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I just fell in love with Genome midi sequencer again! (Genome + Caustic = Ableton-ish experience)
Ok, here's the story. Lately I've been trying to recreate an Ableton like workflow with only ios apps. When I refer to Ableton, I'm mainly talking about the clip launching functionality and some basic sound mangling. The recent release of Auxy got me excited, because Auxy has a nice clip launching UI. Unfortunely it doesn't have midi out or sample importing (yet). I was planning on using Auxy with Caustic. Caustic has a pcm synth that allows you to import/record multiple sample's (Both Audioshare and Audiobus are supported). In addition to that, Caustic lets you control a lot of its parameters via midi. I was already dreaming about a future dream combo Auxy-Caustic, when it hit me....... Genome midi sequencer.
with Genome you essentialy have 16 channels of midi output, each featuring multiple launchable clips. In addition, Genome lets you play with cc messages (to control Caustic) and has this cool remix pad function. It is explained in the following snippet form the Genome documentation that is available on their website:
"Remix pad - The remix pad is intended for live use. By tapping with two fingers on the remix pad you can loop small sections of the currently selected pattern. You can also transpose the pattern by up to 7 steps using the first slider on the left. If you have set a scale for the pattern, then the transpose function will keep all notes in the scale. The second slider will control the volume of the notes by modifying their 'velocity'. Pressing the 'lock' button will keep the loop settings even after you let go of the remix pad. (see picture below)"
To make a long story short, Genome and Caustic go very well together and give an Ableton like experience on the ipad.
There is a big update in the works for Genome, which adds fx and sampling modules. This could turn Genome into an all in one package that suits my needs. The developer has stated on his website that he's currently in the process of ironing out the final bugs, after which he will submit the update. I've sent him an email today and I'm hoping to get an ETA on the update.
I'd love to hear how other people use and rate Genome and if they have some more information about the features and progress of the next update.
Comments
If you haven't already, check out Electrify NXT.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...I really don't want Genome to put any internal sounds in, except a Metronome. There are so many sequencers/groovebox type apps already, why in the hell does that app need internal sounds?
@Calcutta: yeah, ElectrifyNXT is nice. I had an hour long Skype conversation with Ingo, the developer of EnergyNXT, last week. He has some nice improvements and new features in the works. I'll post here when I have some official news.
@Maarten said:
Please do. That app has so much potential.
i'm also curious to hear about other users' experiences with genome. mine has not been good, but I think a big part of it are some of the design choices in how editing, etc. works.
@papertiger: could you elaborate on your negative experience with Genome?
@Maarten said:
Yes, I will. Out of fairness to the dev, though, I'm going to redownload it and refresh my memory. I don't want to be an a-hole about it.
Standby...
@papertiger said:
Exactly this for me. Really great to read your post Maarten—makes me want to dig in a bit again. I can say for sure that my best experiences with genome came when I was sequencing single multitimbral apps like Nanostudio or Sir Sampleton. Caustic sounds like a good fit. Thinking about a caustic/thumbjam (8+8) split at the moment.
I find myself hunting and pecking in Genome for stuff. "Wait, where are the midi options?" "How do I erase a song?" "Which app was connected to track 3?" "I thought that was behind this button."
The labeling and the button shapes and positions—the sort of hum drum UX nuts and bolts—could all use a good rethinking. Hoping that's part of the big update.
I also think I'm spoiled by the NanoStudio piano roll. Genome's is mostly fine but it can be kind of fiddly/jumpy in comparison.
I use Genome in a totally different way. I'm big on creating counterpoint, and use Genome as a testing ground for playing different melodies together. When I find combinations that I like, I keep a copy of it in the song window for later.
As an example, I take 10-12 melodies all in the same key, and put one into each channel. Then for each melody I make several versions, each starting on a different note. So each channel has roughly 6 different versions of the same melody. Then I hit play and start trying out different combinations of melodies together. It's amazing how fast I can audition them. When I'm done I usually have a few dozen bars of interesting stuff in my song window that I can then try putting together in different sequences.
