Gumdrops for iPad arrives

Looks like an interesting development in the drum app space ...

Gumdrops takes your beats to the next level with the power of a 64 track / 32 step sequencer combined with the expressiveness of a hand-crafted instrument.

Features:

• Inter-App Audio
• Audiobus
• AudioCopy/Paste
• MIDI Clock
• WIST
• SoundCloud®

I am a drummer and the idea for Gumdrops came to me when a friend and I were discussing making beats using devices like the Roland TR-808 and the Native Instruments Maschine. Gumdrops exists because tapping out beats on pads in time is very hard to do and programming in steps on a sequencer then playing it back to see how it sounds is boring.

When I'm on a drum kit I can play quarter, eighth or sixteenth notes easily with either of my hands and feet. If you have your right hand holding steady eighths on the hi-hat, introducing your left hand in between produces sixteenths. Then removing your right hand leaves eighths but on a syncopated pattern. This sort of natural pattern adaptation is what makes Gumdrops so revolutionary.

There are eight groups of eight pads on the board. By default, each group is assigned to a single sampled sound. The two pads at the bottom of a group are half notes, then moving up to quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths. The left column of pads is filled with the patterns that would be played by your right hand if you were on a drum kit, and the right column has what would be played by your left hand. Playing both the left and right together produces a pattern twice as fast. You could think of the left column as down beats and the right as up beats. So playing a pad in the right column will sound funky and off beat. Playing a pad in the left column will sound solid and on beat. Making up combinations of different patterns is easy by just tapping multiple pads.

Of course Gumdrops offers so much more than the defaults. You can edit the 32 step pattern on all 64 pads. Set the velocity for each step by just dragging across the pattern with your finger. Assign samples to pads by recording directly or by AudioPaste. You can synchronize with other apps and equipment using MIDI clock. Record and apply effects using Inter-App Audio and Audiobus. Upload your recordings to SoundCloud®.

All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. WIST is a trademark and software of KORG INC.

Special thanks to David Demeter of The Drum Lab, Sahir Hanif of Masters of Maple, Brady Drums, and the awesome beta test team.

Gumdrops costs $4.99 on the app store: