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instruments posts

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, Music

Rock Band coming to the iPhone


It's true -- as leaked earlier this week and confirmed yesterday, EA is bringing Harmonix's Rock Band to the iPhone, and it's about what you'd expect: notes come down the screen set to popular music, you tap in certain places in time to the beat, and get a score based on how well you do. Truthfully, I'm a huge Rock Band (and Harmonix) fan in general, but this doesn't excite me much -- the big draw of Rock Band is actually playing with those instruments, and while yes they're plastic and tiny, when you get four people in the same room together playing them, it actually feels like you're jamming in a band.

Fortunately, the iPhone version will have both online and bluetooth multiplayer, so you will be able to jam with people, but the gameplay is simply reminiscent of Tap Tap Revenge, which you probably already know about and/or have. It looks like they've gotten most of their songs from the actual Rock Band game; twenty songs with the purchase (no price yet), and then there will be 99 cent packs of two songs each coming out soon. The app's been submitted and it should be out in the store next week.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Make a video with Cat Piano, win a DS

It's probably time for me to lay off of Smule -- I've said that their Ocarina app might be the silliest musical app in the App Store, but we have a new winner: Cat Piano is just plain loony: a piano made up of cats meowing, like those old Christmas recordings, but playable. There are a few different cat sounds to play (from "Furball" to "Housecat"), and even a regular piano if you just want to tickle the ivories a little bit. Most of the reviews on the App Store say people are using it to mess with their cats, but there's definitely a musical instrument here -- if Ocarina can be used as an instrument, the Cat Piano can, too.

And in fact, the developers are challenging you to prove it -- they're giving away a Nintendo DS (interesting choice of prizes -- an iPod touch might be more apt) to the person who makes the best video using Cat Piano. I don't know if you could beat that Jingle Cats video, but you can certainly try. The contest starts on Thursday, and goes until March 20th, so you've got a little over a month to get the cat sounds down.

Ocarina, you'll remember, also turned out some watchable videos, so we're interested to see what comes out of this contest.

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