You might not expect a handheld game console, the gadget kids use to play Pokemon, to prove much worth as a musical instrument. But even in the age of readily-available computer plug-ins and iPhone apps, the DS holds its own. In the hands of two sets of artists, we find music that stands alone, independent of the gimmick of the device on which it was made. For these artists, the limitations of a fold-up touchscreen – entirely independent of doubling as a phone, or a computer, or a Facebook-browsing engine, or a powerful 64-bit DAW – apparently prove enticing. Beginning with Korg’s DS-10 cartridge, they use a stylus-operated software synth with its own unique character.

On some level, I almost hesitate to wax poetic about the fact that these were made with a Nintendo DS at all, because what these are, really, is love letters to synthesis.

And as it happens, both are available as free downloads from Bandcamp.

First up: AuxPulse is the duo of Rutger Muller and Michael Vultoo, based in Amsterdam and Kockengen, Netherlands, respectively. Late last year, they debuted their first album at Amsterdam’s prestgious Stedelijk Museum of modern art, playing a big set (two and a half hours) on small devices. Primarily employing the Nintendo DS, they nonetheless produce sounds that are rich and layered, sometimes even tending to the ambient exploration, not just the rawer chip-music sounds regularly associated with Nintendo handhelds.

Their music is trippy but danceable, unapologetically electronic, fully exploiting the DS-10′s idiosyncratic sonic character, one that’s slightly lower-fidelity than many soft synths (or even iPhone apps), without being “chippy” in the sense of retro devices. Dark textures collide with precise, clockwork rhythms, in sounds that sometimes tend to acid techno and sci fi game realms. (Lo-acid-fi, anyone?)

As you watch them live, you also see the value of the interface compositionally, both in terms of its pattern banks and its more conventional synth controls, all manipulated with the added precision of a stylus.

As they put it:

We aim to bring experimentation back to the dancefloor by expressing a psychedelic atmosphere through the use of a variety of rhythms and moods. Some of our inspirations are analogue synthesizers, acid, IDM, hardcore, gabber, ambient and oldschool electro.

Right now we mainly use the KORG DS-10 synthesizer for Nintendo DS to compose and improvise our music. When playing live we fuck with the synths as much as we can, trying to surprise ourselves with new sounds.

Our first album was recently released in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam! Now we perform regularly, trying to open up some minds and move some feet.

The album, on Bandcamp:

And on SoundCloud:
Dream Stages (FREE ALBUM!) by AuxPulse

Bonus: an interview with them (in Dutch, naturally)

In a very different direction, Princeton, New Jersey-based DJ and producer Christian Montoya (love and tonic records) produces music on the DS-10 that’s drier and more exposed, as he programs intricate bass music on the unprocessed Nintendo cart. Christian works as a game designer by day, and channels some of the DS-10′s game music and so-called “chip music” heritage. The results, though, are a perfect marriage of game chip-waveform rawness, nude bass and synth and percussion sounds, and carefully-concocted grooves. For anyone concerned that game systems could hinder moving your butt out of the seat, this album is required listening. It’s utterly stripped-bare dance goodness – and it turns out the DS bass sounds fantastic.

Grab the record for free:

DS-10 users, got any tips for us on getting the most out of a Nintendo handheld and this KORG synth? Let us know.

Also, from comments but worth pointing out, Rutger directs us to good resources for getting the most out of DS-10:

If you’re interested in making DS-10 music you can check out http://www.ds10forum.com

I (Rutger, DS-10 Dominator, 1/2 of AuxPulse) run it with Harley (http://harleylikesmusic.com, superb DS-10 composer!) and we try to help out beginner’s and advanced users as much as we can.

Remember when electronic sound gear hid in hulking, rack-sized cases? Korg’s Kaossilator series had already begun shrinking the desktop KAOSS Pad gear, but even the first-generation Kaossilator wouldn’t fit in your pocket, given its square shape and corners. (Well, unless you were wearing overalls.) The Kaossilator 2 and Mini Kaoss Pad 2, on the other hand, are scaled perfectly to your hand and would tuck neatly into a pocket in your pants or bag. And while I know some readers were hoping for a new Pro addition to the KAOSS line, these little bundles of joy have added some functionality that could make them musically useful. Being dedicated hardware, they also won’t suffer from a battery sapped by phone calls or the interruption of a Facebook message – and that input jack is built in.

