{"id":8636,"date":"2012-05-17T20:25:43","date_gmt":"2012-05-18T00:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/?p=8636"},"modified":"2018-01-08T17:57:24","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T22:57:24","slug":"my-first-foray-into-ios-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2012\/my-first-foray-into-ios-music\/","title":{"rendered":"My first foray into iOS music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve toyed around with several iPhone and iPad music apps. Many are intriguing and fun, but few have inspired me into making &#8220;real&#8221; music. In preparation for the next <a href=\"http:\/\/disquiet.com\/2012\/01\/27\/the-disquiet-junto\/\">Disquiet Junto<\/a> project, I downloaded <a href=\"http:\/\/nodebeat.com\/\">Nodebeat<\/a> and tried some improvisation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/nodebeat.com\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Nodebeat on the iPad\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nodebeat.com\/wp-content\/themes\/jquerymobile\/img\/slideshow\/ipad-004.jpg?resize=307%2C230\" alt=\"\" width=\"307\" height=\"230\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The app combines randomness and control in an intriguing way. I also like the fine <a href=\"https:\/\/ethanhein.com\/wp\/2010\/blue-notes\/\">microtonal<\/a> control it gives you. You can also use it as a MIDI controller for other software, though I haven&#8217;t given that a try yet. If you want to try it for yourself and you don&#8217;t have an iOS or Android device, you can snag the <a href=\"http:\/\/nodebeat.com\/\">desktop version<\/a>, for free no less.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Aside from Nodebeat, the best three iOS music apps I&#8217;ve tried are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/moogmusic.com\/products\/apps\/animoog\">Animoog<\/a><\/strong> &#8212; a faithful reproduction of a Moog analog synth. Fascinating, wonderful, versatile, but very complex and I haven&#8217;t even begun to plumb its depths.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.propellerheads.se\/products\/figure\/\">Figure<\/a><\/strong> &#8212; a very stripped-down version of Reason with a beautifully minimalist interface, a sense of humor and wonderful sounds. It also has some maddening shortcomings, however, like not being able to save or export your work (unless you hook up a cable to other recording software from your headphone jack.) Also, nice though the interface is, it would be good to be able to more directly edit your patterns. I presume (hope) they&#8217;ll be rolling out more of this kind of functionality in future versions.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/soundrop\/id364871590?mt=8\">Soundrop<\/a><\/strong> &#8212; more of a toy than a musical instrument per se, but an excellent toy. If you like quasi-randomness in your music, this offers you tons of gratification. Free, well worth monkeying around with.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t tried some of the big name iOS music programs yet. I&#8217;m told Garageband is pretty great, and the Electribe looks pretty interesting. For the most part, the apps I&#8217;ve looked at are too limited to seem worth the while compared to serious software like Ableton, Pro Tools, Reason and so on. But I&#8217;m keeping an open mind. If you have recommendations, please put them in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve toyed around with several iPhone and iPad music apps. Many are intriguing and fun, but few have inspired me into making &#8220;real&#8221; music. In preparation for the next Disquiet Junto project, I downloaded Nodebeat and tried some improvisation. The app combines randomness and control in an intriguing way. I also like the fine microtonal &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2012\/my-first-foray-into-ios-music\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;My first foray into iOS music&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[909,6,348,928,9,12,14],"tags":[1136,1567,225,1137,1557,1140,359,1138,596,1139],"class_list":["post-8636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-composition","category-hardware","category-improvisation","category-interfaces","category-music","category-software","category-video-games","tag-animoog","tag-composition","tag-electronica","tag-figure","tag-improvisation","tag-ios","tag-ipad","tag-nodebeat","tag-random","tag-touch","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pAPdE-2fi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8636"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16845,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8636\/revisions\/16845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}