If you've been thinking about getting Mixtikl then now you can try out the free version! Here's what you'll get (for nothing):
Create magical music with Mixtikl. Explore. Listen. Mix. Experiment. The results can be stunning!
A powerful, deep and unique music lab / instrument.
Check out mixes others have tweeted or start with your own random mix (Menu > New > Random). Keep the "parts" that work for to you & even add more. Apply a range of FX presets & save your mix. Make short recordings & try using mic recordings or audio loops pasted in from other apps!
Key features of Mixtikl FREE:
- A unique 12 track cell-sequencer, mixer & "generative music" lab with integral synth
- Includes Tiklpaks with over 380 generative "parts" & 30 audio loop beats + 50 FX presets
- Includes integral Partikl MIDI DLS wavetable / modular synth for Mixtikl sounds / FX:
- Tone Generators (Oscillator, Particle, Dsynth, Wavetable)
- FX units (Chorus, Reverb, Filter, Distortion, ODrive, Delay, EQ, Compressor, Amp)
- FX control units (LFO, Envelope, Amp);
- Includes integral Noatikl generative music engine
- Use your mix recordings royalty free in films, videos, presentations, cds etc.*
- Copy / Paste audio files via Sonoma AudioCopy & AudioPaste + Apple General Pasteboard
- Transfer in / out your own loops, recordings & mix file via iTunes App File Sharing
- Make microphone audio recordings for use in mixes (external mic required if no internal mic)
- Auto time stretch & pitch shift Tiklpak content, plus change mix tempo & root settings
- Set individual track volume & pans, global volume & solo / mute tracks
- Play at up to 44Khz stereo output (user configurable, device dependent), record at 22KHz
- 2 mins play time and up to 4 bars live recording / 1 bar mixdown recording
- From the devs of the SSEYO Koan (1990-2007) & Noatikl (2007-) Generative Music systems
- Mixtikl (Full) version also available with more advanced features / capabilities
iPads at the Apple Store
24 comments:
I got this app when 3.0 came out. I haven't had the time to sit and learn it yet as I was hoping for some tutorials to get me motivated. With that said this app has tons of potential and I'm glad to see a free version come out for those that were on the fence.
Have a Google - there are 2 good, up-to-date tutorials for Mixtikl 3...
http://youtu.be/xvdCQHftIM8
http://youtu.be/uRZYJRxP2Gg
More coming too by the looks of things - there's a lot to it!!
Sat down with Mixtikl for a few hours today. You can really find your way around with the free version but to really get into the sound sculpting you really do need the full version. 2 minutes is no time when it comes to applying effects ;)
All the better to have the free version to really see what it's all about. Didn't take long for me to get my bearings. It is a little odd seeing so many root folders on an iOS device. I keep graving for them hoping that maybe just maybe one folder would let me have access. No dice. Apple is on lock down. It is a very nice piece of kit. I can spend hours just fiddling not getting anything done,just to listen to soundscape. Thanks for a heavy 'lite' demo.
It is a great idea, but terrible execution. If you want a deep sound design tool on the iPad, there are plenty of better options. As this stands it may be "Universal", but it is really just an iPhone app with knobs that don't work and a cumbersome UI.
Totally agree !!
Horrible Ux .. I can't bring myself to use it..it's allover the place and have to keep taping and going somewhere all the time.
The audio engine seems nice though and they should just package this in a touchable interface and not a point-and-click one.
When you see how many (many) screens there are in Mixtikl - and how much content there is - there ain't no way it could have a simple 1 or 2 screen Ui ... Just saying! Still, horses for courses, as they say...
@anon posters;
This is pretty much exactly what I told Pete Cole about the UI. I never finished what I was saying as the blog once again got deeper and deeper, but Pete Cole said it was because Mixtikl supported so many platforms.
Well I really think it is precisely the latter that it exactly the problem (the same goes for Sunvox and others). What was it that Steve Jobs said to Nike in a marketing conversation with the shoe company last year?
;)
Just do it?
Hi all,
We've always been a multi-platform company, and simply do what we can with just 1 developer. :)
I think we must spend 90% of our time on UIs. Who'd have thought it?!
Anyways: our latest focus is on extended Noatikl editing facilities in Mixtikl 3.1 ... which is very very powerful - and of course, continual improvements to the overall UI.
Best wishes,
Pete
BTW, this image (quite large!) gives a flavour of some of the screens we have to maintain in Mixtikl.
http://intermorphic.com/images/home/mixtikl3-0-PosterBig.jpg
Plenty to keep us busy!
Best to all,
Pete
"Just do it?"
Nope.
"Get rid of the crappy stuff."
Watch the vid on the link below. Of course Intermorphic could drop development on Apple, but somehow I don't see that happening.
http://www.fastcompany.com/video/mark-parker-nike-and-steve-jobs-apple
Perhaps instead of racing forward to furthering the development on Noatikl, you should just get the whole Mixtikl GUI experience sorted out once and for all?
It's also worth throwing in that many PC-only apps (in the world of 3D design, that's Solidworks and 3DS Max to you and me) that users have claimed having really good user interfaces, developers have later remarked that the interfaces were in fact based on Apple GUI guidelines- but just developed for PC, because the market share was bigger.
:)
The interface in Mixtikl makes sense and you just have to learn a little to use it. The UI could probably be better but honestly every screen works much the same as every other in the app, so once you're into it you can work and produce sounds, and that's precisely what I want to do with a music making app. As for 3D stuff, 3D software were on PC because the latest PCs were just more powerful (as in more frequently updated, not supported by a unique company) so the industry never used Macs for this (not a matter of market size, these were tools for pros who tend to buy the right hardware with the right software), just makes sense, BTW the UIs in most 3D software come historically from the Unix world...
