musiccreation
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Roli expands its modular music gear with the touch-friendly Seaboard
Last year, Roli launched an affordable, modular music creation system called Blocks. At launch, the company sold a square Lightpad block (intended for tapping out melodies and drum beats) and two smaller blocks that let you adjust a variety of settings or record and loop your music. Users can snap together as many Blocks as they want and hook them all up to an iPhone or iPad to create and record music. I spent some time playing with Blocks earlier this year, and while there's no doubt they're a fun and unique tool, the Lightpad's small size introduced some challenges when trying to create precise compositions. Roli's looking to fix that today by taking its flagship musical instrument, the Seaboard, and shrinking it down to Block size. The new $300 Seaboard Block is a small, two-octave version of its larger Seaboard instrument, but it retains all the unique touch-sensitive features you'll find in the bigger and more expensive versions. (The Seaboard Rise starts at $800, and Roli sells a variety of other sizes that range in price from $1,110 all the way up to over $8,000.)
Roli Blocks are fun for music making but need some fine-tuning
I've played instruments for most of my life, but as I've gotten older I've had less time for jamming with bands. That's led me to consider dabbling in electronic instruments that would let me make my own compositions without needing to wrangle other musicians. Of course, both hardware and software can add up fast. (I've wanted Teenage Engineering's OP-1 for years, but just can't bring myself to drop $850 on it.) That's why Roli's new modular Blocks system caught my eye. The $180 Lightpad controller is both affordable and versatile, distilling a lot of the touch-sensitive technology found in Roli's larger Seaboard into a super-compact gadget. Your iOS device does all the heavy lifting while the Lightpad lets you perform in some unique ways. And, the modular nature of the Blocks system lets you get in at an affordable price while expanding your setup down the line.
Jamn for iOS makes learning to play guitar visual, easier
Jamn (US$1.99) is a universal iOS app that visually communicates the relationship between musical keys, chords, scales, notes and the audio an instrument produces. Having spent some time teaching music to young students, I know all too well how difficult it can be to communicate the relationship between music theory and the sound that an instrument produces. Inevitably, it involves me scribbling endless analogies on a piece of paper until the penny drops. And while there are helpful visuals out there, I've not come across one as clear and as simple on the iOS App Store as Jamn. Through Jamn's intuitive and interactive Jamn wheel, the relationship between theory and sound is made visual, helping to connect the dots for beginners and those wanting to learn more. For example, by selecting the key of C in Jamn, the wheel will clearly identify all relevant major and minor chords for that key. Turn the wheel and the key changes to reveal the next appropriate chords. You can also hit play to hear exactly what each note and chord sounds like. It's a simple premise, but has the potential to make a big difference in the learning process. Each note and chord is also represented on a virtual guitar fretboard, displaying where each finger should be placed to make up the chord. The same can be done by swiping the fretboard to ukulele or piano mode. In guitar mode, tilting your iDevice will put the app in eHands mode, giving you a literal hand position representation of what your hand should look like when playing the chord. The app comes with 10 of the most common hand positions, a further 200 can be purchased via in-app purchase for $1.99. Additional features include an in-key chord finder, a scales library, a tuner and tutorial videos to get you started. There really is a lot in Jamn to get you learning, understanding and playing your instrument. If you've already got the basic principles of playing, for example, the guitar, Jamn will be a fantastic tool to help you develop and progress in your musicality. But if you're a teacher, I can see Jamn being particularly useful in providing a creative and interactive way to teach students the fundamentals of playing the guitar, ukulele or the piano. Jamn is certainly worth checking out. What apps have you used to help you learn or teach an instrument? Let us know in the comments below.
