JWM - Do Androids Dream of Music? (Album produced on Android)

jwmmakerofmusic

So at last, here is the album I produced on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. It was a lot of fun to challenge myself to use Android for producing this album. The tracks themselves were produced in FL Studio Mobile, and the album was mastered in Cubasis 3.

That said, I may delete FLSM off of my Android tablet since it didn't want to install on my 1TB SD card (and rather went into Interal Storage, including all of the sample packs I imported into FLSM). Taking up 17gb of 64gb, lol. I love this tablet and will continue using it to create art on though. I just wanted to see what producing on an Android tablet was like.

Notes in the Soundcloud description. If you want to listen to the full thing front to back, that's fine. If you want to just skim through the album to get the gist of it, that's also fine. Cheers and enjoy. 🍻

yellow_eyez

Great work man. Always switching it up too . Respect

jklovemusic

Great work. It is all step sequencing or hardware/software midi controllers used?

jwmmakerofmusic

@yellow_eyez said:
Great work man. Always switching it up too . Respect

Thanks mate. Switching it up keeps me going. ☺️

---

@jklovemusic said:
Great work. It is all step sequencing or hardware/software midi controllers used?

Step sequencing, although FLSM has a humanise function for instruments, and one can adjust the timing of drums in the drum sequencer in case one wants a Dilla-styled beat. 😉

SanAnto7

Excellent. You’re very talented. (I would’ve never guessed that was made on a tablet.)

jwmmakerofmusic

@SanAnto7 said:
Excellent. You’re very talented. (I would’ve never guessed that was made on a tablet.)

Thanks mate. Yep, and on an Android tablet at that. 😅

michael_m

Up to your usual standards despite the change of device. I like that there’s no overall theme to the styles but it still flows really well.

Definitely something I have to listen to again.

jwmmakerofmusic

@michael_m said:
Up to your usual standards despite the change of device. I like that there’s no overall theme to the styles but it still flows really well.

Definitely something I have to listen to again.

Thanks mate.

I read several articles and watched several videos about putting together an album and how to make it flow. (I am decent enough at making an EP flow together, but heavily doubted myself regarding putting an album together.) Then I listened to Deadmau5's albums at least twice each, and I realised "I don't really need to try and make a concept album like Justice. I can just make a collection of tracks and make them flow in some manner of speaking."

Deadmau5 is literally my biggest inspo right now, which is why you hear the pluck lead in a handful of the tracks on the album. 😂 Now there's a guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind, even if it lands him in some hot water. And his music is amazing.

Cubasis' Master Strip is a really nice by the way. Comes free with the base Cubasis app, no IAP required (I like it better than that Waves limiter). I put the Brickwall Limiter after the Master Strip in the mastering chain and set the theshold to -1dB so to give everything -1dB of headroom.

reezygle

Great work @jwmmakerofmusic ! Your research into putting the album together definitely worked. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole album yet but what I’ve listened to so far flows very nicely into each other. I heard the Daft Punk influence here and there. Love the riff at around 9 mins in.

When I close my eyes and listen, I feel like a robot dreaming of electric sheep running around with blades. ;-)

LinearLineman

Your excellent production, as usual, Jim. I don’t think there need be hard and fast rules to putting an album together other than normalizing the volume levels.

I’d like to hear an A-B comparison between the Android apps you had available and the same tracks with iOS sounds. I must be biased, cause I feel the Android sounds are kind of old fashioned sounding and a bit two dimensional. As I say, I come with preconceived biases, so happy to hear you tell me otherwise.

Were you inspired by the sounds or more by the challenge?

jwmmakerofmusic

@reezygle said:
Great work @jwmmakerofmusic ! Your research into putting the album together definitely worked. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole album yet but what I’ve listened to so far flows very nicely into each other. I heard the Daft Punk influence here and there. Love the riff at around 9 mins in.

When I close my eyes and listen, I feel like a robot dreaming of electric sheep running around with blades. ;-)

My dude! Yes! You got the reference. 😉 Thanks so much mate. I love Daft Punk and Justice, which is no secret by now.

---

@LinearLineman said:
Your excellent production, as usual, Jim. I don’t think there need be hard and fast rules to putting an album together other than normalizing the volume levels.

I think you're correct about that, but there should be some sort of flow to an album imho. Sometimes it's planned out. Sometimes it's "by feel". I went by feel this time around.

I’d like to hear an A-B comparison between the Android apps you had available and the same tracks with iOS sounds. I must be biased, cause I feel the Android sounds are kind of old fashioned sounding and a bit two dimensional. As I say, I come with preconceived biases, so happy to hear you tell me otherwise.

Oh yeah, I used FLSM for creating the tracks and Cubasis for mastering. Most of the drums come from the Deadmau5 Xfer pack (which I think has long since been discontinued). Some drums came from KB6 audio samples (especially for the Synthwave track "Dr John").

I created all the synth patches from scratch (and the "real" instruments in DW Sampler were presets), and I did some mixing tricks in FLSM to bring the sounds to life. (It's all in the mixing.)

That said, I suspect FLSM sounds the same on iOS as on Android, and Cubasis works the same on Android as on iOS (minus the ability to host AUv3 plugins on Android).

Were you inspired by the sounds or more by the challenge?

The challenge. Definitely the challenge, mate. Thank you always for your feedback mate. I appreciate you and everyone here.