If you have not checked out your updates for your iPad apps GarageBand was updated today to support AudioBus! This is pretty significant. This indicates that Apple is throwing their support into the AudioBus app arena. Considering that Jack just announced their new app that is similar to AudioBus. If you want to read some more on Jack this is a good review….
Want some more free time? Ever have to give tests that need to be graded?
Create the test in Google Forms then use Flubaroo to grade it! Seriously easy to do – go to their web page and watch the video!
iPads in music education can open the minds of our students to wonders that they have never imagined could be theirs! I get reminded of these moments of amazement when a students walks in while I am using technology. So many times they are wide eyed and captivated by the possibilities. Everything from playing my keyboard and having the notation instantly show up on the computer to a student asking what the name of the song is that I am playing for them to listen to and hearing their reaction when I tell them that the song was one I created on my iPad the night before. I can see the wheels spinning in their heads – “What if I could do that?”, they are asking it…. All they need are the tools! Now don’t get me wrong, I know our kids have been creating music for years with the traditional band instruments, singers, drums and electric guitars but I am not talking about the traditional here. I am talking about being able to have one iPad, a set of headphones, and a desire to create!
What if you were able to put a recording studio in the hands of your students, show them a few apps, and then give them the freedom to create? How would your students change?
iPads can open up a whole new world to our students – a world that once was cornered by only those with lots and lots of money! Now an iPad opens up the possibility of an entire recording studio filled with amazing synths, guitar amps, and recorders. Those come in the form of apps, apps that cost any where from being free to $5, $10, $15 and up to $20 and $50! Of course if you take into account the ability to record themselves with the built in mic or if they want even better quality they can hook up and external mic through the camera connection kit.
Tonight was an exploration of several apps for me…. I used MusicStudio as the multitrack recorder. For sounds I used AddictiveSynth, Sunrizer and ThumbJam. I of course used Audiobus to get them hooked together. This recording has 9 tracks.
I would be crazy excited if my students were creating music at home like this! (Not that I think this is anything spectacular – but instead just because they would be exploring and composing and enjoying themselves!)
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+ = one evening of great fun!
I don’t normally do this…
I have been wanting the LifeProof case for a long time and at $79 normally I’ve just had to wait. Today I found a factory re-conditioned on sale for $20 PLUS I got free shipping!
http://www.all4cellular.com/dailydeal/
Not sure what these guy’s track record is… not sure what exactly factory re-conditioned means in their case (no pun intended) but for $20 – I’m willing to go for it!
I have stated before on this blog that as much as I use my iPad in my teaching of music, I have not taken the time to actually create with it! I’ve had tons of apps sitting there that are capable of playing music in new and innovative ways, I’ve just not actually used them to record with! I’ve bought Digital Audio Workstation apps that allow me to record but in the past I’ve just used my computer. There are been apps sitting there that have made me say “wow, that’s pretty sweet!” I’ve seen the apps get created that allow us to connect the audio from one app to another and that inspired me say “Hey, I should do that!” sooooo…..
Today I took some time to try to piece some of these different pieces together. Here is the final product: I am using ReverbNation
Here is the process I used to get to the final product….
I started with Impaktor and created some drum jams! If you have not seen this app let me tell you…. make sure your wife is NOT around when you download it because she will not like it! (This guy got kicked outside!)On loading the app you now have the ability to turn all that crazy tapping rhythms on the table into actual drum sounds! The app picks up the tapping, clapping, snapping and other noise – analyzes it for volume, timbre and other things then it turns that info into magical music! It’s loads of great fun!
Then I loaded up MultiTrack DAW, from HarmonicDog.com – an app that allows you to record up to 24 tracks of audio! This is what I started dumping audio clips into. I used Apple’s AudioPaste/Copy to take the drum patterns from Impaktor and bring them into MultiTrack.
AudioBus was the next app I fired up as I wanted to see how things worked when I started linking apps together. Frankly I fully believe that for a music app to really be taken seriously from now on it will HAVE to support AudioBus! This app makes it so easy to make two apps work together! You have an input app, an FX app, and an output app. Once I selected MultiTrack as the output app I set ThumbJam as the input app. That allowed me to jump into Thumbjam but I still had some controls on the side of the iPad that gave me the ability to play or record in MultiTrack! No more starting one app and trying to quickly jump to the other app “in time”!
