Might buy myself a Metasonix D-1000 one year, but I'd like to hook it to a V-Drum kit to trigger.

Tempy wrote:

One of my mates who made techno used to have a Korg's Electribe I think. Its that blue one with no keys right? Just buttons? They are pretty damn tasty but i don't like synths with no keys for some reason.

That's the one, yeah. I saw a great demo on youtube that made me fall in love with one. @Brooks: good stuff, I thought that would be the thing. Building a shopping list for all these apps that I want, need to learn how to actually use the damn things too. I have Bleepbox on my iPhone but I'll be damned if I actually understand how to build a song, yet its demo functions suggest it can produce full fat floor filla

I've not used the Electribe (hardware/software) and was tempted to get the iPad one. Its relatively high price put me off (along with a few other reasons I can't remember). iOS version is supposed to be pretty good but may lack the flexibility of other apps. Really depends what you're looking for!

If you want an all-in-one traditional sequencer style app, then Nanostudio is great, as is GarageBand, BeatMaker 2 & Genome (although Genome is purely a midi sequencer to control other iPad audio apps). 

As for other music apps, I'd recommend DM1 (an excellent drum machine), iMS-20 (Korg's virtual analogue synth/sequencer beast), Rhythm (if you fancy some basic/traditional 303, 808, 909 style action), Animoog (fantastic synth), Sunrizer (JP8000 style synth), and a few other synths like Cassini, Addictive Synth and Magellan.

Edit: I also like CS Grain which is great for running a guitar through and mangling the sound.

^ looks like alot of fun.

Brooks wrote:

They'll never not look weak on stage.

How do you mean 'weak' ? Physically flimsy or not cool?

Brooks wrote:

The latter. There's no goddamn theatre in prodding buttons on a box. And no, Araabmuzik clips are not converting.

Beats the average laptop musician setup though. 

I think this vid sells Maschine better – the man has fast fingers. Certainly more theatre than the clicking of a mouse.

Vastik that list is brilliant. I will look into all of them.

Did you know Native Instruments do an iMaschine? Little £3 app for phone/pad. Has a great video on music radar where Jamie Lidell builds a track on it and then hops off to his home studio (in his MASSIVE HOUSE) to upload it to his computer. It's only meant for sketches but it seems pretty competent.

I need to sit down with a decent tutorial because they are mistifying to me really. Lidell makes it look easy.

Brooks wrote:

The latter. There's no goddamn theatre in prodding buttons on a box. And no, Araabmuzik clips are not converting.

Its closer to DJing than performing on an instrument and compared to digital DJing at least, is probably more entertaining to watch. But yeah i know what you mean, i'm not a big fan of this kind of stuff as a performance. As has been said its very good for a studio set up - can be very frustrating being stuck so rigidly "inside" your computer when making electronic music, i imagine you can really break out of that frustration with this kind of stuff.

Brooks wrote:

I've never especially struggled without an external trigger device during bouts of studio pottering, but I'm not everyone. Though actually even then, I've used DAWs that have some propensity for emulating the physical layout of old drum machines and whathaveye (Fruity, Reason etc.) Now I'm only interested in the sounds those devices produce but they have to have come about by some, if fairly imaginary general scheme that includes the possibility of live and indeed animated performance. A conceit in 2K12 but a personally vital one. Is why I went back to guitars despite having slim to no interest in making rawk music - whatever else axes are still for, they remain aesthetically - tactility, cosmetics - pleasing triggers.

Yeah, I get that. I'm fine noodling with a mouse, and my iPad gives me extra interface options but I do still like the idea of Maschine and it's hardware/software combo as it looks like it makes jamming out ideas easier and perhaps more fun. Live is a secondary concern for me though.

Maschine is worthwhile if only for challenging the grip Akai's had on the scene for too damn long.

Tempy wrote:

iMaschine is super bare bones and I don't really know what I'm doing but it is fun, which is what matters most. Saw some folk on YouTube doing full songs on it, seemed smart but you need to load your pads individually and it's too late to be soon that so I just fucked around and made 4 things in an hour or two, inboard mixer lets them sound like songs but I've no idea how to record that internally, probably needs exporting. Heck, more fun than a pint and the same price.

Tap the top left button on the screen, it takes you to a menu that allows you to export to Soundcloud (or Maschine).

Tempy wrote:

Yes, I've done that and it's really easy. I meant recording a full song, so far it only exports the full sample

Ah, well at that point you've gone beyond what I've tried in it!

There's definitely a species of guitaring that doesn't belong outside records either, no doubt.

I was in a punk band way back in the mists of time. Just met the vocalist for the first time in years. Apparently our guitarist's current band just played Reading and Leeds.

FFS.

This is cool - (vimeo)

How to do it if you can be bothered.