group of users totally happy with it. I see those apps as very different beasts build with different paradigm in mind of dev, both oriented on very different kind of workflow.

Btw. - now, when BM3 has MIDI clock sync / MMC , i need to push hard on Matt to add this possibility also to NS2 too :-)) - because i can see that for many people NS2 midi clock synced with BM3 would be dream combination .. BM3 sampler part is really amazing, that is no doubt, most complex sampler on iOS !

At the end - EVERY dev of iOS app who is still stayin' in this sad undervalued business deserves big respect !

bresk

+1 for midi clock sync !

[Deleted User]

@dendy said:
I would not compare too much NS2 with BM3 (at least not as competitors) because they both excel in something else and both apps do have own group of users totally happy with it. I see those apps as very different beasts build with different paradigm in mind of dev, both oriented on very different kind of workflow.

Btw. - now, when BM3 has MIDI clock sync / MMC , i need to push hard on Matt to add this possibility also to NS2 too :-)) - because i can see that for many people NS2 midi clock synced with BM3 would be dream combination .. BM3 sampler part is really amazing, that is no doubt, most complex sampler on iOS !

At the end - EVERY dev of iOS app who is still stayin' in this sad undervalued business deserves big respect !

Well said. I very much dig both. BM3 for hip hop/trap. NS2 for everything else, exploration, etc

Zenbeats is my new holy shit on iOS just because of its native Roli/MPE integration. Such an embarrassing of riches we have on iOS. Kudos to all devs dedicated to expanding the platform.

Finally, I know when Audio tracks is coming to NS2. Same time BM3 iphone version:

SOON 🤣

dendy

SOON 🤣

Which maybe any date on timeline from now till our Sun will explode and destroy Earth 5 billion years from now - in terms of cosmic age it would be still soon ...

[Deleted User]

@dendy said:

SOON 🤣

Which maybe any date on timeline from now till our Sun will explode and destroy Earth 5 billion years from now - in terms of cosmic age it would be still soon ...

Right.lol. In the meantime, one can always make really great music with any of these magical tools. See aforementioned examples for inspiration. Also, YouTube and see platinum/Grammy winning pros using them. I’m so jealous of kids just getting started.

When I was coming up, you pretty much had to sell your mind, body and soul to be able to afford the tools, space and connections necessary to create pro level music and share it with the world. Now, you just need a phone/iPad and a few cheap apps to do all of the above.

dendy

I’m so jealous of kids just getting started.

This !

When I was coming up, you pretty much had to sell your mind, body and soul to be able to afford the tools, space and connections necessary to create pro level music

Still laughing when i remember when i bought my first soundcard "SoundBlaster AWE32" with 512 MB of sample RAM , many many years ago, deep in '90s, for price equivalent to current 400 EURO :-D :-D :-D

cian

Has anyone mentioned macros yet? Macros in Nanostudio are fab. Except there aren't enough of them. There are never enough of them. Those things are addictive.

Also another aspect of the tight integration between Obsidian and NanoStudio means that the DAW itself becomes part of your synth. You can do some amazing routing, combine effects and multiple synths - and then with the magic of folders, routing and macros treat your frankenstein's monster as a single synth on the timeline. When Nanostudio supports AU3 effect automation this will be amazing (want to create a super-synth that combines two of your favourite synths, and four of your favourite effects, and then tie it all together with macros...).

Coloobar

@richardyot said:

@TimRussell said:
Do you know how well the newish 4pockets Multitrack Recorder works in NS2?

You can't use it to record from an external source (such as a microphone or an audio interface) because NS2 doesn't expose the input to the AUV3 chain, but other than that it does work well. So for example you can use it to "freeze" NS2 synths or import audio into NS2.

I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

animalelder

@dendy said:

@animalelder said:
I have been playing with NS2 for a bit now, but after having installed across several devices...

Why are there no presets for the internal effects?

they are not accessible on iPhone because of lack of UI space (in future maybe there will be rethinked some way how to add to it's UI this posibility)

On iPad there is possibility to save internal FX preset:

Ok, thank you. However, most default effects come with presets, much like Obsidian has its preset patches. The NS2 internal effects do not have any presets. For example: reverb settings for Algoverb.

kinkujin

@Coloobar said:

@richardyot said:

@TimRussell said:
Do you know how well the newish 4pockets Multitrack Recorder works in NS2?

You can't use it to record from an external source (such as a microphone or an audio interface) because NS2 doesn't expose the input to the AUV3 chain, but other than that it does work well. So for example you can use it to "freeze" NS2 synths or import audio into NS2.

I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

Well, it's not a fully-fledged DAW yet. I think once audio recording is added it will gain that status. At least that is my thinking.

rs2000

@Coloobar said:

@richardyot said:

@TimRussell said:
Do you know how well the newish 4pockets Multitrack Recorder works in NS2?

You can't use it to record from an external source (such as a microphone or an audio interface) because NS2 doesn't expose the input to the AUV3 chain, but other than that it does work well. So for example you can use it to "freeze" NS2 synths or import audio into NS2.

I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

Sorry, why don't you just record audio from inside NS2?

espiegel123

@Coloobar said:

@richardyot said:

@TimRussell said:
Do you know how well the newish 4pockets Multitrack Recorder works in NS2?

You can't use it to record from an external source (such as a microphone or an audio interface) because NS2 doesn't expose the input to the AUV3 chain, but other than that it does work well. So for example you can use it to "freeze" NS2 synths or import audio into NS2.

