iPad Tips; or, Biscuit vs. BOUM

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

Dear All,
So my family has somewhat pushed my hand to buy iPad (i didn’t put up much of a fight, tbh). 64gb Mini 4. I hope to make good use of some of the great apps available. I already have lined up Nave, Animoog, Thor and Strom. I’ve already dug through the posts and scrounged what I could from people who had posted about it earlier.
Considering how fast paced it moves, Ive probably missed some things. Im wondering if you might enlighten me on apps or methods you’ve gone about in integrating the ipad in to your setup. Specifically the following:

  • Audio Out: I know that devices such as the iConnect series and various docks allow for audio out. In order so that I can avoid yet another device, is there an extraordinary difference using these as opposed to the audio out from the headphone jack? For the time being, anyway. I have purchased a Hosa mini-jack to dual-mono TS. Any other suggestions?

  • Apps: Suggestions here would be lovely. Apart from the aforementioned, I’ve heard the Korg versions are ok.

  • Sequencing/Clock: I don’t really do sequencing yet apart from a few melodies from Ableton. And I know ModStep is on the way. How would this work? Would I have to use a computer or one of the aforementioned docks?

  • Various: any other advice is welcome and greatly appreciated.

I am also curious as to running it through a filter to “warm” it up. In following the latest OTO Biscuit run, I was close to pulling he trigger until I saw the BOUM “Warming Unit” I wonder if I should hold off on the Biscuit until the BOUM is announced? I know that they are different machines, and the BOUM isn’t too much less in price. Maybe the BISCUIT offers more “bang for the buck”? I know no one knows anything about the BOUM; maybe those who have the BIM and/or Biscuit can chime in on how much the one differs from the other in terms of overlap or features to give a clue as to how much the BOUM will differ from the Biscuit. The 8-Bit distortion is certainly great, but my aim is more for the drive/warmth factor. And DerOTO would be great. Any thoughts on this matter would be helpful.

Thank you to anyone who drops in on this. This board is fantastic.

#2

Moog Filtratron provides sufficient warmth, no need to buy external gear for just that purpose.

Other recommendations: Lorentz, BassLine, iMPC if you don’t own a real MPC, Loopy HD. Of course there are lots and lots of other great apps (Sunrizer, Nave, Mito, Samplr, Egoist…), but you need just a few to have fun.

Edit: Turnado if FX are what you’re after.

#3

[ul]
[li]samplr[/li]
[li]Soundscaper pro[/li]
[li]Virtual ANS[/li]
[li]TC-11[/li]
[/ul]

I use these the most. YMMV

#4

The inherintly low sample rate (30kHz) and bit depth of the biscuit will colour the signal of anything you run through it much more than just warming. I’d wait for the BOUM to come out if you want a hardware warming unit, it does look great. Also there was a thread at Gearslutz recently on warming up synths that should give you plenty of alternatives.

#5

…i love my bisquit…

but i would’nt call it a warming things up gadget in first place at all…

it’s a destroyer that can tame and tease all that distortion and destruction it creates, in a very gentle and musically way…

end of the day, it’s a very exclusive and expensive piece of boutique gear, that can do a few very fancy things to your signals and that’s about it…and they’re out of stock these days…

there are more effective and versatile ways to invest that money…
a sherman filter bank…just as an example…

and for now…you can trust the sound, that comes out of most of the good apps …
an i conncet interface also seems the better investment here…instead of an oto…

#6

Ya neither Biscuit nor Bim really “Warm” things IMO (I have both). I wouldn’t expect BOUM for another year at least. BAM is next and it will probably be some months. Crossing my fingers we will have BOUM in a a year, but it’s a slow process for a small team.

