The stream of iPad and iPhone apps for musicians gushes endlessly, but among that river of software, there are some visible trends. Demanded by users, features for sharing between apps – and other mobile artists – flourish.

Hardware heavyweight KORG has been one of the developers that’s been especially good at offering that kind of support. Their just-announced iKaossilator 2 app adds native iPad screen support (previously iPhone-optimized only), and a new “flex play” for fills and breaks.

But most notably, it offers options for sharing:

• Audio export for saving your audio – ideal for use elsewhere or sharing
• SoundCloud export (increasingly popular in desktop and mobile software of all stripes)
• AudioCopy for sharing audio between apps – adopted by many indie developers, this feature is becoming a demanded addition even if you’re releasing an app costing only a couple of bucks

This is addition to WIST, “WIreless Sync-starT,” Korg’s mechanism for syncing up multiple wireless apps. That’s ideal if you’ve got a friend with a device and want to jam. (It’s, unfortunately, iOS-only based on its reliance on Apple’s wireless sharing tech.)

The upshot of all of these features is, naturally, to help ease the tablet/phone app into the larger workflow, with desktop software and other tools. Korg’s other apps are similarly flexible – their iMS-20 synth works with MIDI and SoundCloud, for instance, and it and iElecTribe will wirelessly sync.

Korg iKaossilator

KORG isn’t alone. An updated Intua BeatMaker – more of a full-fledged beat-making and groove production workstation – added loads of similarly sharing-focused features.

Indeed, Intua goes further than KORG. Developers have been working together to route MIDI signals between apps with something they’re calling Virtual MIDI. (That deserves its own article, clearly, but worth mentioning in this context; see discussion on Google Groups.) As desktop apps have allowed collaboration between plug-ins and hosts, or multiple apps, this allows a MIDI app to control a synth app. It’s less powerful, arguably, on the limited horsepower of an iPad than it might be on a beefy desktop, but it can still be very useful for combining one controller or sequencer with something else that makes sound.

As reported on Synthtopia, Virtual MIDI is just one of a number of MIDI-centric features in the new version:

BeatMaker Getting All Sorts Of MIDI Love [Synthtopia]

There’s MIDI Out, yes, but also Thru and MIDI-over-WiFi for talking to other MIDI gadgets. There’s Virtual MIDI for communicating with other iOS devices. You can hot-plug MIDI and the app keeps working (essential onstage). And in place of SoundCloud support as in the KORG offering, there’s Dropbox file sharing support.

You can export and import MIDI – not just audio, but actual patterns – as well as read and write slice points in Apple Loops.

In fact, Intua even support Korg’s own WIST, so you could sync BeatMaker to KORG’s iElecTribe or the modulation of the iMS-20 and get synchronized rhythms between apps from different developers.

Intua BeatMaker @ iTunes

This is not to say iOS devices are identical to a desktop experience – in fact, their limitations and unique features are clearly part of their appeal. Instead, it seems part of an increased awareness that connectivity with other applications and other users is of growing importance to musicians. iOS developers seem eager to make these central design features, both emulating what’s been done right on desktops – and where there have been missed opportunities. It’ll be fascinating to see if other, non-iOS platforms follow the same trend.

Music production once meant getting into a studio. Portable multi-track tape and later the computer liberated us from that, and the “bedroom studio” was born. When capable Palm handhelds hit the market, musicians imagined yet more mobile means of production, and everything from Game Boys and PSPs to phones, even before the iPhone, have been pressed into on-the-go music-making service.

In all that time, though, the way you actually make music in your palm has been a work in progress.

Intua’s BeatMaker was one of the first applications to demonstrate what might be possible on Apple’s handheld, and a radical new version looks like the new generation it is. A drum sampler, keyboard sampler, mixer, sequencer, wave editor, and effects combine into an integrated “studio” on your phone (or iPod touch, or iPad), and there are features for exchanging files with other apps, your desktop computer, and the Web (hello, SoundCloud). It’s a pocket workstation – maybe even a pocket DAW.

See below for an exhaustive set of features and more high-resolution images of the interface. Cost: US$19.99.

Whether you’d want to use this and nothing else to me is immaterial, novelty aside. If that makes you happy, do it; I’m sure for others, this will be more like a handheld sketchpad.

Intua’s Mathieu Garcia shares thoughts on what kind of working process this application might mean – and reflects on how the platform has evolved, and might continue to improve in the future:

We’re getting quite positive feedback on the workflow. BeatMaker tools such as the Wave Editor, iPod library import, and particularly the Chop Lab, are getting quite a lot of interest. It’s perfect for mashups, remixes, and overall sample-based composition.