That's awesome and inspiring @coloobar
Genome + AudioBus + MiMix + AudioShare = why do I need a DAW?
@Coloobar Will is right, that really does sound cool & awesome.
Makes me wanna check out your Soundcloud for examples.
Got something you could link to?
@TedBPhx: how does MiMix fit in there? What apps are you using as sound sources?
EDIT: Never mind, I figured out the Mimix part. Personally, aside from a live use scenario, I don't see the advantage of Mimix over recording to a Daw app.
i'd echo @syrupcore's comments regarding the fact in GMS, basic things, like app navigation, where things are, etc. are not self-evident/obvious. Navigating GMS feels like stumbling around in the dark a lot of the time.
That being said, it's possible that these choices might make sense to a lot of other people and I recognize that. It's why some people prefer Logic to Cubase, Cubase to Ableton, etc.
With that in mind, here are some things that i jotted down after playing for about 20 mins:
Now I see that they represent the pattern playing on each of the 16 MIDI channels. OK. If I was working with more than one I probably would have noticed. Probably.
With in-app documentation it would have been easier to figure that out, but there is no in-app documentation. And the help link is broken. I eventually navigated to the online help, but I don't have a cellular iPad. In-app documentation, or even a PDF I could put on my iPad, goes a long way.
In general, it seems that manipulating the patterns on the main page is not possible -- i.e. they can't be dragged to another track, cut and pasted, etc.
Viewing more than one lane of CC at a time in the pattern editor is difficult. Yes, each controller is assigned a color, but they appear as small squares rather than continuous lines. It's easy to end up with a pile of little squares that are hard to follow. Also, it's only by looking at the small CC icon in the bottom left that you can see which CC you're about to edit. Leads to lots of mistakes.
Along the same lines, I find it very easy to draw notes unintentionally in the pattern editor. Similarly, it doesn't seem like it's possible to zoom in ONE direction at a time -- seems like it has to be left/right and up/down simultaneously.
When you're scrolling up/down on the right side of the pattern editor, a weird drop down/block of rectangles appears. Note sure what it's trying to tell me. Also, when you scroll up/down on the left side of the editor, where the notes are, you end up making selections rather than scrolling up and down. Tricksy, but on the fence about whether this approach is a good or bad one.
Even with all of this (!), I'm going to probably keep GMS on my iPad since it's possible I might be able to get over myself and use the app. It DOES have some good sides -- the Remix thingy, multiple CCs, Re-scaling/scales, and a good handling of MIDI In/Out options.
@papertiger: thank you for sharing your findings.
@Maarten said:
you're welcome, such as they are.
i DO plan to try and work with it a bit more. especially if it can work well with Auria.
Up until last year, if you were using iOS music apps, a great place to get a visual tutorial/review of an app, was a site called Apps4idevices. It's not maintained anymore, but the reviews are still available and still a good place to gauge older apps.
This link is their review of Genome. Whilst not covering everything, there might be some useful insights, in the pictures at least.
http://apps4idevices.com/read/genome-midi-sequencer.html
@papertiger the weird drop drown with blocks, is a grid showing you on which Octaves you have added note information. So for any of the 9 Octaves that hold notes, there will be a blue bar indicating that.
Good constructive stuff @papertiger. Maybe David lurks here.
@papertiger said:
Agreed and I'm going to do the same. It also is the only MIDI sequencer on iOS that I'm aware of that will allow you to send arbitrary bank/program changes. Also think I probably too often approached it as a piano roll/timeline instead of a grid of loops like Maarten has. Going to try to reverse that.
@SpookyZoo said:
Sure, here's an example of the kind of thing I like to do with Genome. The first segment are the melodies that I created, and then it gets more into various ideas that combine them in different ways. The song is not complete yet. I'd like to add additional elements like drums, guitar, etc.
Lately I've been trying to arrange the counterpoint so it follows specific chord patterns, which is a bit more tricky to do.
Hey @Coloobar, since your post I've had Genome fired up experimenting with the workflow you described. Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing. Also, I like the 1:16 sweet spot from your above track.
