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"Miles from the Oasis" using AUM Looping as a DAW
I watched some Youtube tutorials from @TheAudioDabbler and Electronisounds and learned how to record loops in AUM. I think this is a viable way to build larger compositions.
Comments
I agree. I’ve been using it quite a bit just in the last 2 weeks.
Nice composition and title! I think I started hallucinating!
One of your best. MidEast Drummer?
Wow, McD. That was really awesome!
Love the combination of the horns with MidEast rhythms. The drums got buried for about 15 secs around the :30 mark on speakers, but on headphones I could still detect them.
Overall: Most impressive!
Love that brass section @McD. Recording loops in AUM, I assume you mean recording a channel and then loading the recording file using the file player?
Very cool! I’ve always been a DAW person, linear timeline, etc. Curious about your workflow?
Yes. I always love your music that features this inspiring drum app.
@McD , lovely piece. Thanks for highlighting this way of working. Just watched both videos and it makes perfect sense. I have been looking for a way of doing this as I use AUM and the file player almost exclusively. Nice One.
Yes. I need to keep tinkering with the workflow so I can have discrete "stems" (1 audio loop
per performance) so I can make mixing the final step.
This first effort used the old 2 tape system approach where I added another instrument on top of the mixed performances to that point... like Les Paul pioneered as the first multi-track approach to getting 2 people to sound like a dozen in the final work.
I'm still considering how to best use the "sync" loop options in AUM. Just deciding to attack a 4 or 8 or 16 bar chunk imposes a constraint on the workflow that helps defer decisions and
just start a process of layering over that decision.
All the other looping options (L7, Loopy in AB3, etc) add GUI aspects to the process that
add frictions that take me out of the flow. I just have a better relationship with AUM so
learning this sync'ed loop seems like it might open me to more production and less experimentation. Experimentation has it's own set of virtues and I value that type of
puzzle solving too but it rarely leads to anything I feel I "own" but more often, it leads to
a little discovery.
I'd use a truly great DAW... I just haven't found one yet. The need for features tends to make
DAW's unstable, I suspect. It feels like I'm slowly adding skills with AUM to find alternative steps to what a DAW can do.
I’ve done that plenty in AUM. Then I moved to recording each part separately, and adding a new file player for each layer right after recording it. That way you can retake parts, and also have some mix-down at the end.
Being able to punch in and out, and being able to freely set loop points and cut multiple takes per part per loop is what I miss in AUM.
@Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr , your description of record, file player etc in AUM is more or less what I do all the time. The main disadvantage for me is that if you have say a 5 minute piece and you want something at 4:59 you have to wait 4 mins 59 seconds to play it and in my case, normally cock it up , so you have to start again. Is there any way round this in your experience?
@McD : nice work, sort of ‘Sketches Of Spain’ like. AUM File Players are pretty much how I roll, though lately I have been exporting the stems to Ableton for arrangement and final mix down, in a best of both worlds type thing. I get a lot of mileage out of duping the whole channel then speeding up and slowing down the rate of playback on subsequent channels using the AUM Rate parameter - you can even assign a MidiLFO or BramBos LFO to this for tape speed up/slow down effects. Very cool. And as Hainbach says: “half speed is the best speed.)
No, that’s where I miss being able to punch in.
OK, had to google punching in but think I’ve got it... Ta
Very nice, I like the drum pattern very much. Mid-Eastern melodies in a film-noire-detective-movie
Great atmosphere!
@McD this is so good! Great work!
Thanks... you caught my "Miles" reference. I recorded the trumpet 1st and added
a French Horn and Tenor Sax after. In the end it became a horn ensemble so the
austerity of Mile's masterpiece was buried but I like the added benefit of the evocative
harmonies
This is still a sketch but I did put effort into crafting the right horn parts to make chords.
I was consciously mining the emotive tension notes: 9th's over 7ths and the natural minor
with the flat 6th contrasted with dorian and the major 6th. I could live in this part of the
harmonic world.
I highly recommend this drum app: Mid East Drummer by Lumbeats. Only the @LinearLineman seems to use it and share the results here.
Thanks... I respect your work so this has extra value for me to keep sharing and aiming higher. Anyone that creates needs an audience... I try to remember that here.
This reminds me to check for creations that might have slipped through without comment.
@McD I have only recently started to use Mid East Drummer and think it is great. I used it to create a 5 4 3 2 1 sort of riff on this https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/892183#Comment_892183
I am also guilty of not commenting on creations... there are a lot but I aim to try harder.
Very convincing the recording - good for a chill! The wind instruments all coming iFrestless?
I appreciate that, and likewise!
Only the bass is iFretless.
The 2 Brass voice sare SWAM 'beta' French Horn, iSymphonic "Trumpets pp" and the Tenor Sax is the GeoSWAM Tenor Sax.
The chords are from a complex BeatHawk orchestral preset that seems to have a hint of
choir on the top end.
Trying to use all these high quality audio apps in AUM will lead to issues but adding them
one performance at a time helps manage the resources. The power of multitrack digital
is that bouncing tracks doesn't degrade the signal of the prior performances like tape did.
If Cubasis Freezing had been less buggy when I bought my first Cubasis 2 product I never would have ended up with a AUM centric focus. Collaborating with @LinearLineman showed me you can get work done in Cubasis but the frictionless AUM experience keeps pulling me back.
One thing I'm butting my head against is the difficulty of easily chopping out 4 bars from
a large recording. I understand the snap to beat but dialing in a very tiny point in the timeline is really tricky an prone to frustration. Any tips welcome... I was hoping I could
zoom in and take the guess work out of the proper downbeat to chop on. Are the beats
color coded on bar lines... I didn't seem to find and visual clues. Is there another file editor
that improves this step in chopping up audio accurately?
Here's another sketch where I converted each track as after recording to an AUM file player and only combined them all into a final mix at the last step adding FX and a limiter.
I think this is a quick and easy workflow for prototyping arrangements and generating
basic vamp demos.
I remember hearing that the Roots jammed a vamp as a warm up and when Jimmy Fallon
heard it he yelled out "That's the Theme song for the show." He was getting off on the raw energy of the band and the fact that it felt like a party.
Here's my "Festival Traffic Jam". It's pretty cluttered but I'm still learning to think like a
multi-personality band and we all want to play as much as we can get in... not much coordination or listening going on. And not charts... that would require work.
FX wise I've only been grabbing the MixBox and using 2-3 Dynamics and EQ FX for added
warmth and tone and some room reverb and limiting.
@McD another great track. My preference is for pieces that you come away from with tunes stuck in your head so this fits the bill.
@McD , I really dig the live feel of the track. I also like how tight the rhythm section is.
Damn, those sax and trumpet articulations sound so realistic. Nice work.
It's a tribute to Application quality:
Actually, you can scroll back and forth in the transport section. Display by bar/beat and time. See the picture:
So in practice, @McD one could load a 4, 8 bar loop and play along ad nauseam. Or even create a harmonic "structure", a chord progression and build a song gradually... very old school indeed.
I have thought about it but somehow rejected the idea as if one "should" do it in a certain way: if loops, then Ableton style... if linear, then DAW style. But this is a refreshing, unrestrained proposal that I'm going to try.
By the way, I'm just realising now that phase looping (Steve Reich like) would be really easy with the play/sync functions in AUM. Another thing to try.