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"Generative" music apps feel wrong and yet oh-so-right
Tools like Auxy and Figure are exhilarating. Pleasing music blossoms so quickly. I'm still in control of melody (though restrained to the current scale) and I can play with the generated rhythms so it still feels like the result is my creation. Am I fooling myself? Am I a DJ rather than a musician (not that there's anything wrong with that)? Am I a digital painter tweaking "clip art" and treating it as my own work?
When I switch to an old-school, blank canvas tool to make music, I feel so much less productive, and the results seem more primitive (and not in a good way). When I open a synth (my preferred instrument), I blow two hours playing presets and fiddling with knobs, often only creating a single satisfying riff.
Should I go with what feels good and keep playing with the generative tools, or should I work on improving my traditional chops and build stuff from scratch? All opinions welcome.
Sleepless in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Comments
Hey man,I understand what you mean.My problem is that there's sooo much amazing content on the App Store that I end up wasting time trying to find a sound (for example) that could possibly be better than the one that I just played that was perfectly good enough in the first place!! For me the key is FINISHING projects.whatever it takes to just get the song out of my head and DONE!
I like to write songs,the music is the hardest part for me as I don't play anything very well & if I do write all the music from scratch it takes me bloody ages so if I can use apps like Figure,sessionband,chord bot, or Novation to give me a helping hand then hell yeah if that gets the song finished then I'm cool with that.i just recently posted a song on the song of the month club for June where I only used Novation launchpad! That music is way better than I could ever do and it meant I could just focus on lyrics & melody.
I hope this helps mate.Good luck!:D
No worries man! I'm with you too. For one being a guitar player and not a drummer or bass player, making a song with what ever gets it to come to life is what matters to me. If I use say, MidiBAND to have a virtual band playing the bass or looping drum phrases and that gets me to make music, so be it. Making music is what matters.
Once the song is done and you hear the instruments playing whether they were played by you, or virtually by a premade phrase, just think that it was a band that you didn't have to pay to come record with you. That's what is so neat about having all these virtual instruments. They open up up our ability to make music like never before.
Have you tried Musyc / Musyc Pro? I find the generative music apps are not to help me make music that will be for the benefit of others, more for only entertaining me at the time I use the app. I can’t help but view them as a toy rather than a tool. However, if a piece of actual real music uses generative or random or chance or stochastic elements, but nobody realises that it’s not manually composed or considered or prodded, then it doesn’t really matter. You could play something that sounds random-y, but fits well, or you could keep auditioning the random chance candidates, one after the other until something fits. If nobody can tell, it doesn’t really matter which method you chose nor whether you own up to it. On the other hand, I am noticeably biased away from chance elements in my own work, to the point where if I want something that sounds as though it’s random, I’m more likely to make it up myself and get it reasonably close quite quickly than use a blind system over and over until it fits.
It's all valid
Generative apps can help start you off but it still comes down to making creative choices in the end. They can also help to alleviate writers block.
It's a all about play too so whatever gets you in creative "flow". From my perspective I think it's best to try different creative techniques as hopefully they all rub off on each other and helps to create more original work.
I can recommend Poly for a productive generative style app
I like what is essentially a compromise between apps like Figure which do a lot of the heavy lifting, and more comprehensive synths:
Use things like MIDI arpeggiators (how in the hell does Microsoft not recognize that word?) and chord programs (if you don't know Music Theory, which I don't). With arpeggiators, which I recommend Arpeggionome Pro or Arpist, it's nice to listen to different arpeggios, and try to isolate different phrases that sound nice, and mix and match from there (hopefully in key).
Another great thing is to take a MIDI Sequencer (like Genome) and point it at whatever synth you like, choose a scale, and just throw paint at the wall...er notes on the grid. Mix and match, don't feel any rush. I recommend Genome specifically because it's got a great loop edit feature (not sure exactly what it's called but if you get it you'll see), where you can just take 2 fingers and loop parts from a phrase, it stays on time. I've got several ideas from that.
One last suggestion is one I've been playing with a lot lately. The app Egoist is phenomenal. I really like using their blank program, taking a sample of a synth line (I typically will try to print to audio when I get something I like), then messing with the random settings in there, and resampling that. If you've heard the producer Akufen, you get a lot of that quality cut-up. Egoist is also great to work in manually and not use the randomizers at all, but I do find their randomization settings to be very useful.
Sounds like the generated rhythms are standing in for a proper drummer/programmer. In a rock band context, the frontman isn't usually expected to play every instrument..
@CalCutta I agree viz Egoist. I think a few folks had a fling with her when she first arrived, but she's turned into an illicit mistress for me.
A large part of composing is listening, and deciding what is good or not. Sort of doesn't really matter how it was created, as long as you're not flat out stealing someone's melody or beat, etc.
I should add, if you have the ability to work from scratch and envision things before hearing them, then more power to you.
Don't stop using those apps, those apps are fun. I like iKaossilator and Auxy a lot.
But your priority should definitely be working on your chops and designing sounds from scratch - that is what will ultimately make you more free in your musical expression. You want to be able to play(or program) complex chords or modal mixtures or designing sounds to your liking.
