Pro Music Apps

In what has been a long time coming, Audiofile Engineering, has finally updated it’s superior 2-track audio recording iPhone app, FiRe Field Recorder.

While there is certainly a lot more competition around since the first version launched just over 2 years ago, there are some tidy updates in this new version.

The All New FiRe 2 – Field Recorder

Our industry leading professional field recorder for iOS just got completely redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up. Although widely recognized by audio professionals as “best in class” we decided to skip the tweaks and create a next generation product incorporating many of the features our users have requested since FiRe’s initial release.

FiRe 2 will again revolutionize what you expect from a portable recording application. FiRe was the first iPhone recorder to display an accurate audio waveform in real time, the first to support markers, Broadcast WAVE metadata, and the instant downloading of files in multiple file formats. FiRe was the first application on any platform to offer native SoundCloud integration. Now FiRe 2 incorporates into its original elegant design a stunning list of powerful new features including:

- Advanced editing suite with SmartEdits, Bezier fades, change gain, normalize, looping playback, regions and more
- Improved Transport screen with faster and smoother drawing and larger waveform view
- EQ and Dynamics effects by Audiofile Engineering
- iTunes file transfer
- Enhanced input processing powered by iZotope™
- Record in background
- DropBox integration
- Regions

FiRe 2 was created for audio professionals by audio professionals. It’s powerful enough for the most experienced musicians and recording engineers, and its efficient workflow and intuitive interface makes it a breeze for business and casual use.

FiRe is built exclusively for iPhone and iPod touch and is brought to you by the minds at Audiofile Engineering. Combining powerful, elegant and uncluttered audio utilities with unparalleled technical support, Audiofile Engineering is one of the most innovative and experienced audio software developers for OS X and the iOS.

Other features include:

- Record in mono and stereo, 16-bit, 48 kHz
- Live waveform view including rectified view
- Live overview for easy navigation
- Scroll waveform with touch
- Navigate waveform via double-tap with configurable behavior
- Moveable Playback Head
- Tap Playback Head handle to add markers
- Editable Markers and Regions
- Preference to add markers at time intervals
- Overdub mode with playthrough
- Beautiful and accurate VU Input Meters
- VU meters change to output in playback
- Configurable time units display
- Tag Recordings, Markers and Regions with location data
- Pause gracefully when interrupted by phone call
- Countdown with gorgeous graphics
- Record for/until/over threshold… settings
- Preference to automatically move to end and/or add marker when recording starts
- Preference to limit recordings to 2GB
- Screen rotates 180 degrees for better control of the iPhone’s internal mic
- Broadcast WAVE metadata
- Searchable recordings list
- Sorting options for the Recordings List
- Ability to lock recordings
- File export via iTunes File Sharing, FTP and browser access
- SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com) and DropBox (http://dropbox.com) integration
- Choice of export file formats: WAVE, AIFF, CAF, AAC, Apple Lossless, AAC, Podcast, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC

Hardware Requirements:
iPhone 3GS & iPhone 4
3rd & 4th generation iPod touch

More info at - http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/fire/

The Touch Band application is a lifesaver in so many ways: a) It would help you get that new tune in your head out anywhere and everywhere. b) It would replace the absent band member or instrument when you jam c) It makes your music a whole lot cooler!
Touch Band is the one application that will give you high quality sound effects while you play five different instruments and not all of them you might be a master of: the piano, drums, guitar, bongo drums and ocarina! Each of the instruments comes with the highest degree of sophistication and sound quality. You can jam anywhere you want and record your songs with great sound clarity and nowhere do you have to feel that you are not using the real instruments! Why? Mostly because Touch Band gives you the freedom to explore each instrument to the fullest. You automate the bass drum, play any of the 192 chords on the guitar and switch to piano or the electric keyboard with almost 80 keys in each! You can experiment with the melodic sounds of the ocarina and bongo and create real music using your portable device!

