iPhoning It In

Jun 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Mike Levine

           
 

MUSIC APPS ARE PLENTIFUL FOR THE IPHONE AND IPOD TOUCH—BUT WHICH ONES ARE WORTH BUYING?

Another Studio Six Digital product is RTA (V. 1.2, $9.99), a real-time analyzer that has calibration settings for either the iPhone's built-in mic or an external measurement mic. (It plans to release its own iPhone measurement mic soon.) The company's other apps include Generator (V. 1.3, $5.99) signal generator and FFT (V. 1.3, $19.99), an audio-analysis tool.

Reference and Learning

For those who are learning jazz standards or just like to play them, iReal Book (V. 1.2, Massimo Biolclati; $7.99) gives you chord changes for 550 tunes. Due to copyright restrictions, no melodies or lyrics are included. It's probably just as well, because they'd be very tough to read, considering the size of the screen. One big advantage this electronic version has over its paper predecessors: a Transpose button.

There are several music education apps in the iTunes store, but my favorite is called Karajan (V. 1.2.1, Holger Meyer; $14.99). It's a little pricey (relatively speaking), but it takes advantage of the iPhone/iPod touch's audio capabilities to present a series of interactive ear-training and theory exercises with four levels of difficulty.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Finally, here are some music apps that don't necessarily have serious utility but are fun to use.

Probably the most enjoyable iPhone app I've tried so far (and I've tried a lot) is RjDj (V. 0.6.5, Reality Jockey; $2.99 for each of its two editions, with a limited free version also available). Put on your headphones and select a “Scene,” which is actually a preprogrammed chain of effects that sometimes includes music tracks. When the sounds in the room or the sounds you're creating musically come through the microphone, they interact with the processing to create all sorts of interesting and unusual soundscapes with a wide stereo image (see Web Clip 2). The developers call it a “reactive” process. You can also record your RjDj session for later playback. The version I tested had no export feature, but Reality Jockey is planning one for its next update (which will also allow users to download additional Scenes). I experimented with playing instruments into RjDj and got some pretty cool results. It could be a useful tool for sound designing.

Guitarists and non-guitarists alike will love iShred (V. 1.41, Frontier Design Group; $4.99). It turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a cool-sounding virtual electric guitar that you play somewhat like an autoharp. Buttons on the top let you choose chords or scales from a collection of classic songs (e.g., “Highway to Hell,” “Godzilla”), and you strum or tap the virtual guitar strings and play away. Depending on the song you've loaded, you get either a clean or distorted sound. You can add a bunch of nifty virtual stompbox effects, too. Frontier also makes Guitar (V. 1.4.1, $3.99), which has a similar interface but with acoustic guitar samples.

The samples in Harmonica (V. 1.1, Benjamin McDowell; $0.99) sound quite realistic. Like a real harmonica, this instrument is designed to be played by mouth. (You can also play it with your fingers, if you'd rather.) Put your mouth up to the harmonica on the screen and inhale and you get a “drawn” note; exhale and you get a “blown” note. Its biggest drawback is that you can't bend notes. Still, it's a remarkably accurate simulation. Just don't drool on your iPhone while playing it.

The Looptastic Series of apps from Sound Trends LLC offers a cool and intuitive remixing environment, featuring a grid-like interface where different instrument and vocal loops — represented as cubes — can be dragged into the mix, raised and lowered in level, and crossfaded. A touchpad-controlled resonant filter lets you do global, real-time filter effects. There are seven different versions of Looptasic, most of which are tailored to specific dance-music genres. The Producer edition (V. 1.1) lets you import your own loops wirelessly from your computer and the program time-stretches them so they work together. Most of the apps come with ten songs and 100 loops, and cost $4.99 each. A 1-song Electro Lite edition is free and is a good way to check out the interface.

Bebot (V. 1.4, Normalware; $1.99) is one of my favorite apps. It comprises an animated robot that responds to movement on the touchscreen and belts out robotic notes. It's even polyphonic, responding to multiple finger touches at the same time with “harmonized” notes. Amaze yourself and others (although you might annoy them after a while) with this wild app.

Download Here

It seems clear that music software for the iPhone/iPod touch platform will become more and more sophisticated as time goes on. As the iPhone/iPod touch operating system advances, such as with the imminent release of V. 3, there are sure to be additional ways for music app developers to take advantage of it. Also, you can be that there will be more microphones and other peripherals released that will be capable of interacting with the apps. So keep your eye on the iTunes Application Store; things are changing every day.

(See Online Bonus Material for a list of URLs to contact the various app developers mentioned in this story.)

When he's not messing around with iPhone apps, Mike Levine is EM's executive editor and senior media producer. He hosts the monthly Podcast, EM Cast (www.emusician.com/podcasts).

Take Two

At the time of this writing, the Alesis ProTrack ($199.97, see Fig. A, next page) and Blue Microphone's Mikey ($79) are the only two stereo-mic options for the iPod touch and iPhone. Both will give you stereo results when used with an app that supports stereo recording, such as BIAS' iProRecorder.