Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Your Korg Gadget tracks using external audio
Thought it might be useful, given the interest in the 2 new Korg gadgets that allow samples to be used, for people to post their creations that use these 2 new Gadgets in one thread.
I'm personally interested in how to get the most out of external samples and longer imported sequences in Gadget without clicks etc.
Here's my first track using the new Gadgets:
Vocals are obviously external audio (using Bilbao and Abu), as are various fx, and the lead synth in the last section (from Z3ta) which was a continuous 2 minute sequence recorded into audioshare via audiobus and chopped into lots of 2 bar slices using IMPC pro. No clicks on it as far as I can hear.
The spoken word is done using a text to speech voice in the "Voice Dream" app.
Any feedback would be amazing. I've only been making music for less than year (purely on iPad) so crave feedback!
Comments
Wow, Matt, that was excellent! I really like how all the sections flowed together.
Other than Z3ta and Voice Dream, were all the sounds from Gadget?
Thanks so much @Zymos
Erm let me think. No, I also used:
some risers and sweeps I made in a new VST called The Riser (first VST I've ever used) which I plugged into my free copy of Ableton Light. Then imported. Check it out - it's great.
and the kind of rhythmic effect that comes in for most of the last section was a long, modulated gritty Thor base patch that I imported into Abu and used the arp set to 16ths playing various slices of the same long tone. Then automated a high pass filter over it - all in Gadget.
But everything else is Gadget synths (just London drums, Dublin base, Marseille rotary cx organ for the 2 chords that play throughout and Helsinki and Wolfsburg for more risers and sweeps).
I just love Gadget.
Matt, that was great! Really enjoyed it & liking your imagination using Voice Dream, may I ask how you recorded from voice dream?
Wicked track anyway Matt!
Awesome track Matt!
Nice work Matt. Like the bass line and feel of the track. I could have sworn that sounded like you'd used Chigago (it seems to have a 'gnarly bite' to it) but you say it's Dublin?
There are some great sounds in there and they way you've put them all together works well.
Was this a straight export of the master bus or have you done any mixing / mastering out of Gadget?
@higs - thanks. I was thrilled to see Voice Dream has a Gill Scott Heron setting
.
Yes, tricky to record from voice dream because no Audiobus. In the end I came out the ipad headphone socket and into my old MacBook to record it...analog. But next time I think I could use airplay to the "reflector" software on my mac + sound flower and keep it digital.
@Mkell424 - thanks.
@zen - thanks - straight export out of Gadget so that I could publish to Gadgetcloud (I believe it's only possible from within Gadget?). And yep, it's Dublin. It sounded more Dublin before but then I listened to some Fatboy Slim yesterday and persuaded myself I wanted to make it a bit acidy at the end of the track, so basically I twiddled and made Dublin morph into sounding like Chicago
.
you forgot to mention it but you certainly gave us some there...
people need funk
)
Great track there dude
@matt Gill Scott Heron setting! I didn't know that either, thanks for the heads up bruv!
Great track. And I had not come across the Voice Dream app before. I'm definitely going to check that out, as I've been looking for a way to get "vocals" on a track w/o using my own rotten voice.
Really nice track. And I'm also gonna take a look at that voice app, for the same reasons mentioned above
Cool. There's a mixed bunch of voices. Don't exactly know what the copyright situation would be if your track went stellar.
Sadly the "Speak It" app which Damon Albarn used seems to have a broken link to its extra voices... Because Speak It allows you to record and then email.
Good luck and I'd be really interested in hearing the results.
Thanks @commonstookie...
People do, indeed, need the funk. Can't argue with that.
And thanks @Buska, @ChrisG, @Seangarland
OK, so here's what worked for me.
I have both an iPhone and an iPad, but two of either devices would work. I downloaded Voice Dream onto my iPhone, and plugged in my Blue Mikey mic into my iPad. Sound goes out of the iPhone via the headphone jack (3.5mm cord) into the 3.5mm input on the Blue Mikey mic. Record into Audioshare. Done.
Thanks @Matt_Fletcher_2000 for introducing me to a great new toy!
You're welcome @seangarland. I like your work around. Sadly my apogee mic doesn't have a 3.5 input.
Be interested in your opinions on the different voices. There are loads to choose from and I only downloaded a few. Some sounded terrible - some better. I also mucked around feeding them into different Voice Synth presets with some success (if you like Daft Punk sounding robot voices).
Four-bar loop imported to Abu. The loop was made using hits from iMPC Pro, bass line using TF7 and mid line using iSEM. Three instances of Abu play a number of variations using arp, slicer, ensemble and HPF fx.
Main kit from various hits imported to Bilbao, percussion from London. Other gadgets used generously throughout.
