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Frustration
Off topic but i need to talk about it.
Since the first iPod touch came out, i bought Music Apps, uncountable amount of apps. They mostly amazed me, i‘ve spent countless hours of trying this and that. But except of Nanostudio 1 and my Akai SynthStation25, i never(...?) had again the feeling of a workflow, that is creative AND just „working“, leading to the result that i can accept and that satisfies me in the end.
Nowadays i must say, that the more apps i got, the more it destroyd my creativity. Because i spent countless hours of finding ot that all the new possibilities also ment new borders, workarounds, searching in forums, reporting bugs etc... And then findig out that i have to adapt myself to every App or AU again and again. Not only the lack of consitency in „standards“ like AUv3.
Just an example;
I have fun with the StepPolyArp. And i have fun with Nanostudio 2 - i love the Obsidian Synth. It is an amazing upgrade to Eden ;-)
So i was amazed that i can use MIDI Fx in NS2. I loaded SPA in an Obsidian Track.
First thing that brought me down to earth was: NS2 can‘t record whats coming from the MIDI Fx.
Okay, no problem so far, SPA can receive Program Change (so i could control the patterns from NS2) - but NS2 can‘t send MIDI CC!!
Every app that i can buy and that is filling a specific gap means a new UI, new learning curve, new frustration when i discover it‘s borders and even more frustration when i find bugs.
Example: AudioBus remote. This would be a good tool to use my iPhone to switch fast between Apps running on the iPad. But ABremote has a bug and it is crashing almost always. I re-installed it, rebootet the devices, tried with other devices and the gave up and reported the issue. Still waiting.
This is just one example. I must admit that most of the time i actually don‘t make the music i want. I have the feeling that iOS music making is GAS 2.0
And everytime i think that i could limit myself to just one DAW and a handful AUs, i then ask myself why not grabbing my MacBook and go on with Reason 10...
Too much stuff, too much distraction.
What‘s your philosophy, how do you handle the overload and how do you control your App „drug use“?
Comments
iOS is all about compromises, ypu just want to accept it... if you want unlimited posibilities, unfortunately desktop is the way... Simoly if it is for ypu source of frustration, then it is not way for your... It makes no sense to try swim agains stream..
on iOS it's all the time about search for crestive workarounds - which can be actually good thing in some way
For me this is actually advantage, on desktop my crestivity was paralysed by unlimited posibilities, on iOS i'm creative like never, exactly because of limitations :-)
this has pretty easy workaround on iPad, just put MIDI Tools Route plugin after SPA, select some other (temporary) track and hit record - it will record midi from SPA .. then ypu can move recorded clip back to original track and disable SPA .. ot's VERY easy, using it all the time..
My workflow is simple.
I just record audio in AUM from various apps and then transfer the stems into cubasis 2 for arrangement and mixdown.
iOS is desktops expensive, badly behaved little brother. On the surface it all looks cheap as chips, until one day you find you’ve spent a couple of grand on music apps, and you’re only using about ten percent of what you’ve bought because they’ve either stopped working, or something better has come along to replace them.
I’ve spent less on desktop software, all of which offers more, sounds better, and works without the bugs and niggles I get with the iPad stuff.
Will I keep buying new apps? Absolutely!
Why do you do it then? 😉
To me that's a different story. Both platforms have their uses, iOS for spontaneous jams and capturing ideas with as little distraction as possible. Works much better than on desktop.
Desktop software for everything more advanced, be it sample libraries, MIDI editing, sound file editing, quality FX, project management without file hassles etc.
Keep it simple. No iDAW is perfect but stick to the one that you've written the best songs with. Don't switch when you think something's missing. Try to find workarounds using the same software, otherwise you'll never get fluent with any workflow.
Gadget and Nanostudio have been my main composition environments by now, and there's hardly anything you cannot do with them.
