iControl Review
Fantastic review and just convinced me to buy one
your story rings very true to my own
I've been writing and recording my own songs for nearly 40 years with no great talent but an unquenchable thirst and love for writing on so many 4/8/16/24 track recorders over the years, bang of the age in the 80's when this kind of stuff began to become cost affordable to the common dude
a bit of a hoarder, I have way too much hardware, although to be fair I still use most of it but I have found that I am at my most creative downstairs at 2 in the morning with my acoustic trying to write/sing quietly
I've had my ipad for years and for years it sat next to me while I thought about different wee compact setups that I could keep downstairs, amp/drum machine/ small synth/recorder...…… and it would grow and grow till me and my wife had a falling out over it
All this time I was aware of garageband, indeed I had it
never used it, dismissed it as a toy and not for the likes of me and to be fair I am really only at the start of this journey and part of me still hates it, the way of building your song still screams TOY!!! at me but.....
I have recorded so many wee bits and pieces in the last month or so that normally would have been lost
we've all been there, all done it, you're sitting with your guitar and a wee "something" falls out of you, a hook, a line, a verse, now and again one of those that are almost completely written in a very short space of time, anything...…….. "I'll not forget that" you say to yourself …......ah! the ultimate folly
Now! I have my iPad, which was under my nose all this time running garageband (TOY!!!)((stop it)) and an irig acoustic clipped onto my guitar and i'm off and running, so far all i'm using it for is recording my guitar and drums, ah! the drums...……. all those ready to use drum loops, amazing! one thing I hate doing and pretty rubbish at is beat building and drum tracks, this is just perfect
this wee setup is now capturing my wee "somethings" that I would have normally lost and that in itself is worth so much to me
and to go back to the bits and pieces I caught, curious to find out how this ipad carry on will sound through my wee bedroom studio, (semi-serious is how best I would describe my wee man space)
plugged it in and wow!, guitar playing was pretty poor, so I was delighted at the improvement there but the drums just tickled me, as good as anything I've used
I've now bought a small usb keyboard and downloaded some synths, some free and some I've paid for and in comparative terms pennies for what I have paid for synths down through the years and I've had some of the classics, SH-101, 106, M1, Virus C but I was always meaning to pick up a korg wavestation and I just downloaded the iwavestation, I am having some fun I can tell you
it sounds fantastic and i'm already looking at upgrading what I already have and again, checking out prices of various things, aint gonna bankrupt me
the biggest thing for me and it is early days but those wee somethings that I have now saved at 2 in the morning can now, relatively seamlessly be integrated into my upstairs setup, i'm currently mixing down 2 complete songs that made it because of this
was a bit of a letter writer back in the day, can you tell?
so back to the beginning, i'm thinking the icontrol (ANOTHER TOY!!!) would give me a little hardware hands on that I crave and I think that might make me like this whole thing a little more
apologies for the indulgent ramble
I picked up an iControl a couple weeks ago; here are my thoughts:
First, it might be helpful to hear about me and the music I record, so that you can gauge your needs against mine.
I am an amateur with no ambition to become a professional, and frankly no real talent to do so either. I've been writing and recording basic rock and pop songs for about 15 years using several cassette 4-tracks and digital 8-tracks over the years.
A few years ago, I tried moving my recording work over to my computer w/ Pro Tools LE and Logic Express, but both proved too complicated; I would rather spend my scarce free time writing than learning how to use the computer.
Garageband convinced me to give computer recording another try. It's fun and easy, but lacks the tactical control I enjoyed w/ the 4- and 8-tracks (such as the Boss BR-864) I've used over the years.
For me, iControl fits the bill nearly perfectly.
Here are some general comments:
1. There has never been an easier-to-use piece of gear. Plug it in to the USB port, and Garageband instantly recognizes it--it just works.
2. The iControl is very well made. The buttons and knobs have a good, solid feel. The iControl does not completely faithfully re-create the feel of a 4- or 8-track or a larger controller like the Digi 002. But it is still satisfying, and a huge leap over mouse-based tweaking. It also has subtle lights that add an appealing glow to active controls.
3. The included "MIDI In" port makes it very easy to connect a keyboard or other controller. Of course, Garageband recognizes it instantly.
4. The iControl lets you control volume/pan of 8 tracks at a time with endless rotary encoders. While a part of me would prefer faders, like on most controllers, the endless knobs have their purpose. For example, when you adjust the volume for tracks 1-8, faders would remain in those positions even when you are using them to adjust tracks 9-16. That makes fine adjustments difficult. (If track 1 was set at a high volume, the fader is still on a high volume when you use that fader for track 9. Assuming that track 9 had been set on a low volume, you cannot make a fine adjustment to this track without moving the fader from high to low volume, which would throw track 9's volume far out of whack.) This is not a problem with endless knobs, which unlike faders, have only relative values.
5. The jog wheel is great and can be used to scroll directly to the point in your song that you're looking for. This and the big "record" button make "punching in" a lot easier and more precise.
6. The knobs can be used to adjust EQ settings as well as instrument attributes. This makes iControl a lot more powerful than is apparent at first blush. While not quite as intuitive as the transport controls and the track volume/pan controls, these features are easy to learn and fairly robust.
Hard-core Logic Pro or Reason users will likely prefer to move along. This product is Absolutely NOT for you virtual professionals. But for those (like me) who want to make the most out of Garageband and get some of the tactile experience of using a 4- or 8-track, the iControl is a good investment. It's also a lot of fun.
