Create Digital Music on early iPhone music apps

Actually there is a real synth developed for iPhone/iPod Touch. It is called Noise.io (http://www.noise.io)

Noise.io offers ESFM (Enhanced Subspace Frequency Modulation) synthesis that is capable of producing all kinds of noises and sound effects. Making iPhone sound is simple: user slides his fingers over the device surface, that
produces sound that changes in realtime, delivering a unique sonic experience. The resulting sound can be synced to BPM via TapBPM function and can be even more enriched with sound effects like chorus, delay, flanger, etc. Noise.io (http://noise.io) comes with 81 presets and a user-friendly preset editor that allows creating user presets in no time.

Everyone, including the poster of this article has MISSED THE BOAT _BIG TIME_ !!

Everyone is raving about the BeatMaker app. It's like an MPC in your pocket. Even Timbaland has posted a video of him making a beat on the iphone. This thing is a real sequencer!

If I may I'd like to point out there is (and has been for a while) some interesting and useful audio stuff for iPhones and iPod touchs:

http://www.nezmar.com/a-guide-to-itouch-audio-apps/

nda

@ericdano: Uh, thanks, mate, obviously saying anything critical makes me a "git." Unfortunately, most of the things I write about music software tend not to be platform specific, because so much of the development is cross platform. The essence of sound programming tends to be at the DSP level, so not particularly platform-specific, either. That means that, usually by the time we're talking about a platform, it's because there's some shortcoming.

But the other comments here are absolutely right -- we have every indication that better things will be coming. I just had to say something, because I *will* get excited when those apps arrive, and it simply hasn't happened yet. And there are platforms that the mainstream tech world just hasn't heard anything about that remain of interest to musicians (like the hacked homebrew gaming scene).

The conventional wisdom that the iPhone/iPod Touch would sweep away all other platforms just doesn't apply in the strange, strange world of music development. How else to explain that the most popular platform for homebrew mobile music apps is the Nintendo DS? They're basically all free, running on a platform that isn't built for the job, isn't very powerful, and is actually quite difficult to develop for -- and then has to be hacked with specialized hardware just to run apps. If nothing else, part of what *that* demonstrates is that the advanced music programmers will find a way around whatever obstacles they encounter.

I have every confidence that the situation will improve on the iPhone / iPod Touch. It may take some time, because developing music apps is considerably harder than some of the development scenarios Apple has described. The music crowd will be watching ... and they'll find something useful to do with the Windows Mobile and Palm PDAs everyone else is discarding. (That has advantages, too -- if you're using it for music, your battery life is then dedicated to that while your phone is, well, a phone / music player / PDA / app platform / everything else.)

MooCowMusic did have the Drummer app for jailbroken devices which acted pretty much like an MPC, but the problem with Apple's setup, is that it would impossible for you to import your own samples, and a sampler with a few useless, preset sounds *ahem* Soundboard *ahem* would just be plain boring.

To say that the iPhone has no great music tools is right, but I see Apple itself as being the limiting factor, not any developers will or ability. Tell Steve to open up the device, and believe me, the possiblities would be endless.

"I'd personally love to see an app that simply lets you put interface objects like sliders or buttons or X-Y pads on the iPhone screen and link each one to a MIDI control"

This is already possible :) Personally I've been using my iPhone like this for several of the dj sets i've played. You can use an app called Mrmr on the iPhone to run the interfaces, that you create yourself. For the MIDI connection, I use PureData (an opensource version of MAX/MSP) to collect the OSC data Mrmr sends over the WIFI network, convert it to MIDI signals, that are passed on to Traktor DJ Studio.

So, to sum up, what you are talking about is already possible, and working sweetly :)

I think there's a lot coming.. I've been playing with some very cool stuff on my jailbroken iPod. It's just a matter of time for those apps to come to the AppStore.. Or else, wait for a 2.0 jailbreak and happy jamming! :)

I can keep rhythm with iPhone metronome
iPhone metronome
iPhone metronome

Give us just a little more time... music apps are coming.

-Chad
www.miniMusic.com

dude try moocow's band....