Sure, one could complain forever about feature X missing and feature Y that would be a game changer, but why waste your precious time discussing and waiting instead of making music?
desktop software has proved very very cheap for me over the last 8 years.. as i have spent absolutely bugger all on it!!
zilch on pc hardware too.
but i think in the long term it has evened out with whats been dropped on 2nd hand ipads and apps.
it’s nice that the app money going out is more like ‘hire purchase’ or good old fashioned ‘on the drip’ as it was known.. seems less painful than a sudden £300 blood transfusion.
not sure any of that desktop software ‘sounds’ better.. if you were to use the same audio interface for either?
that said I am miffed that Cubasis 3 Still won’t do a 32bit mixdown render!! whaaaaat?
also i was glad of the workflow shake up ios brought.. “ the truth is... comfort kills “ said annie Oakey somewhere or other..
I have the same problems. The way I deal with it is to concentrate on just a few apps that offer me unique ways of doing things and that inspire me to create. I use these to generate the ideas, raw materials, demos, or even finished tracks, then transfer those to a desktop environment to further polish them. Working well so far! 👍
Maybe for recording in - though the iRig Pro I have is a bit hit and missus.
Logic can produce ridiculously lush sounding stuff without investing in VST’s that knock the cajones off anything on iOS, aside from maybe the Moogs and Layr - which my Air 2 struggles with anyway. Some of the fx in Live too, are just ridiculously good.
Not knocking the iPad - 90% of my dubious quality output originates from drunken AUM jammage, and IDAM infused delinquency. For me it’s an instrument, rather than a compositional tool that I attempt to play. And fun too, as long as I avert my gaze from the folders full of spent money that are no longer part of the thing.
I kickstarted an uncreative phase by just playing with audio 'toys' on iOS.
I would just load up a drum machine an play. No ulterior motive, just playing again (I've loved drum machines ever since my first, a Yamaha RX21 I bought second hand in the 80s).
Any beats that I liked got saved as loops. Again, no ulterior motive, just making loops.
When I got AUM, I would play about connecting things together and make more loops. As with the drum machines, I started saving things that sounded interesting.
Then I'd dump all the loops I made into BlocsWave on my iPhone. I could then, whenever I felt like it, load up BW and tap pads and play around putting the loops I'd been making together.
This spawned me going to AUM/NS2 etc. to make loops that would fit in with what I was coming up with in BW. More often than not, loops I never intended to go together would kick start an idea.
Once I had the nucleus of something interesting then I could always load everything into Logic (which is made easier by being able to export an entire BW project tuned and time stretched in one go) and play some more. This would often end up in more to-ing and fro-ing adding to the loops library.
It's all pretty organic from there.
It'll be different for everybody, but the key for me is is the change in the way of working with iOS to just commit. Ever since I started making electronic music with my RX21, QX21 and Casio CZ3000 I would program everything. Every beat, every note. nothing was ever fixed. Even when I got my reel to reel 8 track, I'd record vocals and guitars to tape but the MIDI was never, ever 'committed'. It was always tweak able, I could always change the sounds and the notes... When I was in a creative mindset this was great.
But then, with family and mortgages, and no fixed studio space anymore the creativity disappeared and staring at a blank Logic project was as uninspiring as it could get.
Using my iPhone and iPad as instruments and just playing without any ulterior motive was the key that unlocked things again for me. My output isn't great, not as good as it used to be in any case, but it's fun. I'm enjoying it. Committing to parts quickly and early helped me get creative.
And I'm happy with that.
So yeah, this got a bit rambly...
TL/DR:
Load up an app that you like and just play with it in the same way a guitarist just picks up a guitar and plays. Just play. Make sounds. Make patches. Make loops. Save your good loops then forget about them.
One day, go through what you've made and start putting things together... rinse and repeat and before long a song might just appear :-)
Yes, like always it’s not a real a workaround, the need of buying another app to fill a gap ;-)
sometimes i wonder if it isn’t this ‘air 2’ issue that is holding you back
( ie: slowing yr output to the one album a day trickle it is at right now )
having just pushed the Golden Barge out and snaffled a 2nd hand 12.9” ,, now the 4 window/instrument mode in TC-11 is actually playable!! hard to imagine how i would do the same on desktop without a usb hub and 4 wacom jiggery pokery thingies plugged in with wires everywhere..
still, would be fun to try..
hmmm TC-11... must get back to that beastie today...
Maybe i suffer from GAS ?
Maybe i think (i thought) that the iPad Pro could sometimes replace the desktop DAW....