Reflow: A music composition and notation app for Mac and iOS with iCloud sync
Reflow for Mac (US$19) and iOS ($5.99) is a tool that makes composition and practice of music easier. A few weeks ago you may have seen TUAW's Editor-in-chief Victor Agreda, Jr. interview Sébastien Bourgeois, creator of Reflow, in our Origin Stories series. The interview spiked my curiosity about the app, so I took a closer look. While there are some great music notation apps out there for Mac (Tabular) and iOS (Weezic), what caught my attention about Reflow is that it supports both Mac and iOS. Plus, Reflow takes advantage of the latest Mac OS X and iCloud sync features. Let's say you're composing a song in Reflow on the Mac. Reflow (which supports fullscreen mode) will automatically save your work as you progress with autosave. And if things take an unsurprising turn, simply engage versions (just like you would in Pages, for example) and go back to the last iteration of your work that suits you best to carry on from. Finally, Reflow takes advantage of iCloud support, meaning you can be working on the Mac one minute and switch over to your iPhone or iPad and carry on where you left off the next. These simple features make a huge difference to the creative process by letting you focus on the music. But all of these great features would be meaningless if Reflow didn't have the basics to make a fantastic music notation app. Fortunately, it does. The app's beautifully simple interface lets you build multi-track (guitars, bass, keyboards, drums) compositions with musical notation or tablature. It's as easy as clicking or typing in a note or beat, playing on a MIDI keyboard or, for guitarists, dragging and dropping chords in from the extensive chord diagram database. Of course, you can create your own chords, too. Furthermore, Reflow gives you an audio representation of your work using a lightweight audio engine, so you have a great idea of what your composition will sound like before the real players step in. And you can modify and edit your work during playback. Reflow also lets you build and re-arrange your own song structures, so if you suddenly decide the intro sounds better as a middle-eight, just drag it over. Finally, Reflow also supports Guitar Pro and Power Tab files for import. Export your compositions in Guitar Pro, PDF, Wave and MIDI files, or share by email. For songwriters and composers looking to write for a typical band, Reflow has all the tools you'll need. But where Reflow stands above the rest is in its creative process and workflow. With iCloud support, Reflow allows you to transition work seamlessly between Mac or iOS and takes the worry out of saving your work as well as going back through previous versions.
polychord for iPad: an inspiring way to create music
polychord (US$9.99) is a virtual instrument for making and creating keyboard / electronic-style music on the iPad. With its easy-to-use approach and layout, polychord makes it painless to get your head around the basics and start making some really lovely sounding and creatively inspiring music. Whether you're an expert musician looking to perform live or a novice, you'll find polychord engaging and fun. There are two main components to playing polychord: chord circles and strum keys. There are nine Chord circles, each representing a chord that is derived from the musical key you've selected. Each chord circle has seven chord inversions around it, so you can play a variant of the root chord (minor, major seventh, augmented fifth etc). This gives you 63 chords to play in total in a really straight forward and easy-to-read (and touch) structure. Strum keys is a virtual keyboard with 13 keys or individual notes that are derived from the corresponding chord circle you're playing at the time. There are no keys present that wouldn't melodically fit in with the chord circle you're playing. Strum keys is placed horizontally at the edge of the iPad, making it really easy to reach for and play, as opposed to so many virtual keyboards that mimic a traditional piano layout. You can play individual or multiple keys, or strum the strum keys up and down, which produces a very satisfying sound. Additionally, swipe the keys to pitch bend or add tremolo. polychord lets you specify strum keys to play a specific scale pattern, like blues pentatonic, dominant Bebop or Ionian, depending on the style of music you're looking to play. The idea is to play chords with the chord circles and a melody over the chords with the strum keys. In theory, polychord makes it nigh on impossible to hit a wrong note, and with very little practice you'll soon have some nice chord circle progressions and strum keys melodies under your belt. Once you've got an idea for a song, turn on Auto Accompany to add drums and bass (27 patterns) to your track. There's also a customizable arpeggiator which plays the notes of the chord you're currently on. When you switch chords, Auto Accompany's drums, bass and arepggiator will follow you. It all adds much more dynamic to your song. For more advanced musicians, and those wanting to dig deeper, polychord lets you mould and tinker the sound with some very practical variations and customizations (filters, envelope control, warm and fat waves, bitshift mode and timing). It's all accessible and generally designed to be tweaked on the fly, particularly in live performances. When playing, everything is really responsive, with very little noticeable latency, so it really does feel like you're playing an instrument while you're tapping away on polychord. Additional features include saving and exporting, sharing with Soundcloud, Twitter and Facebook, MIDI (for using polychord as a controller with a DAW) as well as virtual MIDI (controlling other apps) and finally, full Audiobus support and integration. Speaking of Audiobus integration, polychord with a few other choice music apps on iPad (see video below) really does make for an exciting and rewarding music-making experience. Spending some time with polychord, the things I loved about it most are just how engaging and playable it is. And it sounds great, too! If you're looking to approach a musical task from a different angle (like songwriting), polychord is a great way to inspire and think differently. Or if you're a beginner, or someone looking to kill some time, polychord is also just a lot of fun, too! polychord is available from the iOS App Store now. For more info on polychord, check out the polychord website here.
