Another one to take off the wait list. There'll be nothing on it soon. Here are the details of Samplewiz which arrived last night. The first couple of paragraphs of description are a bit emotional from Mr Rudess, so feel free to skip to the feature list.
Jordan says: In creating this instrument I wanted to create something that would appeal to the sonic explorer in all of us. Creating a sampler for iOS devices has allowed us to push the boundaries of traditional sampling instruments. From playing a selection of my signature sounds on the SampleWiz keyboard (JR lead anyone?) to getting up close and personal with sounds by playing directly on the waveform screen, our mission was to blow your mind, put a smile on your face, and expand your creativity. In creating SampleWiz, we have created partnerships with leading sound developers in addition to my personally selected onboard presets.
"Inspiring! Just when you thought nothing could be new in the world of sampling, along comes SampleWiz to fire up the neurons of our creativity in new ways. I love the the new realtime interactive noises I can get by 'touching the sound'...the crazy and unique stuff you can do with it is really expressive and fresh!" - Eric Persing, Founder of Spectrasonics
"SampleWiz gets you playing instantly, and if you like to sample, there's no quicker or more fun way to go from recording to playing your own samples. Amazing controls, easy to understand yet deep enough to let you create musical voices! And it comes with a library of great sounds from Jordan Rudess. SampleWiz is a wiz if ever there was!" - David Mash, VP of Technology and Education, Berklee College of Music
We have poured our hearts and minds into this and driven our families, bandmates, and friends insane by sampling everything that moves. I hope you enjoy this very expressive and wild music app creation!
- Choose from three different sampling modes: classic, granular, and modern.
- Classic - the traditional method of sampling where the sound will speed up and slow down as you go higher or lower than the recorded pitch.
- Granular - Wizdom Music's own take on a granular synthesis engine. Adjust grain size and speed while the entire range of notes maintain the same speed.
- Modern - explore new sampling possibilities using Dirac technology to allow formants and time to be adjusted automatically over a device-selected range.
- Up to 10 seconds per sample.
- Jordan Rudess presets from his private collection.
- Resample anything that you play on the playing surface to create all new samples derived from your existing presets!
- Three playing surface modes allow you to play on the keyboard, wave-edit screen, and the ADSR window.
- Wizdom Music's Advanced Pitch Rounding for initial attack as well as after a slide.
- Every note you play is an independent event allowing powerful, expressive control of pitch and amplitude.
- Finger vibrato effect allows you to achieve vibrato even when pitch lock is activated!
- Unique visuals for each sampling mode. A glow tracks your fingers and respond to the amount of amplitude of every note you play.
- Choose from many different scales and customize your own.
- Play your samples forward or reverse!
- Looping options include standard looping as well as back-and-forth looping.
- Allows trimming of samples.
- Unique visualization of the amplitude envelope on the ADSR page.
- FX include delay with a choice of tap-tempo, BPM, and seconds control over the rate.
- Have two keyboards on the screen, each with its own range and scale!
- Unique hold mode where every held note can be in a different synthesis mode!
- Share your presets with friends by mailing them as SampleWiz files or standard audio files.
- Play directly on the waveform and hear the audio that is right under your finger. Slide each finger separately in any direction to change pitch and position in the sample.
- MAPI AudioCopy/AudioPaste allows sharing of audio with top audio apps.
- Load your own audio files with iTunes file sharing.
- Onboard help screens explain every parameter. Touch the question mark to activate.
iPads at the Apple Store
23 comments:
Impressive list of features. Too bad the UI looks like something from Windows 3.1. Looks nigh unusable. Pass.
While looks shouldn't matter, the truth is that they really do.. less would have been more in this instance.
It seems that almost all the features exist in Beatmaker2, but with less "wowyzowie groovy maaaan" excess.
@Brian
Does bm2 allow you to scan a sample via touch?
Can that sample be fixed to a number of scales ?
Does bm2 have granular sampling?
I must be the odd one out as after working with it for 15 minutes I found the interface fairly intuitive and functional. Most functions being within easy reach of the main screen. I have used Morphwiz a fair bit so I don't doubt that helped.
The biggest problem I had was working out how to paste in a sample. Once I managed to get a comb filter sweep in from Horizon I was able to knock out some interesting variations in no time. I found the sample manipulation possibilities creative and the interface helped rather than hindered ideas.
I'm guessing it's probably like a MorphWiz that samples. Which is not a bad thing because MW is capable of some pretty bizarre stuff.
Love it! A Saturday morning made even better with the release of SampleWiz .... now I can postpone all the other projects I had planned for the morning.
@ matt hooper Sorry wasn't paying close enough attention to what's in store. Teach me to be hyper reactive. Might even try it out. But if only the interface was not so ...
The dev should develop it and then hire a designer,
or at least ask the opinion of someone who isn't colourblind.
Because the app is really great and is capable of a lot,
but the design doesnt give it what is deserves but downgrades it a bit I think.
but still recommended
@kidBaltan
Agreed, I feel the same way about Morphwiz, too... Those guys need to put the bong down for 10 minutes and find a less-stoned graphic designer. :)
The background texture is a ridiculous choice, like looking at a well laid out GUI through LSD glasses. Checking it despite my best aesthetic judgement.
