iPhone App Directory

Vultus HD for iPad


All I know of this app is from the app store description. It sounds intriguing though.

Vultus is a professional audio instrument now available for Apple iPad.

The Vultus sounds are recorded with the latest advanced audio tecnology.Each instrument feels real and gives you an enchanted acoustic sensation.

[The Piano Keyboard and the Drum Pad]:

- Choose the Piano Keyboard to play more then 20 different instruments:

Acoustic Grand Piano, Electric Piano, Rhodes, Hammond, PipeOrgan, Strings, Pizzicato Strings, Trumpet, Marimba, Xylophone, Pan Flute, Ocarina, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Sitar, Electric Bass, Synth Bass, Synth Brass, Techno Synth, Electrical Storm ...

- Choose the Drum Pad to play more then 20 different percussions and drum kits:

Dry Kit, Dry Kit 2, Ambient Kit, Rock Kit, Jazz Kit, Brush Kit, Latin Kit, Pop Drum, Reggae Drum, Heavy Drum, 80's Drum, Afro, Afro 2, Oriental Mistery, World Percussions, Drum And Bass, Electro Kit, Electro Kit 2, House Kit, HipHop Kit ...

[Innovative system to record your ideas]

Record your musical ideas and hear them in different sounds/instruments changing in real time the selected sound. This is a great solution for composers and songwriters who need to explore their tunes in different ways and in different arrangements.

Let the Vultus help you to find the right notes in the following scales:

Major, Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor Asc., Melodic Minor Desc., Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, Whole/Half Diminished, Half/Whole Diminished, Whole Tone, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Blues, Major Blues, BeBop Dominant, BeBop Major, Hexatonic, Augmented, Alternate, Egyptian, Hirajoshi, Pelog, Balinese, Japanese, Chinese, Chinese 2, Hungarian Major, Hungarian Minor, Enigmatic, Neopolitan, Flamenco, Arabian, Persian, Byzantine.

miniMUSYS for iPhone


I posted about the iPad version of this the other day. Now there's an iPhone version too.

MUSYS is a music understanding system developed for Apple iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch platforms. Use MUSYS to tune your instrument, transcribe music, figure out a song, as an improvisation tool, learn music theory, or do harmonic mixes. See music while you listen to it – from the sound spectrum, to notes on a musical staff, to scales, chords, and key changes in the circle of fifths.

MUSYS “understands” the theory of Western music in terms of notes, scales, chords, and keys. It starts by detecting musical pitches in an audio signal. After correcting for overtones (since sometimes the harmonics of musical instruments are louder than the fundamental pitch), and removing correlated background sounds (e.g., from percussion instruments), pitches are converted into notes that are displayed on a standard musical staff. Next, MUSYS uses model-based techniques to fit musical scales to melodies and chords to harmonies. 2-D maps show the chords and scales that best match the music being played. Finally, MUSYS uses the match scores of scales as “votes” for the current musical key in the circle of fifths.

GO TO DEVELOPER WEB SITE FOR DEMO VIDEO AND TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

(RECOMMENDED FOR IPHONE 3GS and 4. FOR OLDER DEVICES USE PITCH TO NOTE, PITCH TO NOTE+, AND WHAT KEY.)

Realtime Voice Transformer


There have been a few apps like this, but I thought that this one was worth mentioning as it also has audio pasteboard. Here are the specs.

RVT-1 is pure entertainment. Sing like a chipmunk or get crunk with a deep voice.

With RVT-1 you can transform your voice into a booming monster, squeaky mouse, or anywhere in between. In addition, the ability to modulate your voice can alter the effect from word slurring to robotic. To top it off, a reverb mix control allows you to go from in-your-face to in a giant cave.

To make sure that no unwanted background noise is heard, adjust the squelch knob.

RVT-1 automatically saves the current recording into the audio pasteboard for further sound manipulation.

RVT-1 is best suited to use with headphones.

You don't have to always talk or sing into the mic, try changing the settings and listen to the people and noises around you! Make your mom sound like a man or your dad sound like a lady. You could even make the most boring TV show instantly hilarious by making everyone sound like chipmunks.

Please note that RVT-1 cannot change your voice while you are making a call with your iPhone.

RVT-1 requires a device with a microphone.


RVT-1 at a glance:
  • Pitch shifting range: +/- 1 octave
  • Pitch modulation
  • Reverb
  • Squelch control
  • oscilloscope
  • record time:
  • audio pasteboard

Polywave for iPhone


A new Synth for the iPhone which looks quite interesting.

