Cubasis/iPad for Sketching Ideas Tutorial

[locustreign]

I'm not sure how many of you have played around with Cubasis on the iPad, but I did a tutorial on taking a thrash riff from a "sketch" on Cubasis to a full blown mix by importing into Cubase 7 and remapping drums to Steven Slate and adding bass, etc.



Brief cameo appearances by Steve Slate drums, Reason 7, iZotope, and Toontrack Dirk Verbeuren Library of the Extreme Midi.

Let me know what you think. It would be especially beneficial to hear if anything was unclear, I spent too much time on a certain area, general constructive criticism. I will also devote a small portion of time to entertaining trolls, but overall I've found that most people here are decent human beings and this shouldn't really be necessary.

COME AT ME BRO! and thanks.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I've been eyeing cubasis since it came out, but damn $50 is a bit of cash just for a fucking idevice app.

I'm sure it's nice though. Would prefer to have the alesis dock when I finally decide to snag it.

 

[locustreign]

Price is definitely steep. I'm looking forward to the day when all DAWs have these sort of feature sets included (iPad companion apps, iOS wireless recording remotes). I was looking at the Apogee line for a compatible and portable recording setup (Duet/Quartet).

 

[Mortal_Dezire]

That is pretty right on. I've been looking to do something like this with vocals since I have to record them in my car with the ipad, (I live in a small apartment). I use Reaper as my DAW though. How easy do you think this would be to import into a Reaper project? I want to know for sure before I drop the $50 on cubasis.

 

[plague_rider]

I got Garageband and the Ampkit which is like Revalver for the iPad...

I got Garageband as I won the iPad and an iTunes voucher at work and thought it would be good just to sketch ideas with... not been too bad... though guitar feedback on high gain channels is a bitch... maybe its the cable I got (£9) rather than an actual peavey/native instruments input...

The Ampkit is pretty good, comes with a Peavey Valveking but you can buy more stuff from the store like gutiar amps, bass amps and pedals and what not... its also good for sketching ideas but for drums you gotta get the drum tracks across to the app which is a total bitch... they couldn't have made it more difficult to create a drum track in garageband and export it to ampkit...

 

[locustreign]

I haven't looked much into a stem export or midi settings but the biggest "sell" for me was the close Cubase integration. I'll have to poke around to see.

I would assume there is a similar ease in taking a project in Garageband on the iPad and pulling that into Garageband or Logic. I think it's pretty clear to DAW makers that this sort of native-friendly iPad project integration is highly desired. My hope is that one day they have to keep up with each other and offer the Apps for free...or at least cheaper than $50 USD for Cubasis. While we're on wishful thinking some sort of cross-platform DAW metadata that was iPad/tablet/Reaper friendly would be great too

 

[Sloan]

Hey, I really dig the idea of having a mobile digital sketch pad etc... thanks for posting...

i've been experimenting with NanoStudio and it seems pretty legit so far... anything that can take the ipad from toy to tool is something i'm interested in...

 

[plague_rider]

So I thought at the weekend that seeing as it only comes with a valveking, a gate and a screamer pedal, I'd maybe invest in more amps and stuff to mess around with on the ampkit...

Turns out its like £4 an amp... there are bundles, but no bass amps come as standard in there... and I know £4 isn't much... but it is seeing as the ampkit is there strictly for sketching... its a bit much... I'll stick to garagebands piddly amps...

 

[aortizjr]

Slight Nekrobump... sorry.

What did you use to screen capture the iPad like that?

Also how are the amp sims and drum samples in Cubasis?

I am about to collaborate with a friend who moved away and only owns an iPad and I suggested Cubasis. But I have a feeling I will be teaching him remotely how to dial in workable tones and send me the files.

Where I am from, I suspect this will start happening more as dudes laptops age and they switch to iPad's for music writing. Hell even I have switched to using for scratchpad writing, way faster to boot up and get going than my full DAW and it is damn portable for wherever ideas strike haha.

 

[locustreign]

I had the iPad connected via HDMI to a Blackmagic Design Intensity Extreme, connected to my laptop via Thunderbolt and then everything was recorded with ScreenFlow...I think. Your nekrobumping is making all the original details hazy!

Amp sims and Cubasis are...pretty much the bare minimum. And by that I mean you could put an amp sim on a dry guitar signal, send the file to me and I would "understand" that eventually that part would be a distorted guitar but played out through Cubasis sounds like a toy. The drum sounds are the same way.

I use dry guitar and midi for pretty much every project these days, so you just have to spend a little more effort after "sketching" everything in Cubasis to make it resemble an actual mix/tone. If your friend can hang on Cubasis then you can import everything into Cubase and make it sound like a big boy mix. Sending back and forth might be a challenge. You may be better off with just sending song stems through a shared Dropbox account or something.

TL;DR: Cubasis works great as a "scratchpad for music, doesn't work as a full blown replacement to even a project studio DAW.