Making music workflow: Primarily about rhythm section

[jameslondon74]

Hi there.

New to Auria, back to making music thanks to the amazing capability of the iPad and getting my hands on many delicious music apps (moog, gadget etc).

I want to use Auria as my multitracker recording studio. I'm a solo musician, and I'm looking to make ambient / electronic soundscapes featuring minimalist percussion, and extensive use of textural synths and sounds courtesy of the Moog synth apps, other apps like TC-08, Zeon etc. (think Boards of Canada, Early Jarre, etc)

How do people here construct their tracks? Do you lay down loops of drum beats you've already created? Do you play drums into Auria via MIDI, keeping them as MIDI? Do you export the MIDI tracks to audio tracks?

I'm particularly unsure about how to approach the rhythm section of my music. E.g. what comes first, the basic loop? And then re-record other loops to re-work the rhythms into something more interesting? Or maybe forget about rhythm at first, and lay down a few musical ideas and then work percussion into it?

Any advice / tips will be much appreciated. (I'm used to working with a band - so as a solo musician I'd like a little leg up)
Thanks.

[richardyot]

There are several workflows for this. I always have some kind of beat laid down before I write any music, just to get the tempo and the vibe going.

If you want to create your own beats or drum patterns from scratch the best app is probably DrumPerfect Pro. It's very comprehensive, gives you a lot of control, allows you to import your own samples (or use the ones that come with the app) but there is a learning curve. The bundled sounds are mostly acoustic but you can bring in any kind of sound you want.

If you would rather use ready-made beats the two best options IMO are to use either the Drummer feature in GarageBand, or the Luis Martinez drum apps: both of these will offer you lots of different beats and also create variations and fills automatically, so you end up with very dynamic drums tracks. For electronic type sounds Luis Martinez has an app called Future Drummer, which is excellent, but he also has many other drum apps in different styles, such as Funk Drummer, Rock Drummer, Soft Drummer, Middle East Drummer etc... The GarageBand drummer can do both electronic or more acoustic styles, and is really excellent.

Here's a couple of examples of mine, this one uses the GarageBand Drummer:

https://soundcloud.com/richardyot/time-new-vocals

And this one is based on Middle Eastern Drummer:

https://soundcloud.com/richardyot/auria ... y-the-tide