Ableton Forum

I just need one good app for sketching out ideas on the go, and then transferring them back to the studio. BeatMaker has filled that role nicely so far, but I'd prefer something more synth based and less sample based.

Tarekith wrote:Just checked out their forums, looks very promising! Hadn't even heard of Nanostudio before, sweet.
What are the complaints you guys are hearing about Akai, any links to reviews?

not a review, but a product announcement with comments from insta-purchasers
http://the-palm-sound.blogspot.com/2010 ... rived.html

as a rough synopsis of the comments there:
no audiocopy, no sampler, no note velocity, no auditioning of sounds as you tweak them!,there's only one poly synth and two mono synths, drum section has next to no editing (pitch and level, no adsr even) and it is Fugly.

Bummer, looked pretty promising at first.

SynthStation was very underwhelming after all the hype about it. As much as it pains me I still prefer repitching samples in Beatmaker (vastly superior sequencer and it's drum pads walk all over Akai). Using bleep!box I can at least make samples to use while I'm out, too, and export them into Beatmaker. Intua has out-MPC'd Akai on the iPhone.

Morphwiz is a really fun instrument to play with, too. Very expressive and intuitive.

Mendel is very interesting for making sound effects and noises. It has mutation/genetics/breeding algorithms, and you can email the sounds to yourself throughout the day to download when you get home.

Xewton is still the most "traditional" sequencer out there and has a truckload of instruments to get for it.

I'm still waiting for something as useful to me as Live, though. Even if it just has Impulse and Simpler

dave999z wrote:i feel like this thread would be more useful if people shared their thoughts (experiences, impressions, reviews) about these apps.

Alright, ill give it a shot.


Touch OSC w/Live Control - fucking love it! Very usable.. Remote Control Surface Live? A pocket Lemur? Hell yeah!! Its a bit crammed on the iphone, but it has seriously made me want an ipad, single handed! If I could afford it I would buy 2, or even 3 iPads, like right away. Ahh.. maybe next year.. aint got the budget atm.

Decibel - Very handy for measuring DB, if thats your thing. I wanted to do this for years, mainly from tinnitus damage from clubs and venues. I dont like to listen, nor perform music with earplugs, so its really nice to be able to check if is safe or not. I always bring 3 types of earplugs.. 85db is the limit at work in Norway, by law. 90db will hurt you. 95db will hurt you a lot more. Waiting for the buss from work at the highway from capital city Oslo today. Peaks over 95db from traffic.. Sheesh! Shots and hits at 100db might not be a problem, but constant sound over 85db will damage the ear drum after just a few hours. Time decreases drastically as db increases. every step of 1db increase from here on will half the time to damage.

Loop Producer - Nice loop DJ app. Easy to import and export loops. Smart recording system: it always auto records in the background! But it only stores it if you hit record (save) after your jam. Really nice effects function as well. I wish ableton would look at this.. Really great and intuitive little interface. 3 group channels with individual levels per clip, one crossfade between the 3 groups. All in all a million times better then Touch DJ, which also by far is the most expensive app I bought.

Amidio Apps:
Touch DJ - Well.. the idea is good, and the interface is good.. but im not able to import my own tracks! Dont know if its because I got os4, or winXP sp2, but Amidio certainly does not respond to support mail. The Amidio Sync app want upload any of my mp3s.
Boring effects.. lowpass only. 3 band EQ, but not very usable. Really nice touch-wave display.
iHolophone - well.. this was fun right out of the box, until I dug a bit under the hood. First, the synths: really boring stuff! Mainly cheesy flutes, strings, and synths, and that's about it regarding synth play. Theres an 8 track, 2 bars/32 steps long sample sequencer with a few sounds, but you cant import your own samples. All in all its got a very GM, Casio workstation keyboard feel to it. Its a plastic toy kinda thing.


VoiceBand - sequence a rock band composition only using your voice, and email the recording directly from the app! Love this!!

Aura - Maybe not very usable, but nice ambient sound generator/synth when you want to chill out. I miss the ability to set the base note though, and this makes it not very usable in a performance situation. But its fun in private situations!

