Korg's Electribe Wave app turns an iPad into an EDM beat machine
Create electronic beats without a ton of know-how.
Korg is keeping up its habit of turning elaborate instruments into more accessible iPad apps, and this time it's focusing on the dance music scene. Its newly released Electribe Wave app brings the company's long-serving Electribe music-making stations to the iPad, making it relatively easy to produce electronic beats in genres ranging from house to future bass to trap. You'll see the familiar 16-step pad from physical models, for example, but you don't need much musical knowledge to take advantage of it. A Groove feature in the sequencer creates a more natural sound for percussion without expert-level tweaking, and a customizable chord pad lets you play with only one finger.
There's more if you're willing to dive deeper, of course. The sound wavetable not only lets you create unique sounds, but lets you repeatedly play waveform fragments and change their position mid-playback -- try that with a PCM synth. Motion sequencing now extends to the drums and synthesizers, and a virtual Kaoss Pad can apply multiple temporal changes simultaneously (such as pitchbending and the oscillator position) just by dragging your finger. When you're done, you can combine patterns into a single track through a song mode and send tracks to Ableton Live if they're not yet ready for prime time.
Electribe Wave is available now and needs at least an iPad Air or iPad mini 2. It normally sells for $30, but Korg hopes to lure aspiring tablet musicians by dropping the price to $20 until September 30th.