Yes, i feel also in this direction. It‘s just an instrument, not (or never will) be a serious workstation. Even if it has much more CPU power then my 2012 MacBook Pro...
Yup, the sugar hit of a new app has a drug-like addictiveness for sure. Ways back to creativity for me:
Yeah that’s definitely part of it, this old Air 2 has been showing it’s fading roots and creaking at the knees recently. I keep thinking about an Air 3, but there’s talk of the Apple boys bringing out a new, bigger Air soon....so I keep hanging on, and hanging on...
TC Data is cool, I once had that controlling four apps in a righteous Zappa-esque hullabaloo until the Air 2 started begging for mercy - ‘FOR CRIBBINS SAKE - PLEASE STOP THIS!’
It’s my birthday next month, and if it happens the house move should be done and dusted by then, so I might nudge Mrs Monz towards getting me a new or second hand one, though it’ll probably be a pair of novelty socks instead! Again!! Or a wheelbarrow.
I’ve been using Gadget as my main app for a few years now. Helps me focus and still enough IAPS to keep it ‘fresh’.
Get ALL the apps.
Try them for a few weeks.
Keep those that you like.
Learn them.
Delete those that you don’t like anymore.
While practicing your Ableton skills on desktop to prepare yourself for when they finally bring the BEST DAW EVER to iOS.
Thumbs up!!
What?? Reason is the best DAW.... ;-)
nah! ACID surely. ( that’s how long it’s been for me :] )
I got around this by always booting up my Mac and have it armed to record.
At any moment I really like what is going on I hit record.
Then a track starts, and I can get AWAY from IOS instantly if I like - or keep arming tracks and overdub.
(otherwise I just noodle around on IOS - as much as I love the great apps)
Now after about 5 years - I don't want to invest much time at all learning complex new apps - when that time could be spent putting down ideas: creating and building something.
My other reason is many apps die a quick death / Dev abandons / IOS "upgrades" etc - at least on my Mac I can open sessions in many years time (using Reaper now)
But I do get that quite a few people work the opposite way - nearly all on IOS.
We are lucky to have the great choice of IOS toys that we have (until we don't)
@Mayo Good idea, having your equipment ready to run is a great door opener for sure!
@Pummelfee What happens more often recently is that when I take the time to do sound design in an app (Gadget, NS2, Groove Rider, Drambo) and I'm not really in a creative phase, while trying out new sounds with dumb sequences, sometimes new ideas jump out of nowhere.
I certainly went through iOS as a form of Gas 2.0 for several years. It really stopped being that eventually (after spending tons of money, but spread over time I don’t care) and now I rarely see anything that tempts me and I am down to a tenth of what I used to regularly buy and even then it is on things that are more or less disposable and for fun without too much pressure on finding workflow life savers. There are none, bwahah!
Anyway when I look over my tracks from the past fifteen years (when I started to make what seem to be keepers to me that I would one day want to polish) there is a massive spike in creativity and fun and just yum yum goodness in the iOS era that just isn’t there in my more desktop focused efforts. While the desktop stuff may have a sense of higher production values (mainly through better quality preset flipping) everything sounds equally unfinished and would really require just as much time as the iOS stuff to polish and finish.
In a nutshell that is my frustration now. Just sitting on a mountain of sketches and not quite fully cooked tracks. The tools that are best for that job live on desktop but the computer feels like work, particularly if I have to learn and not just execute. Part of me says I should say ‘No big deal, I will just make tons of sketches and one day there will be a nice app on iOS for finishing them off.’ The problem with this that I have really felt over the past year with really bad app updates is that old unfinished tracks can really become broken over time, so unless I export tracks while they are functioning as raw audio I may just be making a big mass of stuff that will be broken one day. So yah, think I just need to get back into the old flow of ‘finish em, post em and leave em’. Gotta set my expectations proper for this lil ol hobby.
Regarding GAS (gear acquisition syndrome for anyone who has not heard that term) - set a budget you can afford. Stick to it. If you can’t stick to it and it is a problem then stop for a year. See what you can create with what you have.
As has been stated, you can have a pretty complete setup for cheap on iOS and on desktop, and you can spend too much on both as well. iOS still tends to be lower cost for plugins that are on both platforms like FabFilter, Sugar Bytes, Toneboosters, Nembrini, IK, etc. So iOS users win out there. But then we can’t resell iOS apps so it kind of evens out.
