Damon Albarn Recording Next Gorillaz On His iPad

iPad Music Software: Damon Albarn is recording the next Gorillaz album on his iPad.

In an new interview in this week’s issue of NME, Albarn says that he has been working on a follow-up to Plastic Beach while on tour with the band.

“I’ve made it on an iPad,” says Albarn. “I hope I’ll be making the first record on an iPad.”

“I fell in love with my iPad as soon as I got it,” he adds, “So I’ve made a completely different kind of record.”

It’s not clear how much of the new Gorillaz album Albarn is actually doing on his iPad.

Synthtopia readers will know that, while there is already a lot of powerful iPad Music Software, integration between iPad music apps is still a work in process.

Albarn is hoping to have the new Gorillaz album out “before Christmas”.

via NME

18 thoughts on “Damon Albarn Recording Next Gorillaz On His iPad”

  2. Yeah – he managed to turn the Gorillaz gimmick into something very unique.

    I'm interested to hear more about his approach to recording the new album.

  3. I’m dropping an iPad Beat Tape (instrumentals). Does this count as being innovative too?
    lol. Been had folks dropping iOS songs/albums. iPad/iPhone same thing.
    no hate, just being real. That being said, I would love to hear it. 😉

  6. and I'm using a paper clip and a hairbrush to record my album! 😛

    I like Albarn (and Gorillaz) a lot, but this a stupid commercial, that's what it is..

  7. It reminds me of the idea that advertising has one basic trick: selling one thing whilst persuading via something far more desirable but not intrinsically buyable. The iPad album has a great vibe of 'yeah, these great and talented; *famous* people have made this album with gear I have access to too!!!' Ergo: 'I could become like Gorillaz just using my iPad, wayhey!!!'
    But the reason we're paying attention in the first place is that Gorillaz are already famous and they didn't get famous via making tunes on the iPad. Just like Radiohead can – famously – give away albums for free because they're already rich and famous. This looks like democracy but really it's a mocking indulgence.
    Don't get me wrong. I think Albarn's a very talented, innovative guy. But somehow I suspect the results of his efforts with an iPad will be slightly more rewarding than the results of other people's efforts with iPads even when they're every bit as talented and put every bit as much effort into it. There's an elephant in the room…

  8. add to that that the iPad has become the nr.1 marketing tool and you have a full picture… I mean, I like Albarn's music a lot but what we see is a lot of mediocre stuff that get's a lot of attention just because it was made on an iPad. Lousy Photographs make it into big magazines just because they were taken with the (lousuy) iPhone camera, exhibitions of bad art is made, but get's featured in the media… and so on…
    Albarn is a great musician, but I think he's also a great marketing guy… problem is: I'm really fed up of all this iPad shit…

  10. Other people (not only musicians and artists) tell about their tools or sometimes really get enthusiastic about a new gadget. This does not only happen in the realm of software or computer hradware, but everywhere. Maybe he used on of those tape like recording applications and what he really digs is the ability to use what is essentially a tape recorder in a very cool form factor at an affordable price. Perhaps by different he means less sequencing or more seuqencing used, or no outboard effects, no expensive microphone preamps etc. In some ways this reminds me a little of Paul McCartney's album II which he recorded at home without a mike preamp and many of the fancy devices they had in studios at the time. It's a different way of working, and it gives your music a different sound if you reduce beyond the bare minimum for a studio production. I can see how this might be appealing to someone who knows how it goes …

  11. I see the iPad as a quality laptop with a touch screen, and that's about it.

    it's hard to get excited about this stuff. Rich kids can buy u87's but they still make shitty music. Albarn's not just a rich kid, he's a talented rich kid, and talent finds a way. This is just advertising

  12. There's some chronically bitter snobbery going on here. So what if he made it with an ipad or a a room of vintage synths or a washboard, so long as it sounds good and ENTERTAINS? Sure, he gets more publicity for saying this because he's an established artist, but saying you're fed up of hearing about the ipad is just you being fed up of hearing about the iPad.saying its just a laptop with a touch screen is just observing a fact about the technology. A guitar is jut a wooden box with strings. Its capable of making great sounds, end of story,

  13. its a bullshit premise to begin with.. its not like this guy wont be using a mountain of other incredibly expensive gear – thats the disconnect, you have to have mics and rooms to record in and you need to have the album mastered, which I PROMISE you wont be happening on the iPad..

    its a stupid fucking gimmick and just because you might like the gimmick doesnt automatically make it "snobbery" when someone else doesnt like it… in fact, thats a bit of "snobbery" itself, wouldnt you say?

  14. going from a tactile world to a virtual world, is at best, in the beginning stages. touch screens in a live application would be, at best, a guessing game. with lights low, speakers shaking the floor, cue points in mind… the last thing you want is less then pefect response and precision to your artistic expressions and movements.

    look at the failed virtual reality efforts of the past. look @ the wii controller and now the xbox kinect, far cries from anything close to "virtual reality". maybe in the next 20 years we might actually develop something worth having around longer then the few months of hype.

    ipad is just an over-sized touch screen phone that can't make calls. it's like paying for the gadgetism instead of the true functionality. it's for the gimmick of it all. kind of like how gorillaz idea started in the first place, how ironic.

  15. The iPad isn't an overgrown phone. It is a very powerful portable computer with a new operating system designed to exploit its touch sensitive screen, and an efficient, safe, easy to use a software distribution system that makes it easy to develop and install apps that mostly sell at a pricepoint approximately 10% of that of similar apps for other platforms. Sounds pretty good to me. The touch sensitivity adds a new dimension to the usability of music applications, which otherwise require expensive controllers and cumbersome mapping programs to achieve the same effect. I don't have an iPad nor do I need one right now but
    i can recognise a groundbreaking device when I see one.

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