12 tracks in total, exported individually to Cubasis. Cubasis EQ and compression added. Recorded into Master Record via Final Touch. Stereo treatment, maximiser, saturation and noise added along the way.
Nice one. Very impressive.
I really love the glitched, kind of broken beat and broken rythmns in the first section. With lots of filtering and slicing going on. Really interesting. By far the best bit of the track in my opinion.
The quality sound great to me. Can you reveal a bit about which gadget synths you used? Im interested in how to get Gadget synths to sound that good. It is all in the post production? They never seem to sound quite as good as Thor, Z3ta or Imini to me.
nice Matt, you've got a great pace there, you can't rush the funk.
Love the wah flashes. Once it gets going it brings to mind a relentless souk (with assassins).
Cheers @Matt -
Funny that, I prefer the end - but it probably takes a bit too long to get there! I think the overall mix quality is better in the second half of the track. It still feels a bit dull and muddy at the start - that was point on the other thread when I said I should have brought each element of the imported loop in separately.
The stuff at the beginning is the Abu loop sliced and rearranged with Miami providing the repeating bass line. The various leads are; Brussels, Wolfsberg, Dublin, Phoenix, Berlin and Chiangmai. There's a splash of Gadgets reverb on most tracks, but slightly different amounts.
With the synths, I just take my time. I put time into coming up with the loop I import. Choose a key and a tempo and work on getting the bass and mid/lead to fit together. This was 128 BPM again and built around the E Phrygian mode. A lot of the synth lines are just playing complimentary rhythms on the root note with the second, third, fourth and seventh being the main scale notes scattered about the place.
With regard to the synths, I usually try a few presets to get some ideas, chuck in a few notes over a single bar that fit the pulse and then initialise the patch and get to work. One of things I really like about Gadget is that the synths are quite simple, so you can home in on a sound quite quickly. It may be that this means a shorter shelf life, but with the Thors, Z3TAs and Naves I just spend far too long tweaking and don't make rapid enough progress. Before you know it you're sick of the loop you were working on and have effectively wasted what started as a good idea and could have become a half-decent track.
I try and get tracks like this, which are pretty much aiming at the Goa end of things, to be a blend of sounds by the end, rather than distinct individual elements. I should have spent another day on it really. A bit of work on adding some contour to the middle section and some more work on the individual audio tracks in Cubasis (a few twists and turns with modulation fx), but I've got some ideas for the next track, so I'm aiming to break the back of it this weekend and just wanted to get that one done.
Tips for programming the synths? Dunno really, I've just been playing around with synths on and off for 20 years. I'm particularly inspired at the moment 'cos the day job is doing my head in and retirement is still a long way off. So I'm putting all my spare time into trying to get my production skills sharp and then see if I can start building up work doing freelance stuff. It's my escape plan.
I guess one bit of advice would be to listen carefully as you add sections or sounds and keep going back and tuning what you've already done. For example, the Miami bass line sounded nothing like it does now when I first added it, I just kept adjusting it to keep it relevant to what was being developed.
I think the post-processing helps. But I need to be in a good place with the track before I get into that. When I first played the export in Cubasis, I had to listen to it a few times cos it sounded ok and I wasn't sure what would make it better. The first mix was way over the top so I went back to the dry sound the next night and just focused on EQ and compression. I have to say though, I'm really impressed with Final Touch and Master Record. The saturation and noise from Master Record adds a lot IMO.
Anyway, I wasn't going to write an essay this time
Thanks again for the positive feedback.
@JohnnyGoodyear said:
Cheers
Now you've said that I've got the image of India Jones shooting the scimitar man in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
(Of course I'm presuming your talking about the cacophony of mine rather than the more stylish groove of Matt's! Correct me if I'm wrong)
This is very useful - thanks (I have that problem of getting sick of loops/elements):
"With regard to the synths, I usually try a few presets to get some ideas, chuck in a few notes over a single bar that fit the pulse and then initialise the patch and get to work. One of things I really like about Gadget is that the synths are quite simple, so you can home in on a sound quite quickly. It may be that this means a shorter shelf life, but with the Thors, Z3TAs and Naves I just spend far too long tweaking and don't make rapid enough progress. Before you know it you're sick of the loop you were working on and have effectively wasted what started as a good idea and could have become a half-decent track."
I also think that because the presets in Gadget are a bit boring/not great (IMO ) and it's easy to make your own - I always make my own sounds in gadget.
Whereas in other "big" synths like Thor and Z3ta - some of the patches are amazing and I just use them or a slight tweak to them... Getting into the guts and doing it myself seems a bit daunting (although I'm getting more into this).