Polywave is a polyphonic graphic synthesizer built from the basic elements of subtractive synthesis. At its core, Polywave is has one oscillator, one filter, one envelope, one low frequency oscillator, and a 4 octave touchpad.

Polywave has been designed to be an introductory synthesizer for budding sound sculptor with enough features that even a pro will enjoy creating sounds in a new and unique way.

Polywaves takes the synthesizer into the visual realm by allowing you to draw the waveform of the oscillator, envelope, and LFO. You are literally playing the sound that you have drawn on screen.

By drawing the waveform of the oscillator, you can create very complex waveforms that would take a host of modules and manipulation just by swiping your finger across the screen. In the oscillator screen, you can apply either the envelope or LFO to modulate the pitch of the oscillator over time. Don't let the display fool you, the oscillator waveform has a much higher resolution than what is shown on screen. Polywave tracks every pixel your finger touches while drawing the waveform.

Since you can also draw the envelope and LFO controllers in any shape you want, you can make wild, unheard of sounds by applying these controllers to either the pitch or filter destinations.

To use the envelope, draw the shape of the envelope (goodbye ASDR) and set where you want the sustain to hold. (TIP: by drawing above the middle of the window, the envelope values will be positive, by drawing below, the values will be negative.)

To use the LFO, draw the shape of the waveform and set the speed at which it repeats.

If you need to get that perfect waveform, don't fret, by holding any top button down, a list of available presets will be displayed.

To take it further, 3 filter modes are available, this includes the standard low pass filter, high pass filter, and band pass filter. The filter curve is The filter also allows the routing either the envelope or LFO to modulate the cutoff frequency.


Polywave features at a glance:
  • 4 Octave touchpad
  • pitch glide
  • Polyphonic Graphic Oscillator
  • Pitch modulation
  • Oscillator Presets - Sine, Triangle, Saw, Square, blank
  • Filter
  • Filter modulation
  • Filter Presets - Low pass, High pass, Band pass
  • Graphic Envelope
  • Envelope Sustain position
  • Envelope Presets - ASDR Positive, EXP Positive, ASDR Negative, EXP Negative, blank
  • Graphic LFO
  • LFO rate
  • LFO Presets - Sine, Ramp Up, Ramp Down, Square, blank

BoomClap for iPhone / Touch / iPad



I started playing with this app today, and it is a lot of fun so far. I can see this app being one of those that you keep coming back to over and over.

More on it when I've had time to play with it a lot more.

First impressions of Curtis for iPad


Earlier today I posted about The Strange Agency have releasing Curtis for the iPad, which is great. I've been having a play with this app on my iPad and so far I think it is good translation of the original app to the iPad.

The iPad version does give you some more flexibility and also the ability to bring your samples in via iTunes.

I always liked the otiginal app on the iPhone a lot, and this version on the iPad is good, but not different enough as yet. I'm hoping that the Strange Agency will bring more features to the iPad app to make use of the iPad's ability.

Sound Scope Space


More Strange Agency news today. Sound Scope Space has dropped in price from $2.99 to $1.99.

iSequence HD update


The excellent iSequence gets an update. Here's what's new:
  • Added LOOP instrument mode with automatic tempo matching
  • Fixed MIDI export crash
  • Sample import: improved stability, ability to upload zip archives, support for 24bit samples
  • Microphone recording: voice distortion problem fixed

The Daily eBay

A few more things from eBay today. Firstly a copy of electroplankton going cheap.


Next a couple of Kaossilator bags.


Then a QY10.


And a QY100 going very cheap indeed.


A couple of monotrons.

Slashdot on R4 Cards

If you use one of these cards in your DS then you need to read this at Slashdot.

Online Processing and Arduino Course


O'Reilly are starting a processing and arduino course. The course is free to watch live or you can purchase it for $49.

Curtis for iPad


The Strange Agency have released Curtis for the iPad, and if you're quick you might find that some of the codes they left on their site are still available!

The first granular synthesizer for the iPhone comes to the iPad!

Granular synthesis works by combining many tiny grains of sound from an existing recording, creating new sounds with the texture of the original, now with endless temporal possibilities. Play the sound forward, backward, or even at a single point!

Unlike scratching a record, pitch doesn't depend on how quickly you move through the recording. Try with spoken word, singing, synths. Mangle your recordings or create soft, gentle textures!

This release allows you to record audio with your iPad or add your own WAV files via iTunes. No more in-app server setup; just drag-and-drop!


Is it worth buying an old G1?

I've been thinking about getting an old Android phone just to experiment with? If it is, any suggestions on what kind to get?