triqtraq for iOS, an electro jam sequencer app
If you love Propellerhead's Figure app for iOS, you're sure to love triqtraq, a quick and easy music-inspiration and creation app for short bursts of creativity when you're waiting for a train with a few minutes to spare, or live for improvisation. With a library of more than 350 samples, triqtraq lets you create musical patterns on the fly, either by simply improvising and seeing what works or being a bit more specific and using the step editor. triqtraq has some exciting features, like specific sequence lengths per track, automation of effects in real time and automation of multiple tracks simultaneously. There's also the Loop Range, which creates poly-rhythms and other unique sounds / effects. To share your music creations, triqtraq offers export via SoundCloud, AudioCopy, iTunes or email. I've not had a chance to use triqtraq myself, but from what I've seen, a beginner could start using it and make some great sounds really easily, while there's plenty for the more advanced user to dig deeper into. triqtraq costs US$2.99 and is available from the App Store now. Have you used triqtraq? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments below.
Figure for iOS updated to 1.4, adds social sharing and Audiobus support
Figure, Propellerhead's popular and inspiring music-making app for iOS, has been updated to 1.4. The update makes sharing your musical creations even easier, now with SoundCloud integration (and, by extension, sharing on Facebook and Twitter) and AudioCopy, which allows you to copy and paste your music into other compatible AudioCopy apps. The update also brings Audiobus support, making it possible to stream your music from Figure to other Audiobus-supported apps. Sharing your music from Figure has never been easier! Additional updates include background audio, so your music keeps playing when you leave the app, sorting of songs in the song list by name or date, and bug fixes and performance improvements. To celebrate the update, Propellerhead has announced a competition with some great prizes. To enter, simply create some music on Figure and share to SoundCloud. Each listen your track gets on SoundCloud equals a lottery ticket into the competition. Winners will be announced on March 15th, 2013, so get to it! Figure is available from the iOS App Store at US$0.99.
Review: IK Multimedia's iRig Pre (Updated)
IK Multimedia is about to launch the iRig Pre (announced at the beginning of the year), joining the iRig, iRig Stomp, iRig Mic & Mic Cast, iRig Midi and iRig Mix as its lineup of music making accessories for iOS devices. The iRig Pre is a mic preamp with built-in phantom power (48v) and gain control, allowing you to plug in any dynamic or condenser microphone with an XLR connector to your iPhone or iPad. This means you're no longer limited to passive microphones when recording with your iOS device. Basically, with the iRig Pre, you can plug high-quality mics into your iDevice. This is certainly not the first preamp interface for iOS devices, but with IK Multimedia's high profile in the mobile music making market, it's certainly one that will reach the masses with its low price point at US$39.99. However, the foremost question is whether it sounds any good. What can you expect from a $39.99 preamp? You can use the best mic in the world, but if the preamp is no good, there's just no point. So, how does the iRig Pre shape up? Well, for starters, the iRig Pre is very compact and easy to transport around. It houses a 9 volt battery inside of it (to power the iRig Pre itself and the additional 48v when required), has a basic on/off/+48v switch on the front and a gain control slider on the side. %Gallery-161734% A 9 volt battery is required to power the iRig Pre for 30 hours with dynamic microphones and 10 hours with condenser microphones using phantom power. There's no external power supply here, but it's unlikely you'd need one considering the usage you get from a single battery and the type of recording you're likely to do with this kind of accessory. Output is a 40 cm (15.75") TRRS cable to connect to your iOS device as well as a headphone output to monitor what's coming directly out of the iRig Pre. Input is the XLR connector for a microphone. The specifics are as follows: Frequency response: from 20 Hz to 20 kHz +/- 1.5dB Noise: -98 dB fullband, phantom power ON Maximum output level: 2 Vrms Distortion: 0.025% THD Like many of IK's iRig accessories, the quality of build is not what you would call high-spec, but it's sturdy enough in its own plastic way. It's not going to break in normal use, but if you were to drop it or get it squashed between two sturdier items, it feels like it's going to come out worse for wear. I tested the iRg Pre with my Rode NT2000 condenser microphone through my iPhone using my Ultimate Ears headphones for monitoring. The first thing I noticed when I plugged the mic in and turned on the preamp was that there was a subtle, but definite and consistent hiss on the iRig Pre. With the gain on full, it was much more noticeable, but pulling the gain down a few notches did make it come down, although I couldn't create a situation where I could eradicate it. The hiss isn't overbearing, but if you're recording, it's always going to be there. And that's not what you want. I did a comparison test with my desktop audio interface just to make sure my NT2000 wasn't