Daunting is a good description. The more you can adjust the more time you need to spend getting familiar with how to create the sounds you are after. With apps it gets even worse. These damn app sales mean I've got apps I've barely scratched the surface of.
But cracking synth programming is a combination of three things for me;
Listen to loads of music. That's easy nowadays, with streaming internet radio and SoundCloud I just don't really buy music any more. I just pick a channel off Digitally Imported or browse on SoundCloud. There's more out there then you could listen to in a lifetime.
Learn about the technical aspects of sound engineering. Here you can go as far down the rabbit hole as you need/want. Read up on synthesis, get a basic understanding of the physical electronic circuits the software is recreating, learn a bit about the physics of real instruments, psychoacoustics and the hearing system. A bit of maths and signal processing theory is valuable.
Spend time making sounds. Try and program a realistic electric guitar sound, or a flute, or a church organ, or.... Etc. Once you can start finding the sounds you are looking for, the battle is half won. Mix in a bit of basic music theory so your melodies and harmonies click and the fun starts.
All that said, the track you posted above has some real quality about it. Just keep doing whatever you are doing, cos it seems to be working.
I'm no expert, I just did this stuff at college and uni about 15 years ago with the idea of designing synths for a living. Life had other ideas and now I work in engineering project management (yawn).
@Matt @xen Great tracks. Thanks for sharing the details on how you created them. Very informative.
@mkell424 - thanks, glad you like it. Regarding sharing details - no problem, it's how we all get better quicker. I love hearing about how people work, it helps me improve, and I also then get more enjoyment from their music, so if me writing a bit about how I go about things adds to someone else's development then it's time well spent. Cheers.
Thanks @kobamoto and @mkell424.
@Zen. I'm certainly doing point 1... And a bit of points 2 and 3.
Melodies are quite hard. I'm trying to get my head around 'modes' as opposed to scales (which I think I understand). Not quite sure what playing a mode is though.
Anyway. Thanks for the advice.
A mode is really just a way of playing in the same key but changing the tonic note of the scale. Using modes can help composers follow the classical conventions around developing three and four part harmonies and lead instrumentalists from improvisational styles (jazz for eg) will tend be fluent in modes as it allows them to work around changing harmonic progressions in a fluid way.
It can get a bit messy, but for simplicity, there are 7 notes in the major scale. If we work in C major, the white keys, C, D, E, F, G, A, B. You can represent these as Roman numerals, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. Each scale has its own pattern of tones and semitones between notes.
For the major scale: I - tone - II - tone - III - semitone - IV - tone - V - tone - VI - tone - VII - semitone - I (1 octave up from the start).
Each note in the scale has a mode. Which really just means that you play the notes from the major scale, but start from a different note. So for C major you have:
C Ionian
D Dorian
E Phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian
B Locrian
So my track above was E Phrygian, so the notes and intervals were:
E - semitone - F - tone - G - tone - A - tone - B - semitone - C - tone - D - tone - E
In Roman numerals :
I - semitone - II - tone - III - tone - IV - tone - V - semitone - VI - tone - VII tone - I
Same notes as the C major scale, but because the intervals are different from the tonic (the note the scale is built from, now E instead of C) you get a different feel.
This has a number of uses, but primarily each mode has its own set of relationships, which makes things interesting. Goa stuff is often around the Phrygian mode, so is a lot of metal, it also has an Arabic feel (which ties in with @JohnnyGoodyears comment earlier about the 'souk' or Arabian open air market).
Other examples:
Ionian; a lot of pop, blues, funk etc - most common as it is just the major scale
Dorian; Celtic music, American folk, country
Phrygian; see above
Lydian; jazz
Mixolydian; blues, pop
Aeolian; blues, rock
Locrian; darker metal, classical
This is far from exhaustive and you will find examples of different uses of modes in different genres.
They can help when coming up with melodies. If you have found a nice bass pattern or a chord progression that is working, you will have probably settled on a key for that track/section. Try writing a melody and thinking in terms of Roman numerals instead of just the note names. Then try the same pattern of notes from different modes. Eg,
c, c, c, c, e, c, b, c, a, g, d, e becomes; I, I, I, I, III, I, VII, I, VI, V, II, III, and then;
e, e, e, e, g, e, d, e, c, b, f, g in the Phrygian mode or
f, f, f, f, a, f, e, f, d, c, g, a in the Lydian mode.
You will be in the same key as your bass / chords but you will find the different modes change the way the part feels.
Wow..I just let my Abu Dhabi have a banger party in the dishwasher with his friends Coffin cupZ and Plaztic dat Shouldn't Be In A Dishwazha. Tends to inspire me with new tracks:
nice track homie.