Thanks for the feedback folks!
I'm not sure if people realise that most of what we do, is constrained by the depth of what Mixtikl offers.
For example, the first review of Mixtikl Free on the US app store comments on how many levels of UI one has to go through to edit an envelope value in Mixtikl (8 pages deep was mentioned!), which is an interesting example. Oh, and it was a 1 star review.
So, assuming your selected content has a custom synth sound, how do you edit the envelope? Lets take a look...
Touch your content cell - that tells Mixtikl which item of all the ones on screen you want to edit.
The content view appears - touch the Synth button - that tells Mixtikl you want to edit the sounds behind the content cell.
Select the MIDI channel to edit (there are often different sound designs attached to each channel!)
Touch the Envelope button in the FX network.
The envelope editor appears ... and drag the values around until you're happy with things.
If you like what you've done, touch the OK button a few times to get back.
I can't see where to cut-out any steps - we can't simply put an single envelope slider on the main screen - whatever the UI framework / style guidelines in use :)
Pete
I'm happy with this depth, I for sure wouldn't like a UI pleasing people but preventing tweaking every tweakable tweakability. I have to make sure I posted a 5 star review for Mixtikl (full), in case I forgot to do so I'll do it today and will make sure to mention that the UI may be frightening at first but that it can be learnt pretty fast and works perfectly once figured out. One starring this app is really silly...
you can do quite a lot without reading the manual and just touching things on the screen.
playing a sample is very simple,
some apps I dont get one sound after half an hour touching it, or a very hard unpleasant one that does not stop :)
Pete, I'm happy to offer you extra graphic Interface design help if you feel you could use it? I'm not a genius at C++ but I can at least use Interface Builder fairly proficiently . :)
It is way exaggerated how supposedly difficult this interface is. It only takes an evening of fiddling, without even reading the manual, then you are quite into the app and start making interesting things. I'm loving it!
I couldn't find out how to modify that midi content, that was my only gripe after the first evening. So I'm very happy to see that Noatikl editing will have focus for 3.1. Keep up the good work!
Thanks again to all for your feedback!
Tom, it is very kind of you to offer help. We always value suggestions on how to improve the user flow in any area of the app. If you have any suggestions, do feel free to post them on Palm Sounds or in the Intermorphic forums.
Kid Baltan, Mat and Anonymous et al ... Mixtikl is something of a Marmite app. If you look at the App reviews we get, they are mainly 5 * from people who love the sounds & flexibility, and who generally find the UI fits the problem space quite well. However, you'll also see a significant number of 1 * ratings mainly from people who simply don't like the UI (but who generally say it sounds good).
I do sometimes wonder what to make of the 1* ratings we receive for Mixtikl; the comments make quite interesting reading. I presume that the people who submit them must fiddle with the app for a short while (and maybe hear good sounds) but don't persevere with it for very long. Presumably because the UI is somehow too "alient"? This leads to the app being assessed quite superficially, and reviews tend to blame the obvious thing which is the slightly "non-standard" UI flavour, and/or that it should somehow be easier to use.
If there were a way to improve the tool to encourage those people to "stick with it" past that point, that'd be a great thing; but I'm not really sure that we could do very much to improve the "get results quick" side of Mixtikl much beyond what we already have. All sensible suggestions gratefully received. :)
Back to the look-and-feel / cross-platform issue. It is very important for us to run on the platforms our user base wants; this includes Mac and Win desktop (and sequencer plug-ins), browser plug-in (really!) and iOS; and we keep on getting reminded to get the Android versions of Mixtikl/Noatikl/Liptikl out.
It is a big motivation for us to (in the main!) help our users work with our tools in the context of tool chains they're already happy with. We learned this back in the days of Koan; our best bet withe Intermorphic to keep old customers happy and attract new ones, would be to embrace as many platforms as possible, including offering VST etc. variants of our tool chains... and that approach has required a few compromises. It does mean we're flexible for the long-term and new platforms, even including Android (I even have a QT port ready if MeeGo takes off!). I wonder how many iOS apps would be an easy Android port? :)
Right, back to the drill-down Noatikl editing for Mixtikl 3.1 ... those of you who like tweak-ability are going to *love* it. :)
Best wishes,
Pete
That should have been alien, not alient. Duh. :)
I can vouch for the fun of Noatikl parameter tweakability in Mixtikl (especially using patterns) as I am working on it, too :).
Mixtikl 3.1 will see a portable mix format which can contain synth networks, fx networks, and customised noatikl files and still be tweeted!
Sure, it is all pretty complex, but what can be done is also pretty darn fun... Supporting customised Noatikl files (even ones imported from Noatikl) means that generative music & mixes can be completely custom to you (escaping the confines of "presets"). This will provide enormous scope for generative artistry - and if you want people to check out (play) your creations they can even do it with Mixtikl Free!
@Pete & Tim
Thanks for all your work plus taking the time to discuss your choices with people here. I checked, my 5 star review was there (made it when the app was 2.6), will probably update it, still 5 stars of course! BTW love the new splash & background: keep it 'alient' please...
@Mat, Formal, freesoulvw - many thanks for the support. Knowing that our efforts are appreciated really does help keep this labour of love going! We know Mixtikl is not the easiest app to learn being so deep, and we do always try to keep improving the UI. But, we want to let people (who want to) play with the underlying generative engines, sound/FX generators and mixer/cell sequencer so that they can explore, experiment, share and simply do things that are just not possible in any other app (after all, who else would be mad enough to make such a niche power tool :)).
because of the amount and size of updates alone it deserves 5 stars.
some devs would just re-release it again as TixmitL :)
Now there's an idea. :)
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