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Recommend an app for creating American roots music backing tracks…..
I’ve officially been hired to score a documentary that takes place in the Mississippi Delta (see other thread). I had the idea of arranging Eastern European melodies in the style of old-timey American music to fit the an early immigration theme. Now, I’ve got to stick to that idea.
I can play the melody and rhythm guitar on my own acoustic instruments but I need to experiment with programming backing tracks in the early “American roots” styles such as hillbilly, bluegrass, jug band, Delta blues, etc. Sparse percussion and double-bass is what I’m thinking but am open to ideas. These tracks can’t sound like obvious drum machines.
So far, I’ve tried out apps I already own. Chordbot is great but is quite obviously electronic. Session Band Jazz has real recorded drums and bass, but is very limited to that style. DrumJam is outstanding but is more “world” oriented with no bass.
Is there anything out there that might fit this general genre?
Comments
That kind of music needs a loose feel, so programming it is probably not going to be the best solution. I would suggest turning off any quantizing, and just playing the backing on a keyboard - you can use good samples of the instruments you want to hear as there are many good libraries out there.
I needed some world instrument sounds and found the best selection in ThumbJam. It’s IAA (non-AUv3) so only one instance at a time but damn the sample selection and quality is still stunning for acoustic choices.
You can get around 1 instance at a time by making track recordings (i.e. frozen tracks in Cubasis for example) or file recorders in AUM.
This sounds like a really interesting project, I hope you’ll keep us posted as it progresses!
You mentioned Session Band, their Ukelele and Country apps might be worth a look
Maybe check out Borsta for brushed percussion.
GarageBand Drummers would be worth looking at too.
Maybe iBassist for a live sounding bass.
Beathawk has a lot of good folk and acoustic sampled instruments.
And there's a Blues app too
Yeah, I have and love Thumbjam. I maintain it’s the best way to play a monophonic sampled instrument with a guitar on IOS. I might use it for bowed strings sound in this project by playing steel guitar through it with a volume pedal. Thumbjam excels at monophonic audio conversion in a way that Midi Guitar 2 can’t. It’s all about that volume pedal acting like a “breath control” or “bow pressure” giving that crucial expressive quality. I really would love to see it as an AUv3.
Oh don’t worry about that. I’ll probably average an update/question per week or more once I get into the nitty-gritty.
I checked those out. I’m only looking for drums/percussion and bass and none of the Session Band apps are getting close to the sparse folk sounds that I’m hearing in my head. Session Band is very full drumkit-focused. I’ll probably just end up building up a percussion track with claps, stomps, spoons and maybe a washboard.
I’ll check that out. Thanks.
Yeah Ting and Skaka probably worth a look too, but sounds like you could easily just make your own samples for this, good luck!
You may want to look at Tin Pan Rhythm.
ThumbJam is great. I’ve found you can actually have several instances by using Instrument slots. You assign the instrument slots in the Multi-Instrument popup which is brought up when you press the button with a divided rectangle. After that you can go to AUM, for example, and instantiate several instances of ThumbJam assigning the different slots, I think there’s up to 8.
Klevgränd produkter AB's Ting and Slammer might come in handy for percussion sounds especially if you're going for a jug band.
This is really good news... I'm shocked this never surfaced in 7 years here when people praised Thumbjam and begged for AUv3 in an update. The thumb jam "keyboard" is also such a wonderful design. People mention it's audio-to-MIDI feature but I have never tried it either (MIDI Guitar 2 is wonderful for my needs).
What about ThumbJams cooler younger brother, DrumJam?
Edit: too much world for you, OP.