We saw the new models at the NAMM show this month. The highlights:

The Kaossilator 2 is a PCM-based phrase synth, inspired by the original Kaosillator, for improvising melodic lines. What’s new is some handy recording functionality:

• Scale Key and Note Range so every note is “right,” effectively, as on the original
• Drum sounds
• Gate Arpeggiator with adjustable gate time and swing settings
• Loop recording to layer phrases and add as many overdubs as you like
• “Dual Loop Recording banks allow DJ-Style mutes and cross-fades”
• Record using the built-in mic; or use the mic input for recording of external input
• microSD/SDHC, so you can cheaply add up to 32G of removable storage

That crossfader, of course, is entirely new, and Korg does mention “dance music” in the sounds and focus. It’s easy, then, to imagine this as a pocket-able instrument for jamming or something you’d use to make musical ideas on the go, and it does look like a lot of fun.

The Mini Kaoss Pad 2 is an effects box to the Kaossilator 2′s synth – and it even has a built-in MP3 player, so you can load up sounds and tracks ahead of time:

• MP3 player with microSD card slot for data storage/exchange – or record performances and mixes
• 100 effect programs, with 3 favorite slots
• Looper, Vinyl Break, and Ducking Comp from the Kaoss Pad Quad (actually, need to find out if all the slicer effects from the Quad are there)
• Internal mic plus external audio inputs
• I’ll quote them directly on this: “Support for pitch change and cue point settings allows serious DJ play.”

Now, it’s a little hard to imagine DJing on something the size of a deck of cards, but, of course, I hope somewhere out there tries. I like the idea of putting your tracks on there and improvising a little mix, especially with the ability to record. Again, you could use it as a little sketchpad.

I got some hands-on time on the first morning of the show, and they’re a blast to play with, certainly. See the official Korg videos.

The other advantage of dedicated hardware here is, again, having a dedicated resistive touch interface. On a phone, the highly-sensitive capacitive interface can lead to missed triggers, and you have to fiddle around with menus and the like. There is something to be said for this dedicated gadget, at least for some. And it seems worth comparing, since many of you have a smartphone. What do you think – are you intrigued at all by these latest Korg gadgets?

With a US$160 street, if you are, they may be hard to resist. We’ll watch for when these start shipping.

http://www.korg.com/kaossilator2

http://www.korg.com/minikaosspad2

Previews of each, then the two together:

One of the smallest measures of time in the world is now the time that elapses between when Apple ships a new mobile product and someone has uploaded a video / album / feature film with it. It’s rather amazing. Somewhere, other tech vendors are … crying.

But that said, I think the video above is a wonderful thing. Perhaps the mobile smartphone is this generation’s new PortaStudio – something so readily accessible and portable that there’s really no excuse not to record a musical event when it happens. And however you do that I think is healthy.

So, in case you’re curious how a spare cable or adapter or two and a phone can be there – just in case someone forgot their laptop / ADAT machine / reel-to-reel deck – let’s just copy the full press release, as it’s told as a very nice, personal little story. And the music is sweet-hearted, too.

The app in question is Sonoma WireWorks’ FourTrack.

CDM’s own Marsha Vdovin has her 4S and loves it, hopefully shooting with it a bit over at AES. I’m, meanwhile, hobbling along with my unlocked original G1 in Europe, so, uh, if any vendors want to buy me off, I’m game.

Here’s the other thing: while the iPad gets a lot of attention these days, our internal stats at CDM tell us many, many CDM readers have iPhones – and only a fraction of you have iPads. Little wonder: it’s easy to justify a smartphone, harder to justify a tablet on top of the laptop you probably already own.

But enough of that: let’s hear how they recorded. And reminisce about the days of the portable tape 4-track. (It worked for the likes of John Lennon.)

“I’ve been touring lately with Alexa James and thought my new song “Come Running to Me” would be a great song to sing with her. We started doing the song together on a recent tour in Europe, and people seemed to like the song. We took that as a cue to get a recording of it, and thought- why not the new iPhone 4S? Let’s see what it can do,” says Rory Partin, a Los Angeles based recording artist.

Rory pre-ordered his phone, and in thinking about how to approach the video, realized they would need a second phone. So this past Friday, iPhone 4S’ release day, Alexa went at 5:30 am to camp out in the long line at the Apple store. Approaching the front of the line around 10am, she was almost in the store. But then AT&T systems started to overload, and delayed her getting set up. Soon, Verizon and Sprint were also facing delays because of the great demand of the new iPhone 4S. Alexa was finally up and running around 1pm, and the recording began.

