Another DGOS update

Another update today from DGOS, good to know it is moving, and quite amazing to think that a whole OS is being developed by just one person.

Concretedog and Warm Data in the cloud

Concretedog posts about Warm Data (the label he's on) and their tracks available on SoundCloud, of which one is from his EP, which was excellent if you haven't heard it.

Pixelh8 Music Tech for iPhone and Android!

Having a little conversation on twitter with Pixelh8 about Google Wave and Music tech for iPhone and Android. Sounds like good and exciting things coming soon!

4 Apps I'm looking forward to

There are 4 apps in the offing that I've been looking out for for a while now.

Rectools:
The two track version of this app is already out but YUDO have said that they have both an 8 and a 16 track version coming. In addition to this they've talked about adding synths a drum machine and effects too. I'm hoping that these will be the step forward for iPhone music making that the iPhone needs.

8bitone
This is a great idea for an app. I hope that this app can act as a real bridge between iPhone music makers and the chiptune community.

The last two are Amidio apps, hexatone and keasis. Not much detail on either as yet but if they are as good as amidio's other apps then they'll be worth watching.

Posted from my iPhone

App cull

In expectation of iPhone 3.0 coming next week and my hopes for an influx of new music and audio apps I've started culling some of the apps I've had sitting unused on my iPhone for too long.

I find it quite interesting to see how iPhone apps have evolved over the last year. To begin with the music app scene had very simple apps and in the last 12 months we've seen increasingly complex and diverse apps coming up.

So here's to lots of innovation coming to the app store soon!!

Posted from my iPhone

Buglabs modules in the UK and more

At long last BugLabs have announced that they will be shipping to the UK and Europe in Q3.

Another circuit bent VL-1

Here's another circuit bent VL-1. Nice looking.

iDrum DM app

I got an email from iZotope about the Depeche Mode version of iDrum that they've brought out. Initially I was very skeptical about this in the same way as I've been about all the other variations of iDrum that have surfaced. However, I read this:

Martin [Gore] used iDrum fairly regularly in his demos, in Logic, and quite a few of those original sounds will have made it through to the final versions. I also used iDrum on the iPhone for a couple of tracks, specifically "Perfect" which Daniel and I worked on in London during a break in the US sessions. All my gear was still in New York so I had my laptop and iPhone. It was quite handy to experiment with different grooves quickly on the iPhone, which we then sampled by plugging the headphone socket into various mic pres and amps. I found it very quick and creative. Most importantly you don't have to interrupt the workflow on the computer, because you're self contained, and mobile!

Which changed my opinion a bit, or at least made me pleased that an artist like Gore is using the iPhone for music.

iDrum DM version at the app store:

MIDI Player for iPhone

Another iPhone / iPod Touch app I hadn't noticed before (but then I've not been as vigilant of late). At face value it looks like a nice little MIDI player, at bit like MixPad for the (old) Palm OS.

I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with this app, as I'm keen to know how it performs.

MIDI Player at the app store:

Curtis: Granular Synthesis on the iPhone

Curtis granular synth demo two from Lucas Kuzma on Vimeo.

I hadn't noticed this app before. It sounds very interesting so I may well give it a try. Here's what it is all about:

Granular synthesis works by combining many tiny grains of sound from an existing recording, generally creating new sounds with the textural properties of the recording. Granular synthesis allows you to regenerate the recording, playing it forward or backward at any speed, to skip around the recording playing tiny slices of it at random, or to loop a small portion with a varying loop size.

1] Touch the screen with two fingers and rotate a quarter circle to activate recording mode.

2] Use your phone’s microphone to record any sound. Try your voice, music from the radio, an instrument, your dog, anything!

3] Touch the screen with two fingers again to stop recording.

4] Touch or drag one finger anywhere on the screen to control grain synthesis. The long axis of the phone controls your read position; use this to select the portion of the recording you wish to read from. The short axis of the phone controls the grain size; use this to sample tiny slices or bigger chunks.

5] Double tap to disable or enable position slew. With slew enabled, the read position slowly moves to where you tapped. With slew disabled, you can jump directly to new positions in the recording.

Curtis on the app store:

Another DGOS update

Another update posted to the DGOS blog. Good to see that it moving along, it gives me hope that I might be able to do something interesting with the old Tungsten E's I've got lying around.

8bitone videos

This and 12 other 8bitone videos on YouTube. Really looking forward to this app in a big way.

MidiDuino released

The MidiDuino library has been released:

The MidiDuino library for the Arduino is a port of the MiniCommand functionality. Send, receive and synchronize to MIDI streams, and access the power of the Ruin & Wesen MiniCommand on your Arduino.

Attach your own sensors, build crazy sequencers, and control your physical computing applications using MIDI.

The library is available for all ATmega328 and ATmega168 based Arduinos, support for Arduino Mega is in the works. The additional core allows supertight MIDI synchronization.

CDM on PhiLia01

Philia 01 Support Video from Lia on Vimeo.

CDM has this post on PhiLia01 using openframeworks. I really like the idea that using this will be more like using Processing, so I might even give it a try.

The CDM post has all the details.

Getting quiet

Is it me or have things got quieter in the last few days? I haven't seen many apps getting updates or new apps coming through at the same rate.

Is this the final run up to 3.0? Will there be a big bunch of feature updates for apps after the 8th, and new ones too? I hope so.

Audio in on 1st gen iPhone?

After my post yesterday about audio in for the iPhone / iPod Touch, can anyone help formal with this?

I don't know if this works with the 1st gen iphone since it has the recessed audio jack. Can anybody confirm or deny if this will work with this model?

Please comment in on this post if you know the answer.

Nice DS-10 track

I do like videos like this, and with a DS-10 track too.

Java based music?

