Music making on the go

If you're anything like me then you'll be incredibly handsome and popular. And quite hairy. Why not congratulate yourself now? Also, if you do music and stuff then you'll probably have several failed relationships behind you or an incredibly patient partner. So you have two options as far as I see it. Number one is that you settle for being single for your entire life until you eventually die (probably due to malnutrition or excessive caffeine intake) and your body will be discovered weeks later, prone across the mixing desk with an edit window still open on your monitor. Number two is that you make sure your partner is incredibly ugly so he or she is unlikely to meet somebody else and leave you. You'll still probably die alone but this time because of a heart attack brought on by excessive masturbation. Number three is that you pop down the local gadget emporium and pick up an iPad 2 (If you're reading this a couple of years from now then you'll want to ask for an iPad 37gs and probably for an anaesthetic from the surgeon who is about to remove and sell your kidneys so you can afford to buy it in the first place...) so you can create music wherever you are even though you won't be able to afford to go anywhere because you just bought an iPad.

Now I wasn't a big fan of the first iPad. It was an interesting diversion (mainly for your cash) but it didn't have the power to do anything too complicated. You can get some great app's to run on it but a lot of the more powerful sound creating stuff was laggy and the output quality was frequently iffy at best. The iPad 2 is significantly faster and some of the more complex synths run happily - barely tickling the CPU meter. Plus they added a camera. A crap one. Go Apple!

There's quite a few bits of info like this around the net but if I don't add my tuppence worth then I won't be popular or sexy so here is a brief look at some of the iPhone and iPad apps I'm using for making funny noises. Actually this will be mainly iPad app's because it's a much better device for creating stuff on.

1) Garage Band - Apple released this at the same time as the iPad 2 launch to great acclaim. It's a stripped down 8-track version of their desktop app and features some clever Smart Instruments to help you sound like you know what you're doing. You can export files to use in your main music machine and you can use Apple Loops and all that usual stuff. It's got some great noises but not very much flexibility. I've used it a few times for creating a brief outline of an idea and I might cheat some guitar stuff using the Smart Guitar. Also you can plug your real guitar into the iPad's headphone socket and use a few amp sims, which is nice. The major downside is that, for now at least, there is no piano-roll editor for fine tuning your recordings. If you're anything like me then you need that piano-roll to clean up all the mistakes... Having said that it is definitely worth £2.99.

2) MorphWiz - This is one of those strange instruments that benefits from having such a big touch screen. It's great for making those weird 1950's Forbidden Planet type sci-fi noises and it's great for bashing out great solo's and lead lines. There are several similar app's available but this is one of the best not least because you can use the AudioCopy thing to share noises between apps.

3) iMS-20, iElectribe and the other variations from Korg - Although a little more expensive (£4 - £5 so it's all relative) they can make some amazing noises and the output quality is excellent. These also make use of the AudioCopy function that you find on a lot of music making app's which enables you to export audio (a loop or phrase, for example) directly into another app. This is a very handy function. I made a 4 bar loop in iElectribe and then pasted it into MixTikl and added some of their procedural chords and it sounded pretty good. Great for getting inspiration on those days when you've got time to make music but your brain won't cooperate.

4) ReBirth - Now I loved this when it came out on the PC all those years ago. Simple to use, sounds great, useful FX and AudioCopy compatible. Not the most versatile app but one of the most fun to use.

5) SampleLab - load, paste or record a noise. Select the bit of the noise you want. Drag it to a track. Press play. A great app for sticking your loops from other AudioCopy stuff and triggering them all together. The edit is a bit of a pain and you can't pitch a sample longer than 3 sec's because of Apple deciding that the iPad didn't really need RAM... Duh. Despite this it has some fun FX and can easily make your samples sound a bit bonkers.

6) Jasuto Pro - I love this. It makes really weird noises using nodes that you connect together to emulate different types of synthesis. After a week or two of fiddling with it I still haven't managed to make it produce anything particularly usable but I think that's more down to User Error than anything else... Complicated, clever, weird.

7) iSequence - This is one of several sequencers available but I prefer this to a couple of the others I've tried. Could just be a personal preference thing... At least most of the sequencers have a lite version you can try before you chuck your pocket money away. It has some nice presets and making your own seems relatively easy.

So that's it. Hopefully there is some useful info here. I realise there are all sorts of app's I missed, ableton controllers and various other clever things, but I wanted to concentrate on more general app's and particularly stuff that uses the AudioCopy thing because without being able to transfer stuff between apps you'll end up severely limiting your creative splurges.

And also there is an argument for just having stuff like this on your laptop if you want to be portable. Quite right. I've also got Garage Band and Reason and various bits and bobs on mine but it's quite a bit easier to chuck an iPad in your bag than a laptop and the battery life beats most laptops by a mile. Plus these app's are particularly good for sketching ideas out quickly without some of the distractions of full software.

So, probably time to pop out and pick up one of those "second mortgages" I keep hearing about.

A Quick Test...

I know, I know... I've not blogged for a while because I suddenly got a bit busy without any warning. It's nothing terribly exciting or interesting so don't bother wearing a suit or a special hat or anything. Just work stuff and the odd bit of real life intruding. So I thought I'd write a quick blog using some new app thingy or other that I just got. It's meant to streamline my workflow or something. So far it's taken me twenty minutes to figure out how to enter my account details. It's entirely possible that the large glass of wine I just had isn't helping...

The only real news is that the last couple of Hot Donkey EP's are selling nicely (I mean we're not quite up there with Lady Doo-Dah or Jazzy Geoff or any of those other hot new youngsters but it's a start) and I've met a few nice chaps through that old twittery doofer that are helping to spread the word. We've had a few weeks break from doing too much music stuff. I figure we deserve it after so much recording last year - and recording is strenuous like building a bridge or curing cancer.

It's probably time that we see a little bit of our families and those other types that hang around. This is especially important now that my son just turned two and I can take part in riveting conversations like the following:

"Daddy! Table!"
"Yes, what about the table?"
"It's a table!"
"Yes it is."
"Yay!"

Be honest, you could feel a few braincells keeling over just reading that so spare a thought for all parents of two year old children who are essentially spending every day with a tiny drunk surrealist. I mean that with love, of course. I'm sure I was a tiny drunk surrealist endlessly experimenting with the bizarre gaudy world around me. These days, what with my advancing years and hatred of all exercise, I'm an exceptionally lazy drunk so there's less chance of me smacking my head into the garden table as I whizz around it on a blue plastic tractor or inserting custard into a Fisher-Price telephone. I will take great comfort in that. So should you. Particularly if you're in the same pub as me.

Anyway, I shall get back to my current task which is uploading enormous video files onto a NAS box for no good reason, and leave you all to your dinner, breakfast, toilet trip, sexytime or whatever it was you were doing before I so rudely interrupted.

Oh, we stuck a new videogram up on our YouTube channel. Go on, click on it. When I'm a multi-billionaire, living the high life in my solid gold hot tub surrounded by solid gold women, I'll remember you all fondly.