Moving audio between 2 apps is still done via the iOS pasteboard, not very optimal, but it’s acceptable, and got better with iOS4 multi-tasking. People seems to consider iphone apps almost as portable DAWs. The market quickly evolved from the “casual” music app, to a pocket-sized version of their studio / setup. One of our featured artist, DJ Shag composed a full album entirely with his iPhone. People are definitely working around the limitations quickly, we are still astonished by what came out of BeatMaker 1.

SoundCloud integration is getting a lot of interest too, which is a must have for every music app, I think. Their API is clean and easy to implement, definitely a plus for software developers. It’s a timesaver for the end-users as the compression and transfer are done automatically. We’re looking into DropBox too (coming on the next update), as it’s just great for centralizing projects, preset and samples remotely.

Everything has evolved so fast in 2 years…. With the addition of OSC/CoreMidi some great controller apps were released. It proves once again that the iOS platform a serious candidate for bigger developers / companies. I will take as an example the Korg iMS20 app: the iPad is certainly getting a lot of interest. Audio connectivity / interfaces are also on the rise, with hardware such as the iRig, Alesis iO Dock Pro, Akai SS25, among others…

We’re implementing CoreMidi, which was recurrently requested in just 3 days. It was already planned when Apple dropped their beta iOS firmware. MIDI learning, velocity and a bunch of knobs will come out handy, that’s for sure. Still, there’s a lot to improve on the mobile / desktop interaction, especially when importing projects done on a mobile device. This should be seamless for people and not to have to manually export WAV, MIDI, etc.

We’d love to hear back from you and other dev’s, let me know what you think!

They also send the full-blown (long) feature list our way:

* FEATURES *

* STUDIO:
- Create multiple instruments with Drum Machine or Keyboard interface
- 10 effects to choose from: Reverb, Compressor, Filter, Delay, EQ, Flanger, Chorus, AutoPan, BitCrusher, Overdrive.
- 3 effect slots for each instrument, unlimited global effects racks
- Customizable Cross Controller for all effects allows you to manipulate multiple parameters at once

* DRUM MACHINE:
- Up to 128 trigger pads: 16 pads over 8 different banks
- Chop Lab: Slice audio loops to automatically create new sound presets
- Control sound parameters on individual pad: volume, pan, mute, output bus, semitone, fine tune, reverse and autoscaling
- Low/high pass filter per pad with cutoff and resonance control
- Choose between various pad trigger modes: one-shot, hold & loop
- Customizable envelope (ADSR) control for each pad
- Exclusive groups and polyphony management
- “Live” modes: trigger, mute, reverse, velocity and tune spreading.

* KEYBOARD SAMPLER
- 128-key keyboard with pitch wheel, double keyboard mode, note display and zoom controls
- Easily create your own instruments from any sample combination with the keygroup editor
- Volume and filter ADSR envelopes
- Low/high pass filter with cutoff, resonance and key tracking
- 2 LFOs with customizable amplitude, offset and rate (synchronizable), controlling volume, pitch and filter parameters
- Polyphony control, with up to 32 voices per keyboard sampler
- Legato play mode with customizable glide
- Keygroup controls: volume, pan, semitones, fine-tune, reverse and one-shot, hold, hold & loop trigger modes

* MULTI-TRACK SEQUENCER
- Create unlimited instrument and FX tracks
- Automations: Record, edit and replay instrument and effect parameters
- Record, draw, arrange and resize patterns along the timeline to build your song
- Compose and modify patterns with a piano-roll interface. Edit notes, parameters, and automations.
- Instrument and effect recording options: Quantize, take or partial undo, pre-roll, Overdub, note erasing.
- Includes multiple handy tools such as zooming

* WAVE EDITOR
- Full-fledged wave editor with intuitive pinch and selection for manipulating samples
- Basic edition tools: trim, cut, copy, paste, with undo/redo back to 8 steps
- High quality time-stretching and pitch-shifting algorithms
- Audio tools: normalize, silence, reverse, fade in and out, cross-fade
- Record new samples from device microphone or an instrument plugged into it
- Loop points and tempo/signature editor

* MIXER CONSOLE
- Realistic multi-track mixer with level meters
- Edit volume, pan, solo, mute and bus routing features for individual tracks

