Midi Sequencing workflow in Audiobus for iElectribe, Electribe Wave and grooveboxes

CyberLuke

I was a PC guy, I have Cubasis on ios, but I want use only Audiobus and compose in more handson approach.

What is your workflow for making midi clips or patterns and composing a basic song structure including automation?

I research these options are available:
1) Electribe Wave, for example, has built in song mode arranger, so every such plugin can contain the song layout separately. Advantage is better integration with builtin motion fx, swing, etc. Also I found out you cannot trigger pattern by midi in this plugin.

2) Use external hardware sequencer like Arturia Keystep Pro. This can have some headaches and limits

3) Utilising some IAP or AU midi sequencer and sending midi to the plugin. There is a lot of these. I bought around 10 sequencers and I am evaluating. Each is different. Some is better for drums, some for synths.

Currently I focus on method 3). I would like if there would be some universal midi sequencing solution for all these drum machines and grooveboxes. Grooveboxes often have internal sequencing and contain premade patterns. The ideal AU midi sequencer should contain a palette of drum patterns for real drums and various genres. Africa, jazz, rock. These are good for stuff like hihats, cymbals, conga.

My idea is that I can make premade templates, say projects in Audiobus, with only sounds, creating a sound palette. Then the patterns and song structure would be externalized thanks to some midi sequencer, thus allowing to easily create new song and sketching ideas, where you can change completely the sound palette or motives.

The best solution would be to create some form of clips that would send midi note and midi cc data. Then composing these into a song. Each clip would send data to a different midi channel, utilising one midi port should be enough, 16 midi channels is enough.

But I havent found such solution. It is also important to build a database of patterns and have beat structure for various genres and subgenres.

Also iElectribe is not AU compatible and it plays automatically. So this have exception that one cannot use its built in patterns. Probably the solution is to clear all patterns and recreate them in external AU midi sequencer.

Basically the issue is using many grooveboxes inside Audiobus and creating a song structure. Having it clean. Sometimes separate, sometimes not. Depends on the groovebox and UI.

R_2

@CyberLuke said:
What is your workflow for making midi clips or patterns and composing a basic song structure including automation?

Korg Gadget

Samu

@R_2 said:

@CyberLuke said:
What is your workflow for making midi clips or patterns and composing a basic song structure including automation?

Korg Gadget

Makes me wish the classic iElectribe was a Gadget...(Tokyo doesn't cut it!).
And I do hope Korg considers adding the 'Drums' from Electribe Wave as both AUv3 and Gadget.

But yeah for 'Korg Stuff' can't go wrong with Gadget

CyberLuke

So you can use korg gadget inside audiobus routing it to au synths?

CyberLuke

Electribe wave is au3 already

CyberLuke

Korg gadget is closed sandbox solution. Even I own several korg products, I would not invest in this. Also it does not decouple saving patterns from saving synth presets in project.

R_2

@Samu Yeah, a better drum synth would make a nice addition. Personally don’t really need Electribe Wave drums as some of them are already in Gadget (and we can copy the ‘bonus’ sounds to Bilbao). Only thing I miss are the IFX per drum sound. If they’d go back to an older app, I’d rather see them add stuff to Lexington (sequencer, patch export).

@CyberLuke said:
Korg gadget is closed sandbox solution. Even I own several korg products, I would not invest in this.

You want a Groovebox approach but don’t want a sandbox.

Also it does not decouple saving patterns from saving synth presets in project.

It does.

celtic_elk

@CyberLuke said:
Electribe wave is au3 already

Wave’s synth engine is an AUv3. None of its other features are.

CyberLuke

Something like Xequence 2 is probably closest to my idea. And Rozeta midi stuff. Korg Gadget is useless, cannot use iMS-20 with korg ms-20 controller, cannot use 3rd party synths and drum plugins.

CyberLuke

Also Nano Studio 2 is great midi only sequencer.

mojozart

Xequence2 demo projects for driving Korg Gadget:

http://www.seven.systems/xequence2/en/downloads/

Xequence2 ships with a collection of drum maps, and it can drive Korg Gadget plus any number of AUv3 host apps and hardware synths.

ashh

@CyberLuke said:
Something like Xequence 2 is probably closest to my idea. And Rozeta midi stuff. Korg Gadget is useless, cannot use iMS-20 with korg ms-20 controller, cannot use 3rd party synths and drum plugins.

Yes, you can.

CyberLuke

Thank you very much. In the end I think some clip launcher like KRFT together with midi sequencer like Xequence, would be killer combo. But KRFT has been taken down.

wim

@CyberLuke said:
Thank you very much. In the end I think some clip launcher like KRFT together with midi sequencer like Xequence, would be killer combo. But KRFT has been taken down.

KRFT likely to reappear in the App Store, but it's a bad choice mainly because you cannot back up your creations or transfer to another device. The only way to do that was through a server that the company let die many months ago. Also, it's IAA only and hasn't been updated for a long time. While it worked last time I tried it, odds are it won't last forever.

Svetlovska

@CyberLuke : if you like clip launching and sequencing check out LK - it might be what you need:

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/lk-for-ableton-live-midi/id944972221

It’s billed as a remote for Ableton but works just fine on the iPad without needing Ableton at all, as a kind of substitute Ableton Lite.

The only essential in app purchase is the Matrix, but if you want to get the best out of it, get them all. Took me a while to get my head round it, but it really is very powerful, and the Imaginado team have been very active adding features and improving it.

senhorlampada

I've been trying to experiment with a workflow where I play around in LK, sometimes loading other midi generators like Quantum, FugueMachine, Cykle, Rozeta, Senode, Chordflow, Nodebeat, etc., routing through AB/AUM with filters like Mozaic, MF Transposer, Randomizer and Scales and then start recording linearly to Xequence 2.

I gotta admit i'm not productive these days and got no track to show. But i'll give this setup a run on an EP starting today. My idea is in a near future start plugging my hardware grooveboxes into this setup