someone who's doing some things
Everything is about apps at the moment. A lot of what I mention under the apps tag is around iOS and mobile music, but there’s other stuff too, and not just iOS, but Android, Palm OS and Windows mobile.
I posted this picture on instagram yesterday. I was having a great time playing with Microbe on my old Treo 650. Then suddenly, all the files disappeared. Which was a bit of a shame as I hadn’t played any of them for ages, and one or two I thought were actually worth saving.
I’ve no idea if anything can be done to recover them, I guess I’ll have to have a nose around the old forum to see if there’s anything there that helps. If not, well, that’s a shame.
Aurora is one of the best, if not the best, grid based sequencer on the iPhone. It is just so versatile. So I expected that it would just crawl along on my iPhone 3G. But I was wrong. It works really well on the 3G.
So there’s another app that will be staying on my 3G for some time to come.
I very clearly remember when this first came out. It was very exciting. Thump went a bit further than the more traditional 2 x synths and 1 x drum machine app. It had more scope for playing with the sounds, especially in terms of drum sounds, which was a little unusual back then. When I say back then of course I only mean 2009, which isn’t that long ago at all, but things have moved on a great deal.
I still like Thump. It’s just different enough to give it a slightly unique sound, and that’s not something you find everyday.
Another app that I haven’t used in ages but is still a very good app on the 3G. I remember when iSyn first came out and was a real revelation. It’s still just a 2 synths and drums app, but what it does it does well and the synth controls and sequencers are easy to get around.
If I had one complaint it would be about the project save functionality although I doubt very much that it will be updated or sorted out at any point.
And what’s more it’s a really cool reactive app as well, which makes it even more of an honor to be in the app. If you haven’t tried it, then you need to try it. What more can I say? Seriously, if you know and love RJDJ or the Inception app or that kind of thing, then you should give this a go. You won’t regret it one bit
Oh yeah, and if you hadn’t noticed, the preset name is AshPalm, for Ashley from PalmSounds.
miniMusic will turn 13 years old soon, and even though they haven’t put out anything new for quite some time I thought I’d give PianoFly Pro Synth a go again. It’s a lovely app, a lovely synth with some features that still aren’t available anywhere else.
I’d hoped that they’d bring out Tympanum, their second app soon, but it still hasn’t seen the light of day. I’d like to think that miniMusic would do something for their birthday as they remain one of my favourite developers.
This wasn’t one of the Strange Agency’s better ideas although the actual idea is a good one. I guess in any business you have ups and downs and the Strange Agency usually have brilliant ideas. Sadly, this wasn’t a great one. It works, but the implementation just wasn’t right.
I played with it again recently and whilst you can make a rhythm track with this it isn’t easy to get things to sound just as you’d want. I doubt that they’ll do much to update this app now, but even so, a good attempt.
When Notion first came out it was a bargain at just $1 but I never really got around to playing with it. So I’ve started to get used to it now, and it’s a very powerful and yet simple to use to notation application.
The sounds aren’t too bad either although I’m not sure about paying for all the in-app purchase sounds as yet.
It is beautiful to look at and amazing to play with, if a little difficult to get your head around. Still well worth it in my book.
Of all the music games I’ve played, and I’ve tried to play as many as possible, I think that Isle of Tune is the most successful. But why? What makes it so good? I think the ability to be able to make simple tunes in such a playful way goes a long way toward making this one of the best apps that crosses over from game play to music creation.
I’m really pleased that it’s come to the iPhone too.
I am Ashley Elsdon 