Check out my buddy Xander from Apple as he gives us a demo of the Garageband instruments.
Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.
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.
Play your iPad like a musical instrument.
• Perform on dozens of musical instruments on the innovative Multi-Touch keyboard.
• Tap out beats from the seat of acoustic and electronic drum kits.
• Recreate legendary guitar rigs on your iPad with 9 amps and 10 stompbox effects.
• Record your voice using the built-in microphone, and apply fun sound effects.
• Use the Sampler to create an instrument from sounds you record, then play them on a keyboard.
Sound like a virtuoso with Smart Instruments.
• Tap chords to instantly create keyboard grooves with the Smart Keyboard.
• Strum chords on acoustic and electric Smart Guitars, or trigger fingerpicking patterns for popular chords.
• Groove with an onscreen electric or upright Smart Bass by tapping on chords.
• Drag drum instruments onto a grid to create your own beats with the Smart Drums.
Create a song anywhere you go.
• Arrange and mix your song with up to eight tracks using Touch Instruments, audio recordings, and loops.
• Trim and place musical regions exactly where you want them to play.
• Use the Mixer to fine-tune each track’s volume — solo or mute any track, or adjust pan, reverb, and echo.
• Use over 250 professionally prerecorded loops as a backing band to your song.
Share your songs.
• Email songs right from your iPad (AAC).
• Export your song and add it to the iTunes library on your Mac or PC.
• Send a project to your Mac and open it in GarageBand to continue refining your song.
Travel back in time to the dawn of electronic music with this strange retro app – a MIDI player preloaded with 500+ legendary Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument sounds.
The first byte-perfect re-issue of the classic CMI sounds of the 80s, immortalized by artists including Alan Parsons, Jean Michel Jarre, Trevor Horn, Thomas Dolby, Brian Eno, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder and so many more.
This app includes a play-only demo of the famous ‘Page R’, which was the world’s first screen-based rhythm sequencer. Today every sampler, digital synthesiser, sequencer and audio workstation can trace its lineage back to this legendary machine.
Now you can have, in your pocket or on your iPad, a piece of history developed by Fairlight staff who worked on the CMI in the ’80s.
BUILT-IN FEATURES
- browse and play the entire original Fairlight CMI IIX Sounds floppy disk library
– 564 voices imported digitally.
– play the CMI voices from an external MIDI input (supports Core Midi, Line6 MidiMobilizer or Akai SynthStation), or use the on-screen keyboard
– display voices graphically using the iconic Page D, and change your viewpoint by tilting your iPhone/iPad.
– play built-in CMI Page R compositions or import and play compositions sent to you by others.
– authentic CMI user interface experience, including floppy disk quirks.
UPGRADE to PRO VERSION
Use the in-App upgrade process to add “pro” features for an additional $39.99. Vogel CMI Pro App includes CMI III voices, the ability to compose 8 track songs using the Page R pattern sequencer, sampling your own voices from the microphone or line in and much more. See the “Vogel CMI Pro” app description for details.
REVIEWS
I would have never dreamt in a million years to own a Fairlight. It is the stuff of legends! Beyond any ordinary man’s budget! And for this day to come a reality for a mere $10!! I am in awe and shock! I cannot emphasize how thankful I am to you for releasing this Iconic and Legendary instrument as an iPhone application!! (Imad Hamadieh, Dubai, UAE)
When I saw it yesterday and found out about it, I just about fainted!!
Very nice app! A complete revival / reissue of the best computer musical instrument ever in a tiny but very useful format. It is a joy to see an epic piece of synthesizer/sampling history as an app for the millions. Finally you can take your Fairlight wherever you are! A Fairlight to go-go-go! (Freek Roffel, Netherlands)
Again I would like to take a moment and extend a huge THANK YOU to the entire Fairlight team. … You have taken the time and patience to create an affordable solution for the masses. … You have given us a gift. I am truly excited to see what users will do with this App to change the future of music once again. Sincerely, thank you. (Zacharia Malakai, USA)
All I can say is WOW!! I have put this thru my BIG speakers in my studio and put a little reverb on and the sound is stunning – SO what am I going to do with my Fairlight CMI-IIx now?? (Howard J Smith, USA)
DEVICE REQUIREMENTS
This App will work on any device running iOS 5 or later. However, if you want to use Audiobus or do heavy performance and composing work with the Pro upgrade, we recommend a minimum of iPod Touch 4G, iPhone 4 or iPad 2.
FunkBox was used by Gorillaz when recording their new album “The Fall”, hear it at thefall.gorillaz.com! Also featured in Electronic Musician magazine’s “Attack of the Killer Apps” best music tools for the iPad, and Computer Music Magazine’s “Amazing Music Apps” special issue!
Get Funkbox here
The following is a list of apps used by The Gorillaz on The Fall
Touch Remote for Omnisphere “Combining the physical advantages of the iPad’s touch surface with Spectrasonics’ powerful Omnisphere virtual instrument, the Omni TR app will create a true hands-on experience allowing musicians to activate patches, tweak filters, re-mix, bend and spin amazing performance possibilities from the innovative new ´Orb´ circular controller all with the tips of their fingers!”
Spectrasonics’ Eric Persing demos Omni TR at the NAMM Show.
