Back to DAWs - Garageband update

While I wait for my new iPad to arrive, I already am enjoying the updates to Garageband for the iPad. There has been a lot of discussion around whether or not it is a complete DAW now that it has note editing and of course the comparisons to other iPad offerings.

So, here is my take on it all. The product itself at $5 is a no-brainer. If you make music on your iPad, buy it! Even if you use only a fraction of its features, it is phenomenal. DAW-wise however, there are areas in which it excels and still some weaknesses.

The note editing is a welcome addition and makes it a bit more complete as a music tool. I think NanoStudio's editing is superior, but in most respects the Garageband solution is "good enough".

The addition of smart strings is phenomenal and is a very nice addition to its instruments. The performance instruments is one place where Garageband shines over most others. So one thing I look at now is what will be most impacted by the new Garageband? Which of my tools might I use less? If you follow the blog, you know that like most, I have a huge collection of music tools on my iPad.

I think there are sort of 2 categories of DAWs on the iPad at this point. One type is the DAW that encourages patch creation and custom sound sculpting. NanoStudio is one such DAW where you dial in your oscillators, filters and carefully craft your sounds. SunVox is similar in the tracker subcategory in that you create your own sounds from the ground up and then use them. The other category is DAWs that rely on samples and pre-built instruments. This group includes Xewton Music Studio (and FL Studio for iPad by same company), iSequence and in most respects, Garageband. You use the sounds provided and can do minor tweaks or adjustments to them via a limited range of dials or modulators.

So, Garageband is most likely in my environment to supplant Xewton Music Studio. It is much cheaper, provides superior samples and is a joy to use. Music Studio is pretty nice in many respects but is more or less the same category.

One common knock on Garageband is that it doesn't interact that well with other tools which is true to some extent. If you are in a Mac environment at home, it is very easy to begin a piece in Garageband for iPad and then complete it on your iMac with Garageband for iMac or Logic 9. This works beautifully though it is a one-way trip.

Garageband doesn't audio copy exactly, but it DOES let you audio paste in sounds. So if you want to incorporate your Korg or Sunrizer tracks, its pretty easy to do. You can also bounce down tracks to get around the 8 track limit if you need to.

One other knock is that Garageband doesn't background play. If I want to play a Sunrizer track in time with the Garageband tracks I have to use a little workaround. I have written before that emailing the track to yourself with Garageband is not a good idea because it degrades the sound to 128kbs AAC. BUT, if all I want to do is use the track to guide my recording of another one, I can email the track to myself, do an "open with" and play the track via Thumbjam or some other background program. I then record my Sunrizer track in time with the music and then paste it back into the original uncompressed Garageband song as audio.

In my environment, Garageband is now my go-to DAW for any sample based music I want to put together. For synth creation I either paste in audio to  Garageband or go back to my standby - NanoStudio!

My underutilized iPad music tools

As I wait for the next iPad announcement, I am dusting off some of my portable music tools that I have yet to use much in my music. I often return to NanoStudio, Mixtikl, Garageband, Music Studio and the usual suspects when making music on the iPad but I've picked up a number of other tools that are taunting me to use them!

All of the Korg tools are great on the iPad and recently I've acquired iKaossilator which has been sitting on my devices as a pattern toy. With a little experimentation, I find that I can string together variations on the patterns in other DAWs and add some very nice sounds to my pieces. Such as here:



This piece uses the iKaossiliator patterns along with some NanoStudio tracks overtop of them.

One thing Korg does very well is to integrate their tools with Soundcloud, but to upload to their groups, the ENTIRE piece has to use only the Korg tool in question. This can be somewhat limiting but it lets other Korg users download your patches and setups as well as the music and gets TONS of hits, listens etc., so on my to-do list is to make a piece with only the iKaossilator. The only way to really get a full piece composed is to use the live recording function and to manually switch between patterns, parts or play them live while recording. This works well but if you want to tweak or edit the final piece, you are limited to audio editing.