I also used Animoog in this recording. Animoog is a great example of an amazing company that was around when synths began and are still innovating with todays tech and tools. Animoog is also a good example of why you should be watching for these music apps when they go on sale! I know for a fact that I most certainly did NOT pay $29.99 for this app like it is listed for currently! I’m all for paying developers what they deserve but $30 is a bit steep in the iOS world of apps. I’ve swallowed hard and paid $19.99 two times though. With that being said… the Animoog app is very nicely done and lots of fun to play! It is one of those apps that takes full advantage of the touch screen!
Then after getting done playing around and jamming I finally used the MultiTrack DAW app to upload the final product to SoundCloud, I also connected my web browser using wi-fi to the app and downloaded an m4a version of the mix as well as downloading a zip file of the entire project to archive on my laptop. I did not really want to leave the audio on my iPad as I really don’t have the room! My iPad is only 32GB’s and I am constantly out of room! BUT BIG FOLKS! 64 GB minimum if you are going to be messing around with recording audio, video and putting pictures on your iPad. At the end of this post is a screenshot of the Wi-Fi interface MultiTrack gives you so that you can download these files WITHOUT hooking up any cords! I will say that I had a bit of an issue getting my audio clips to line up real well in MultiTrack!
UPDATED – I guess it does pay to read the manual! I knew that some place in MultiTrack there was an option to change the tempo and therefore the gridlines to match the audio clips I had recorded in Impaktor. Up in the top left corner of the iPad screen is the answer – there you can set time sig, tempo and a few other things as well. By changing the tempo to 120 (the speed at which I had recorded clips in Impaktor) I could now see measure markers and grids that helped me line things up! Of course then I read more on the forums and found that in the Menu there is a snap setting! That meant that my fiddle faddling with TRYING to line audio clips up by eye was all wasted time!
Last thing I would like to mention is I have been discussing with a few people online about an iPad DAW that allows for recording of audio as well as MIDI (I have some nice external keyboards that I want to through in the mix!) I really appreciate the ability to have knowledgable people out there that are willing to give feedback on what they are using and like! Thanks to Twitter I had almost made a decision, based on their input, and then I was notified that MusicStudio had just done an update with AudioBus compatibility! Talk about timing! There were several other apps that released updates this past week all centered around AudioBus as well!
If you are not following these people on twitter you should! – ChoirGuy, Richard and Barbara they love teaching music and love using tech to do it! I am looking forward to purchasing MusicStudio soon and trying this app out as well!
How can I inspire students to create music? By giving them exciting tools that will enable them to create something that sounds good, is fun to use and engages them!
Chordion kept me busy for a long time tonight – of course that’s not saying TOO much! It was great fun exploring the user interface…. Here’s a screen shot….
You can see the chord buttons on the left and the keyboardish looking section on the right – as it says in the blue screen shot you play with two hands in this app.
I kept thinking about what my elementary kids are going to be thinking when I let them try the app out. I know that it would be an easy experience for them! The way the app is set up you are not going to hear wrong notes. The bad news side of that is I found it a bit limiting and kept wanting to be able to play other notes! Well, after diggin down into the settings I discovered that my wishes could be granted! You can set the right hand side of the screen to play any scale you want! There are quite a few built in as pre-sets scale patterns.
Then I discovered the play button that starts the drum patterns – that along with the arpeggiator makes things more interesting to play along with!
Of course I got bored pretty quick with that one sound so I started fiddling around with trying out all the different sliders and waveforms along with the effects settings. Then I decided to tap on the disk icon and discovered the online sharing world of settings there! (good and bad can be found!)
Tapping on the Record icon gives you immediate access to sharing your newly created masterpiece to iTunes, DropBox or SoundCloud. I found the SoundCloud integration refreshing – not enough apps utilize SoundCloud – it is a fast, fun way to share you music! Here is my “masterpiece“
Go check it out and play with this app – you should be able to imagine a place to put it to use if you work with kids that are creating music on iPads!
PS – I almost forgot to mention that Chordion has builtin in MIDI capabilities as well! That means you can use Chordion to play other apps – For instance play SunRizer with the chords and ThumbJam with the keyboard!
WISHES – I do wish that Chordion would get a bit more creative with the capabilities on the keyboard – give us some variety depending on where you finger hits (far right – middle – far left). This sort of interactivity is pretty standard in iPad keyboard apps. Even if I could control the volume by where my finger was hitting it would be a step in the right direction.
I thought I was done posting for the day….
and then….
SmartMusic sent an email with a link to an online demo of the SmartMusic iPad app in action! Now I’m really getting excited!
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