So, about that Ableton Link stuff then ...

Ableton's Loop event brought out some really interesting things didn't it? Live 9.5, Push 2, and of course Link. Of course Link was the big news from Loop. It was the first, and a very strategic foray for Ableton into the world of mobile. They didn't release and app, they didn't release a controller, they gave us a way to connect everything, without even using Live itself.

I thought it was an interesting collection of apps that are going to be amongst the first to use Link. In fact possibly the biggest surprise was seeing Korg's apps there. It made me wonder what ever happened to their WIST technology. It was quite ground breaking when it was first released but then never followed up or developed. Also it could only connect 2 devices at the same time over bluetooth.

That of course raises another question. Will Ableton keep Link updated? They're not going to make any money from it, so from a purely financial perspective it will be the bottom of the priority list in development terms. That bothers me a little. Of course they could open source it at some point, that would be interesting.

But for now I think it is a way to engage mobile into their ecosystem (although I'm not sure how much I like that word) without having to be in the mobile world. That's pretty smart I think, but where it will take them eventually, that's going to be much more interesting in the long run, and, how will it change how mobile and desktop work together?

Of course the one thing that isn't at the party, at least so far anyway, is Android. It isn't a big surprise though of course, Android tends not to get involved in these kinds of things, but even so, it's a shame. I feel like I have to mention it anyway.

One last thought on the subject though, whilst there was lots of hype and excitement about Ableton's Link technology, how many times have you actually been in a position where you decide that you want to jam along with lots of other people? It's a nice idea, but for how many people is this actually going to be useful? I wonder that, even though I think it's a great step forward.

GrooveCloud is bringing the GrooVerse to us soon, and I think it could be awesome!

In their latest blog post they described the GrooVerse and how it will be coming to us soon. It looks awesome, a really great idea, and I think it will start to take Android mobile music is a good direction and to a good place.

Well done!

Introducing GrooveCloud ... now in Open Beta for Android

Join us at: http://groovecloud.co

GrooveCloud doing some aggressive monkey testing.... getting ready for release!

InstaJams - Jam with your friends

Whilst this looks a little rudimentary, I think it could actually be really cool and quite fun, so I might have to try it out.

Here's the app's description:

InstaJams is the first real-time jamming app for your iPad. Make music with your friends and jam online.

Features:

• Jam online with other users in virtual jam rooms
• Over 35 virtual instrument sounds: drums, guitars, basses, keyboards, orchestral and FX
• Drum sampler with integrated step sequencer
• Drum pads for live playing
• Bass and melody tracks with multitouch note grid interface
• Support for multiple musical scales and tunings
• Works offline via the "Practice Room" setting

The app is free

uPhase+ arrives

Developped by a composer, uPhase+ is a virtual instrument geared towards live play. It focuses on giving the player total control over phasing patterns that can be spatialized on up to seven devices.

A "Solo Mode" acts as the app's lab, allowing the player to refine and save patterns before setting up a networked session.

uPhase+ is a door to Interactive Minimalism.

• 12 Video tutorials on uPhase.wordpress.com help you to make the most of uPhase+.
• Conceived from the ground up for iPad, fully multi-touch interface.
• Beautifully recorded piano samples, modifiable in real-time via an in-app sample editor (all samples by Bluemorfo).
• Network up to 7 devices via wifi to spatialize patterns.
• When networking devices, only one of them needs to run uPhase+. The others can connect via the free companion app, uPhase Client.
• Example Session included to get you going.
• Crisp graphics take advantage of the New iPad's retina display.
• Optimized to require very little bandwidth, even when networking 7 devices.
• Depending on demand and feasability, future updates will add requested features. WAV output is for the moment at the top of the list.

The app is priced at $4.99, but the client app is free.

MIDI Designer launches layout social sharing

In a nice development MIDI Designer has launched a social sharing site here.

Koushion: Pads arrives

A new iPad app from Koushion:

Pad-based controllers such as the MPC have become a ubiquitous fixture in electronic music setups worldwide. So, why would you want another? Koushion: Pads adds a new twist to the popular controller by adding a key lock feature and programmable pads. The key lock feature empowers you to improvise with a larger range of pitches by removing those that are not in the desired key. If locking yourself to one key sounds a bit too limiting, but you want to reach a few notes that are out of the 16-pad range, or even if you just want a custom controller layout, each pad can be edited independently to trigger a different note. Once you've found a custom layout that you like, you can easily save it for future use.

**NOTE: Pads only generates MIDI (NOT audio), and therefore will not work in the background. Pads does work with background audio apps via virtual MIDI.

**Windows and Mac Users: A third party has developed an rtpMIDI driver that other apps are recommending. Please visit this site to find your necessary drivers:
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/rtpMIDI.html

Key Features:

• 16 easy-to-tap pads in a familiar MPC-style layout
• Key lock: with the flick of a finger, you can lock the pads to any major, minor, or pentatonic scale
• Programmable layout: every pad can be re-assigned to any MIDI note
• Virtual MIDI

Connectivity:
Pads connects to your existing MIDI hardware via the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit or the iRig MIDI from IK Multimedia. Wireless connectivity via CoreMIDI Network Sessions.

**NOTE: Using WiFi may cause latency issues. We strongly recommend using cables for optimum performance.

The app is priced at $2.99

OMAC Group discussion on Jelly Bean

For any developers working with Android, or considering Android you might want to take a look at this thread at the OMAC Google group.