playing up, but it wasn't. The NT2000 was hiss free through my desktop interface. Just like a good mic should be! However, my audio interface does cost significantly more than the iRig Pre. Aside from the hiss, the iRig Pre did its job of powering the mic. I did a few test recordings using IK's Recorder app and then compared those with the iPhone's built in mic using the same app. It was surprising just how well the iPhone's built-in mic stood up to the NT2000 using the iRig Pre, but there was no doubt about it, the NT2000 had a fuller and more detailed sound. However, comparing those tests to the NT2000 through my desktop audio interface revealed that sound was significantly clearer, fuller and quieter, as you'd expect. From there, I decided to see whether using a different app to record would yield different results. Using the iPhone's Voice Memos app, I couldn't get a monitoring signal. It would record audio, but not send a signal to my headphones for monitoring. However, using GarageBand with the monitoring turned on in the track settings gave me a monitor signal. Which is a relief because you can obviusly do so much more with GarageBand than with IK's Recorder app, or even IK's VocaLive. By this point my ears may have begun to tire, but to me it sounded like the quality of the recording was better in GarageBand than in IK's Record app. I can't see how this can be unless it's all down to the programming of the apps. That, or my ears simply got tired. At the end of the day, is the iRig Pre worth investing in, even at its low price point? Well, there is that hiss to contend with. If there was no noise from the iRig Pre, in many ways it would be a no brainer. But unfortunately, on my unit anyway, it was there. And even if you're just doing podcasts or demo recordings, it will detract from the result. Furthermore, what's the point of buying an expensive mic for more clarity and detail only to have that sound tainted by hiss. That takes me to my original point: you can have the best mic in the world, but if the preamp is no good there's just no point. To sum up, I'd say the iRig Pre is worth getting if you happen to have a decent mic already, and your only form of recording is through an iOS device. At $39.99, you can't really go wrong. However, if you've got an iDevice, but you haven't got a mic already, you're probably better off looking at a mic and preamp in one, like the Blue Mikey, Tascam IM2 or even the iRig Mic Cast or iRig Mic. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } Update: IK Multimedia got in touch with me regarding the noise/hiss I experienced using the iRig Pre. They had this to say: "The noise is generated by the iOS device headset input. This input is great for general purpose usage or headset mic, but can exhibit some noise in excess when used for audio applications where noise is critical.For this reason iRig PRE has a GAIN control that let's you perfectly set the amount of signal that is going to the iOS device. Setting this to a proper level can minimize the evidence of the iOS device input noise on the recorded signal." IK says the following is best practice when using the iRig Pre: "1. If present, set the input gain on the app you're using for recording at UNITY gain, typically shown as 0dB. 2. By looking at a recording level meter on the recording app, adjust the GAIN CONTROL on iRig PRE so that the recording level is as high as possible without distortion."
Propellerhead announces Figure for iOS (Updated)
Propellerhead -- makers of the music DAW software, Reason -- had a press conference in Frankfurt, Germany yesterday where it announced some exciting new products and features. Most notably for iOS users, Propellerhead announced a brand new music making app, Figure. As indicated by Ernst Nathorst-Böös, CEO of Propellerhead, Figure is the soul of Reason, married to the mobile platform. It's designed for short bursts of creativity, like when you're on a bus ride or taking a break in the studio! The app is intuitively designed for touch from the ground up. Essentially, Figure is a mobile platform for mocking-up musical ideas, but with the same standard of quality sound that Reason has to offer. Figure comes with drums powered by the same Kong Drum designer found in Reason. Bass and lead / melody sounds are powered by the same Thor polyphonic synthesizer also found in Reason. But Propellerhead's developers didn't stop there. They also put the Reason mixer into Figure, with the same master bus compressor from Reason 6. So Figure's sound quality and potential for sound creation should be pretty high. We can't wait to get our hands on it. Figure is due to land on the iOS App Store at any moment now, priced at just US$1. You can watch the press conference announcing Figure at Propellerhead's YouTube site. Update: Figure is now live on the iOS App Store. Here's the link. We've also had word from Propellerhead that many exciting features are planned for upcoming updates. Sooner rather than later, we can expect saving, import and export of Figure files (with social media integration). Further down the line is support for export into Reason. Finally, there are plans for the implementation of a sequencer of some sort because it's a lot more fun (and useful) exporting an entire arranged track than it is just a two bar loop. We'll keep you posted as things develop. There's also a promo video of Figure you can check out here.
