A great way to become familiar with a piece of software is to explore projects of already completed productions. iOS musician Jinx Padlock (SoundCloud) has shared with me his NanoStudio project file for his latest track EgyptianPrescription:
Here’s what Jinx had to say in regards to the project:
“When Sean asked me if I would like to share a NanoStudio project with the community, I instantly looked to my back catalogue and just couldn’t decide on a suitable example.
EgyptianPrescriptian is my latest release into the wild, so its fitting that its the one that I let you all examine and play with.
So – all the channels are set up with the EQ from my mix that is on Soundcloud, the arrangement is untouched, but the twist in the tale, and just to make this more fun for me and challenging for you – I have flattened all the mixer channels. You too, can now experience the pain of balancing out a mix around those massive NLog bass pads!
Please feel free to remix it, pull it to pieces, take what you will within reason! And, obviously, please let me know when you’re done!”
You can download the .NSP file here! Good luck!
Also: check out Jinx Padlock’s debut EP!
Follow Jinx Padlock! SoundCloud, Twitter, Facebook
Let the games begin. Feel free to ask
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What’s your opinion of BM2? You accomplish quite a bit within NS’ limits, but they drove me to BM2.
Keep it up, man. Your songs are great.
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wow.
1 what headphones do you use while you’re on the train?
2 doesn’t producing on the iPad feel restricting in some ways? how do you manage to get all of that happening on a tablet??
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Do you get most of your drum tracks from apps/drum machines or do you mostly import samples?
Thanks for sharing the nsp!
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EcentC – I do use loops from collections, but incresingly less so – the amount of processing that can be achieved now within ios allows for bespoke loop creation, whick is ALWAYS better! Sometimes its nice to add a loop that just drives a certain frequency, keep things rolling.
DM1 is a brilliant tool, not got bored yet…
Hypersleep – Thanks for the big up! I have BM2 and use it occasionally for audio processing and MIDI – although Cubasis is now my main MIDI slave. I really dont like BM2s mixer, its nowhere near as responsive as NS for my money. I’ve tried porting a full set of seperate tracks over to Auria too, but even on a iPad4, it can’t handle 32+ tracks of JP madness.
Sometimes having limits is good – and If I feel restrained in anyway by NS I take my audio elsewhere and process it until I’m happy. NS just wins on speed of arrangement and mixer response.
Jake45 – good questions, and essential info – Sennheiser HD 25-1 II. Since moving onto them I will never listen to music on anything else. THe key to good clear mixes is the quality of your headgear, and those work for me.
As for question 2 – erm…NO! I find it perfect for what i’m doing. I found the iPhone a bit restrictive, moving onto the iPad was a world of fun. Theres a massive surge in technology and apps, its dizzying to watch how fast iOS for music is developing, I find no restrictions, other than when I’m not feeling it – and that doesn’t happen too often.
Its all there, it just takes some time to work out your own workflow, the right apps for you – if anything, now if I ever think of dabbling with a desktop DAW, i find the interface restrictive. Its nice making music with your fingers ;)
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What’s your approach to mixing. I know you want us to figure out how to mix this. But, you can give away a few secrets. Do you leave the master fader alone or do you lower it if clipping. How much do you utilize pan?
Also I use bm2 a lot for virtual midi and I agree about the mixer. Right now my workflow is bm2 to nano studio. Then master in Auria. Obviously Auria can’t handle JP and you have the final project in Nanostudio. I’ve found Auria takes forever to copy to pasteboard. Isn’t it a pain to do all that transferring from Auria to NS?
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The Master fader was a red herring – its pretty low in my mix!
I generally mix as I go along, pretty much after every hour creating I look at the mix. I generally try to keep the master at its origin until I get to final mixdown. Obviously, if like me, you’re slamming a couple of compressors on every channel, things are going to get loud quickly, so I end up with fader heights that almost dont register!
As far as panning, I haven’t reset that – I try and enhance stereo in the samples themselves – a cheap way of automating the mix!
Auria is a bit of a strange enigma, I really would love to use it to final mix everything, maybe ipad6?
The stuff I’m doing tends to be 4/8/16 bar loops, so copying isnt too bad. I’m still honeymooning with Audiobus, so I’ve not quite got a standard working pattern with it yet, but I’m very fond of dumping into AudioShare. Thats become integral.
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Firstly, Thankyou Sean & JP
I look forward to playing with the .NSP files tomorrow,.
My question is what are your musical heroes and take us a little through your writing process, I personally, just sit and play with an app until something starts to sound good, then keep homing in on that idea :-) it takes me through lots of different styles of music as I’d like to think my listening habits are wide and don’t really dismiss stuff just because its from a certain genre, although obviously I have my favourites.
Anyway, once again Thankyou for sharing.
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Hi David,
I like a pretty wide range of stuff, I am pretty obsessed with production, so heroes would have to be Alan Parsons, Talk Talk, George Martin, Travor Horn etc. Recently Trentemoller is a a fave for achieving things in the electronic world.
I do pretty much the same as what you described. Sometimes it’ll start with a drum pattern, sometimes a synthhook, sometimes a sample. Since I get to listen to a lot of music at work, I might here something that inspires me to try something similar.
Every so often I just spend a bit of time messing with synths and sampling whatever noises I create, this can sometimes lead straight into a new tune, or provide arsenal to finish others.
I like music that has journeys, and creating that journey should be a journey in its own right! The fact that I do this ON a journey should make the universe collapse in on itself ;)
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Thanks for this, Sean and JP. It’s pretty cool to see how other people are using iOS for music-making. I posted my remix on my Soundcloud (click my name).
I noticed you mentioned headphones in a previous comment. Do you mix entirely with phones or do you use monitors as well?
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Hi Stephen,
I rarely use monitors, headphones are the way, and the HD-25s dont lie!
I sometimes monitor on the car stereo – its an age old studio tradition, good way of hearing things that are going wrong!
I’ll check your mix out – looking forward to it!
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