#7

This is the list of my favorite (instruments) apps :

Animoog
iPolysix
Bassline
Samplr
Sector
Magellan
iMini
iSem
iVcs3
Patterning

but the real power is to put everything in the octatrack and then sync to the others elektrons :wink:

…and I’ve buy the iConnect midi, but now for 10$ you have that app that let you send and recieve midi and audio : Music IO :dizzy_face:

#8

i mostly use

audio bus plus the routing in app purchase
dedalus
aufx : all their apps.
turnado
flux fx
effectrix

patterning (drum machine)
fm4 (fm)
elastic drums seems good (drum machine)

touchable (controller)
lemur (controller)

plus all of the above in this thread (smplr etc)

hardware wise i use io dock 2 (alesis) , its got midi in out , audio in out , headphone , usb midi and phantom power.

i think theres a lot of innovation in ios audio apps.

#9

Thanks. If Moogs done as well with this as Animoog I’ll have to check it out. Turnado looks badass.

#10

Looks like Samplr is a must. Just not sure how mitch overlap there will be with Strom. Soundscaper looks amazing.

#11

The inherintly low sample rate (30kHz) and bit depth of the biscuit will colour the signal of anything you run through it much more than just warming. I’d wait for the BOUM to come out if you want a hardware warming unit, it does look great. Also there was a thread at Gearslutz recently on warming up synths that should give you plenty of alternatives.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-electronic-music-production/1019561-hardware-you-using-warm-up-your-synths.html[/quote]
Yeah I think I’ll hold off on the Biscuit until BOUM is released.
Great thread suggestion. A sweet preamp would be sweet but considering cost not doable at the mo.

#12

THANK YOU! that is what i needed to hear. I became so obsessed with the exclusivity of it it blinded me to real needs. Which is not to belittle it (id still love one) it’s just yes money better spent for now.
Ugh. I feel GAS got the better of me and feel tainted. I’ll go take a shower in the (too much) gear I have.

#13

I’m happy you chimed in here. Your sample pack sounds great so I trust your judgement.
What you have found as your favorite means to warmth budgetwise?

#14

Of course an OT would be amazing but I’m going for other ways right now. Though if Im willing to spend enough for a Biscuit, might as well, no? I just have this sneaky suspicion Elektron is going to release another box. Well see where everything stands after NAMM and maybe ModStep.
Thank you so much for the Music IO suggestion. I’ll take a hard look at it.

#15

Thanks for the suggestions. I completely agree.

#16

Thanks all. Good stuff here.

What about audio out? How are yall extracting it? I saw some docks mentioned. Some other things are computer based only. How about to a mixer? DI box? The iConnectAudio looks nice but both more and not enough for my purposes at the mo, it seems. Or maybe: anyway to use it as an ADAT? I didn’t think so just looking at it. Anyone with experience with it?

#17

I’m happy you chimed in here. Your sample pack sounds great so I trust your judgement.
What you have found as your favorite means to warmth budgetwise?
[/quote]
:slight_smile: thanks man, glad you dig the pack! For budget warmth bouncing to VCR/Cassette is always a nice cheap solution. The Roland/Boss SP’s (especially the 303) Vinyl Sim is very warm for cheap.The Goodhertz Vulf Compressor is a Vinyl Sim emulator vst with some added bells and whistles which sounds really rich…
https://goodhertz.co/vulf-comp
Good ol, PSP Vintage Warmer never seems to get old either.

#18

Thank you again everyone. I’m having a lot of fun.

BTW Elastic Drums is half off at the no. Massively fun app.

#19

samplr is great but i wish the dev would support it a bit more

TC-11 is an absolute must… its the most “touch” oriented of all the synth apps… there are so many map-able parameters for manipulating the sound… its fucking unimaginable how many types of things you can do with this… even a lot of the presets will give you endless opportunity for making new samples and fx and loops and so on

also sunvox, gadget, sector, soundscaper… all good

#20

Most of the better apps already seem to be listed. I’ll add my latest find to the pot, iYM2151. It’s a hardcore 8 track FM tracker app, and quite a deep one. But the UI seems to be a major turnoff for many people? IMO the UI on it is perfect :heart:

caveat emptor - it’s expensive. But I’m so in love with it that I wanted to point it out since it seems to be hugely underrated.