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Basic help making songs in AUM
Hi. So, for starters I’m really not very tech savvy, so bear with me! I’m trying to make some basic tunes in AUM. I’ve got patterning 3 and using the timelines to shift between patterns (e.g intro verse chorus verse…). But I want another midi controller to do the same thing for instruments. I’ve tried egnodes and atom, but I can’t work out how to get them to shift from one patter to another automatically. It seems you can do that with atom by triggering midi, but that’s beyond my skill set I think. So, any other apps, or tips with egnodes and/or atom to help me layout a basic song structure? Thanks in advance….
Comments
I don’t have time this moment to answer in detail, which I’m sure others will soon. But while actually building song structure in AUM does have its idiosyncracies, any sequencer that provides a way to switch patterns under the control of incoming notes or CC values can get you there, as you have already intuited.
Atom does this, and so does MidiDreams, which I use more often.
The trick is to use another sequencer, usually running much slower, to send those values to the melodic sequencer.
If you haven’t found it yet, the little hamburger menu to the left of a device’s icon in AUM allows to route these signals, specifying any output from another device as an input to the current one.
Thanks for your help. Will have a look into tutorials for triggering patterns with midi. I find that pretty daunting but it seems that’s the solution. If anyone knows of any apps which can just map out their own structure (as you can with patterning 3) I’d appreciate that. Seems a lot do it in standalone mode (egnodes, helium) but not when using in AUM.
Oh, also, Nodes has a Song node, which can sequence the other nodes. And Nodes is usable in AUM. In fact I never use it standalone.
If no one else has by some time later, I can post some screenshots of what I described above.
Struggling to find any info on using cc to trigger different patterns - just watched about a dozen videos for atom or AUM but none of them explained it. Any one know of any?
LK and Drambo can help create a song mode in AUM. LK is far better for this task as it can chain scenes at any time, whereas Drambo has more limitations (e.g., it can’t chain scenes shorter than a bar)
Thanks Jeezs. Will have a look into LK.
Garden - I didn’t think you could use song mode in nodes when using in AUM, any screenshots/info on how you do that much appreciated.
Would midimixer for AUM work if you put your verse and chorus on different channels using automated snapshots?
Multitrack recorder by 4pockets gives you a timeline daw inside aum.
No way! Is that one of a kind (many of Paul’s are)?
Haven’t tried MidiMixer or multitrack recorder, will check them out, thanks! I’m pretty sure that helium’s automated snapshot function doesn’t work when it’s in AUM. Would be very happy if I’m wrong about this!
Is there a reason you really need AUM? It's very easy to lay out your song structure in any daw, like GarageBand, Cubasis or (if you want spend some $) Logic Pro.
I was thinking the same. I would probably be easier for you to use a DAW with a time line as you seem to be fairly new at this.
AUM as great strength but for building timeline songs you need multiple app that can get confusing at first.
I would advice you look at Cubasis, Zenbeats or maybe try the free trial of Logic Pro.
Many ideas given here, so I will answer from a personal perspective: making AUM into the equivalent of the Circuit Tracks like song structure using iPad apps became more of a chore than just hooking up an external sequencer or using an actual DAW like Logic Pro. When I eventually gave up, I found that AUM is just so much better left as a fantastic mixer / sound unit.
Issues I found:
Lack of screen space to do all that’s required with many options to make AUM a track switching DAW like experience. Switching between different screens needed can be complex and cumbersome.
State saving being hit and miss.
No way to free up processing headroom by freezing tracks.
Scrolling in AUM in very large projects becomes annoying when you need to switch between what you are controlling manually, especially trying to use manually triggered sounds to merge from one section to another - ok mostly live jamming to structured tracks is where most the issues occur.
By all means give all the options a try, but my advice is to make things easy on yourself and either go for a iPad apps became designed from the ground up for making tracks, (my suggestions would be apps such as Logic Pro, Drambo or BAM) or use an external sequencer and use AUM as for sounds and mixing duties (look at Circuits, Digitakt, Roland MCs, Oxi etc etc).