NeuMET1K Rhythm Composer


I posted on this the other day and now it has been released. Here's the app's description:

Transform your mobile device into a 'live' rhythm sequencing machine with a simple interface for note entry.

NeuMET1K (pronounced 'pneumatic') Rhythm Composer is a handy drum machine with the following features:
  • large pads for 'live' triggering and sequencer data entry
  • sequence while rhythm is looping [edit mode]
  • play 'live' drums over sequence as it loops [play mode]
Enjoy your groove! (Works best with headphones or connected to speakers)

I have access to app inventor!

Of course, I don't have an Android device, but I guess I can still have a play and find out what's fun! I'll let you know how I get on.

How should non-techie's learn programming?

Interesting question raised at slashdot, which I bet lots of people have asked themselves over time. How do I get get my heard into coding?

My favourite comment at slashdot was "Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day. Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."

Jimmy Edgar coming to RJDJ

Read the rest at the RJDJ blog, plus there's video there too.

An Alternative App Store

OpenAppMkt is an app store for web apps. I had a quick look at it and there's only 1 music app there at present, but then it did only launch yesterday, so it is really early days so far.

Interested to hear from any developers who are going to make web app versions of their native apps.

Vote in in-app poll

Still time to vote on the in-app purchase poll. Great to see all the comments on this too, well worth reading.

If you haven't voted on it as yet please do.

Reminder: New Site Feed

Just a reminder that the blog has a new feed by popular request.

I've added some new features to the feed, which will hopefully be useful. Please let me know what you think or if there are any problems.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PalmSoundsFeed

What I was up to last weekend

I was away last weekend at the WOMAD festival Charlton Park. It was a great festival this year and I really enjoyed it. I've written a bit more about it at my personal blog, but I thought you might be interested in a few things.

Whilst at the festival I ended up playing at the Roots Architecture stages a couple of times with friends which was great fun. The Roots Architecture stages were amazing and brilliant to play on.

We only got to play a couple of tracks, one of which I used ThumbJam on, and the other I did entirely with with Looptastic Producer.

If you check out the photo above you can work out what else was being used too.

I had a great time, and on top of that I saw some great music too. Notably, Nouvelle Vague, Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and Syriana.

GuitarJack Approved and coming soon

Sonoma have confirmed that their GuitarJack product is now approved and going into production. You can reserve one for just $20.

Impressions of ThumbJam as a universal app

I'm already a big fan of ThumbJam, it is a great app, so I was really pleased to hear that it was becoming a universal app.

Last night I tried it out on my iPad for the first time and although I don't think I can put my finger on why it is so much better on the iPad, I can tell you that it is. Perhaps it is something to do with the additional screen space or that it is simply a lot more powerful than my old iPhone 3G, but running ThumbJam on the iPad was excellent.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what new iPad specific features come out next for ThumbJam
in the next release, it can only get better from here.

Tiction for iPad: Price Drop


Tiction AV has dropped in price from $4.99 to $2.99.

Noise.io XT single oscillator test on iPhone 4



Amidio's interface's never disappoint do they. Looking forward to seeing this next iteration of Noise IO.

Amidio

What does the new Kindle mean?

Lots of sites have been talking about the new Kindle device from Amazon. Yes it is really cheap with the wifi version only £109! Amazing.

Initially I was excited, then wondered what I would do with this if I got one? I already have the kindle app on my iPhone / iPad. So, is the Kindle capable of anything to do with mobile music at all? I know it has text to speech, so it must be able to do something with audio, but more than that I don't know.

It seems like it could be an interesting platform, with a low entry barrier, but I'm guessing that until there is some indication of it being more than a book reader it won't be ticking any mobile music boxes for a while.

BtBx is free


Another app that I'm sure that I paid for right back at the start of the app store. Anyway, it is now free if you fancy picking it up.

Digital Bass Line is free


I'm sure I paid for this app ages ago, but it seems that it is now free. By today's standards it is ok, but when it came out it was quite amazing.

Akai SynthStation (slight) update


My sort of weekly look at where we are with the (incredibly) long awaited SynthStation 25 from Akai.

DolphinMusic in the UK now have the Akai SynthStation listed as being available within 7-10 days. The price quoteed is £79.99, so no change on that part.

Musician's Friend in the US still has the Akai SynthStation25 listed as available from the 18th of August! They have it priced at $99.

And lastly Music123 also have the Akai SynthStation25 as available from the 18th of August at $99.

So perhaps we might see the controller arrive in the UK sooner rather than later. I won't hold my breath. So it is anyone's guess as to what's happening with this device and when any of us can get that SynthStation app working as it was intended.

If you know more, or have had one delivered! Please let me know.