As good as it sounds, it looks so bad that I just can't get myself to buy it.
It looks so bad that it affects usability. Hopefully in future updates you will be able to change the "skin" à la iElectribe.
I understand mostly that sex sells,so we are all interested in the way things look. I don't own Morphwiz or Samplewiz but I hope to soon.
Rudess is a road performer,right. He spends most of his music making in dimly lit stages or studios. How does this app stack up in those kinds of environments? Could the ui be used if you needed to acsess it on a stage lit setting?
I think that looks do pay a great part in what we all accept but the bottom line for me is function first. Then maybe looks. I have been using Nano studio for how long now in 2x mode? Some of my favorite app concepts are based on minimalist design(Gliss)look at other apps such as synthx,way out wares awesome synth,it is straight 16 bit folks but that doesn't stop me from thinking greatness every time I use it. Sylo synth I feel was a big influence to rudess when it came to this app,and sylo uses a generic denim jeans material wallpaper for it's background. Not the best use of denim I've seen but perhaps pretty close. I can rattle off every synth on the list and we could all find some element that knocks a point off the beauty category.
I am just sorry for Jorden that if he came to a heavily iOS musician centric site to check on posts he would see that his hard work in creating a crazy synth has been reduced to nothing more then how pretty it looks. Come on guys. Curtis? Jasuto? Sunvox? (dos like but amazing)
Mixtikl? Another of the powerhouse apps that suffer from non Apple like GarageBand glitz and glamour.
It might look like a program from the 80's but the devs only just recently changed ui,the main focus of that app has always been function first.
I think rudess took ideas he liked from all the synth apps he was using and told his 'guy' this is what I want. It takes a little bit of this app and that mixed with JR style and out pops what we get. I think that JR was loving the synthx touch interface where you see the wave every time you touch and that probably inspired the background wave image thing. He might have even asked his developer to implement the same type of wave display touch that synthx has but perhaps it was out of the developers/softwares capability.
Just take a moment to put your self in other shoes to try and think about different scenarios that could have played out.
Some might call this paranoia,I call it being open minded.
As a touch interface, I think Samplewiz looks pretty well laid out. But I do agree with all the stuff about the psychedelic lights and effects. I don't necessarily think that does the app any favours (with older farts such as me!).
But why not do what Korg have done on their Electribe, and offer the ability to change the skin? I'd far prefer to have a plain white background with a black legend. This would make it far easier to operate in the day rather than just at night, or in a darkened room.
I see a couple of major missing features here, I would of expected them really.
1.core midi missing
2.no 1 shot sample playback, everything seems to loop only?
huh.. odd the critiques here aren't reflected at all in the apps reviews.. maybe.. drop the ten bucks and buy it and see if the UI us an issue..
I think it's pretty sweet myself.. although, I was just a little scared when the wiz popped out of nowhere while I was playing..
i dig the visuals in morphwiz too..
UI isn't about pretty or ugly it's about fluid.. and both apps can be picked up and learned by anybody in a matter of minutes.. compare that to sunvox, noise.io, or mixtkl..
Ten bucks.. if you are here, and don't buy this app.. huh.. I'd question why you are even at palm sounds in the first place. It's a revolutionary mobile (or non) app.. don't miss out on all the fun.. if you're a dev, set aside the envy.. get the app and gleen what's good.
Form and function are not always 2 seperate things ,
they can influence each other,
thats why warningsigns are red, and thats why I rather dont see an interface that has the same effect of panic in my brain.
if you take all the colours you like and put them together
you probably get some muddy brown that has little to do with those colours.
When I play a note I dont really need two eyes come flying from behind the key, it confuses me.
but like said the app as sampler is great
Personally, I think he and his team need to pick the bong back up, take a few hits of liquid music and keep on making instruments as they have been.
Morphwiz is amazingly fun, to the point of complete "play" turning into very useful results. Samplewiz has the same character, and I think it's partially BECAUSE of the nutty UI design in both apps.
Great stuff guys, keep it up!
seriously it is really a great app with many options and at least every samplist should buy it.
( and loopy)
IMO, it's really the moste interesting app I've tried on my iPad. And the interface is very good from the ergonomic point of view. The graphics are not photorealistic ? Well, it's not a problem for me : Electribe and Reason are very nice but didn't give me any pleasure to play with it (I've got the feeling to go back 10 years in the past with these devices). Gorillaz made his worst album with an Electribe? Cool! Let's see what the other musicians can do with Samplewiz... (by the way, I wish Damon had an app like Samplewiz to work on his album intead of his crappy Electribe : the results would have been probably better)
any word on midi for this? is it realistic to sample notes on a fender rhodes to create a playable patch? or is there a better app out for that?
I haven't had time to read all of the comments here, but I think it's pretty awesome that they are including a free bong with each purchase..thanks for the heads up all!
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