Sonoma Wireworks created an app called FourTrack which is the app Partin used for the recording process. Along with a learning curve of a new app itself, there was also the learning curve in how to best record into the app. “We spent hours,” says Partin, “recording guitars, keys and vocals using different microphones and plugging those directly into the phone because usually you can get a cleaner sound going direct (like you see in some shots of the video). But we found that we got the clearest and best sound just holding the phone near the instrument or voice. We couldn’t believe how much better it sounded to just use the built in mic that comes on the phone. So when our guitarist, Jeffrey Miles was recording his guitars, I literally stood next to him and held the phone over his shoulder.

To record my vocals, I was able to fit the iPhone 4S in between an open slot in the microphone clip on a mic stand, and I sang into that. Alexa was next to track vocals. By the time we got to her, it was 4am. I then re-recorded the keys. The three of us pulled an all-nighter, and left around 7am Saturday morning so i could go catch a plane.”

Mixing down the tracks was also an interesting process, as FourTrack iOS has, you guessed, it, four tracks. FourTrack iOS allows you to bounce tracks, so we were able to do several guitar tracks, mix them on the iPhone 4S, and then bounce them down into one track. You can then send those files to your laptop to make room for more tracking, as well as for back up and a final mix. We also used our MacBooks for final video edits for the sake of time. Alexa grins, “We obviously didn’t have fancy lighting or makeup artists, but the quality of the iPhone 4S to take video is quite amazing in spite of how I looked after a few hours of sleep and camping out at the Apple line.”

rorypartin.com
alexajames.com
http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack/

Hang on, I’m supposed to be keeping up the anti-Apple bias everyone tells me I have.

Hey, what’s up with rounded rectangles, anyway? What’s wrong with corners?

Better?

Wait, crap, this may be one of the posts where I get told I’m personally responsible for the destruction of the Earth and my promotion of capitalism. Uh… we are the 99%?

(Seriously, I do have concerns about toxic waste, human rights, and mineral extraction; that’s why I’m glad to see people making music with these tools and finding lasting, meaningful uses for them.)

Jim Guthrie was a rockstar long before the iPad was. Paired with pixel-intense artist Craig D. Adams (aka Superbrothers) and the co-design and coding effort of a crack team of video game “wizards” at the indie studio capy, he’s made a soundtrack that’s destined to be a gaming classic. But if you don’t want to play it, you can still listen to it. And if you’re playing it, you may find that it feels as though you’re listening to it, and gazing into its artwork.

From the moment you tap to launch it, Swords & Sworcery plunges you into a world that’s part game, part interactive album. Yes, there’s the obvious presence of a spinning vinyl record you can scratch and brake, right there on the title screen. And yes, there’s the conspicuous “EP” in the title, or the just-released LP (a real LP, on digital but also now sold out on vinyl).

But it’s once you navigate the expansive digital forests of the title, once Jim Guthrie’s moody soundtrack taps away at your brain, that you begin to get it. Sword & Sworcery will certainly get the dreaded (or is that coveted?) “arty” title, but it’s the way in which it spins out audiovisual entertainment that makes it special.

It’s pure aesthetic deliciousness, a brew that makes your head buzz.

And it’s finding that aesthetic sense – neither retro nor modern, neither low-fidelity nor slick – that makes this title relevant beyond even the world of gaming. Jim Guthrie’s songs and the lush pixel art graphics are the perfect fusion of old and new. It’s telling that Guthrie himself crafts his tracks in a combination of a PlayStation music game (MTV-branded, no less), GarageBand, and then high-end Universal Audio plug-ins. (See video above, and have fun gear-spotting familiar toys through the jump cuts.) It’s sort of studio garage, in the way digital music can be now. Its unabashedly synthetic instrumentation gives voice to a generation that grew up with computer-produced music. The musical score itself sometimes nods to Philip Glass, sometimes to punk rock, very often a mixed-up, intimate fantasy folk cinema, with sounds both shiny and flat.

But happily, this isn’t just a game with a clever soundtrack, or a release of game music. It’s a real fusion of album and game, music and visuals. And, lest we get to carried away with the Art label – capital a – music and game alike are good fun.

