Full Blog

Music apps I haven’t used in ages: Future Sound

This was an app I got right back at the start of iOS music making. In fact, before it was iOS actually. It was one of the more innovative apps that came out, and more like art than a music making experience. It’s interesting to go back to it now as in many ways some of these ideas have been taken on by the likes of RJDJ in the work they’ve done with their Inception app and also with scenes in general.

I looked up their website and they’re still going, although it seems as though the iOS or mobile world isn’t the entirety of what they’re about, which is good. Interesting to see what they do next, although they don’t seem to have a blog or news feed sadly.

Messing about with Jasuto Pro

Messing around with stuff is great fun, and if there’s an iOS app that is superb fun, then it’s Jasuto Pro Modular. I haven’t played with this app for ages, and so it’s great to get back into it and discover stuff that I’d started but not done anything with.

The patch, or sketch, or whatever the proper name is, that you can see above uses a sample file that was recorded using RJDJ on a journey home one day. The idea was to record a week of travel sounds using RJDJ and then create patches for it in apps like Jasuto Pro.

I must work out how to get the audio out on this track, but perhaps on another day.

Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks

I really enjoyed this 8th Doctor story, once again with Charlie as the companion. Whilst I always enjoy a good a good Dalek story, this one had an interesting story line and some good twists too.

There wasn’t much in the way of any continuation of the story arc sadly, just a brief mention at the end. But never mind, it was still a great story and that’s what counts.

Doctor Who, Creature from the Pit

Another Tom Baker DVD added to my collection. Certainly not the best story, but ok I guess. A shame really as the episodes on either side were really good.

Never mind. One step closer to a full set I suppose.

Hello Einstein

Einstein running on Android. So far I haven’t been able to do much with it as it’s so slow, but I’ll keep at it and see how I get on with it.

Running iziBasic and ViziBasic under StyleTap

So today is my last day of using the StyleTap trial. I knew that I’d have to get the last bit of testing done today to see if I could use iziBasic and ViziBasic on the emulator. The short answer? You can. In fact, in some ways they work better, especially in terms of being able to zoom the screen, which is very handy when you’re not using a stylus.

So I ran a ‘generate code and compile’, from Vizibasic, and that worked fine, and a compile from iziBasic and that worked too. All systems go then. Looks like I’ll be buying StyleTap after all!

Tasker makes Android completely awesome

I’ve been messing around with Tasker for a few days now, and I have to say that it is one very good reason to move completely to Android. Tasker is so flexible and modular that it can do pretty much anything in terms of automating an Android device.

If there was a Tasker like app for iOS it would be a massive seller, but of course it doesn’t fit with the whole sandbox approach from Apple. Big big shame.

I found myself seriously considering a move to Android away from the iPhone on my next contract renewal, and if Apple don’t pull something stupendous out of the bag with the iPhone 5 I might just do it.

I’ll post some of my Tasker automations soon too, then you’ll see what I mean.

Remembering Mick

One year ago today the world lost an amazing musician. Mick Karn. He was too young, much too young.

Mick’s music was an inspiration to so many, me included. His music lives on and I’ll be listening to a few of his albums later this week and posting some thoughts on them. If you don’t know Mick Karn’s music then stay tuned as you’re going to find some amazing music to listen to soon.

I can’t believe it was a year ago he passed away.