Check out all the features of the instruments available in Touch Band:
* Drum
- Five Drum Skins: Acoustic, Electronic, Glow, Pot Drum and Thumb
- Ten Drum Sounds: Studio Heavy, Rock, Indie, Hip Hop, Jazz, Pop, Seventies, Dance, Road House, Pot Drum
- Vibration Effect for real drum effect
- Auto-Bass Drum Play: 15 ~ 240 range BPM selection
- Record / Play / Recording list
* Guitar
- 192 Chords
- Preset for Major Chords
- Own chord selections: Up to 12 chords
- Chord instruction: Real image chord
- Record / Play / Recording list
* Piano
- Piano Selection: Piano (88 keyboards) / Electronic Piano (76 keyboards)
- Keyboard Selection: 1 or 2 lines, width
- Easy control for keyboard position
- Record / Play / Recording list
* Bongo Drum
- Consisting of a pair of larger drum and smaller drum
- Two different sounds: Head and Edge
- Record / Play / Recording list
* Ocarina
- Eight different sounds
- Four Ocarina Skins
- Record / Play / Recording list

 

Grab Touch Band Pro now –

I hadn’t heard of Livid Instruments until I came across this new MIDI controller surface, but I know one thing, I really want one now!

Block Station. All metal aluminum enclosure with hand finished wood ends and a built in space for your iPad or netbook.

Features :

• 20.5 x 9.5″ x 2.5″ (WDH) / weight 5 lbs.
• iPad holder (doesn’t power the iPad). Also fits a net book.
• USB Powered
• MIDI in and out jacks
• Bi-Directional MIDI communication (talkback)
• Class-compliant: no drivers needed for Mac, Windows, or Linux.
• 64 Programmable backlight buttons for talk-back and interactive performance
• Programmable MIDI mapping allows you to change the MIDI settings on the hardware
• Anodized aluminum body
• Open Source software tools to create your own LED talkback interaction
• Editor included for MIDI editing, and LED talkback programming
• Made in the USA
• Expansion jacks for additional connections
• Two 1/4″ jacks for Roland style foot pedals
• Compatible with any software that supports MIDI learn
• ROHS compliant
• USB cable included

For more details on purchasing this, head to - http://shop.lividinstruments.com/hardware/block-station.html

Music creation and recording app with samples provided by Loopmasters.

Create your own music with 4 track types:

- Drum track. Sample based track for making beats
- Sound track. Sampler/synthesizer track for making bass lines and melodies
- Chord track. Play and record your favorite chords with the sampler/synthesizer
- Audio track: Record your voice or guitar, with multi-take recording.

Arrange your beats in to Intro, Verse, Chorus etc for easy remix and arrangement of new songs.

energyXT for iOS is the perfect companion for your music creation software on your desktop computer or laptop. Sketch down and work with your ideas and finally export your tracks to Dropbox, either as a mixdown (audio/MIDI) or as one (audio/MIDI) file per track.

Grab energyXT now –

Manipulant is a customizable wireless MIDI control surface for iPad. It takes advantage of some of iPad’s best features to put all of your controls on the same surface with quick access:

- Put all of the buttons, knobs and faders in your set on a single large surface.
- Trigger multiple overlapping controls with a single touch.
- Quickly travel across your workspace using pan, zoom and rotation gestures.
- Connect to the same control surface with multiple iPads and see control actions on each one in real time.
- Host multiple control surfaces on the same computer and connect a different iPad to each one.

Additional Requirements:
- Intel Mac running OS X 10.5/10.6 or PC running Windows XP/Vista/7
- The free Manipulant Base application for designing and broadcasting control surfaces. Download from: http://epeen.info/manipulant/
- A MIDI loopback device. See the User’s Guide in Manipulant Base for more information.

Grab Manipulant now –

While dedicated eBook readers still haven’t yet reached the lofty heights in popularity as the multipurpose iPad and its extended family of apps, the iPad is a highly capable eBook reader in itself, with thousands of best sellers, education, and entertainment titles available to download.

Helping serve the needs of electronic musicians, Anthem Publishing, who handle MusicTech magazine, have been busy producing iOS friendly versions of their special Music Tech Focus issues.

With more than a dozen releases already, each issue is a perfectly digitised version of the 132 page magazine. The aim of each issue to is focus on one particular software package such as Reason and Ableton Live, or an area of music recording, such as Mixing and Mastering.

Like the magazine, the iOS app features workshops, tutorials, software and hardware reviews, and expert tricks and tips, ALL specific to the music software or recording technique.

Of course, one of the immediate benefits of these apps, is being able to carry around any number of issue of Music Tech Focus either on your iPad /iPhone/iPod Touch, and fire them up in a flash.