At one point I had to accept that it's not the tools but rather the patience and perseverance required to finish those sketches inside the same app. No other apps necessary with the great tools we have today: Nanostudio 2, Beatmaker 3, Groove Rider, Gadget, Cubasis, Auria, Garageband, whatever - all of them allow you do do final mixes that sound quite good just with the tools included. But spending time and doing the "hard work" can feel more boring than trying out new apps and plugins, I know.
What helped me the most is stop working on a project when It feels like I have nothing better to add anymore and come back to it a few days or weeks later.
I have a bunch of unfinished projects that I regularly open and with enough days passed, there's often (not always if course) a bunch of new ideas about what to change and what to add.
That's what I love the iOS music ecosystem for: Grab the pad for ten minutes, load the song, fiddle around with melodic and rhythmic snippets and put it back after adding another 5% of the song. No hurries, no worries. At some point your song will be good enough to consider it finished.
Sometimes I feel like apps drag me away from a more musical approach, so I try to take some time away from them and play piano, or guitar, or flute.
Keeping a balance between more conventional musical approaches and the more abstract approaches really helps me work across all the instruments I own.
For me, I have just basically deleted every single app or AU that never or almost never sees proper use in my workflow which as it turned out was a lot (like 85%)
I left 8 synths which i actually use (Lagrange, Tardigrain, Aparillo, Mela, Strng, Mersenne, Ripplemaker and Sunrizer) 2 reverbs (Alteza and Blackhole) 3 delays (k7d, Kosmonaut and dedalus) and then various mastering or audio coloring apps primarily Toneboosters AU’s and BarkFilter also Amazing Noises’ Limiter which I love. Oh and also BitMaestro took some time to get into but its pretty great.
All my drums are hardware basically all in my OP-Z. For Lush pads I use Skulpt.
I took a vacation from iOS a few months back and went to desktop and just the overall price of everything was insane. You buy a daw ( i use reaper $60) then you can get free and cheap synths but most of them really suck and anything of actual quality is over $100 (for one synth!) even effects are super expensive.
I just got overwhelmed with the price In desktop land and quickly found my workflow on ios, while limited in many ways was so much more creative and “flowy”. I work primarily in AUM and record full tracks there so effortlessly. If i need a daw I just grab NS2 but I often dont need a daw.
And maybe I just reached the limits of my patience or something but in the last year I have only gotten excited about one app and that was Drambo (which i am still learning) And have seriously cracked down on app buying. Only apps that appealed to me in big ways I have bought (i used to buy every AU that came out) like the aforementioned Drambo, also Alteza, Lagrange and TB apps. Though i am close to buying Atmospher Cloud Reverb.
Sorry I rambled a lot but in short i feel i have found my ideal ios workflow. I figured out how to curb my ios app spending addiction and have been more creative than ever with my ipad. I will admit though that the OPZ was my inspiration to get back into ios, it works so seamlessly with the ipad and is basically an extension itself and my music output has never been so fun or fruitful.
Yah I hear yah, I have taken tracks as far as I can within BM3 and NS2 but then hit a clear point of diminishing returns (Often memory and CPU seem to cap at about the same time, funny that
) where I realize that four more hours in the app with workarounds vs four hours continuing on desktop would be ridiculous. So now I am looking to modify my style and ideas to feel complete when that natural termination point in app is reached. It is kind of working better for me now (and the 10.5 Pro upgrade certainly helped, again funny that wink 
) and the more I work on visuals to sort of explain and contextualize the audio aesthetic, the happier I am with it all. So yah not all frustration and angst here but dayum NS2 with track freezing would be so AWESOME!! Usual Etc...
Delete as many apps as you can? After backups, of course. If you have fewer apps to deal with, this whole thing will be easier. Plus whatever remains will be your favourite happy-making stuff, and people tend to feel better about focusing on that stuff. Fewer, better things. If an app's icon isn't a welcome sight, hold it down until it starts to wobble, then press the 'X'. Don't let past purchases hold you hostage.
