Palm Sounds: June 2010

Music / Media / Social - Where are and where we should go

It is social media day so I thought I'd take this opportunity of looking at how mobile music making apps have integrated with social media so far, and what possibilities lie ahead.

Quite a few mobile apps have integrated with social media on the iPhone. Apps like Touch DJ which let you connect to facebook and twitter to say what you're mixing, or PianoStudio, which lets you post your track to twitter, facebook or share via email. Then there's Mixtikl 2 which converts a whole mix into a character string that can be pasted into twitter and anyone can listen to it online.

There are plenty more examples, and lots of good uses of social media in those apps, but essentially our use of social media inside apps is sharing of either what you're doing creatively or the output of what you're doing creatively, and I think that there's a lot more potential to be had.

I think that projects like Genomestudio are moving in the right direction. Real time collaboration and sharing of musical ideas as they are forming is where I see musical social media going in the future.

I was really excited by the OhmStudio, but I think that mobile devices should be an integral part of this kind of exchange and collaboration. There have been a few concept devices around this idea, but nothing concrete as yet with the exception of Genomestudio.

Current social media sites like facebook, twitter and others aren't really geared towards this kind of collaborative approach to sharing. The closest thing so far is Thounds, which does have a Thounds app for the iPhone. Perhaps there's is a platform that could be built upon for real time collaboration using mobile devices with the ability to locate and connect with musicians around you to collaborate and share ideas and composition.

But is it too much to ask for? Social media is still evolving as is mobile music creation. My hope is that the two together could provide the tools and platforms to enable musicians to not only be able to be creative wherever they are, but also to find and collaborate with other musicians on an ad hoc basis.

We'll see what the future holds.

iShred LIVE released

iShred has always been one of my favourite guitar apps, so in hindsight it is obvious that it should become a live guitar app as well.

iShred LIVE is free on the app store, and you can get a cable interface for it too.

Someone is going to have to do a complete show down of all of these cables and interfaces at some point.

Could it be?

Is this ...

in fact one of these in software?

I do hope so. Thanks to @stanaway who spotted it.

The Daily eBay

A few interesting things on eBay

today. First a DS-10 package

currently at £29.99 for a DS and the DS-10 cart.

Next a PRS Guitarbud

for a reasonable price.

A Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer

And lastly a grid modified Kaossilator

iMovie running on a 3GS

I guess it had to happen.

30 Years of Apple in 2 minutes

Just for fun, via Make.

OtoBlock for iPhone

Another strange iPhone rhythm app. I've covered this developers previous apps and this one seems in keeping with his work so far.

Anyway, it is free, so why not try it out.

Flexible Arduino

Make writes about a new type of Arduino made from Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC). I've no idea why that's such a great thing, but I still think that it is.

SynthStation25 at NAMM

Another demo for the SynthStation hardware we've been waiting for since January.

Currently Gear4Music

has this with a delivery date of the 13th of July. I'm still not sure I buy that though. Anyone else have news on this?

Most interesting of course is the news from yesterday that Akai plans to make their API available. I'd like to know if any developers have contacted them as yet about that.

Video via Matrixsynth.

Sing Harmony? Yes there's an app for that

Of course, why wouldn't there be? Sing Harmonies comes in full and free versions.

Funkbox audiocopy has arrived

FunkBox gets audiocopy! Excellent. Plus a bunch of other stuff too.

New audio engine with sample accurate timing and sequencing
Audio .wav export via email or Intua Beatmaker copy/paste clipboard
Adjustable latency in audio settings. If you are getting crackles on an older device set latency higher, if you want more responsive taps on a newer device set latency lower
Master volume control in audio settings
Tempo range increased to 60bpm-180bpm
Screen dim/lock disabled, so you can leave your beats running
Drum machine state saved, quit and come back to same tempo/pattern/etc
On iPad you can now read the web manual in app
Misc other fixes

Symphony Pro for the iPad: Screenshots

More screenshots for the new Symphony Pro for iPad here.

What happened to iSyn on the iPad?

I seem to remember that a while back there was talk that iSyn was coming to the iPad. I think it was from Computer Music in a pre-iPad launch feature on the device.

Anyone heard anymore about this?

Sample Import in iSequence 1.5 for iPad

Tenori-on at Summer NAMM

Via Matrixsynth.

Using CV Generator

Via Synthtopia.

Sunvox in the woods ...

Xewton update

The Xewton update is here with a new pitchbend effect and filter effect amongst the updates.

I'm looking forward to the iPad version of the app.

More Android Tablets

Mashable posts on a new Android tablet from Cisco. It looks like this tablet is firmly aimed at the business market.

Today is Social Media Day

Apparently! So I'm going to be posting some stuff today about how mobile music is taking advantage of social media and where we could do more maybe.

ZooZbeat still free for today only!

Zoozbeat's app is still free up the 29th of June (today!).

CDM at Summer NAMM

Lots of nice toys in the post from CDM, but most interesting to me is the info on the Akai SynthStation25. According to CDM the hardware is now due to ship next month, for around $100 - $150, and Akai are going to make their API available to developers too!

I'm assuming that the hardware won't interact with the iPhone 4 though for the same reason as other devices have had issues with the pinouts.

2nd Gen Mikey Availability

Mikey 2 availability and pricing here. Looks like it won't work with the iPad or iPhone 4 for the same reasons as other devices won't.

MT100 Synth Price Drop

This app has dropped in price from $7.99 to $0.99. There doesn't seem to be any reasons why the price has dropped or if and when it will go back up.

SYNTHiPAD... a work in progress

Anyone know what this is? From Chris Carter.

Going back to iPhone OS 3.1.3

I know that there are some iPhone 3G users who have upgraded to iOS4 and regretted it. If you want to go back to 3.1.3 then here are some instructions on how to do it.

I haven't tried this out, so I can't comment on whether or not it works. If you try it out then do so at your own peril!

Aurora Sound Studio HD update

Aurora Sound Studio HD gets an update:

MIDI Export Facility
HQ Mode added to Program Settings.
Added an easy way to turn off / reduce visual effects.
Added an expression bar in Play Mode. This allows you to apply pitch bend, vibrato, volume and filter glides and modulation in real time whilst soloing over a sequence. You can even pitch shift drum notes, or even a whole drum layer!

I know that there was a lot of controversy over the pricing of the HD version of this app. I'm still working on a post that compares all of the versions that I have, including iPhone, iPad and Windows Mobile versions, and I hope to have this out in a few days.