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How do you use Ampify apps? - Groovebox, Blocs Wave, Launchpad
I’ve been trying to find the best way to use the apps. Currently, I start with Groovebox, then send it directly to Blocs Wave (using an iOS Shortcut), before finishing up in Launchpad. But I’m curious if there’s something better. Here’s a video I did a few days ago showing my current workflow with these apps.
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I’m curious if there’s a better way. What are your thoughts?
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Curious to hear how you’re using Blocs Wave in that chain. I don’t use it much.
I noodle in GB usually on phone, often at 3 am when I’m having a hard time sleeping.
End result is a handful of patterns that get rendered as loops. Sometimes I export to Ableton and continue on there.
I use LP to take a bunch of loops from many sources not just GB, combine them in different ways by playing them in different combos and then using effects to mangle the results.
That is pretty much the way.
You could send stuff back to Blocs to do some editing/slicing/rearranging and send back to LP.
You could add other effects processing in between apps to take your clips further.
But the basic app workflow you have described is also the one I have used.
Have you experimented with AUM in the mix? I recently watched Henny ThaBizness’ AUM video and AUM allows adding effects. I’m not really sure how to add it to the mix. Maybe...Groovebox ->AUM-> Blocs Wave -> Launchpad?
How do you deal with loops that are ‘out of order’ in Ableton? Unless I start with the very first bar, it’s almost impossible to reuse the loops in other works.
If you have not checked out Henny Tha Bizness' videos on Blocs Wave, they are worthwhile -- as are the "silent" videos where he develops beats and grooves. He is also a Koala fan.
Here is one of his videos about Blocs Wave
The silent beatmaking playlist
Not sure what you mean. I don't really have a strict timeline in mind when using any of these tools, I just thrash around trying to make interesting loops that I put in order after the fact. I "sequence" in Ableton Live, but lately I've been playing around with using Nanostudio 2 Slate as a loop launcher for this purpose.
I just didn’t export directly to Blocs.
I exported GB stems to AudioShare, then treated the clips in AUM using the File Player and recorded them again with effects/processing.
You can do the same with clips you have tweaked/edited in Blocs. You could process those externally before bringing them into LP.
It is an easy way to generate some correlated variations of the raw clips you create with these 3 apps. (It really helps fill up that LP grid when I just have a few original clip ideas).
The main reason I never got on with Blocs Wave is that if you want to use "Discover", which is arguably one of the greatest parts of the app, you're forced to use Ampify content. You can't control which loops in your library get cycled through in "Discover" and you can't delete factory content. So that means, that part of the app is mainly limited to cycling through Ampify loops (unless you load so many of your own loops that they outnumber the factory loops
). Not a bad thing, but not what I want to do. I want to cycle through loops I made, and I at least want the ability to delete Ampify loops I don't like. Because he has so much content on his ipad, chances are very good that none of the loops Henny imported in that first vid showed up when he used Discover to toggle through loops. What's the point of using Discover then if the loops you import are unlikely to show up?
So then what are you left with? A loop launcher that can trim, eq and re-pitch loops. Without Discover, Blocs Wave has seemed pretty meh.
God I'd love to be wrong about this.
I believe you have to tag the type of loop when importing them. If you set them as "Imported" or "Recorded", they never show. But if you tag them as Drums, Melody, Bass, Percussion, Vocals, or FX, they will work with Discover. That's the reason I use Blocs Wave a LOT.
I can get it to load from my imported clips, too.
When using Discover, it favors clips in the same key and bpm.
If your project key and bpm are the same as some of your user clips, the chances of those being Discovered go up.
You can use discover with your own loops. I do it all the time. In fact, Henny shows that he is doing it from the large library of loops that he has been creating.
@espiegel123 - Great video. Henny has a ton of useful resources that I always keep learning.
@ecamburn - Yeah, Nanostudio 2 is awesome. I started out looking at Slate but I ended up using Koala Sampler. What I now do is send the Groovebox files directly to Koala (this shortcut was inspired because of it - iOS14 only - https://routinehub.co/shortcut/7308/).
Because of it, I found out ways to use Koala with Visual Synth -
How can you tell the loops Henny imported are showing up in Discover? He added Drums, percussion and Melodic loops to his library. It looks like he has 100s of loops in his library. The chances that the half dozen drum loops he added popping up in Discover seem pretty small. Am I missing something?
I know that Discover will cycle through all content including User content. But I'm talking about probabilities. Without loading any extra factory content, there are ~70 drum loops pre installed. Just to give my loops a 50/50 chance of showing up in Discover I'd have to load 70 loops.
Because you can't delete factory content, there's always going to be some chance, even if you loaded 100s and 100s of loops of the factory content popping up. It seems kind of silly to me to have to load 100s of loops into the app to get it to do what I want. For Discover to be useful (to me), I'd like to have complete control over which loops get cycled through.
Not trying say the app is bad. I'm guessing folks who like it like the factory content. Just not my thing.
Instead of discover, you can select a pad then tap the library button instead. Then tap category at the bottom (on an iPhone) and all your user loops are listed at the top and match the category of the pad you selected.
So say you want to go through some of your drum loops in a new project. Just use discover to add a drum loop to a pad, then with that pad selected hit library and then category.
Then just select your loops at random or one at a time from the big list of your own loops.
