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Ethanol-fueled writes:
"After many years of lambasting smartphone users during my tenure at "The Other Site," I finally broke down and got a recent-model Android phone, and I'm appealing to the musicians in the audience for help: Which apps for music recording on Android would you recommend? Any stories, bugs, or gotchas of which we should be made aware? Features provided, number of tracks, backing tracks, effects, etc.? I'd prefer Android-specific information but discussion of music recording on iOS or other mobile platforms, heck any digital recording, would be welcome. Cost is not a factor, but stability is very important.
I've done a good amount of recording using Cubase on PCs so I'm no stranger to digital recording over all, one of the reasons why I'm asking you all is because most 'reviews' online seem untrustworthy, the two I'd think I'd like best are full of bad reviews and I need the straight dope from a technical crowd.
Thanks in advance for your stories and suggestions!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by d on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:02PM
This idea sounds ridiculous to me. Why would anyone want to do this kind of stuff using Android instead of a PC?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Worchaa on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:11PM
Why ? Field recording would be reason #1. Laptops aren't well suited for field recording unless you're dealing with something like a mixing console at an outdoor venue.
Can't recommend any decent recording packages for Android. I would suggest taking a peek at digital field recorders though. You might not want to carry two devices, but I'm sure you'll enjoy the quality of a compact dedicated field recorder.
- Marching Band: It's not just for breakfast anymore.
(Score: 1) by rochrist on Monday March 10 2014, @02:48PM
You can buy actual made for purpose field recorders that do an outstanding job for not very much money. An android phone would be a disaster.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:22PM
Dunno, but it's obvious that it's the same kind of thing that people use to justify trying to replace PCs with tablets.
(Score: 2) by cornholed on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:27PM
People are doing it with iPads [apple.com], why not with Android?
(Score: 2) by elgrantrolo on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:55PM
Android is an alternative to Windows as much as Linux and OS X are. For some even more of an alternative because:
a) It works with mobile devices rather than just conventional PCs
b) There's already so many users that it's likely to attract a supportive community and/or companies providing useful services
c) more likely to work out of the box than Linux based software
d) iPad users do have a lot of music related apps, it's fair to expect the same to happen with Android.
The last time I checked, in the context of getting a guitar to interface with a PC, it turned out that iOS was at an advantage in terms of getting low latency connections.
With more quad core CPUs and other performance improvements from the hardware side of things, it felt likely to see this software advantage go away. However, there was a headstart from the iOS camp, in my opinion because iOS inherited from OS X developer expertise. The people at Apple probably saw this happen and worked on it before Google did.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ccanucs on Sunday March 09 2014, @07:02PM
Not so much Android, but definitely on iPad.
Reasons? Mobility and the availability of low-cost synthesizer applications on iOS - such as iSEM (Oberheim SEM emulation), iMini (Minimoog emulation), iMS-20 from Korg (Korg MS-20 emulation), iPolysix (from Korg - Polysix emulation), iVCS3 (a new emulation just released of the Putney VCS3 - used by Pink Floyd, Hawkwind and others), Z3TA+2 from Cakewalk (same as the PC version) and dozens of others - all at a *fraction* of the cost of the PC/Mac equivalents - and the availablility of quality recording applications such as Cubasis (from the makers of Cubase) and Auria - fully functional DAW. The facility of a touch screen interface also provide new innovative interaction and musically expressive creation mechanisms, such as with Animoog from Moog.
Audiobus connects these applications together with FX applications for adding reverb, delay and so on, as well as in-iPad mastering. All on a hand-carry-able mobile platform. Many of the applications also share patches, MIDI sequences, resulting wave files and so on with desktop counterparts if need be.
Lots of good reasons.
There's a whole industry geared towards this. Android has suffered from a MIDI latency problem which has held it back in terms of music production - but iOS devices are fast becoming part of music studios around the world. It's a new era - just as desktop DAW software was new 20 years ago but accepted now as the norm alongside traditional studios using tape and large board mixers and outboard devices.
Jordan Rudess and Wolfgang Palm (a pioneer in hardware synthesis), both work with iOS devices. In fact, Palm recently wrote a new application *first* on iOS before porting to other platforms.
There's lots going on with this already. Whole albums being produced this way. Check it out! Google what's out there. :-)