Another tool that has been on my devices and even desktop for ages is the Tracker sequencer Sunvox. I tried on several occasions to fire it up, start programming patterns and....ran away screaming! Its a bit um...fugly in its interface but there's a reason for that!

Sunvox runs on almost every device known to man. Windows, OSX, Palm devices, old tablets and iOS. Therefore its odd interface is consistent in every environment - sort of reminds me of Mixtikl in that respect. Equally bad everywhere!

Nonetheless it is a very powerful DAW if you can get your head around the tracker concepts. I guess it brings out the geek in me typing in hex numbers for volume values. 

I have yet to get a full piece put together with this but it is a very interesting process. Like Mixtikl, Sunvox lets me move my pieces from device to device and work on them anywhere. 

I will eventually figure this thing out!

Still another synth that baffles me is the TC-11 which everyone raves about. It is a completely new idea on interface and is made from the ground up for touch screens. Incredible depth and sounds but I have yet to get anything remotely musical out of it. I think if you want a melodic line, you really have to use its internal sequencer since there is nothing remotely similar to a keyboard in the synth. It was a bit expensive as well, but its another piece I want to add to my sounds soon.

A Tale of 3 DAWs

Its been a big month for iOS music app updates with the iPad native NanoStudio (finally!) and updated to many others. I thought I would blog a little bit about what DAWs I use (and perhaps what I don't and why).

My "big 3" DAWs lately seem to be NanoStudio, Music Studio 2 and Garageband. Missing from the common list is Multitrack DAW, Meteor and BeatMaker 2. Multitrack DAW is primarily used with audio files and since I do mostly MIDI, I haven't found a need for it. It also is useful for live recording - another feature I don't use. Meteor is a bit more complete but expensive. Every little feature costs more - a bit of a turnoff though I hear great things about it. BeatMaker, I have to admit is a personal thing. In my opinion, the interface for MIDI editing was heavily borrowed (stolen) from NanoStudio and that sort of thing just turns me off on the company - great product by most accounts though. Music Studio also has a MIDI piano roll editor and at least they used their own design there.

iPad Native NanoStudio

So when to use what? NanoStudio is often the idea generator. When I think of all the soft synths I have and begin to get a sound in my head, I sometimes go to the Eden synth in NanoStudio and quickly patch up the sound there rather than work through audio copy/paste with the other synths. In many cases this is enough. If I have a few samples I want pulled in, I record them to the TRG pads and roll away. If I had to pick only one DAW to work in on the iPad/iPod, this would probably be it. The editing is complete, the sounds are great - the interface very well laid out and the author is extremely responsive to support questions and enhancements.

While waiting for NanoStudio, I picked up Music Studio 2 which is nice in many ways though very different. The biggest feature I like in Music Studio 2 is its support for audio files. Music Studio gives you tons of sampled instruments (think of them more as "presets" - very similar to Garageband on the iMac), but also lets you paste audio files. So, if I really want to use some of my stand alone synths from the iPad, Music Studio is a great place to consolidate and edit the resulting WAV files, as well as add additional sounds from its library. Where it is weakest is in its effect bus, but usually I add the effects on the synth before generating a WAV file.

Lastly, Garageband for iPad/iPod is still a very useful performance tool. I find it very different than its big brother on the Mac but it is a favorite. Recording guitar parts, bass lines or keyboards is a pleasure on it and it also support audio file "pasting" - though it is a one way trip. To finalize the song, I almost always have to upload it to the Mac and use either Garageband or Logic 9 for mixing/mastering - not really a bad thing!

I have many other tools I am just getting the hang of (iSequence HD, Rhythm Studio, etc) but I am still learning those.

Logic Semi-Pro!

Big news for the iMac - sort of. Logic X is still not released but Logic 9 has been repackaged in the iMac App store and the price reduced. If you haven't sprung for Logic 9, you can now get the Pro version for $199 rather than spending the $499 for Logic Studio. Some of the more esoteric wave shaping and video options are missing but otherwise, it is the Studio version for the former Logic Express price - Great news if you don't have Logic 9 yet.