If you add an imported and uncategorised loop, you can then easily go though all of your other uncategorised loops in one list.
From that screen tap any other pad and it will jump to the loop in whatever category your chosen pad is in. Makes it very quick to jump to all your user bass, drums, melody etc loops
with one tap.
Appreciate the suggestion. For me, not using Discover makes Blocs Wave like a Ruben sandwich without the corned beef and swiss cheese. That's right, I just compared Blocs Wave to a sauerkraut and thousand island dressing sandwich.
Seriously, there are a bunch of other options where you can load loops, adjust things like pitch and length, then trigger. Like I said, it's a great app that many love, so I'm not trying to trash it. Was just never able to get beyond the first date.
Either in that video or another (I can't remember) he shows how you restrict what discover uses (I also suspect that his library is mostly his samples). And I do the same (though my library is a lot smaller). When I have a chance, I'll look it up if you haven't found the way to restrict which libraries it discovers in. (I think it is as simple as clicking on glyphs in the soundpack list)
You're right. Go to Browser, Packs, Edit, click the eye icons to hide factory packs. This just became a brand new app for me. Thanks @espiegel123
@ecamburn : in Blocs Wave to restrict what it looks at in discovery:
go to the browser tab
tap packs
tap edit
You will see a list of all the packs.
Tap on the eye icons next to the pack names to toggle their visibility
Discover limits itself to the visible packs and your user library.
Just wanna send a big thanks for that shortcut. Super-smooth! Thank you!
I guess you found it while I was typing up my notes.
Yeah, it is great to know about and not obvious.
Glad it was useful
.
Okay, this is really cool. I didn’t know you could hide packs. I just went along with it, but this is awesome.
@seonnthaproducer Here's one way of recording to Blocs. I set it up with a bus in AB to not have to bother about monitoring, in this case my guitar. Also can record in AUM if I wish. The timing is not easy to perform, well not for me anyhow, but the editing tool is pretty slick in Blocs. This is just a 'no thinking just playing' but it easy to get a comp from drums and bass what have you in Blocs. I also used a TB reverb as it's awesome to change the guitar to near or far. Pleas don't judge my playin, I suck and I know it
(AU icons now work in AB with iOS 14.3 as a little sidenote)
@Pxlhg That's an interesting setup. I haven't dived much into Ape Matrix, and I'm currently still experimenting with AUM but I really like the setup.
Synchronizing timing has been the downside whenever I'm working with loops. It's great for that setup, but I can't seem to reuse the loops in other projects, as opposed to perfectly quantized loops. It's one of the reasons I'm struggling with looping apps.
I'm not too familiar with Apematrix either, this bus option it provides in AB is very cool but there might be other plugins that can do the same. Anyway, you don't need it, it was more out of convenience for hearing the guitar at all times.
Amazing work on these shortcuts sir - brilliant! 🙏🏼
Some great stuff in this little thread.
You used Visual Synth to make this video?
Now, that's cool.
@Obo Thanks. Glad it's useful.
@Gravitas Yeah, Visual Synth is really cool. Was pretty easy to set up too.
This thread got me back into using these apps in some different ways, really appreciate you guys sharing your strategies out loud and also for sharing those iOS shortcuts - those are amazing!
So I have to admit when I was reading @ecamburn ‘s comments above I thought I kind of understood where he was coming from with not wanting to use the Ampify loops but admittedly, I was also kind of rolling my eyes a bit as well kind of thinking “man, they do have a lot of good content, who cares where it’s from?” I thought I could kind of see both sides in other words.
Well, then off my little merry way I went to try out some of the new tricks learned in this thread. And lo and behold for the first time I ended up with a finished product that I really like actually. But then as I start doing a screen record of the final set within Launchpad, I notice “hmmmm.... that sure is an awful lot of content from the developer packs isn’t it? Man, it’s more than half of the sounds I’m using are straight out of the Ampify packs with very little variation”. “A lot of them are IAP, at least they’re not like the stock sounds right? but still, I wonder how many of these loops are all from the same pack? Maybe they’re ALL from the same pack? Maybe “my song” is actually the very combination of loops the designer had in mind when releasing one of these packs I purchased. “Someone else out there could have made pretty much the same song and I’m sitting here thinking I have something original”.
And doubt lingered from there! LMAO.
Anyway, I got a kick out of listening to my own crazy thoughts, figured I’d share. I do understand why someone might not really want to use the IAP sounds now. I’m still quite new to music production in general so while I maybe thought I understood before, i really didn’t. Cheers @ecamburn, I get it now!
Thanks for sharing your process @Obo . Glad you're having fun with BW. To be clear, I'm not judging anyone who's using factory content. I regularly purchase preset packs for synths I own.
I would just prefer to use BW to bust up, mix, and merge my own content.
I went down a rabbit hole trying to pull together all audio loops I've created that I've squirreled away on the ipad over the years. Figuring out the tempo and key of loops was a little tedious but I have a workflow now. This process was sort of like moving the couch out and cleaning behind it. Many hours later I pulled together about 800 MB of loops that I've begun loading into BW. As hoped, BW is great for mixing together musical ideas I'd never intended to go together. Timestretching allows you to completely change how a loop sounds. To me one of the strengths of the app is that it's a happy accident machine.