* LARGE SOUND BANK INCLUDED
- 68 Drum Machine presets from all genres
- 111 Keyboard Sampler presets, from synthesizers to realistic orchestral instruments.
- More than 1800 quality samples to choose from

* SHARING & GLOBAL OPTIONS
- Export your songs to Audio or MIDI files
- Transfer and manage your files from your computer using the integrated FTP server
- Import any songs from your iPod library to create new remixes
- Share audio content with more than 20 other music applications using the iOS pasteboard
- User-friendly file browser and manager, with sample, preset and project tagging for quick lookup
- Supports BeatMaker 1 kits and projects
- Fully supports Retina display
- Native iPad version coming soon as a free update

Modularity is an interesting point. On a recent story, iOS developer Richard Lawler made an interesting point:

I too am a big fan of self-contained musical instruments. They are a nice complement to the essential attributes of a mobile device like the iPad. But I have to wonder if the bar isn’t being raised too high for many independent developers trying to participate. It’s also resulting a vast landscape of insular music apps.
Desktop music production has benefited immensely from modular tools and structures. Sure the pendulum swings both ways between plug-ins and buss protocols and then back to integrated suites. But it’s hard to argue that many advances in the state of the art of electronic music production haven’t come from focused special purpose plug in instruments, effects or hosts.
In contrast, modular music software is pretty much impossible on iPad unless you make the jump off of a single device. At that point a lot of the advantages of mobile devices get lost in a maze of cables and protocols. We are left with is less-capable copies of what has been possible for many years with TablePCs and Lemurs.

On the other hand, when you look at the popularity of some tools in both hardware and software, specialization – with a payoff in simplicity – can often be an advantage. In that event, it’s really a question of whether these mobile apps will be able to be modular in the way these other tools have. That raises lots of questions in engineering and design, but they could be engaging questions, whether you’re build an iPhone app, a desktop plug-in, a hardware synth, or an effect pedal.

With these questions about, you know, actually making music in mind, if you’re using BeatMaker 2, we’d love to hear from you. The novelty or popularity of one platform or another has never been nearly as interesting to me as discovering the different ways in which people use the tools to be creative.

This site has always been about making music with computers and digital technology. Today, we increasingly have access to powerful computers in mobile form factors. But, despite the simple fact that all of these are ultimately computers, I’ve quickly learned that mobile music production is a divisive issue. Some of you are as passionate about hating mobile tech as others of you are about loving it, perhaps propelled by a strong uptick of iPhone hype and accompanying resentment. Don’t worry — I won’t be swayed too much by either group; I’m committed to computers in all forms, tiny and large, and accompanying digital synths. And analog synths. And, really, anything that makes sound.

That said, the survey results we did on mobile tech are very interesting. Story topics for CDM aren’t a popularity contest, but your responses do reveal a lot. (The best reading turns out to be the write-in portion.)

First up, here’s a look at what mobile platforms people own. I expect the survey is somewhat self-selecting (some of you in the “none of the above” category likely didn’t respond), but note how the game platforms dominate.

That’s platforms you already own. But which are you interested in reading about? The margin on each device increases significantly. (Sony’s PSP doubles; Linux triples.) So that demonstrates that people are interested in learning about the larger landscape, and may be basing future purchase decisions on what’s available for music creation. (It also appeared that stronger support for PSP and Linux came from Europe than North America, possibly in part due to painfully-inflated costs for iPod touch and iPhone in that market.)

Zany Write-In Response

Okay, enough demographics. The best part of doing the poll was getting your write-in responses.
Google’s Android platform unsurprisingly got a number of write-in votes; GP2X got fewer, but I expect people just (rightfully) answered “Linux.” We did get some interesting responses, though:

Mobile device suggestions:

• Boss Micro BR
• Buddha Machine
• Graphing calculators (careful; with the readers here, you might get your wish
• Korg Kaossilator
• MPC 500
• Psion organizers
• “steam powered”
• Yamaha QY100
• Speak and Spell
• PlayStation 1 (that’s mobile?)
• Nokia N-gage (but now I know you’re joking)

And then there was the hater/lover argument:
“PLEASE GIVE THE IPHONE A REST! BORING YUPPIE TOY. soz for capitals.”
“Not all of us have tiny little girlie fingers!!!” (ouch!)
“The above statement should be “I really couldn’t care less.” As it happens, I am interested in all of them, so I really could care less.”
“mobile audio coverage is getting ridiculous”
“Just keep it to a minimum, guys =)” (Well, it is by definition miniature, right?)
“more iphone!!!! screw the haters”
“Everything. If there’s something new and interesting done with a C64, it could be worth going out to buy a setup.”
“every – f***ing – thing !”