We’ve been using an iPad to check out the Ableton Live 8, Logic Pro 9, and Mixing editions over the last few weeks, and it’s a real convenience having them right there, rather than having to dig around for the magazines.

The apps work in portrait or landscape view. The difference being, in landscape view you see two pages at a time, and with the iPad upright, you see one page in a larger scale.

Like a real magazine, flipping the pages, via the iPad, offers an animation of the page turning, which could probably be a little faster for my liking, but it’s a cool effect anyway.

Double tapping the display zooms into the area of the page you tap, and can then be dragged around, or double tapped to return to full page view. Pinching the page in and out also does the same thing.

Where these digital versions come into their own, is being able to quickly and easily bring up thumb nails of the pages, as well as a main index offering main features, and then to go to a specific page instantly. And naturally it’s possible to ‘add’ and view saved bookmarks of pages you want to visit regularly. This is really the killer feature of any eBook.

I haven’t tried any issues on a smaller screen, but I dare say it’s not nearly the pleasant experience of the iPad screen, which the issues look super crisp and sharp, even when zooming into the pages.

At US$9.99 per issue, these apps are certainly cheaper than the real magazine (and so they should be), although I know some of us find great value in the BONUS DVD of Software/Audio goodies that also come stuck to the front of the magazine. Maybe in the future, they can even look at a way of offering a discount on the app for those that buy the magazine, mainly for the DVD.

While the type of content on offer here isn’t nearly as interactive or fully featured as say The Daily, or even Wired magazine iPad apps, they  still serve a purpose for those that warm to the idea of carrying around digital versions of magazines they are likely to use on a regular basis.

Check out the growing collection of Music Tech Focus apps in the App Store.

I knew these were on the way, but having seen the growing interest by app developers in supporting them as external controllers I think they would make great additions your studio (or touring) musical arsenal.  The NanoPad2, NanoKey2 and NanoKontrol2 are updates to the original series of compact yet fully functional USB controllers aimed at up and mobile musos.

Unsurprisingly, Korg’s own the iElectribe and iMS-20  (v1.5) are the first to supports “Korg Native Mode”. Simply connecting a Korg nanoPAD2 or nanoKONTROL2 to your iPad will automatically complete all MIDI controller assignments.

Here’s a link to the new line up - http://www.korg.co.uk/products/software_controllers/nano2/sc_nano2.php

Here’s a promo demoing the latest features in V1.5 of iElectribe and iMS-20

Shape is a polyphonic synthesiser allowing the user to draw the shape of the oscillator wave form. The positive side of the oscillation is represented by 32 blocks and the negative side is its mirror, generating all sorts of possible raw retroish sounds. Shape is best experienced with akai synthstation 25.

Powered by Sparrow.

+++ 16 voices.
+++ Attack.
+++ Decay.
+++ LFO envelope.
+++ Delay.
+++ Akai synthstation 25 compatible.
+++ On screen 25 key stylophone style keyboard.
+++ Arpeggio.
+++ Tape.

4voice Polyphonic  Simulated Analog Synthesizer for iPod touch & iPhone

• Polyphonic ( 4 voice )
• Totally Programmable with Storage for 32 Programs
• Two Oscillator per Voice
• Two ADSR Envelope Generator per Voice
• 24dB/octave Low Pass Filter
• Noise Generator / Sample and Hold
• Auto Arpeggio new
• Digital Delay new

There’s not a great deal of other info about this app, but you can check out the other two here - http://www.music-device.com/MDP/Welcome.html

Grab SAS-4As now –

A free sound editor for recording, editing, adding effects, and sending audio, Pocket WavePad allows you to record voice or music, then edit the recording and add effects to achieve high quality audio recordings. Work within audio waveforms to make selections for quick editing, such as inserting recordings from other files, or apply effects like the high pass filter to clarify audio quality. For journalists and other professionals making recordings on the go, Pocket WavePad makes it easy to store or send recordings so they are readily available wherever they are needed.

• Formatted for iPad
• Supports a number of file formats including wave and aiff
• Editing capabilities include cut, copy, paste, insert, trim and more
• Effects include amplify, normalize, echo and more
• Work with multiple files
• Supports autotrim and voice activated recording
• Select sample rates from 8000-44100hz, 8-32 bits

For further details, drop by here - http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html

Grab Wavepad HD now –