AppCraver » Instrument Simulation

Xewton Music Studio is a Beast — and We Mean it in the Best Possible Way

James Johnson — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:00:45 +0000

Lets start with the bad news, Xewton Music Studio is a $20 iphone application. That is a lot of money on a platform that offers an almost infinite amount of free and under $2 apps. That being said this thing is a beast and in a world that seems to be in a drunken race to the bottom, I will gladly stand on the top and give Xewton my hard earned 20 bucks.

One of the best aspects of this music studio app is the sounds quality — this baby purrs. The dare I say brilliant sound quality really shines when mixing a track with one of the 21 instruments included in the app. Another very cool feature is the ability to transfer and save your work through wi-fi, this simple but rather important feature gives Zewton a very real usefulness — especially for those composing on the run (you know who I am talking about out there).

All of this plus the fact that you can play or record two different instruments at the same time makes Xewton Music Studio a relatively expensive app for the common folk but a borderline must-have for anyone with a musical ear. There we’ve said it., this app is not for the “casual musician.” Xewton Music Studio is advanced, robust, complex and full of moving parts.

If you are a professional — or hard-core amateur — musician that needs a portable music studio for on-the-spot audio production, then you know that $20 is a gift. These stats may not mean much to the rest of us, but pros will appreciate the lengthy features list direct from the developer:

Photo-realistic, dynamically configurable 85-key keyboard
Professionally sampled instruments — studio recorded, 16bit, 44kHz from real instruments
Release and attack time configurable per instru
Sustain samples
4 real-time effects with lots of parameters
Reverb, delay, 3-band equalizer, amplifier
128-track sequencer
Per-track mute, solo, effect bus, pan and volume adjustment
Select, move, copy, delete, repeat, transpose whole measures
Draw and edit notes (move, transpose, velocity, etc)
Save, load and export your songs to wave

If you’re on the road to stardom, remember this: Nothing says Rock Star like a music studio in your pocket. Check out the video demo to see Xewton Music Studio in action.

app_name: Xewton Music Studio
rating: 9/10

Innovative Dub Siren Mixes Reggae and Sound Effects

Michael Alexander — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:00:39 +0000

Dub Siren is one of the most innovative music apps I’ve seen to make it into the App Store in a long time. And that’s coming from someone who isn’t even capable of using the app to its fullest!

With some 55,750 apps in stock, sifting through the inventory to find the gems is getting harder all the time. Then, along comes Dub Siren, which streams music from some of the top Reggae, Dub and DubStep Internet radio stations and allows you to interactively mix music with a wide variety of Reggae effects like horns, beeps, boops and many other sound samples.

Until now, these effects have been exclusive to the professional disc jocks, according to Sawa Digital, the developer. I’m not sure about that, but what I do know is this app is a neat sound effects maker.

Dub Siren has two modes: Dub Mode, modeled after ’70s classic analog synth and Dancehall Mode, which includes popular sound effects used by Reggae DJs today. Switching from one mode to the other is as simple as tilting your iPhone or iPod touch between landscape and portrait modes.

The app has several other features — too numerous to mention — such as faders for volume, pitch, speed and depth. In addition you have the option to select one of three wave effects: sine, square and saw. None of this will make much sense to you if you are not familiar with mixing (I’m not) but it’s big fun to experiment.

You’re not limited to listening to Reggae either. You can play music from your iPod’s music collection in the background by first launching your iPod app and then launching Dub Siren. That’s not a feature unique to Dub Siren. Unlike other apps, though, Dub Siren lets you throw in a spacey simulation of a machine gun over your music if you’re so inclined.

The graphics are exceptionally well rendered and the controls are responsive. I did a lot of experimentation with this app and did not encounter any glitches or bugs.

Sawa Digital says pro DJs can use the Dub Siren and a iPhone or iPod touch as a standalone Reggae sound effects machine because it features a sophisticated audio algorithm and uncompressed audio files. I’m not entirely sure what all Dub Siren is capable of doing —I don’t have a musical ear — but it sure sounds good to me.

Watch the Dub Siren Video for a demo:

app_name: Dub Siren
rating: 9/10

Melodica Light and Sound Combine for Simple Music Creation

Georges Papas — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:00:20 +0000

Melodica presents a 16 by 10 surface where the length represents the 4 bars of a 4/4 beat and the height is a set of 10 notes that all harmonize well together. Anyone familiar with arppegiators or sequencers will find themselves at home using the software’s interface.

