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Hi, I wanted to let everyone know what kind of rig I've been using and ask other members of the community for some advice/feedback regarding iOS recording and production. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd love to hear about mobile music production from people other than YouTube. lol As far as my rig goes, I have an iPad mini, running through a Focusrite iTrack Dock (anyone familiar with Focusrite would like to know that it is a cousin of the Scarlet as it uses the same mic preamps) with lightning connector allowing me to record at 24-bit/96kHz and get some really good sounds. If there are any other users on the forums that produce with iOS tech, I'd love to hear about it! I'll list my setup (with links) as it stands below so you can get a better idea of what I'm working with. Tracking/Audio Capture: 2 Samson CL8 Studio Condenser Microphones (I use other mics too, but these are the ones that get used the most) Focusrite iTrack Dock iPad mini Harmonicdog MultiTrack DAW Final Touch Guitar Amp Simulation: BIAS Amp BIAS FX Synthesizers: SoundPrism Caustic Drum Machine/Loops: Caustic Now, at this point, I could get pretty redundant as there any many different ways to use each of the apps to get a different result, but the main thing I wanted to share was that I use the inter-app audio support of the Positive Grid apps (BIAS FX and BIAS Amp) within Multitrack DAW to get my amp sounds and often use the effects bus in the DAW for reverb/delay as they are relatively high quality. I can use BIAS for guitar and bass guitar. SoundPrism does not have inter-app audio support nor does it have AudioBus support (I don't know about SoundPrism PRO, though... haven't used it) so I am using an external device (iPhone 4, baby!) via 3.5mm to 1/4" cable into my line-in port of the iTrack Dock. This comes in handy for a lot of things like my chaos pad (SynthPad, which also does not have Audiobus support). Those of you familiar with recording via iOS will know how valuable AudioShare can be, and that is the main way I take drum loops/samples from Caustic or other DAWs (like GarageBand) and import them into MultiTrack as it is a much better DAW with good EQ, Reverb, Delay, Compression, and editing options in a very simple, user-friendly setting. Not the most complex or feature-packed DAW on iOS (not like Cubasis or Auria) but it does a good job for very cheap. Once my project is done, I bounce the track, export it to Final Touch, and start with several of their mastering presets and tweak them to my specs. I have the option to export the whole track in many different file types, bitrates, and have the option to upload directly to Dropbox, SoundCloud, email, etc... BUT Final Touch is also great for mastering tracks BEFORE they hit the DAW. Sometimes I'll send my drum track from Caustic (which may include live automation, synths, drum samples, etc...) and want it to sound a certain way before I mix in my live tracks (guitars, vocals, saxophones, hand percussion, etc...) and will give me a better idea of what to listen for and edit properly. THEN I'll bounce that, and master the whole track, making less-drastic edits to my master, and have a more coherent sounding track. This is just scratching the surface of what is available to artists via iOS and I may have said a lot of redundant things but I wanted to share what I do with others who haven't experimented with iOS music production/creation before and get some ideas from others who have been doing it longer/differently than myself. Thanks!

Hello. I have gotten really interested on producing both orchestral and rather melodic dubstep/drumstep styles lately and have tried to fit them them all into single tracks, and i was wondering are there people here interested on same category? I would be interested on hearing of such productions and discussing about them in general What about just producing only orchestral and or only melodic dubstep or drumstep? I was suggested to come visit here from DSF ninja community in hopes of advice for building full on orchestral music, well i have in fact already tried to compose some full orchestral pieces already on my own, but my compositions have been rather short so far so i have mostly only made them as intros on my tracks with virtual instruments mostly from Native Instruments and then just started making beats and sound designs after that with an faster tempo, here is my latest example: So any opinions or advice on that? I got already one useful advice on which i totally agreed: the part on around 1:50 in the track, on which i stop the orchestral intro and started making the verse and chorus, i first lower the tempo even lower down from 110bpm for few seconds and then lift it up to around 160bpm so i can make faster almost drumstep style track, but that precise part does sound kind of.. off, because the super saw sound design sounds weird while speeding up.. so should i make the part on which i change the tempo totally quiet and/or at least faster or with different sounds.. or should i just try to make full orchestral tracks as in keeping the 'intro' of my tracks out and making dubstep and drumstep and orchestral separate, trying to fit too much into single tracks can be kind of.. weird.. what do you think? Well then again on my own opinion, i like to try to fit lot's of stuff into my productions because for example the orchestral intro does bring rather exciting feeling into the track but then when it changes into dubstep/drumstep, it does have some sort of other feeling which makes me enjoy making the production. What about mixing and mastering? I have sucked at it especially earlier on and have tried to practice it more alongside with sound design and build practice and am not super familiar with chords either in general how they actually work, so far i've mostly just tried playing them on my midi keyboard or adjusting them otherwise in piano roll which would sound about right. My choice of DAW is Fl Studio 12 which seems to be my kind of workstation in all other parts except it being really hard on my CPU (annoying lag sometimes when there is lot's of stuff happening at the same time and CPU peaks at 100% usage) so don't know if any other would be better on that part but not in the set of mind on changing daw as FLS has best workflow for me at least and am familiar with it so i am trying to only get my productions sound better to people in general and i think that changing daw ain't the solution for that

Hello, I use Ableton Live as a DAW for a couple of years. But my question is more general. I would like to know your workflow of doing VGM arrangement. I would guess that I should first find out the chords and melody ; put them into midi. And then get my prefered VSTI and VST to get things moved along to build my arrangement. Would you mind sharing your workflow with me ? Second question, do you do start to finish only one track per time ? or do you work on 5 (or more) tracks !? Thx in advance

At the moment I'm trying to improve the amount and quality of the articulations of my VSTI guitar sounds in my DAW. There's a lot of great stuff you can do with the keyswitch buttons, the mod wheel, the pitch wheel and all the possible automations of course. But one thing I haven 't found out yet. It's about how to emulate the techniques with the whammy/tremolo bar of electric guitars which can give some really awesome sounds >>> It's stuff like this I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAeD9-J8exk According to my knowledge a whammy bar is a device on modern electric guitars that allows the player to give or take tension from the chords/strings of the guitar. Different tension of the strings means that there is (at least) a pitch shift is going on - and as it seems (sounds) it 's a much different pitch shift than normal bendings and vibratos you perform with your own hands directly on the strings. So what's the big secret of the whammy bar if you want to emulate this in your DAW - or is there something like a special VST plugin for this?

After spending about 10 years with Garage Band, someone gave me Reason Essentials last year and I was very excited to try it out. But most of the things I like to write are orchestral or at least have an orchestral backbone and Reason was not very good for that (just trying to find a place to buy the Miroslav Refill was overly difficult). So I'm looking to start fresh with a new DAW that will fit my needs better. Since I use a MacBook Pro and have experience with Garage Band, I'm leaning towards Logic Pro. I hear it's orchestral stuff is pretty good and the $200 price point doesn't hurt. But I wanted to get some opinions from the community here first. Is Logic Pro good for orchestral writing or should I check out something else?