Interview: Olivia Broadfield on Macs, apps and DIY music making
You've probably not heard of UK based singer songwriter Olivia Broadfield before, but chances are you've heard her music at some point, especially if you watch a lot of TV. Songs from her debut album, Eyes Wide Open (released in 2009), reached over 50 TV placements on shows like The Hills, Ghost Whisperer and Melrose Place. Following that, Eyes Wide Open reached No. 3 on the iTunes Electronica charts. Daydreams, the opening track from Olivia's second album, This Beautiful War (released in June, 2011), was featured on a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy. And if that's not enough, in her spare time Olivia composes jingles for commercials, too. After reading that, you'd be forgiven for assuming Olivia works in swanky studios around the world while she's not touring, and that she has the backing of a big record label behind her, too. But her situation couldn't be more different. In fact, Olivia hasn't really done all that much gigging (let alone any tours), she's not with a record label and the studio where she does all her recording, well... it's an old garage attached to the side of her house. OK, she's converted said garage into a modest-but-capable DIY studio, and yet, it's not the rock 'n roll lifestyle you'd expect. That's not a bad thing. What really caught my attention, besides her music, was Olivia's setup. Without wanting to undermine the clear production power that it has, it's an undeniably simple setup with absolutely no frills. And to me, that's a testament to the musical creativity of Olivia, the Mac and DAW at the center of her studio and the reality that producing great music doesn't always require the most expensive gear and equipment you can (or usually can't) get your hands on. About a week ago I was fortunate to get the opportunity to chat with Olivia over Skype. Tea cups in hand, we chatted about the tools she uses to produce her music, a little about her workflow as a songwriter, her musical and production influences and what she does to recharge her creative batteries. Read on to find out what she had to say. TUAW: Tell me about your current setup? What gear are you using? How do you make the magic happen? Olivia Broadfield: So I have a Mac Pro. It's got two 2Ghz Dual Core Intel Xeon processors in it with 8 GB of Ram. I've had it for a year or so. I bought it second hand off this guy on eBay who was selling off gear from his studio that I don't think worked out. I got it for a really great price. When he handed it over I could tell he wasn't too happy about it, but I was! I'm running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I like to stay one release behind the latest release so everything's super stable. I've got two screens (one old school Apple one that came with the Mac Pro and one Acer one). I'm a Reason Record user, so my 2 screens make mixing and programming super quick and easy. I'm using a Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 interface, little M Audio BX5a monitors and a Rode NT2000 mic. I have to confess I did have an outboard compressor, but sold it because I never used it as the pre-amps on the Focusrite are so great. The MIDI keyboard I use is a M-Audio Prokeys 88 SX. TUAW: Was your Mac Pro your first Mac? OB: Ha! No. I got my first Mac off eBay about 6 years ago! It was an old silver door G4 Mac, I can't even tell you the spec, but I know it was probably pretty teeny compared to what I have now! It still sits under my desk as a giant hard drive because it's got loads of my old music on it, but I rarely plug it in these days. Back then I was using Reason and Logic with ReWire, (which was a pain in the backside), and it struggled a bit with that, but it still got the job done. Before that I had a PC, but really just for emailing etc. I've never been a PC for music user. Studios I used before I set up my own always had Macs and I just believed that they were more stable units for making music on. From what I can tell, they don't suffer the same virus problems, so I think I felt my music and data was safer in the hands of a Mac. TUAW: So now you're a Reason 6 user and you've left Logic behind. Why Reason, don't all the big players use Pro Tools or Logic? OB: Well, usually people are quite surprised when they hear I'm using Reason. People seem to get all snobbish about the fact that I'm not a Pro Tools or Logic user. They give me the look that says, "aww, that's sweet. She's playing with Reason." But when they see Reason in action, they're genuinely impressed. At university, I did use Pro Tools, but to get Pro Tools for yourself is quite expensive. So one day I was recording at a friends house and he was using a really old version of Reason, maybe 2.0. It was quite a long time ago! But Reason just looked really accessible compared to what I'd seen in Pro Tools or Logic. So when I set up my own studio and became my own producer, because I'm not a very technical person when it comes to recording, I knew I'd need