But, can Melodica be one of those apps you could use as much for fun as you can in your home studio? And is it easy enough for non-pros to use and enjoy?

As far as sample quality goes, Melodica can certainly hold it’s own in a home studio setup. That being said, there really is only one sound preset, which limits Melodica, and kills it’s expandability. On a similar note, Melodica only offers three tempo settings, slow normal and fast. Without any option to specify exactly what BPM to play at, there’s no way Melodica could be used for recording.

Melodica will be most appealing to people that want to create interesting melodies quickly and simply. The lightbox interface is really beautiful and while it may take non-pros a few beats to figure out the set up, the demo video below does a great job of showing the app in action.

There’s a melody saving and loading system which will save one instance of your melody. This is nice, but a more interesting option would be to be the ability to record several iterations of the melody as the user makes changes during the process.

I think if the creators of Melodica took time to incorporate some richer features they could really have a superb app. The ability to export or or at least share your melodies with other users is the killer feature that would take this app to the next level. We’d also like to create longer tunes.

Although it won’t hold it’s own in a studio environment (and for a buck we weren’t really expecting it too), Melodica is great for creating little melodic tunes on the go. The light show is a nice feature that’s an extra layer to the simplified melody maker.

Watch the Melodica video:

rating: 7/10
app_name: Melodica

Tongue Drum Brings Archaic Music to the Modern Era

Georges Papas — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:00:02 +0000

The Tongue Drum, the world’s oldest form of instrument, has been used for millenia by tribes throughout the world as both a story-telling instrument and war drum. Originally crafted from hollowed out tree bark, it has evolved into a modern instrument with multiple tunings, sizes and variations. Earsmack Music has created the next evolutionary step by adapting the tongue drum to the iPhone age. So how does the digital version compare to the real thing?

The Tongue Drum app has an expectedly simple interface utilizing all but a few pixels of the screen. Whatever isn’t being used a control surface contains the necessary menu functions. Through tuning menu, the user can choose from 11 different drum tunings including Natural Minor, major, blues, chromatic, and pentatonic scales.

Adding to the application’s depth is the mallet menu, where as the name suggests, Tongue drum lets you choose which type of mallet you would like to strike the drum with. Beside the standard rubber ball, waxed cork and waxed dowel mallet, there’s an interesting analog option, which generates a sound more reminiscent of a synth harp than a drum. Utilizing the legendary Moog Voyager as a source, the synth notes are complete and offer a full range often lacking when an option differs from all the others to such a degree.

The drum samples themselves are wonderful, mostly owing to the fact that they were recorded using a real hand-crafted tongue drum. It’s interesting to note that finding such a drum is very difficult and the creators of the app mention TongueDrum.com as their source for the instrument. You should definitely take a look at their work if your looking for a serious hand-crafted tongue drum to add to your percussion collection. However if your looking for a cheaper, more practical alternative, the Tongue Drum app from Earsmack Music is more than adequate.

rating: 9/10
app_name: Tongue Drum

Tiny Violin- Sympathetic Strumming

Keith Lewis — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:30:23 +0000

Playing the world’s smallest violin using your thumb and forefinger is so old school now that the Tiny Violin iPhone app by Brian Gorby is available. Tiny Violin actually adds the sound to your snarky attempts of condolence or joy towards someone.

Tiny Violin has three choices in musical styles to choose from.

Despair provides a sappy melody played in sort of classical music style.

While, Brian Gorby describes the Joy setting as a light jig, I thought it had more of a Deliverance feel to it. Now I can’t get that picture of Ned Beatty squealing like a pig out of my head. Thanks Brian!

Using the Let’s Rock! setting transports you to a sound somewhere between Jean Luc Ponty and Slash. The three styles each have five different sounds giving you a total of 15 different sounds to hear.

The only other option on Tiny Violin is the shake to play option. Turn it on to allow yourself to play your violin by shaking your iPhone in addition to sliding the bow with your finger. It seems that regardless of which option you choose Tiny Violin plays at the same speed. It also seems to play on a loop. Continuing to shake it or strum it does not create continued play. It will stop for a moment and then begin playing another loop.