@thus is it really necessary to judge how original and creative you are? Writers read other people's books all of the time but this doesn't mean they'll copy the books and claim them as their own nor do they stay up nights wondering if they should stop reading other people's books.
People cover songs all of the time and some go on to perform their own songs. I think the important part is to recognize what you've done and what the software developers and others have done in terms of contributing to the music. Most music and art in general is not created in a vacumn and is influenced by the work of others.
@thus
I am non-musician. I have all the above mentioned app tools. I found them nonsense!
Instead, I suggest you dig with music tradition by better using free style chord and key play app. That app is Navichord. It separete the key part from chord part! You can layer two or more synths together with midi. You can assign channels and octave to different synths and you can mute out of scale notes. So people like me know nothing about tone, scale, note still abided by the music rules, let the sound and talents to be your own innate spirit. So highly recommend "Navichord". It's fix grid without changing the format is it's advantage to concentrate on you music and sound.
Btw, I emailed with Navichord developer, He will design more midi stuff and modulations to the Navichord.
Quite a few of my tracks were formed (or largely created) by messing around with generative apps like Poly, or by just throwing notes into a sequencer and seeing where it takes me.
Using an app like Poly, and purchasing the MIDI out IAP, can allow you to find some ideas that wouldn't have come logically to you. Trying out these sequences with different synths
Musical art (like most others) is largely NOT invention, but instead selection. What choices you make. The quality of the connection between your ears, brain and heart.
Really the answer should be: C. All of the above.
No need to restrict yourself to one method or another.
Sometimes it is deeply satisfying to spend a great deal of time constructing your own synth patch. Other times you may just want to jump right in and get to producing, so you choose an app or tool that does a lot of the preliminary steps for you.
My last bit of work on my iPad was with Nave, as I was exploring it and trying to build my own patch. I spent like two hours before finally coming up with something, only problem was it only really sounded good with a certain octave, and even then it was kind of crappy so I was limited as to what I could do with it. So what do I do? I record a brief little phrase with the in app recorder, then dump it into the more generative style of app Borderlands Granular, and was able to stretch it out a little bit.
Point being, the whole experience was worthwhile. I got to delve into Nave and explore it a bit, and then augment the results with a generative tool in Borderlands.
My best experience with free style chord and key playing electronic music app is this song. It is not machine-like highly trained talent! It is a Korg Gadget song made by this guy! Awesome free spirit with synthesizer.
Navichord can work well within Gadget piano roll editor environments and you make timing call to record the chord and keys, I think you can achieve song like this demo in the Gadget.
Enjoy song: "Long road to somebody"
Wow that was awesome man;!
Top stuff. Have no idea what 'style' that would be called and don't care. Just sounds good. @Kaikoo, what synth do you like to use with this Navichord? What works best for you?
@JohnnyGoodyear
Gadget! Synthmaster! iSem! iLectric Piano! Later on, Auria Pro Twins. Dr. Goodgear! Oh, there is Enkl's arppegio.
You can try the chord part with Enkl's arpeggio. Although it is monosynth, but Navichord's chord works well with Enkl's arp. Enkl still a bit of midi buggy.
iSem 8 voices program + Navichord chord and key! Well matched.
What about the drums
Thank you. Looks like another five dollars
And, I can't believe I've never seen it before, but everyone should know their secret dealer name and Doctor Goodgear is perfect.
I have no clue, since it is designed for melody play.
If those arp, keyboard, midi sequencer all in there, I would only to choose Navichord. I spent a lot to got this experiece to share.
Unfortunately, Navichord hasn't got velocity control transcient blade keyboard, so Animoog is not quite utilized with Navichord! It is in the hidden panel to adjust velocity. I had this conversation email with developer to plan this thought and designing for us as users.
I appreciate that and that's why I have taken my digital five dollars and given it to Apple to pass along (at least some of it) to Mister Kutuzov. Perhaps he will buy the coffee I will never now know:)
Lord! You can watch Doug's Navichord video. Just try practice aligning the triangle chord to change the chord melody forward and backward with, in the meantime, you play keys by observing the color key part, then you play alone with those changed key color, you will be amazed how you actually play melody like real pianist! Try it with iLectric Piano!
@Kaikoo Captain, it is very interesting. For the first ten minutes I was about to come to your house and demand a cup of coffee from you as it seemed to be nothing/do nothing, but then (of course, by accident
, I made it be something/do something.
I tried it successfully with Sunrizer (I always try it first because -for me- it always works). Not so much with Alchemy. The machine went mad. But then I tried the 'Singers' patch on iM1 and a minor key and -suddenly- figured out how to makes the chords work and I thought I was in a grand sad church. What a delicious and melancholy sound....
I went to Darwin next to try and get my GENIUS into Gadget, but for half a fragment of a second I got sound, but then nothing. Opened them in different order, but nothing. Rebooted, tried again, nothing. Perhaps I am making an obvious mistake.
As a back-up plan I simply recorded four chords, one by one, IAA into AS, trimmed them down and imported them one by one into Bilbao. Still sound lovely. Not QUITE as lovely as my playing them, but still
Worth the cost of the coffee just to hear those four chords