I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

NS2 isn't a DAW and doesn't advertise itself as such.

klownshed

@dendy said:

I’m so jealous of kids just getting started.

This !

When I was coming up, you pretty much had to sell your mind, body and soul to be able to afford the tools, space and connections necessary to create pro level music

Still laughing when i remember when i bought my first soundcard "SoundBlaster AWE32" with 512 MB of sample RAM , many many years ago, deep in '90s, for price equivalent to current 400 EURO :-D :-D :-D

Bargain. I shudder to think now how much I spent on an Ensoniq EPS16+ with 1MB RAM!

dendy

@Coloobar said:
I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

NS can record audio - into sampler. Or edit audio - it has build in audio editor capable og very efficient editing of very long recordings (up to 2 hours).

It just doesn't have audio tracks - but they are top prio item on todo list. Same like Reason was without audio tracks for years. Or Gadget l Or Mostep still doesn't have. Or Caustic doesn't have ;-)

@espiegel123
NS2 isn't a DAW and doesn't advertise itself as such.

Yeah exactly, thanks for mentioninh this. Exactly because of this NS description in AppStore doesn't use word "DAW" althought yes, for many people it is simply daw)

From appstore:

Coloobar

@dendy said:

@Coloobar said:
I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

NS can record audio - into sampler. Or edit audio - it has build in audio editor capable og very efficient editing of very long recordings (up to 2 hours).

It just doesn't have audio tracks - but they are top prio item on todo list. Same like Reason was without audio tracks for years. Or Gadget l Or Mostep still doesn't have. Or Caustic doesn't have ;-)

Good to know, thanks. It looks be a great package when it's added..

[Deleted User]

OK! I got it. I couldn't resist, I still have to overcome my impulsiveness.
Well, in 10 minutes I did more in NS2 than I do in Cubasis, despite having been using it for a long time. Really clever implementation. I congratulate myself for buying it.
Thanks everybody for your suggestions.

Just a question: is there a way to block the zoom of the piano roll so that it doesn't accidently resize itself?
Okay, just another one: which iaps are essential? "All" is not allowed as an answer.

AudioGus

@Faland said:
OK! I got it. I couldn't resist, I still have to overcome my impulsiveness.
Well, in 10 minutes I did more in NS2 than I do in Cubasis, despite having been using it for a long time. Really clever implementation. I congratulate myself for buying it.

Whoot! Welcome aboard!

dendy

@Faland
Okay, just another one: which iaps are essential? "All" is not allowed as an answer

Here are sound demos, somtry listen to them maybe you found something interesting

https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/iap/

My personal favourite are "industrial & atmosphered" packs, but that is just my personal taste... some people lile accoustic packs, other people dance&dubstep packs... it depends pn musical preferences, althoug most of packs are basicaly useable also in different genres than their name

[Deleted User]

@AudioGus said:

@Faland said:
OK! I got it. I couldn't resist, I still have to overcome my impulsiveness.
Well, in 10 minutes I did more in NS2 than I do in Cubasis, despite having been using it for a long time. Really clever implementation. I congratulate myself for buying it.

Whoot! Welcome aboard!

Thanks, very kind of you!

[Deleted User]

@dendy said:

@Faland
Okay, just another one: which iaps are essential? "All" is not allowed as an answer

Here are sound demos, somtry listen to them maybe you found something interesting

https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/iap/

My personal favourite are "industrial & atmosphered" packs, but that is just my personal taste... some people lile accoustic packs, other people dance&dubstep packs... it depends pn musical preferences, althoug most of packs are basicaly useable also in different genres than their name

I have been fond of lofi lately and have thought of hip-hop packages, can they be okay?

McD

@Coloobar said:
I find this perplexing. What kind of DAW can't record external audio?

Me too. Them I saw a modern music maker create with an Akai Force, Ableton on a Mac and use NS2 for the first time. There aren’t any mics or instruments in his typical process.

He has another process for recording audio and uses Logic Pro for vocals and other apps for sampling hardware and making loops. For him audio is like prep work and NS2 is for cooking.

I missed this whole transition from multi-track studios to this new pad based paradigm. Watch an Akai Force video.

Janosax

@animalelder said:

@dendy said:

@animalelder said:
I have been playing with NS2 for a bit now, but after having installed across several devices...

Why are there no presets for the internal effects?

they are not accessible on iPhone because of lack of UI space (in future maybe there will be rethinked some way how to add to it's UI this posibility)

On iPad there is possibility to save internal FX preset:

Ok, thank you. However, most default effects come with presets, much like Obsidian has its preset patches. The NS2 internal effects do not have any presets. For example: reverb settings for Algoverb.

+1 for that, missing presets on iPhone is an issue for me, because I like to use them to start from something then tweak. So I tend to not use them, except for automation capabilities. Also, more effects (like gate rythmic effect etc) could be very interesting. What I’ve noticed however is that AU fxs seems to not use lot of CPU in NS2, which is cool. Now we really need AU fxs automation and audio tracks (and freezing) and for sure NS2 will be even better, could even replace GB on the iPhone for me. I hope audio tracks will allow for takes comping and advanced non destructive audio edition. A loop builder view could even make it more versatile, but I’m not sure it’s in this app concept. Need also to say that NS2 is very stable on my 7 Plus. I haven’t bought any iaps yet, how are acoustics ones?

[Deleted User]

For anyone that hasn't watched, here is a video from Jakob Haq's Youtube channel about the Obsidian which he crowns it the best synth app of 2018:

[Deleted User]

Good God, this NS2 is exceptional. How could I make music on ipad without it so far? This is a game changer. Again...