@R_2 is onto something staying inside of Gadget, but Gadget's not for everybody sadly. I like NS2 myself, but I wouldn't spend much time trying to get AU MIDI working in there. With SPA I'd just run the standalone app, arm the Obsidian track and record it directly. It's how I use Patterning, anyway, driving Slate.
Not getting stuck is one of life's most difficult skills, so we must be wily.
Just keep swimming
“Since the first iPod touch came out, i bought Music Apps, uncountable amount of apps. They mostly amazed me, i‘ve spent countless hours of trying this and that. But except of Nanostudio 1 and my Akai SynthStation25, i never(...?) had again the feeling of a workflow, that is creative AND just „working“, leading to the result that i can accept and that satisfies me in the end.”
@Pummelfee. Why not just return to that setup? I had a fencing coach in college... he said, never change a winning move. So, you experimented. It did not really work. Return to what works for you. I appreciate that you did not couch your experience as a failing of iOS as so many others seem to do.
“ Too much stuff, too much distraction.
What‘s your philosophy, how do you handle the overload and how do you control your App „drug use“?”
My philosophy is to complete lots of tracks. That’s the fun for me. As I have completed 250 tracks and soon 16 albums in a little over two years, I think I can speak with a justifiable POV. I do have an advantage in that I can put down a lot of material quickly thanks to a background in improvisation. However, other aspects are available to anyone’s workflow....
If making music and finished tracks is your goal, learn only what you need to do that. Learning “too much stuff” is. Indeed, a distraction. If learning stuff is what equally or mostly attracts you that is equally valid. No harm no foul.
In my personal philosophy self judgement is the music killer, just as fear is the mind killer in Dune. Perhaps they are sort of the same. I get some musical material down. Period. I may judge it good, ok, or even piss poor. Usually, five or six tracks at a sitting. Then I have stuff to work with. I have learned, through experience (solely on the iPad as I have yet to try desktop), that I can bump up the level of listenability considerably (and often surprisingly) with messing
around with each track. At first I didn’t know this would happen. Now it gives me confidence things will usually work out.
Even working on something that is kind of lackluster can be quite a lot of fun. The challenge is to squeeze as much as possible out of it. And, the learning takes place in real time, not in hours spent figuring out what an app can do. Of course there is nothing wrong with hours of non music making learning. It is just as valid and fun, but you seem to be disappointed with that approach these days.
Tho I only sometimes do it, @rs2000 has nailed a really important technique. Have a few balls in the air at once. Multiple projects lend an air of diversity and excitement, IMO.
Lastly, try to tame the bear of perfectionism. It can have an agenda. One is a kind of procrastination. Another is self doubt. Also, it can be a legitimate love of detail. All these agendas limit output and keep one circling the landing strip. Let’s be honest, most of our output (certainly mine!) is destined for the dung hill of obscurity. Our audiences are small and tolerant. It’s just not that important unless you are at the pinnacle of talent and ability. For me it is about feeling, fun and self expression. It’s 95% (or more) important only for me. I just don’t see a reason to primp obsessively for a party that will be over by the time I get there and is often just a party of one anyway.
I found my niche within AUM. Demos that I can easily flesh out and then transfer wavs to Cubasis for full songs. I like to try and work with every app I possess, could be a little bit or a lot. I don’t try to over complicate the apps. Learn them as I go approach.
Compromises: I‘m really tired of this bad apologies regarding iOS DAWs, especially about NS2. There was so much bla bla about what’s next, many users weren’t happy with the pads, but there was not really an insight on the dev part, bad midi fx workarounds required, No AUv3 direct track midi out support...
I‘m also tired of NO WORD from the dev himself, but always Dendy jumping in (no offense, but ?!?!...?!?!?)
That stuff above is really not much to ask for, IMHO.
In the beginning there’s a big hype, requests coming in, a few necessary fix updates, maybe 1-3 major updates and then, if packs, iaps or subscriptions aren’t selling well, it’s over. Lately, a jump over to Android to do the same again, is seen more frequently.
It’s a sad conclusion, but in the end if an iPad Pro and the most obvious Logic/GB merge will happen, I‘ll rather go with software which is less likely to be dropped, instead of paying RnD to be an abandonware whining fanboy 😅
My 2 cents.