An experiment in music created on mobile

I had an idea the other day. I wondered what it might be like to have a collaborative Spotify playlist made up of just music made with mobile devices.

Now of course this presupposes that there is any music on Spotify that's made with mobile devices. I'm not particularly aware of any, so I thought I'd post a link to this playlist to see if anyone could add tracks to it.

I've no real idea of where this will go, but I thought it would be an interesting experiment. If you're a Spotify user then please add any tracks you think are even remotely related to mobile music. If you're not a Spotify user and know of tracks, please leave details in the comments if you can.

Here's the link for the playlist.

Thounds Up from Thounds

The description of this app gives you no idea about what it really does, but I'm interested to see how it pans out as I think that thounds has the potential to be a great collaborative platform.

Anyway, here's the app's description:

A new app from Thounds designed exclusively for iPad, helping you to compose and manipulate music by using your fingers.
This is the first release and new features yet improvements are coming very soon (including full integration with the collaborative music platform Thounds.com)

The app is free.



iPads at the Apple Store

Jampipe is here and this could be a real collaboration solution

For ages I've been talking about collaboration on mobile platforms and how no one has come up with a solution so far. Well Jampipe seems to be a big step in the right direction. This is what Jampipe does:


Jampipe is a great new way to record and share your musical ideas over the internet. Got an idea for a song? Record it with Jampipe and see what other people add to it! Looking for inspiration? Browse other peoples recordings and add your part on top of theirs. Are you a band working on your next big hit? Start a 'friends only' jam to keep it under wraps.

I only found out about this app late yesterday so I haven't had a chance to try it out as yet, but I think that this could have real potential for collaboration for mobile users.

Let the app collaboration begin

Over the last few days there has been some really exciting activity around apps connecting to each other on a single device using virtual MIDI ports. This is really exciting stuff, and I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that we can see much more of this from as many apps as possible.

So I'm asking developers to take a look at this document, or manifesto from Rolf the maker of NLog, and also to join this group to further the discussion on app collaboration.

Personally I think that this is just the beginning. I'd like this to move beyond MIDI into virtual audio and then who knows where it could go.

So please, if you're a music app developer visit this group and read this document.

Music / Media / Social - Where are and where we should go

It is social media day so I thought I'd take this opportunity of looking at how mobile music making apps have integrated with social media so far, and what possibilities lie ahead.

Quite a few mobile apps have integrated with social media on the iPhone. Apps like Touch DJ which let you connect to facebook and twitter to say what you're mixing, or PianoStudio, which lets you post your track to twitter, facebook or share via email. Then there's Mixtikl 2 which converts a whole mix into a character string that can be pasted into twitter and anyone can listen to it online.

There are plenty more examples, and lots of good uses of social media in those apps, but essentially our use of social media inside apps is sharing of either what you're doing creatively or the output of what you're doing creatively, and I think that there's a lot more potential to be had.

I think that projects like Genomestudio are moving in the right direction. Real time collaboration and sharing of musical ideas as they are forming is where I see musical social media going in the future.

I was really excited by the OhmStudio, but I think that mobile devices should be an integral part of this kind of exchange and collaboration. There have been a few concept devices around this idea, but nothing concrete as yet with the exception of Genomestudio.

Current social media sites like facebook, twitter and others aren't really geared towards this kind of collaborative approach to sharing. The closest thing so far is Thounds, which does have a Thounds app for the iPhone. Perhaps there's is a platform that could be built upon for real time collaboration using mobile devices with the ability to locate and connect with musicians around you to collaborate and share ideas and composition.

But is it too much to ask for? Social media is still evolving as is mobile music creation. My hope is that the two together could provide the tools and platforms to enable musicians to not only be able to be creative wherever they are, but also to find and collaborate with other musicians on an ad hoc basis.

We'll see what the future holds.

Thounds iPhone app update

The Thounds iPhone app has been updated:

- you can set thound visibility on upload
- share on Twitter or via e-mail
- metronome starts before you begin recording
- proximity sensor enabled during recording
- show notifications number in the tab bar
- new used space display in settings app
- fixed login issues

Thounds app at the app store:

MyWerx for iPhone

I've not heard about this service, but they've brought out an iPhone app to allow you to share work and collaborate.

I'm interested to hear from anyone who's used the service or knows if it is useful.

MyWerx Mobile for iPhone

Intermorphic on Mixtikl V2 vector audio

The Intermorphic Blog has been updated with more info on sharing mixes in Mixtikl V2. In the new version mixes can be shared via email and via a forum post to the Intermorphic forum which should allow for a lot more collaboration.

Thounds, sounds like a great idea

As often happens I only found out about this service from a tweet. Thounds is a beta collaboration service that is developing an iPhone app too. It sounds (Thounds) really interesting.

I've emailed them and asked about whether they've thought about ioLibrary support in their app. When I hear back I'll let you know.

Creative Applications on Daisyphone

I remember when this app came out I thought it would be really interesting, but I never got the hang of it at all.

Shame really as it sounds really interesting according to this article at Creative Applications.

Will ZoozBeat change the face of Music?

According to Atlanta Hip-Hop artist Street Lotto it will! He goes on to say:

“We can create some [music] together. It lets the listener be interactive with the music. Especially at a time like this when you got bloggers that have something to say about everything gone on. … This let’s the consumer do the same with music. It allows them to remix it and do it themselves.”

The ZoozBeat blog has the whole piece.

What do you think?

ZoozBeat at the app store.