I posted yesterday about Buglabs being at Javaone. It also seems that there will be a debate on the use of Java for making music. It'll be interesting to see how that extends to mobile processing too.

I think I'll do some more digging on this in the next few days.

DGOS update

Here's a further update from DGOS.

There was an interesting post on 1src the other day about who will be interested in using DGOS when it is released.

CDM on Cubase controller

CDM posts on the Steinberg Cubase controller for iPhone.

What's next for BeatMaker?

Just thinking about what might come next into BeatMaker. One thought I had was that it would be really clever if you could render you track in BeatMaker then upload it to SoundCloud or AudioBoo or another similar service for that matter.

I think that would be a great way to share music direct.

Maybe other apps could go the same way too.

Posted from my iPhone

Buglabs off to Javaone this week

Buglabs will be at Javaone this week and say that they will be making some announcements!!

I hope that they announce that buglabs will be available in the UK soon.

Concretedog's Robocymbal

Concretedog Robocymbal from concretedog on Vimeo.

Some more excellent invention from the Concretedog

SoundGrid impressions

I was playing with SoundGrid this morning on the way to work and I really like it. It works really well as a Tenori-on app (not that I've ever used a tenori-on that is).

SoundGrid at the app store:

REON driftbox s -01 (via Synthtopia)

Synthtopia has this post on the REON driftbox s -01. Details seem a bit vague at the moment. Looks like an interesting synth too.

Philips PMC 100 Portable Synth (via Synthtopia)

Synthtopia has this post on an old philips micro synth. I'm sure I saw one of these on eBay a while back.

Pixelh8 Music Tech Master Stroke DS (via TrueChip)

Truechip (amongst others) reports on the new app from Pixelh8, which look really awesome and will be FREE!. More detail at Truechip.

tags technorati : pixelh8 DS

iPhone audio breakout cable

Following on from my post yesterday about intermorphic's audio input for the iPhone and iPod Touch, here's even more information on how to do it yourself. All the details are right here.

(Apologies to Jesse for not posting this sooner, and thanks for sending it in).

TuneStudio

Why doesn't Belkin make the TuneStudio available for the iPhone or the iPod touch? Surely with all the music apps around there is a much bigger market than there is for the iPod classic?

Posted from my iPhone

What about ...

... an iPhone music app from Laurie Anderson? What would that look like and what would it do?

I think there should be a few more celebrity music apps around.

Posted from my iPhone

Music in the trees

Making music with Mixtikl in the trees. Only about 35-40 feet up.

Do you have any pictures of yourself making music somewhere interesting? Why not send them in?

When will we see the iPhone 'killer app'

I thought it would be worthwhile posting this comment out so that it would get a bit of a wider audience. I think that this comment by Tempo Rubato on what the iPhone music killer app might be:

Let me insprire the discussion with some provocative thoughts:

I think THE music making killer app has not been arrived yet (including my own work ;-)

That's why imho:

First, there is a category of apps directly simulating real apps like Pianos without introducing new ideas. But anyone who ever played a real piano with 10 fingers won't feel the iPhone pianos any close to the real experience. The only app from that category which might come close to reality is Ocarina, because the original Ocarina is very simple too. But again that's a problem: Too simple.

Secondly there is a category like the x0x drumboxes with 1 or two synths included. They also try to imitate the originals and in fact they partly come quite close: But again, they allow only for a very specific music style that is bound to this machines, that's good, but too little flexibility imho.

BeatMaker steps a little bit further, but you do not edit notes here, you just overlay samples. Fine, but again too restricted for a killer music app.

Then we have the generative music apps including some interface ideas. That might be a category of apps to be extended where there might be very new and specific iPhone/Pod approaches coming up over time. It is a very specific way of music making though.

Then there is the very nice Jasuto, but more the experimental thing competing with apps like max/msp etc.

So, is this all? I strongly believe, that there will be killer music apps coming in the future. However, to be honest, I do not know how it will look like. Something like Logic or Cubase? Or something really new? It all links to the places and situation where you would use iPhone/pod for music creation: On stage, in the woods, in an airplane, in school, in the bathroom??? WHAT do you want really? I am really curious to hear feedback.

And at the end: Somebody must found these apps. With prices of 1 to a few bucks, it is impossible to make this on a professional level, except you are building toy like apps for the non-musicians mass market like all the star and guitar things. There are rumors that Apple wants to launch a "high end" store. If you want rich apps like Logic etc users must found them. I had somebody complaining with 2 stars about that NLog has no high pass filter yet. He is right, that a high pass filter should be in a synth. But to be honest: People expect to have iPhone apps for two bucks with a feature set of PC/MACs apps with prices about 50-500 bucks.

Don't get me wrong: For me it's fun developing apps, not money making and I appreciate inspirations by user feedbacks, and for sure, there is an NLog update in the queue for next weeks ;-)

Don't wanted to offend anybody, but hoping to hear some interesting feedback and thoughts.

For me this really says that something like Bhajis Loops, or Griff are what would probably constitute the 'killer app' for me, and I think that Mixtikl will go along way in the right direction too.

What do you think?

Moonbuzz on iComposer

Moonbuzz writes about an app called iComposer which can place a melody into your iPhone just by whistling into it.

I didn't know that there was an app to do this yet. It reminds me of something in the R&D page of the miniMusic site about IMP and Whistle and Hum. I think it is great to start to see apps like this develop.

The only downside with iComposer is that is looks really hard to get files out, which is a shame.

Intermorphic on audio input to the iPhone

The intermorphic blog has this useful item on connecting audio in to the iPhone and iPod Touch 2nd gen.

Thanks guys.

TAB on Camera apps

The Apple Blog has a post on a range of apps for improving the picture taking quality of the iPhone.

Palm Sounds Mug

I thought I'd have a go at painting one of these mugs and here's what it looks like.