Logic Express is a casualty though - it is no longer being sold and the new release of Pro is um... a point upgrade from 9.1.5 to 9.1.6. For those, like me, who have Logic 9 Express, $199 is an awful lot of money for a point release.

The appealing part of upgrading is getting access to a few cool synth modules that are not in Express (such as Sculpture) and access to all of the software instruments and loops in Apples jam packs. This is a considerable value - the instruments more than the loops since I tend to play my tracks these days!

There is somewhat good news there if you can live with a few compromises. Apple also has unbundled the performance software, Mainstage and is selling it for $29. Both Logic Pro 9 and Mainstage purchases let you download all of the jam packs.

Soooo, in my case, I am keeping Logic Express and I purchased Mainstage even though I have no interest in performing. I have downloaded all of the jam packs and instruments which all appear now in Logic Express as well - so a $29 "sort of" upgrade that i can live with.

The downside is that while the cool additive Sculpture synth is available for use in Mainstage, it does not appear in the Logic Express menus - trying to see if I can get that to work but I am not optimistic.

I probably will upgrade to Logic X when/if it appears, but til then, this seems to be a good option.

Synth1 plugin for my Logic setup

Just got an incredible freeware synth for Logic/Garageband called Synth1. Its been out a long time as a Windows-only VST plugin and has been ported (in beta form) to Apple. By using a freeware AU to VST bridge, I can use it in either Garageband or Logic 9. The site is in Japanese, but there is English documentation available.

I put together the piece below using drum loops and 7 instances of the Synth1 for 9 tracks total. The CPU barely registered anything despite all the parts. The analog sounds out of this synth are very fat.

The interface isn't the prettiest but one great feature is that everything is on a single screen - no tabs, scrolling etc. so as a performance synth its pretty cool. It also supports MIDI learn to set up CC events or knobs to your hardwire.

The piece below features some bass patches - tweaked from presets and several tweaked versions of leads - one phased, one with heavy unison and one legato. There are thousands of free presets available for download on the web - just Google.

This plugin sounds as good or better than my (very expensive) Moog plugins from Arturia.
Here's what I put together with it - sort of just a jazz/funk jam session:

Honey Seeker by oldlibmike

Edit: Just more trivia of interest to synth heads maybe - The scratching section half way through the song was sort of serendipitous. I usually rehearse a part a few times before recording and I was working on the lead when I heard the cool scratching noise which was weird since I didn't have any such patch in the song. I realized that I had the wrong track selected - I was playing the bass line in a higher register instead of the lead line. I decided I liked the sound so I duplicated the bass line and played it in a new track - no scratching at all though just clean notes in a higher pitch. I wondered what was going on and finally figured out that it was the monophonic track along with its glide. when I played on the bass line with the other notes there, the "scratching" was the slide from the bass note to the higher note.

I finally got the sound by copying the baseline notes to a new track, recording the high notes for the "scratch" and then using a spectral filter to filter out the low notes since they tended to "click". So there - far more information than necessary.

New DAW (for me)

With the universal version of NanoStudio coming up, I took another look around at what other DAWs were doing and finally took the plunge on Xewton's Music Studio 2. I had looked hard at this before purchasing NanoStudio a year ago and at that time, it was lacking many needed features (audio copy/paste, audio file support etc).

I'm happy to see that almost everything has been added and this is a very nice DAW to compose in. For my first humble effort, I used only instruments native to the app but it is an easy thing to record parts in other synths and then paste them in as full audio files - which I will be taking advantage of soon!

The price is a bit higher than some - $15 for the app and $15 for additional instruments but I think I will get tons of use out of this. It surpasses NanoStudio in its support for Audio files but is behind in its lack of built-in synths and somewhat limited effects processing options and mixing. It will be more complementary to my other apps rather than replacing them.

Here is a quick example - a short melodic piece using all native instruments. 

