Ableton Forum

jcwillia wrote:i guess here's my question :

how do you make something THAT small sound REALLY good

AND

still have it basically act as a miniature personal computer

AND

sell it for a price where enough people will buy it so you will actually make money?


The problem with demanding a high quality audio out on a device like this is that you would have to pay THROUGH THE NOSE to get it because there aren't enough other people like yourself who would also pay that premium to defray the cost.

(Sorry, putting away the Econ professor soapbox now)

size has litle to do with it, there are ADC, DAC and op amp chips in tiny packages. how to make it sound good? simply follow the app note for the chips!! it's pretty simple, it might take some tweaking but 10dB/decade drop in terms of a quality audio product is a f-ing joke. IN TERMS OF A PHONE FOR THE MASSES I'm just glad there aren't a bunch of peaks and troughs, this can be EQ'ed out, more or less.

in strict economic terms, saving $0.0001 per device matters when you're making things by the millions. so, Apple just didn't care enough to make it a quality audio product, they just made it work. I wouldn't doubt that they used 10 bit DACs instead of 16 or 24, but I don't know. at least they went all the way up to 20kHz, with voice devices you can cheap out and use 32kHz sample rate and not really notice.

I don't know if the tests were on my behalf but thanks anyway. Could they be used as mobile music production devices? They've obviously got the storage capacity and the touch screen could be used for so many different things. I saw a little 303 app from audio realism which sounded good from the demos. Actually this looks promising: http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?s=iPod+touch

I think theres lots of potential, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. It IS a phone after all, and the screen, while nice, is not that THAT big. For me the iPhone music apps to date are more about getting down quick and simple ideas to expand on later, or just as a fun distraction (bloom, bebot, etc). I don't think I personally could ever do whole tunes on the device, at least not all the time. Apps like Beat maker are capable of full of tunes sure, but not sure I'd choose it over a laptop given the choice.

Tarekith wrote:I think theres lots of potential, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. It IS a phone after all, and the screen, while nice, is not that THAT big. For me the iPhone music apps to date are more about getting down quick and simple ideas to expand on later, or just as a fun distraction (bloom, bebot, etc). I don't think I personally could ever do whole tunes on the device, at least not all the time. Apps like Beat maker are capable of full of tunes sure, but not sure I'd choose it over a laptop given the choice.

+1

Maybe soon, but not now.

Tarekith wrote:I think theres lots of potential, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. It IS a phone after all, and the screen, while nice, is not that THAT big. For me the iPhone music apps to date are more about getting down quick and simple ideas to expand on later, or just as a fun distraction (bloom, bebot, etc). I don't think I personally could ever do whole tunes on the device, at least not all the time. Apps like Beat maker are capable of full of tunes sure, but not sure I'd choose it over a laptop given the choice.

Ok thanks. I'll have to check them out. I am looking for something portable for messing around with, was thinking about getting a netbook but i don't know if they're powerful enough to run music software.

LoopStationZebra wrote:

Tarekith wrote:I think theres lots of potential, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. It IS a phone after all, and the screen, while nice, is not that THAT big. For me the iPhone music apps to date are more about getting down quick and simple ideas to expand on later, or just as a fun distraction (bloom, bebot, etc). I don't think I personally could ever do whole tunes on the device, at least not all the time. Apps like Beat maker are capable of full of tunes sure, but not sure I'd choose it over a laptop given the choice.

+1

Maybe soon, but not now.

It's cool. It turns out netbooks are capable enough to run a host with a few plugins so i'll probably get one of those instead. The mpc is for getting ideas down quickly anyway. I was thinking an ipod might be good to sample from on with mpc but i think a netbook running Guru would be much better.

when suggesting Beat Maker for iphone.... I know it's 20$ but stil.... 16 track sequencer.... load your own samples and export MIDI... just bought it yesterday - took me 5 minutes to figure it out + sketch out the beginning of a new track.... FUN yes... usefull... well to me it is Did I miss the point of this thread???

Peace

Daffydub

dont we have a diff thread for beatmaker?

can u edit midi on the device? my biggest problem is that my timing sux. I know where the beats belong though when i hear it but I haven't learned to play it to save my life. I always have to go back and fix it after the fact.

Can I do that with this app?

Yes.