@SpookyZoo said:
Thanks, yeah I really felt I was on to something with this approach... The only real drawback to the workflow is once you get all of your bars of music down in the song window, it's difficult to rearrange them, move stuff around, copy and paste, etc. For example, you can only copy and paste one bar of music at a time, and when you have a 100+ bars the amount of scrolling back and forth in the song pane gets tedious. What the app really needs is a "workspace" window where you can put rough song ideas, and then drag and drop those ideas into the main song window. I emailed the dev about this and he seemed receptive to the idea, but I have no idea if we might see this feature in a future version.
Have you guys messed with recording midi from an external keyboard into Genome? Is it possible to just jam into a pattern with no length, or is there always a set length?
It's always a set length in Genome. You have to go in the settings for the pattern in the top right to change the bar length.
@CalCutta said:
Thank you!
Thank you for this thread people.
Reading this made me re download Genome and I've found its answered a lot of the things Ive been looking for.
Namely:
not a daw, but a quick, simple way to sketch and playback midi sequences for synth apps
multiple midi tracks (unlike, say Thysis which I recently bought but regret a bit for this reason).
open in for midi files with multiple midi tracks works a treat. So this is the perfect companion for FiddleWax Pro.
automation of cc tracks which, although it's quite fiddly, works ok (although I wish it was lines not dots because if it loops round and you continue twiddling the mod wheel you get the new dots but don't overwrite the old dots = mod wheel chaos).
midi in 'just works' so far with my nanokey x-y pad
ability to limit the piano roll by a set key/scale which is just awesome for me and I quite rare.
I wish it had a built in assignable x-y pad and I wish the keyboard removed the non-scale notes or at least showed the inactive notes much more clearly and was more playable.
But it's a great app for what I need and seems pretty solid actually.
I felt the same way, very strongly, until this interview with the developer changed my mind:
http://iosmusicandyou.com/2013/04/26/ios-music-and-you-podcast-010-genome-midi-sequencer-interview/
The magic... almost the essence of genome for me is the ability to drive other instruments (and effects!). e.g. I love using genome with bismark because i can load any soundfont i want. In fact, I can have multiple soundfonts on multiple channels. I also like using it to drive thor.
So, I hear where you're coming from.
But try driving DM1 (disclaimer, I haven't tried it with DM1's recent updated MIDI support). DM1 hears all the channels, so you can't sequence live. This is just one of many examples. And if they're not impossible, they're darn kooky to setup.
iOS's poor MIDI implementation, coupled with app incompatibilities can definitely bum your genome high.
In the interview, you'll hear the dev explain his motivation for internal sounds: the ability to create with out things breaking all the time.
Unlike others, I think the genome playing interface is almost perfect. But it takes a while to grock it. There are little annoyances with things like modal dialogs... not knowing where settings are. But in terms of composing and playing, I ~love~ the interface.
If you could load soundfonts, that would be awesome. Although Genome and bismark do work well together already.
I felt the same way, very strongly, until this interview with the developer changed my mind:
http://iosmusicandyou.com/2013/04/26/ios-music-and-you-podcast-010-genome-midi-sequencer-interview/
The magic... almost the essence of genome for me is the ability to drive other instruments (and effects!). e.g. I love using genome with bismark because i can load any soundfont i want. In fact, I can have multiple soundfonts on multiple channels. I also like using it to drive thor.
So, I hear where you're coming from.
But try driving DM1 (disclaimer, I haven't tried it with DM1's recent updated MIDI support). DM1 hears all the channels, so you can't sequence live. This is just one of many examples. And if they're not impossible, they're darn kooky to setup.
iOS's poor MIDI implementation, coupled with app incompatibilities can definitely bum your genome high.
In the interview, you'll hear the dev explain his motivation for internal sounds: the ability to create with out things breaking all the time.
Unlike others, I think the genome playing interface is almost perfect. But it takes a while to grock it. There are little annoyances with things like modal dialogs... not knowing where settings are. But in terms of composing and playing, I ~love~ the interface.
If you could load soundfonts, that would be awesome. Although Genome and bismark do work well together already.