Slice - this is super cool. Its a simple yet brilliant loop slicer. The loop is represented with a circle with sliced sections. While it plays, you can swap the slices around, solo sections, or mute. Theres one effect: echo, and is very boring. Its supposed to be able to load your own loops, but I cant figure out how, and theres no info about it on their web site, other then the statement that you can do it! As of now, its just a toy. No save or record function. Its a 2 minute toy.

Bebot - fun little synth, very expressive. Easy and very usable scale system! Id love it if they could be changed without opening the menu. Nice 3 effects: Ecco, Overdrive (distortion) and Chorus. The overdrive sounds really nice!
You can actually perform with this thing. however, the synth parameters you can play are very few. Oscillators: Sine, PWM, Saw, Pulse. Parameters: Cutoff and resonance (pmw osc only), timbre (saw and pulse only), pulse width (pulse osc only). Parameters are vertical, and strings are horizontal. Id love an assignable lfo..

Twang - fun little guitar app.. Usable for a performance .. sort of.. if you dont take it/you to seriously! Alert: not good for lefties.. im a leftie..

Hex Keys - only got the demo version. Got it to try this hex keyboard thing. Supposedly the smartest/easiest way to play melodies.. It only got one very boring sound, so haven't been playing to much with it. also the keys are to small on the iphone. Not good for performance.

Jasuto Pro - This looks deep and promising! I haven't been able to get sound from it yet. Havent had time to read manuals and tutorials. Out of the box, im not able to get any sound. But im shore its awesome, when I do have time to/want to learn it.


And thats about it..

No links for now.. If you want to check em, search in the app store, and try the demos!

Enjoy.

BeatMaker - Probably always been my go to for mobile music making, as it's probably the most well featured of the music apps. Kinda surprising since it was released the first day the app store went live, and no one has still come up with a better app. Well, some of the ones about to drop might change that. Pretty simple to use, all sample based and based heavily on the MPC way of doing things. Really wish there was a more direct connection with the sequencer and the pads. Seems really stable, never had a crash. Results sound good, this was done 100% in BeatMaker with nothing else done after the fact: http://tarekith.com/mp3s/Tarekith-The_Line_Trimmer.mp3

Bleep!Box - Fun little drum synth that has a very simple and easy to manipulate display. Almost too simple, kind of boring to look at and the fonts are way too small. Otherwise it sounds really good, very good drum synth if you don't mind some menu diving to program.

Bleep!Synth - Basically a synth version of bleep!box, almost the exact same interface. Only downer for me was that you couldn't latch the arp to keep playing while you programmed it. Supposedly that's in the next update. It's dead in the water in iOS4, but an update is pending.

Bloom & Trope - The apps Eno helped with, and it shows. I like both a lot, even though it's probably something I'd never use in one of my own songs (famous last words...). Good for just chilling out and unwinding.

Bebot - As mentioned, a fun and cool sounding playable synth. Love the interface, and you can get surprisingly articulate with it.

Backline Calc - Good for quickly converting among different music formats. BPM, samples, minutes, seconds, etc. Nice utility to have at hand.

FiRe - Really well done portable recording app, similar to something like the Zoom H2. In fact, it's so good that I sold my Edirol R09-HR to use this instead. Excellent quality, FTP and Soundcloud uploads, location tagging, great price.

TouchOSC - Easy to use if you also get the software for your computer. I've set up a simple DJ template that let me control my Live DJ set from anywhere in the house. Good for BBQ's when the wife doesn't want me on my laptop all night DJing. Yes dear.

Jasuto - Seems to be pretty powerful, but I don't really enjoy programming it. Too deep for a phone app for my uses, I like things I can quickly fire up and get to work with. Great if you love Reaktor, M4L, etc.

Mujik - Goofy little music app, very weird control. Fun for a few minutes, but get's a little samey after a bit.

DB-303 - Really nice tb303 emulation, but currently dead in iOS4. Developers seem to have gone awol.

NoiseIO Pro - I really wanted to love this one, because on paper it looks fantastic. Unfortunately for me, like all of Amidio's apps, I find the "revolutionary new interface" to be really cluttered and unintuitive. This is one app that does exactly what I need, but in a completely ass-backwards way so that I don't een want to use it. Powerful and good sound, but you have to get used to their funky menus and such.