At least someone said “whatever, it’s all good.” Sir, you may be alone in your calm attitude, but the editorial staff appreciates it. Meanwhile, I’ll be exercising my tiny girlie fingers over a variety of devices. (They give me uncanny accuracy in touch apps. So there.)

BeatMaker Update and Workflow

A new BeatMaker video (below)

One of the biggest objections — and a fair one — boils down to “but how do you use this in real life?” The “it’s a toy” argument is a legitimate one if it means you have software you play around with, but that you can’t use as an instrument effectively or work into your own music. (By that token, for instance, my toy piano is actually a valuable instrument.)

So it’s big news that, as many people had hoped, Intua’s BeatMaker has added MIDI export. That means you can assemble ideas and patterns on BeatMaker and bring them into your desktop music software of choice. I’m already hearing from people using this with Ableton Live. This isn’t a new feature — Windows Mobile and Palm apps have offered the same thing — but it’s a big part of the draw of these devices. BeatMaker also has an improved manual, more videos, and Bonjour support:

intua.net

Intua’s Mathieu also tells us “We’re working on the new BeatMaker killer-update now. Should be interesting !” Indeed.

For the record, that means some of the interesting workflow possibilities now available include the likes of:

• Building MIDI patterns and audio loops for use elsewhere (PSP Rhythm, PSP; BeatMaker, iPhone/iPod; many others)
• Building complete tracks using unusual synths (PSPSEQ, PSP)
• Working on drum patterns, with samples, in a round-trip with desktop software (iDrum, iPhone/iPod)
• Using your mobile device as a touch/stylus controller, etc. (DSMI, DS; various tools, iPhone/iPod)

All good stuff. Of course, by the same token, there are clear disadvantages of mobile devices — cramped screen space and controls, limited processing power, a lack of full-sized and full-fidelity audio I/O, and the like. But that’s why I’ve always felt conventional form factor computers aren’t really going anywhere. They work really well; these augment what they can do.

Henny makes beat on iPhone 3G using Beatmaker!!! from Henny on Vimeo.

Thanks to Mr. Get It Poppin, Kapo, and everyone else who pointed us to this. I’ve gone from being jealous of the iPhone to being jealous of the producer’s insanely rapid skills. Nice.

Back on the technical side, Mathieu from Intua writes to say that the software is making rapid progress. PDF documentation is up now. A beta of the file synchronization tool, BeatPack, is available, so you can start transferring files to and from your Mac or PC. The 1.0.1 update is very close, with small feature improvements and bug fixes. And we anticipate MIDI export of patterns not long after that. I don’t normally cover incremental updates, but I know this is big for you as I’ve gotten lots of reader emails. Stay tuned!

Downloads available, including BeatPack for OS X 10.4 and later and XP/Vista:

Intua Shop

BeatMaker page

CDM: What about MIDI export? A lot of us want to be able to compose something on the road, then save MIDI patterns for use on our main computer.

Mathieu: BeatMaker v1.0.0 (current AppStore release) does not supports MIDI. We have v1.0.1 almost ready which adds small features and some bug fixes. BeatMaker v1.0.2 will certainly includes MIDI export. Our audio framework is actually using MIDI [data], we’re just not saving them [at the moment]. Exporting the MIDI files will be done with BeatPack (coming very soon).

CDM: Would it be possible to add audio input / mic recording, to truly make this a sampler?

Mathieu: Audio recording is not yet possible. The only concern right now is the very poor quality of the iPhone microphone.

Mics out there?

Mathieu did add that he had seen some DIY mic and line connectors in the dock port. Anyone tried this on your own? How well does it work? It’d be great to see this added to iPhone apps – and I imagine if you pull it off nicely, it could compel Intua to release this feature.

We’ll keep you posted on any developments.

Video review

iSmashPhone must have really been excited about this app, as they’ve posted a full review and video hands-on today:

You can see how elegant the design of the interface really is in a way screenshots don’t do justice. You can also, on the downside, see that touchscreens don’t always work as well as physical faders. Then again, I’m guessing you don’t have pockets large enough to carry step sequencers, drum pads, and effects units. (Well, maybe if you wear overalls or lederhosen or something.)

Nonetheless, the app really does look well done. It’s worth a look, if nothing else, to see how UIs are evolving for touchscreens, which we’re likely to see on notebook computers, too. Thanks to Mathieu and Intua for this!