Some Days are Like that by oldlibmike

More on iPad music workflow

ReBirth Audio track with GB tracks added (iPad)

Its been awhile since I posted so I thought I might put a few new thoughts together again on musical workflows involving the iPad. I have put several songs together in recent weeks here, and have used many different methods to combine and produce finished works. Also there have been many new synths and updates to existing ones that make life slightly easier!
One gap on my huge list of iPad apps is an audio-file based DAW (or as SmiteMatter likes to term it - and iDaw). I have looked with interest at MultiTrack DAW, Meteor MultiTrack recorder, and most recently Music Studio. These all have their pros and cons. The first two would let me combine audio files together into tracks, apply effects, panning etc and master on the iPad. Cool idea but only half the solution - limited Midi and both a bit expensive in iPad terms ($15 and $20 respectively with additional in-app costs to extend them further). Music Studio is a bit more robust with software instruments, audio files and lots of tracks - and might be in my future.

For now, though, having so many other options, I find enough ways to edit audio, combine audio and midi and put together songs entirely (or nearly entirely) on the iPad. I am not a purist that will not export off the iPad before publishing - I love the interface of the iPad for creating and playing tracks but will take advantage of my iMac for mastering and converting formats.

I continually come back to NanoStudio as an iDAW and often find it entirely sufficient with its own Eden synths and TRG pads. When I want to add shortish snippets from other synths, it is fairly easy to use Audio Copy/Paste (ACP) to pop samples onto TRG pads. NanoStudio's powerful effects engines and mixer are probably my favorite option I have on the iPad. The incredible Animoog synth works very well with NanoStudio since it can only record small samples. All of these fit easily into TRG pads. Its worth reminding you that NanoStudio is an iPhone/iPod app currently. I prefer it scaled up on the iPad and there is a native version in the works but don't let the fact that its not iPad native put you off - it is extremely usable!

My other favorite iDAW (well much more than that) is of course Garageband which is now both iPad and iPhone/iPod compatible. Besides being an incredible musical DAW on its own, recent releases have added um...1/2 of ACP. You can paste audio into Garageband but can't copy it out (sort of a musical Roach Motel!). Indeed SmiteMatter passes on the app since you can't really produce a finished result without uploading to a computer - more on that in a bit. In my piece Running Sacred, I used another favorite of mine, ReBirth to do a techno track and then added some sampled voices and synths to it with Garageband. ReBirth also recently added audio copy to their app (GarageBand only pastes, ReBirth only copies - very symbiotic!).

Garageband is limited to 8 tracks so if you have many audio tracks, you probably want to combine them or "bounce" them before putting them into Garageband. My solution there is Hokusai audio editor, which lets me paste in multiple tracks, apply any number of effects or edits and then combine them and copy them back to the ACP clipboard. This reminds me of the early days of Garageband on my underpowered G4 iMac where I would bounce or lock many tracks since the CPU wasn't that robust. Of course I can't copy the tracks out of Garageband so the solution is to paste them out of the original apps, combine them and then paste the resulting combination back to Garageband.

There are some postings on how to bounce tracks from Garageband itself but this is a very bad idea. Garageband does let you export and email a file but it first mixes it down to a 128 kbs m4a file which is very lossy. Not a good way to move around audio!

I think Garageband is a much better fit for folks with Apple computers than Windows fans. Garageband does make it easy to upload your project file to Garageband on the Mac or Logic 9 (I use the latter). Once on the full DAW, you can do almost anything! I tend to clean up the mix, add any automations, fades or midi edits needed and then publish the song.

One point sometimes brought up about iPad synths is keyboard support. If I need to use the camera connection kit, a USB chord and compact keyboard on the iPad I really lose interest. Once the portability factor is gone, I may as well use my desktop DAW with a keyboard - way more powerful! But I do like the iPad keyboard for some things. You should check out all of the cool options in Animoog for keys. I have read many critiques saying that keyboards on the iPad feel unnatural. One area where I distinctly prefer the iPad is for portamento or glide parts. It is far easier to slide over smooth surface for these sort of sounds than carefully playing legato on a traditional keyboard.

Whew...well this post is all over the place - I welcome your comments or ideas on how you work with iPads or iPad/computer combinations. I haven't even touched on using the iPad as a wireless MIDI controller for Logic - maybe another time.