Quincy, modular cellular automata composition tool

Quincy is a most unique music composition tool. Its modular approach to interpretation of cellular automata renders Life worlds in styles ranging from Balinese Gamelan music to that of Stockhausen. Auto-generated on-device, interactive music that sounds authentic and goes far beyond the mere triggering of note events or squeeky sine waves. Compositions in Quincy are visually and musically spellbinding and wonderfully strange. They can be looped, react to touch during play and can be shared via AirDrop, messaging and email.

Quincy’s core engine is a full implementation of Conway’s Game of Life, capable of generating all possible Life variants including HighLife and Seeds. It comes with a Life editor, a large library of patterns, color mixer, features an adjustable grid size, random cell insertion and many display options. Editing tools go beyond pen and pattern stamp and also include options like copy, paste and rotate.

Quincy ships with three sound modules (Chroma, Gregorian and Pentrix) with many more to come. Each module uses its own algorithm to create sound but also defines the key and a base scale to be used as tone material. The Chroma module is geared towards atonal music with several symmetric and chromatic scales. The Gregorian module employs church modes and the Pentrix module offers 27 types of pentatonic scales.

There are two playback modes, audio and MIDI. In audio mode playback is routed through a device’s speakers or headphones. This mode offers 128 instruments and adjustable reverb settings. MIDI over WiFi uses Bonjour for discovery of suitable MIDI destinations to seamlessly integrate Quincy’s output into any DAW like Logic or Ableton.

Quick Features:

• Universal app (iPhone, iPod, iPad)
• Document based
• Adjustable grid size
• MIDI over WiFi
• Full general MIDI instrument library and adjustable reverb
• Performance view (iPad)
• Large pattern library
• File transfer via Email, Message or AirDrop
• Extensive online documentation
• Academic discounts are available

Quincy is very powerful and a joy to work with. Create infinite variations on a theme by combining playback loops with random inserts or use performance mode with one-tap document switching and the ability to draw into playing compositions without disturbing the original. Quincy renders stunning visuals, produces the craziest looking metronomes, very atmospheric soundscapes and strange rhythmic patterns that have many uses in music production.

The app is priced at $5.99