Need advice: BeatMaker 2 Audio Routing Methodology

edited November 2011 in Support
First I'd like to give a brief introduction and I'd also like to say hello to the Intua community. What's up everybody!? I'm Cyph and I've been creating electronic music, mainly Hip Hop, since about hmm 1995. My first piece of gear was an MPC2000XL and a few years later I moved into the software / DAW realm (FL Studio). Navigating through BM2 has been a breeze so far but I'm at a point where I'm a little unsure how to continue with mixing, EQing, and adjusting  levels of the  instruments/samples/sounds I have used so far.

So here I am... day 2 with BeatMaker 2! At this point in time my BeatMaker 2 project is sequenced in the matrix as an 8 bar loop with each sound on it's own track within the Sequencer / Matrix. All the sounds I have used so far are coming from the "Power Drummer" (MPC).

I guess I'm looking for advice on how others handle mixing down their samples, instruments, sounds etc. I'm really curious to know how other people handle their audio routing to mix, EQ, and adjust levels etc. What are your mixdown methods?

I'm not so much interested in the intricacies of audio processing (Ie: EQing). I'm more or so  interested in how others handle audio routing...

Peace,
Ryan

Comments

  • edited 6:54AM
    Hey Ryan,

    This is my take, your results will vary depending on your workflow and style.

    As of now I'd say BM2 is an amazingly powerful preproduction micro DAW. You can do some serious sketches in in BM2 but I'd bring it in to your full fledge DAW of choice to edit, rearrange, replace parts etc. That's not to say you can't create something professional sounding in BM2 but that will come down to skill and your style of music.

    The good news is they announced that v2.2 will allow you to export each channel to a wav file for editing in other programs. So once the update comes it will be much easier to take a song from start to finish. Not sure if they export midi but that's also a must have for moving to a full sized DAW.

    The sample engine is fantastic and very musical even when moving well beyond the original sample key. The downside is the realtime FX aren't anywhere near what you'll get from a VST. I find them very usable for sketching and getting close to the sound I want but I'll be removing them and using the higher quality ones in my DAW.. But that's me.

    I've had a hard time getting levels, compression, eq right in BM2. I'm not sure that's exactly it's strong suit right now. IMO you really should use another tool for that. If you must stay in the ipad, check out Hokusai, it is pretty popular and it's main focus is multitrack audio. Lots of people work like that but I wouldn't recommend it.

    My philosophy is use the right tool for the right job.
  • edited 6:54AM
    If you have any specific questions fire away, I'd be happy to share my experience.. <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->
  • edited 6:54AM
    Here's 2 other options that depend on time and preference.

    1) Solo each track and export each track one at a time eg solo track one then export as whole track then do the same for track 2 and 3 etc. This can take a while but can be the easiest depending on what hardware you got.

    2) My preferred way is to solo each track like the above but route the audio to your daw on your computer. So you record each track instead of export which can be possibly quicker but fiddly depending what cables you have and hardware. I use the Alesis io dock so it's straight forward plugging into the input of my macs audio interface.

    Hope this helps and makes sense.
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