Blog, Producer Tips
Mobile Producer or Studio Rat?
Feb
Mobile Producer or Studio Rat?
Whats up MM. AG back with another post. I wanted to take a look ahead in this one. Mobile devices are now doing to the producer what Serato did to the DJ. You now have the capability to produce an entire album on an Ipad. Would you ever do it? Or will you be like the greats before us shying away from technology as long as you can?
Im gonna be honest with you guys, the whole reason I made the switch from PC to Mac started with an Iphone. I wanted to experiment with making beats on the go and there were no good music production apps for Android at that time (not sure if there still is). So I seen that Ios supported apps like iMaschine, iMpc, Moog, ikmultimedia and several others. So when my contract was up the next phone I copped was the Iphone 4s and never looked back since.
The one app that helped me make a decision was Beat Maker 2. This is like a sample based producer‘s dream app. Almost anything you can do on a MPC, Maschine, SP1200 whatever.. you can do it on there. I have actually sold several tracks that were produced totally in this app. I see companies like Steinberg (Cubasis) now offering full fledge DAWs for Ios as well. Im sure they are still somewhat limited compared to the computer software but just the fact that its in existence is dope to me.
Before you had to lug around bulky equipment to leave the studio. Now most of us use the laptop and midi controller such as Maschine or MPC Renaissance etc. Tomorrow there is gonna be just a tablet. Don’t count it out. Im not saying go sell all your equipment and focus on learning the ios platform but I am saying don’t get left behind because you don’t want to change. Plus the one cool thing is that its touch screen so you still are able to beat the pads.. GENTLY. Have you guys experimented with any beat making apps? If so, drop a comment letting us know your thoughts. Until next time catch me everywhere @AGGOTBEATS Watch the vid by the homie and MM member Jay Ellyiot on Beat Maker 2.
You can use the search widget below to find any of the music production apps mention in this post.
PEACE,
AGGOTBEATS
You know, I just had a conversation with a friend the otherday about this same accord. I am in the middle somewhere. I mainly get my creative concepts out on the fly if I hear something while I am not near my station.
I’ll be honest it is still hard to take it super serious at the moment but, anything is possible. As I type this I am on the IPad Air and the DAW that I use on here is Garage Band. I feel like the biggest thing to conquer is a solid workflow and also have an awesome mic to lace vocals on the composition.
Software is the way to go for sure. Hands down!
Sometimes you don’t cannot carry those laptop with you when you got time. So it is good to have iphone (touchable) or ipad with you to make track but you can always finish in the studio. I use the ipad to sometimes to do mixdown because it bluetooth to the computer. I look at as a essential tool since nowaway, I can work on a track at home and i have to take the train to work or whatever, i can log in iphone
and make adjustment. Software is the way to go now like S@nd3m0n1um said. But in the studio..bring the laptop..
It might take me a minute but I’m sure tablets will be the next wave. I guess it’s not the car it’s the driver like I always say, just not sure if I wanna be driving my iPad to the studio in the near future lol. When I fly I used to bring my mpc 500 and that was cool, the next few flights I started using impc and that was cool too… when I switched to maschine and got imaschine it wasn’t such a cool move for me. Maybe they’ll improve it maybe not…either way I’m good, but yeah, I see the tablet being the new wave in the near future, I just hope we (Maschine Masters) don’t end up like the MV Nation (Roland MV800/8800 users) it’s a ghost town over there LOL, but if we do it’s all good… Maschine 4 Life!
I gotta say that although I love my maschine, the vast majority of my production takes place in BeatMaker 2 on the iPad. Only for beats though and since I’m sample based mainly it is an especially capable tool. It really is a professional sampler on a tablet platform. Just like an MPC I get all my tracks down with all the different patterns and then I bounce the tracks seperately with the click of a button. Upload to Dropbox and then do the final mix down and editing on my MAC with Logic. It is like being able to carry around an MPC2500 in a tablet but faster and more powerful. And more convenient. I mean for crying out loud I can sample directly from my iTunes!! For the nay Sayers out there.. I notice most that disapprove are doing so because they’ve only experienced imaschine and impc. Those two apps are purposely crippled. They don’t want you to be able to do everything because then you won’t buy their hardware. Try beatmaker2. It’s 20 bucks. You can’t lose. If you don’t like it (although I’m sure you will) what’s 20 bucks?