Emergence - Sort of a Bloom wannabe. This app is either really simple or really deep and I'm missing something. Doesn't seem like interacting with the trippy displays really does anything predictable. So so app, but maybe I'm missing something.

That was a nice read Tarekith!
Seems we even agree on the same apps.

Great tip on FiRe and Backline Calc. Handy stuff!

Tarekith wrote:TouchOSC - Easy to use if you also get the software for your computer. I've set up a simple DJ template that let me control my Live DJ set from anywhere in the house.

Is it possible to remote control Traktor with it? I use the clubs mixer for levels and eq, but it could be great for cue, pitch, scroll playhead and nudge. If so, ill upgrade my dusty old v.1.0 of Traktor.

On OSX we can use Osculator to convert the OSC that TouchOSC sends into midi. Works very well, and while you do need to set it up manually, it's not that hard. So as long as Traktor can responce to MIDI CC, it should work. IT'll be up to you to put it together the way you want. Not that bad though, I hate stuff like this, but it was pretty painless.

Tarekith wrote:On OSX we can use Osculator to convert the OSC that TouchOSC sends into midi. Works very well, and while you do need to set it up manually, it's not that hard. So as long as Traktor can responce to MIDI CC, it should work. IT'll be up to you to put it together the way you want. Not that bad though, I hate stuff like this, but it was pretty painless.

Mkay.. Im using winXP..Hmm.

There's other options, I just haven't used them.

virtuoso - free, very simple piano keyboard. Very useful for very quickly just trying something out, I use it often to make sure I'm not straying off tune when singing.

get ready to leap on the first week discount if you want this app guys (20% I think it is).

NanoStudio 1.0 has been submitted to Apple
Submitted by Blip Interactive on Tue, 07/13/2010 - 18:29
* Announcements
A couple of days ahead of schedule - decided to submit early rather than make another demo!
For the first week of sale it will be priced at £8.99 ($14.99). The earliest it will go on sale is Tuesday 20th July.
Fingers crossed now for a smooth approval process. NanoStudio's a big app using lots of features, so the chances are that the review could take longer than average.

http://forums.blipinteractive.co.uk/node/55

Electrify for iPad is now at version 2.0 which has custom sample import
http://www.electrifyme.net/

* Import your own samples (.wav / .aif) with the documents sharing feature of iTunes
* Import single samples or whole directories as zip file
* Bounce the pattern as a .wav file
* switch between one shot and loop mode
* Sample editing: truncate / normalize / timestretch
* new effect: bpm sync delay
* solo button
* minor ui updates
* changing a steps value automatically sets a note
* adjust if the clip changes after 1 bar or after the end of that clip
* step parameters show current value when changing
* clips show currently playing bar
* performance improvements to avoid random sound glitches

http://www.creativeapplications.net/sou ... rameworks/


Sound Yeah is the latest application currently in development by Henry Chu, the same name behind Squiggle we mentioned few weeks back. I asked Henry about the new app and this is what he said:
In the beginning I wanted to create a digital toy to record and play sound, with some creative controls like scratching. After playing the prototype for a while, I added more functions. In edit mode I can adjust the volume, attack, release, playing speed. Also there are some utility tools like copy, paste and trim, helps you to manage the clips. In play mode, I can tap to play a clip, or I can drag in circles to scratch the clip. If I wind the clip and drag away, it will loop the clip at the speed it was dragged.
Henry used openFrameworks to build Sound Yeah. He started off from the default audio-in and audio-out example available in the examples folder of oF. The sound is generated from the sound buffer, so its a time-based approach, he writes. In addition he also wrote some classes for the UI (which we absolutely love) as well as a DIY cable to split the microphone and headphone so he can connect to other sound source using line-in, rather than the build-in microphone. See video below of him perform with the app.
Henry hasn’t submitted Sound Yeah to Apple just yet but expects this to happen very soon.
In the meantime, you can follow the progress by following Henry on vimeo. We will, of course, post as soon as the app is available.

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