I know, not what you are asking for, but I really did feel that while possible, making AUM into what I think you want, ends up feeling like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole - at least that’s how I found it.
I’m the most productive in Gadget. You could use its Taipei midi out in order to drive instruments in AUM. Or maybe something like Xequence, if LK isn’t your taste.
I'd like to offer some suggestions. Can you explain more about how you want to change the instruments and change patterns? There's lots of ways to trigger changes in various apps by using CC messages, and each app will have different options that you can change.
A number of apps have built in functionality for what I believe you are trying to do, which is to set up a series of patterns and it's often referred to as song mode, without being full fledged DAWs, and they tend to included built-in instruments and sounds. A few full fledged examples would be BeatHawk, BAM, and Groovebox (by Novation).
The next level with more control (but requiring more expertise and customization) would include Loopy Pro, AUM, Drambo, and EG Nodes, which will let you add AUv3 instruments of your own and create your own patterns and loops, and string them together in some way.
There are also lots of apps that include a song/pattern mode but which could be used with external instruments, such as Helium (which you mentioned), StrummerFX, LK, Atom 2, but again, you may face a lot of customization and a steep learning curve with a few.
Finally, you can use a full-fledged DAW such as Cubasis, or Logic Pro, and this is where you get the whole package.GarageBand is of course excluded because it would not have the MIDI functionality you need. In the DAW you have a timeline which is the main interface, and your intro/verse/chorus in a horizontal linear view. There's a lot of flexibility in these DAWs to include MIDI based apps which can send and receive MIDI between tracks, and within tracks, but from my experience it's not easy to trigger pattern changes within - the DAW although it can be done. The DAW is generally designed to generate the song structure within the timeline. You do have the option to create patterns and groups of loops within Logic Pro in Loop mode, but the limitation there is that you cannot trigger the loops via MIDI, only the touch interface.
This is a pretty broad response to your question, but I thought that it might serve a dual purpose of helping clarify what you're looking to do, and also offer some guidance to other people who may be in a similar situation and find it on the forum later. Also, I've just randomly mentioned apps that I know best, and there are many very talented people here that have a completely different approach than I do and can speak with much more authority and expertise than I can, so take this with a grain of salt.
+1
Excellent example - I forgot to mention that. Gadget has a song/pattern mode built in, plus you can use most of the instruments from the app separately as AUv3's in any host.
Loopy Pro is another DAW-in-a-AU.
Wow, thanks everyone for such amazing help, some really useful stuff there. My primary reason for using AUM over something like cubasis or logic is my eyes! I have very poor vision, so even though AUM is quite fiddly, it’s much easier for me to engage with as it’s visually very uncluttered. But maybe I need to deal with that and switch to a conventional DAW.
But, I have found Gadget really user friendly and I’m intrigued by darkstrings comments about hooking up to AUM. I had no idea you could do this, but this is possibly the solution for me. I love gadget but really want to be a belt use things like SWAM instruments etc, so if that’s possible I’d be very happy. Had a Quick Look for info but none jumping out so if you know of any tutorials on this please let me know.
And a massive thanks again to everyone for your thoughts - this is all so useful.
Just found a taipei tutorial!
This should be good kidder, since you’re already on the Gadget tip….
I can’t agree more. Even having 4 instruments only plus a sequencer app running in AUM, switching between the apps is a pain in the ass to me.
That’s why I either use AUM with my KeystepPro external sequencer or I use solely Logic pro.
Gadget is very fun, and I use it a lot, but you can only load up instruments included in the app. As mentioned by @Darkstring, you can use Taipei to send MIDI out. (*Note: You can paste MIDI between piano rolls within Gadget). If you want to use Gadget with other external instruments, you can use Taipei to send the MIDI out to another destination such as AUM (where it would appear as "AUM Destination" and it can be routed to any channel you like, and you could load up multiple instances of Taipei and have each send to a different MIDI channel and then filter those to specific channels in AUM, and you can use something like Ableton Link to sync the two apps in time, but then you no longer have a fully "in-box" setup, and things can get tricky.
**Edit: Agree with @Fruitbat1919 and @GLacey - post came in while I was entering this one.