something simple and easy to use, so I got Reason. Of course, back then Reason didn't do audio recording, so I got an old version of Logic off eBay to handle that side of things, but once Reason came out with Record, I happily left Logic behind. And that's why I love Reason, but I guess I'm just used to it now. I must add that I do have a producer (Josh Crocker) I work with as well as a few others who I bring into the mix for the final finishing touches to my music. I like to think of it as the icing of a cake, I bake it, and then get some others in to help me decorate it. TUAW: There are so many great music apps out there for the iPhone and iPad. Do you have an iPhone or iPad? Do any particular apps assist you in the workflow of how you make music. OB: No iPod or iPad, but yep, I have an iPhone 4 -- although I'm ashamed to say I haven't updated it to the latest version of iOS, yet! My friends give me grief for that! I know there are so many music apps out there, but I tend to just use the inbuilt voice memo for ideas and getting down songs, particularly if I'm out and about or it's late at night and I can't be bothered to boot the studio up. As I get most of my initial ideas on piano and guitar, I find just the dictaphone on its own meets most of my needs. The other night I was twinkling on the guitar and came up with a little skitsy idea that would work great for an advert., I was able to put the idea down from start to finish on the iPhone so I could remember it the next day. It's nothing fancy, but it simply gets the job done. I actually think the iPhone mic is pretty good for that sort of thing. TUAW: While we're talking about iPhones... Besides all the usual suspects (the Mail app, Safari, Facebook etc) what apps do you find you use the most on your iPhone. OB: I love Hipstamactic. And I do use the Flashlight app A LOT! One of the weirder apps I've got is Shakra Chime. It literally plays a chime! That's it! I find it helps me calm my mind.... You know, after a busy day of making music with tunes buzzing around your head. Oh, I also like Sleep Maker, where it's just rain noise. "Gentle rain onto porch roof." That is my favorite! TUAW: What about when you're not making awesome music, how do you spend your down time? Any games you into? OB: When I first go the iPhone, I played games all the time. The popular ones like Angry Birds. Oh, and Bejewled. I was obsessed with trying to score a million on Bejeweled, but I only got about 700,000. I am a bit of a nerd, so I do love games like Scrabble and other word games. I could just spend all day my iPhone playing games. So occasionally, I have to force myself to go outside and look at animals and hear bird song! TUAW: Who are your musical influences? What artists and musicians really inspire you to make music? OB: I like people who are versatile, people who keep it fresh. I love Gwen Stefani for that reason. Influence wise, I think Feist is a beautiful singer and songwriter, her career is the one I would probably like the most. I've seen her live and she just has this great energy, relaxed like everything comes so easy to her. TUAW: What about recording / producing influences? Are there people out there who really inspire you about the technical side of making music? OB: When I first set up my studio over 5 years ago, Imogen Heap's Speak For Yourself album was huge. Seeing someone go out there, particularly a woman in such a male dominated studio world, and do everything herself was very motivating. I have to say, I'm not the most able technically, which is why I love my software, the presets are pretty amazing and I can make some great sounding stuff without having to tweak much... Or I'm just lazy... Yeah, probably the latter! TUAW: Here's a curve ball, but If you open iTunes and click on the Top 25 Most Played playlist, what's the number one song you listen to in your music library? OB: Um... That can't be true. OK, it's a dog food commercial song that I did. I can't believe that's my most played song in my iTunes library, especially since I just finished my album and I should have been listening through to those tracks over and over AND OVER again to make sure they were all fine. Oh well... slightly embarrassing! OK, here's the thing. I don't listen to music on my studio Mac. I am really, totally old school when it comes to listening to music. I listen to CD's in my lounge. In fact, oh gosh, I've never downloaded a digital song...
FL Studio coming to Android, Google fans can make phat beats too
Be jealous no more Android fans! (OK, maybe a little bit longer.) FL Studio is coming to your mobile OS of choice. No longer will it just be iDevice owners who get to channel their inner 9th Wonder on the go. Soon enough the company will release a version of its loop-based music-creation suite designed to work on both phones and tablets running Google's portable platform. We don't have a price or release date yet but, as a consolation prize, there's a video of the progress being made on the port after the break.