CDM managed to pry co-creators Craig D. Adams and Jim Guthrie from an adoring gaming press long enough to talk to us in depth about the making of the music and release, down to every last technical and artistic detail. They said so much – and crossed two media so completely – that I’ve broken up their ideas into two stories, across Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion. Their reasoning for committing to those two media has a lot in common, I think, with why we run these two sites and why a lot of you read and contribute to them.

Out now: both an LP music release on Bandcamp and iPad version. Coming this month: recent-gen iPod touch and iPhone versions of the game, too.

Jim Guthrie: Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies @ Bandcamp
http://www.swordandsworcery.com/project/

Let’s begin with the notion of this as musical-visual collaboration. Obviously, some of our favorite game experiences have used music effectively. What’s different about this project?

Craig:The iPhone & iPod Touch, and the iPad to some extent, don’t have an input style that lends itself to precise inputs. So, it seems to me that a lot of traditional video games seem to fall a bit flat on these platforms. The thing is, these machines are great music and video players, so we knew going in that we wanted to make something that was as open and as laid-back as a record-listening experience matched with a naturalistic visual presentation inspired by film, so that was really the starting point. We also felt that a more relaxed, more occasional, less punishing, more interesting experience would be a better fit, something that was closer in pace to browsing the Internet or whatever. Early on we were calling S:S&S EP “a brave experiment in Input Output Cinema.” I/O Cinema is kind of an intentionally absurd nonsense buzzword but I think it’s perfectly apt for this type of entertainment, it’s a heckuva lot more descriptive than ‘videogame’ anyways, in that it gets away from the idea of a program with rules and win/lose conditions and it puts the focus more on the conversation the audience has with the creators while the audience pokes, prods & problem-solves an authored audiovisual creation.

How did you work together, Superbrothers and Jim, to combine music and visually? What was that collaboration like?

Craig: When we looped Jim into the project in we told him the name, described the aesthetic, talked a bit about The Legend of Zelda & Castlevania, and then Jim dug around and found a few songs he thought might fit. I went ahead and tried to generate art & narrative concepts using Jim’s songs or else stand-ins to set the mood. As we started to mix things together we’d evaluate, iterate & improvise. Eventually we’d get into situations where me and Kris, Capy’s creative director and co-designer on S:S&S EP, would have a plan for an environment or a scene or a situation, and we’d get the art & the mechanics together and then pass along a rough build to Jim with some kind of suggestion like ‘go John Carpenter on this one’ or whatever, and then Jim’d work his magic, filter the concept through his music-making mind and barf up something totally beautiful & shockingly perfect. So yeah, it was a messy process, but towards the end we kind of got a feel for it, I think it all worked out super well.

Jim: It wasn’t always clear if the art needed to inspire more music or the other way around, but it was a very necessary process considering the relation the two elements share in the game.

Technically speaking, is there anything unique to the way the music integrates with game play? How did you approach the technical challenge there, in other words?

Craig: For the music integration aspect, we really just made things up as we went along. We tried some things; some of them worked, some of them didn’t. Then we’d iterate on them or revise them as necessary. We tried chopping things up into a million loops and then stringing them back together with logic, and it kind worked, but was kinda rough, so then we’d revise it or refine it. Eventually we started to figure out a bit of a groove – we learned what the limits were with the machines & the quirks of fMOD [the game sound engine]. We’re a whole lot wiser now, but I think it was a positive thing going into something like this a bit naive.

Jim: Technically, there’s nothing in this game that hasn’t been done before. We sort of ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’ and made it our own. It’s more about the mood and atmosphere that the music and art create that is special. Like Craig said, we made things up as we went.

From the beginning, we knew it was very possible that this would be released digitally as an album, but it wasn’t until a little later on that the idea of vinyl struck us as a good idea. You would think it was all planned from the beginning considering how often the image of the record appears in the game but it sort of willed itself in that direction over time.

It’s always tough to describe the process of summoning one’s art. After we had sort of figured out what the first few tracks were going to be, I just let Craig’s art and ideas lead the way and I reacted. It also really comes down to knowing your craft and what tools you use to create with. Once you figure that out the tools don’t get in the way when you’re hot on the trail of a fleeting melody. There’s noting worse than loosing that spark because a technical issue. Computers have robbed me of so many musical sparks, but to be fair, they have given it back tenfold.

I will give into the temptation to ask one obvious question – what does it mean that it’s an EP? Obviously, it’s a reference to the notion of a game release as being akin in some way to an album, but anything beyond that you wish to say?