‘Touch Remote’ Concept
The new iPad app introduces Spectrasonics ‘TR’ (Touch Remote) concept – combining the tactile advantages of the iPad as a performance-oriented touch surface, with the company’s powerful computer-based virtual instruments – creating a true hands-on experience for musicians.
“One of the big differences between software and hardware synths is the feeling of hardware that’s so wonderful,” says Eric Persing, Founder and Creative Director of Spectrasonics. “With the iPad and our new Omni TR app, we are excited to bridge that gap and bring the sense of touch to state-of-the-art virtual instruments like Omnisphere.”
Omni TR brings Omnisphere’s interactive features closer to the music creation process with the ability to create setups and sound modifications very quickly. The user’s fingers can activate patches, tweak filters, re-mix, bend and spin amazing performance possibilities from the innovative new ‘Orb’ circular controller.
Interface
With its high contrast interface, ‘Omni TR’ is perfect onstage for live performance or even in the studio where the iPad sits at the controller keyboard located away from the studio computer. Best of all, the Omni TR app is extremely easy to use, offering full two-way communication with Omnisphere with just a simple wireless connection to the computer running the plug-in.
Omni TR has 4 pages for different types of real-time control:
Main Page
The Main page mirrors Omnisphere’s unique Live Mode offering 8 patch slots with latching and trigger modes, individual mute and solo, and mixer faders. In this page alone, Omnisphere becomes a new performance instrument with the iPad sitting at the user’s controller keyboard. Patch names can be simply touched to be enabled, one or more at a time for layers and stacks. Users can also browse and select Multis and Patches directly from the iPad to instantly change sounds for a new song or live set.
The Orb Page
Omni TR was designed to make the iPad the ideal control surface for Omnisphere’s innovative new ‘Orb’ feature. The ‘Orb’ is both a remarkable sound manipulation tool and an intuitive performance interface — it can be thought of as a ‘circular controller.’ Now with a single gesture, the user can instantly customize the sound in Omnisphere. Best of all, the Orb automatically works with every patch a user has, there’s no setup necessary.
As the Orb moves and orbits around the concentric circles, it morphs between automatically generated parameter scenes in Omnisphere’s STEAM engine in a highly intelligent and musical manner, all patch
dependent — manipulating the sound in subtle or radical ways appropriate to that particular patch.
If the user doesn’t like what the Orb has created, a complete new set of manipulations can be chosen by simply rolling the “Dice” button, which instantly creates a brand new group of intelligent sonic modifications and effects to try. There’s no limit to how many serendipitous sonic variations the Orb can create – opening up the vast power of the STEAM engine to every user, regardless of synthesis knowledge.
The tactile experience of moving the cursor around the Orb space on the iPad with a finger to create variations in the sound is remarkably musical. Where standard controllers might change one or two simple parameters in a linear manner, the Orb morphs a host of parameters that are patch specific, and easily changed on-the-fly.
The Inertia slider of the Orb allows the user to create a ‘movement trail’ after letting go of the Orb, just like a ball might roll and bounce off the walls of a circular enclosure, adding a musical symmetry to the “performance” of an Orb interaction.
Users can also record their performance movements directly into the Orb and play the performance back in sync with their controller or host. The Orb’s movements and sonic results are saved within the patch, multi or the host’s session for later recall. The movement of the Orb can also be automated in the user’s host.
Controls Page
The Controls page features a touch-based pitch ribbon performance controller and 8 touch sliders assigned to groups of the most useful performance/editing parameters for each Omnisphere layer.
Jumbo View
The Jumbo page shows large patch names on all 8 parts, easily seen in a live stage performance situation.
AVAILABILITY: The new “Omni TR” iPad app is compatible with both Mac and Windows systems running Spectrasonics Omnisphere v1.5 or higher and will be available free from the App Store on February 15th, 2011 (pending Apple’s review).
Technically announced at CES, the IK Multimedia iRig Mic was, nonetheless, a point of interest at the recent Winter NAMM 2011, and yet another example of how the iPad is blurring the line between consumer and professional recording gear. As the first true condenser mic for the iPad, the iRig mic lets you add clear, usable vocals to demos generated by otherwise in-the-box apps (like AmpliTube or GrooveMaker, mayhaps?).
The IK MultiMedia iRig Mic features an electric element, so even though it’s a condenser it won’t sap power from your iPad’s battery. It also includes the new IK MultiMedia VocaLive app, a vocal utility kit featuring effects and a multitrack
iPad Loops is an iOS music production blog dedicated to exposing the best iPad apps musicians, producers, and Djs. This is not a database of every app. It is, however, one of useful recommendations from someone with many years in music production. I try to update it on a daily basis (ok sometimes every two days) and I do my best to post useful apps only. My name is Jason Donnelly (Dj Puzzle).
Some of the apps that contain my sounds are Synth One, EG Segments, Hammerhead, Retronyms AudioCopy, Audio Evolution Mobile, and iMPC Pro. My work is published by Roland, Antares, Magix, Soundtrack Loops, Sample Logic, Acoustica, Native Instruments, The Grammt Museum and many more. Subscribe to our RSS feed below to get updated when new apps are posted.
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