FL Studio Mobile lands on iOS, more indie rap albums to be produced while commuting
Dream no longer friends, FL Studio Mobile is here for your iOS device of choice. The iPhone and iPod touch version is being offered for $15, while the more expansive HD edition for the iPad is fetching $20 -- but both will see their price climb another $5 after the introductory sale is over. As mentioned you'll be able to pass project files back and forth between the desktop and mobile apps, though the iDevices lack support (and the muscle power) for VST instruments. It also appears the scope of the sequencer had to be scaled back from 128 tracks to 99, but that should be more than enough to keep you tapping out beats like 9th Wonder while riding the train. Hit up the source links to download the portable production suite and check out the gallery below. %Gallery-126831%
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Music gear for the Mac musician
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. Choosing the right gift for an Apple-loving musician can be very tricky. Usually, they've got everything they want already because they can't wait for the latest and greatest -- they just get it for themselves as soon as they can. Or they are so overwhelmed by the choices presented to them that they can't make a decision and therefore obsess about it for months on end. To say the least, it can be very difficult to give the Apple-loving musician the right gift. Ironically, to top it all off, the gift-giver is usually not a musician, nor do they understand the gear and tech that most commonly goes with being a musician. For instance, when I start talking about music tech to a fellow musician in the presence of my wife, she looks at us as if we're speaking an alien language, and try as she might, she can't help but get extremely bored very quickly. So, to help you (the musician / beloved gift-giver) make the right decision, we've gone to the trouble of putting together a list of some of our favorite music apps and pieces of music tech from the last year. You'll definitely find something here that an Apple-loving musician is sure to be pleased with this holiday season.
iOS 4.2 to support MIDI
It's come to light that the upcoming release of iOS 4.2 (due in November) will support all-out MIDI. According to Mike Keller, writing for PC World, Core MIDI on iOS 4.2 should work just as Core MIDI does on Mac OS X, meaning that your iDevice running iOS 4.2 will communicate with other MIDI compatible devices and hardware via USB (using the iPad's camera connection kit USB adapter) or WiFi, using Apple's own MIDI APIs. What can we expect to see from MIDI in iOS? Well, until the official release of iOS 4.2, we won't have all the details. But the guys over at Create Digital Music have put an interesting guide together to demonstrate some of the capabilities of what a MIDI-equipped iDevice could look like, using a developers release of iOS 4.2. Up until now, music creation on the iPhone and iPad has been more of a novelty affair rather than a serious contender and choice for pro musicians. Could MIDI support in iOS be the catalyst that changes that? For me, one of the big attractions of MIDI support in iOS would be the ability to use an iPad / iPhone, loaded with high quality samples, as a replacement for the more traditional laptop + MIDI controller (keyboard) setup commonly used in live musical contexts. All we'd need is for some high quality sample manufacturers (Native Instruments, you interested?) to port a version of their software to the App Store. For all the details, and a video preview of the iConnectMID as well as a look at the Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer, click here. [via Engadget]
Count The Beats: A Welcome Note...
Welcome to a brand new series focusing on music creation on the Mac and iPhone platform.As you know, here at TUAW, we are crazy about anything Apple. We just love it! But, dear reader, this is not the be all and end all of our hearts. For many, if not all of us, music is a great passion of ours too. So, when these two worlds collide, naturally, it's a beautiful thing. Recently, you may have seen a few posts on TUAW covering iPhone apps such as FourTrack and Noise.io or Soundboard for the Mac. Well, in this series, we are going to be singing a similar tune but taking a bit more of an in-depth look, or, if you will, taking things a semi-tone down (OK, enough with the music word play).What exactly can you expect from this (fortnightly) series? If you're a home studio enthusiast (or a singer-songwriter trying to make ends meet) there will be tips, tricks and how-tos from Garageband all the way to Logic Studio and everything in between. Reviews on some of the latest and greatest music creation software and hardware for the Mac and iPhone/iPod Touch as well as, every now and then, a bit of inspiration for those rainy days.But don't fret (oops!) if you can't hold a tune. For those less musically inclined we know you still need a soundtrack for the holiday you had with Granny last year and she wants to share the photo's on a DVD with some 'hip and happening' music in the background - we've got your back.Stay tuned and leave a comment if you have any bright ideas for what you'd like to see covered in this new series.