You’re all set. Now you can go out and conquer the world and provide the much-needed sarcastically sincere relief to all those somewhat uncomfortable situations that pop up daily. So, next time you’re sitting down for a few relaxing moments with your cup of coffee before work, and your co-worker plops down next to you and begins prattling on about the promotion they didn’t get, take out your Tiny Violin and play them a tune.

app_name: Tiny Violin
rating: 7/10

Leaf Trombone Will Blow You Away

Tracy Rodgers — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:30:57 +0000

Leaf Trombone: World Stage – There’s something vaguely intimidating about being assigned to review an application and, upon doing a little research, finding out that it’s an extremely hotly-anticipated app from a developer with a line of very successful, high-profile offerings. So as I sit here, preparing to review Leaf Trombone: World Stage by smule (tons of additional info and tutorials can be found on the smule website, by the way), I can’t help but find myself thinking you’d better get this right!

And speaking of getting it right, Leaf Trombone certainly seems to do so. Billed as the “First Massively-Multiplayer Music Game,” Leaf Trombone: World Stage follows in the footsteps of smule’s smash hit Ocarina, turning your iPhone into a bona fide wind instrument. While Ocarina turned the iPhone into a magic flute, Leaf Trombone goes a little more earthy; developer Ge Wang told USA Today that he wanted to make an instrument that was more “whimsical and wacky,” like blowing on a blade of grass. Thus, Leaf Trombone was born.

The concept behind Leaf Trombone: World Stage is a pretty simple one. Follow the floating leaves on the screen by moving your finger along the trombone slide. You can choose in the settings whether you want to blow into the iPhone’s microphone to play (which is more impressive technology, but in my opinion makes it a little tougher to keep track of what’s happening on-screen) or simply play by touch. Leaf Trombone comes with 40 songs already pre-loaded, ranging from The Star-Spangled Banner to Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” You can also search through over a thousand user-submitted tunes. While I’m sad to say I’m really kind of terrible at Leaf Trombone (so far, anyway), I think I played a pretty rockin’ version of Katy Perry’s seminal pop hit “I Kissed A Girl.”

Once you’ve mastered the basics of Leaf Trombone: World Stage, you can take your show on the road by performing on the World Stage, to perform for (and be judged by) other users. If you’ve got a bit of virtual stage fright, you can simply act as a digital Simon Cowell for this Leaf Trombone Idol; listen to other users perform and let them know if they’re David Cook or a William Hung. (Judges acquire stats, though, so be fair or you’ll get a bad reputation!)

For the more musically-inclined Leaf Trombonists, the Free Play mode allows plenty of room for creativity. Tap out a song, and if you’d like, hop on to Leaf Trombone’s online Composer to save and share your songs, whether they’re popular hits or your own original compositions.

Overall, Leaf Trombone is an absolutely gorgeous app with pretty much endless replay value. All this for an introductory price of just $0.99? It’s – pardon the pun – music to my ears.

For an idea of what Leaf Trombone: World Stage can do, check out what “internetainers” Rhett & Link cooked up when smule passed them an advance copy.

app_name: Leaf Trombone: World Stage
rating: 10/10

Star Guitar Another Shining Music App from Amidio

Jennifer Beam — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:00:53 +0000

Recently released by Amidio, the same developer who delivered the popular synth app Noise.io Pro, Star Guitar is a full-function guitar app that lets you play, record, and export files of the music you create. Since I do not know how to play the guitar (not even one chord), it would be unfair for me to comment on how complete Star Guitar is or isn’t.

Despite the fact that Star Guitar claims no musical skills are required, I think anyone without them might be disappointed, or at least confounded, but only because they lack the knowledge to use it to its full potential, not through any fault of Star Guitar itself.

To an untrained eye, Star Guitar seems pretty complete. You can record, adjust rhythm pattern, it has both an automatic and manual strumming mode, includes 144 chords, and the ability to browse recordings and add additional strumming patterns. There are currently three guitar types included, and there is the promise of additions to come. The sound quality is pretty decent, especially when plugged into external speakers.

With the ability to record, provided you have the necessary equipment, I can see where singers and songwriters who lack guitar skills could find this a useful creative outlet. Even with my limited musical abilities, I was able to mesh a few chords with piano music and compose a very a short piece, but I’m fairly certain I only scratched the surface of what could be done if I really knew what I was doing. The display screen is easy to navigate and the included “help” section provides plenty of information on interfacing with each section.

Guitar Star is currently available in the App Store for $3.99. The Star Guitar app appears advanced and complete enough to satisfy a pretty varied range of musical abilities and has left me eagerly anticipating the release of their Star Piano app currently in development.