Craig:The EP concept goes back to the start of the project – we wanted to put the sound component right out front. We wanted the whole project to feel like a musical composition, and at first we wanted to make something small and acknowledge that this was a tentative first release by a new videogame ‘band.’ The project grew from ther,e and it goes well beyond the 37 minute running-time we had originally envisioned, but everything else fits.

We had always planned to prepare a record release to accompany the project and when the time came to commit to this we basically had to make a vinyl edition, and Jim basically just put that into gear on his own… so that became Jim Guthrie’s Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies. While the record is a smaller component of the project in terms of man-hours, the music on its own is kind of larger than the art and the story we tried to create in the actual videogame, so I think it’s kind of perfect that it’s the LP.

Jim, the music really has a quirky personality all its own, and I think it’d be too easy to describe it aesthetically. How did you approach scoring the music, in finding a voice for this title?

Craig: Several of Jim’s songs pre-date the project, so they informed the aesthetic & concepts from the start. My role early on was to translate the music into artwork & narrative that would fit the general idea of the project. But yeah, beyond that I’ll let Jim fill in the blanks here!

What’s the production process like for the music itself?

Jim: I captured all of the music either on a PlayStation using MTV’s Music Generator and/or
[Apple] GarageBand. For example, on the song, ‘Lone Star,’ I drummed a beat onto a cassette four-track, burned that onto a CD, placed the CD into the PlayStation, sampled and looped in MTV Music Generator,
and then built a song around it using that software. THEN I brought it into GarageBand and added more layers and effects. I also used a [Casio] SK-1 peppered throughout. In terms of plug-ins and soft synths, I used a lot of the Arturia stuff, [Native Instruments] Kontakt, [XLN Audio] Addictive Drums, [Toontracks] Superior Drummer, and a [Universal Audio] UAD-2 card loaded with a bunch of their processing plug-ins.

Not all games are narrative, and I’ve never found conventional narrative to be a prerequisite to art (cough, Ebert). But there is a strong narrative aspect to this title, too. How do you go about telling a story and building a game mechanic at once? (And, for that matter, do you still scrawl things on index cards to get there?)

Craig: It’s funny, we are getting some positive responses to S:S&S EP’s narrative, but really, the narrative only exists to make sense of the player’s experience; it’s not exactly ‘the point.’ We started with the songs, then the art, then the mechanics that would bring it together. And while the broad narrative concepts were always there, it was only in the final stages that the script came together, and really it’s just a way for us to help communicate what’s supposed to be going on. I was on the line to write the script, and for a good long while, it kinda sucked while I was buried under art, sound & design tasks, but I kept iterating on it, editing it for brevity, clarity, and humor, with Jim and Kris and a few others kinda guiding the process.

So yeah, I guess we did some okay things with narrative, and I’m actually super-proud of the mind-fuck tear-jerker heart-breaker finale, but I think the only reason any of it comes across is because of Jim’s music wrapped up in paintings. And really, Jim’s songs are all the narrative I ever wanted.

Now that you’ve become gaming rockstars, what’s next?

Jim: A bottle of vodka?

Craig: Hahahaha… Jim’s already a rockstar, so this stuff is probably old news. I think we’re definitely enjoying our fifteen minutes of fame in this very specific niche, and I’ve been trying – maybe too hard – to keep that buzz going so the project stays visible as we gear up for the all-important iPhone & iPod Touch launch. Once all that’s out of the way, I’m really just looking forward to some quiet time: bike rides, swimming, hiking, and whatever else.

We’ll keep the Sword & Sworcery project rolling along in the background too. We have plans for a gala event here in Toronto in a few months and some other schemes related to the app itself that’ll last the year & maybe into next year. We’ve been given a real opportunity here & we want to continue to honor that.

What are you excited about in gaming – or, for that matter, audiovisual work – at the moment, beyond your own work? Anything you’re listening to, watching, playing (or all three) at the moment?

Jim: Honestly, I went into my iTunes to have a look at my ‘Recently Played’ list and for as far as the eye could see, it’s all stuff I’m working on. No time for art! Just work!

Craig: I’ve been too busy and too exhausted to be paying much attention to what’s happening out there in videogames, film or music. To be honest, what I’m most excited about right now is the prospect of getting some fresh air and some exercise, maybe getting away from electronic screens for a bit sometime, and then after a little break maybe starting on some new creative work.

