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.
SL Remote™ for iPad® provides remote control of nearly all of the mixing functions of PreSonus StudioLive-series mixers. SL Remote connects wirelessly to Virtual StudioLive™ (VSL) for Mac® and Windows®, freeing the sound person to move around the venue while making adjustments to the mix and empowering musicians to take control of their own monitor mixes. SL Remote can connect to any StudioLive mixer over a wireless network. Conversely, up to 24 iPads running SL Remote can simultaneously control the same StudioLive mixer while retaining VSL and hardware control.
RØDE University, the critically acclaimed educational video course from RØDE Microphones, is now available on iPhone! Including both the musical instrument and broadcast recording segments, RØDE University features over 30 entertaining and educational videos that help you get the professional audio results you’ve been searching for. Filmed in the world renowned Studio 301 and featuring Sydney band “Hell City Glamours”, the musical instrument segment covers recording vocals, guitars, bass and drums with a range of different microphones and techniques. Veteran sound designer and best-selling author Ric Viers hosts the broadcast recording component, and covers a wide range of topics including location recording, foley, voiceover/ADR and sound effect recording. Also included is a graphical reference library of all RØDE Microphones including detailed specifications.
GarageBand turns your iPad into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play pianos, organs, guitars, drums, and basses on your iPad. They sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument. Enjoy a full range of Smart Instruments that make you sound like a pro — even if you’ve never played a note before. Plug an electric guitar into your iPad and play through classic amps and stompbox effects. Use the built-in microphone or a guitar to record, or capture any performance. Then mix up to eight tracks to create a song you can share.
iLive MixPad is an engineer’s mixing tool providing wireless mobile control for the Allen & Heath iLive digital live sound mixing system. It is the perfect companion to the iLive Surface or Editor, giving you the freedom to walk the room or stage and control the sound right where it is needed.
BeatMaker™ 2 : the most advanced mobile music workstation.
Allen & Heath is set to release an iPad app for its iLive digital mixing system. iLive MixPad connects to an iLive MixRack on a wireless network and provides the essential controls for live mixing, including channel faders and mutes, DCA faders and mutes, image controls, aux sends, channel processing, mic-pre control and full metering. Channel processing encompasses high-pass filters, gates, parametric and graphic EQs, compressors, limiters / de-essers and delays. iLive MixPad also offers several useful tools for system set-up, including channel assignment to mixes, a real time analyser and the facility to name and colour channel strips.
Following a long list of interesting music-based apps from XME, including Pocket Studio, comes a simple multitrack recorder for voice or instruments (if you have an iRig or similar interface). It seems a little pricey for the feature set, but the basic controls may be just what some users are looking for.