Check out Star Guitar in action:

app_name: Star Guitar
rating: 8/10

Air Guitar Rocks Out

Issen Alibris — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:30:37 +0000

The App Store has something for everyone including amateur rockers. Air Guitar by Inedlible Software will have you spinning and strumming away to your favorite hits. It’s a fun entertainment app that uses the accelerometer of the phone so you get the full effect.

Here’s how it works. Launch Air Guitar and you’ll be taken to the instructions screen. If you rotate the phone on it’s side you’ll see the fretboard. If you rotate it back it disappears. With the fretboard out choose a chord. Then strum the device.

Pumping your hand is how your going to strum the device. The harder you pump your hand (strum) the louder the sound is. The softer you do it the softer the sound is. Strum a note and rotate the device towards the ground if you want to whammy.

The other button from the main screen is the tuning screen. Here you have the option to choose bass or guitar. You may also choose from the preset progressions on this screen. Progressions will help you pick notes that sound good together. There is also an advanced mode that offers you more note options.

Air Guitar does lots of things well. It has a nice crisp visual interface. The sounds are clear and pretty realistic but it didn’t get as loud I would have liked. This might be due to the limited speaker volume on my iPhone. It’s nice to have all those progressions but it would be better to have a few more chords. And the ability to play more than one note at a time would be great too.

Parents, roommates and those that share living space with Air Guitar fans will be delighted that the app still functions perfectly with the headphones on. Currently Air Guitar is just $1.99 in the App Store which feels a little under priced for this app especially considering how much entertainment it offers.

app_name: Air Guitar
rating: 7/10

FMScreen is Frequency Modulation on the Cheap

Georges Papas — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:30:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, I was given the opportunity to review a number of synth apps for the iPhone. In that round-up, I took a look at noise.io pro, one of the deepest and richest apps I’ve come across.

On the other end of the spectrum is FMScreen, from developer Piticule. FMScreen offers Frequency Modulation, just like noise.io pro, but that’s where the similarities end. When you run FMScreen, you’re presented with nothing more than a black screen. The basic synthesizer controls follow a scheme set by the earlier iPhone synths, similar to a Kaoss Pad.

Where FMScreen really begins to differentiate itself from the pack is, surprisingly, in the settings menu, or more precisely, the absence of one.

The developers have streamlined all the options into the main screen. Using a series of multi-touch gestures with two or three fingers, you can control the octave range, turn on guidelines and modify parameters. In keeping with the simplicity of the app, the volume is controlled by tilt. All of this is great, but if you skip on reading the entire App Store description, you’re left alone to figure out exactly how everything works.

One of the real let-downs for me was the lack of quality. The synthesizer delivers a rather flat and boring sound, and even with the guidelines on, precision is a huge problem. In the end, it all comes down to how you want to use the app. If you’re looking to mess around with a simple FM synth, then go ahead and download FMScreen now. However, if you’re looking for a synth for studio recording, I would recommend noise.io pro instead; it’s well worth the sizable premium.

app_name: FMScreen
rating: 5/10

Bebot Chirps Its Way Into Your Heart

Georges Papas — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:00:40 +0000

The App Store is flooded with a number of inexpensive apps that serve a very specific purpose. A prime example is Bebot, a “Robot Voice Synthesizer.” I have to say, I did not have very high expectations for Bebot, mostly because I didn’t see the utility of the app. However, I quickly realized that somewhere, at some point in time, everyone needs a robot voice synthesizer. At that specific time, Bebot will be there.

I’ll admit I don’t have much experience with voice synthesizers, but from a software point of view, it’s great. Stable, responsive and wrapped in a great little shell, Bebot is a little robot that lives on your screen. When you move your fingers across the screen, you change the parameters of the sound, much like a Kaoss Pad. The sound is of high quality and can be customized through settings which control timbre, echo timing, echo volume and repeat rate.

Most synth app developpers would have considered their app complete once it was stable enough to release. But Russell Black, creator of Bebot, chose to enlist a graphic designer by the name of Lily McDonnell to take this little app one step further. They animated the little guy and his environment, making Bebot one of the nicest looking synth apps I’ve seen in a while. It’s available on iTunes now for only $1.99.

Editor’s Note: We recently heard from Bebot’s developer who said that he plans to release an update to this cute little robot synth within the week. The Bebot update will add more synth modes for additional sound options.

Related Articles: Noise.io, synthPond, Zoozbeat

app_name: Bebot
rating: 8/10