I had the opportunity to see 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters a few months ago. I’d seen it a few times before but only on VHS… so that was a real treat, it’s an entirely different film in the theaters, there’s so much more to enjoy. I’m also a huuuge fan of Kanye West’s “Runaway.” I think that’s a genuinely incredible piece of audiovisual work; Vanessa Beecroft’s art direction really shines. Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop and James Cameron’s Avatar blew me away too, for entirely different reasons. I’ve just recently seen my friend Firas Momani’s Fantasia Festival award-winning short film The Adder’s Bite & it gave me all those groovy Cronenberg + Lynch + Kubrick feelings, very inspiring.

On the video game side I’m still intermittently playing Motorstorm: Pacific Rift for PS3, a 2008 effort from Liverpool’s Evolution Studios that I think is basically perfect, plus I’m digging in to Monster Hunter Tri on Wii. I’m playing Monster Hunter co-operatively with a couple friends every Sunday morning… we’re still just scratching the surface but it’s easily the most intricate and deep video game I’ve ever played, which takes me way outside of my comfort zone in an interesting way. I’m also cautiously optimistic about L.A. Noire, Uncharted 3, and The Last Guardian… we’ll see how they work out in the end.

On the music side, I’ve been listening to Jim’s Sword & Sworcery LP… even though I’ve heard these tunes so much in the last two years that my ears hurt, the record itself still comes across as beautiful & fresh, the songs still evoke all kinds of imaginings. That record aside I’ve got a heckuva lot of catching up to do… but first I have to give my ears a bit of a break. That said, I’m amped for the Beastie Boys record that’s hitting in the next little while.

All images courtesy Superbrothers and Jim Guthrie. Used with permission.

Do let us know what you think of the game, folks – or whatever audiovisual creations, in the form of games or otherwise, inspire you.

More on the art, the design, the coding – and why Superbrothers went iOS-only.

On our sister site:
Inside Handheld Game Art: The Art Style and Making of Swords & Sworcery, Superbrothers Pixel Cinema [Create Digital Motion]

And, oh yeah, don’t forget to get the game:
http://www.swordandsworcery.com/

From an eBay-purchased Atari ST to your phone, you really can make electronic music however you like, wherever you like. Generally, I’ve therefore been skeptical of gimmicks like all-iPad albums, particularly as it seems fairly obvious that such things should be possible. On the other hand, albums produced entirely with less-obvious, less-popular options may lead to more unexpected solutions. And they can both prove my ultimate thesis: you should use whatever makes you happy. If a few extra tools help with that, superb.

Plus, who am I to walk away from potential flame bait?

In this case, an all-Android album from Philadelphia DJ/MC COOLOUT aka Christopher Davis carries another surprise: it’s a damn solid hip-hop album. Some quirky flare from COOLOUT is amplified by the lo-fi aesthetic of the recording technique, making use of the internal mic on an Android phone. With creative sound design, it’s firmly rooted in hip hop, but takes a nicely experimental direction.

I find that it’s fun listening, and whether it’s your musical taste or not, the listof apps the artist has compiled will be a godsend to anyone who’s got an Android phone and is looking for ways to make it more musical.

The album is free, and a no-brainer download – it’s some really good stuff. (See also a non-Android remix of music from the excellent label Stones Throw.

There’s some musical thinking behind these choices here – Android becomes a return to what the artist loved about simple digital samplers of yore. COOLOUT tells CDM:

I used a couple of different workflows. The cool thing about Android is that most of the audio apps aren’t as feature-heavy as iOS. Coming from the days of using mono 12-bit samplers with no effects, it was easy to use all the techniques of layering and chopping I’ve known for years. Most times, the instrumental track was completed fully on the phone and I then tracked the vocals in a standard DAW later using the Android device as a microphone. There were no outside instruments used and I tried to stay away from standard plug-ins. It was hard resisting the temptation, but I wanted to represent the sound of Android as much as possible. I only used outside compression on the vocals, all the other effects like delay and filters were from Android apps. If Froyo didn’t have such huge audio latency I probably could have tracked the vocals all on the device.

Another great thing about recording using an Android device is that I was able to write all my lyrics in Google Docs (shout out to Count Bass D for putting me up on that) and have them directly in front of me while recording vocals.

Technical note – it’s not so much Froyo (the Android OS release) that adds latency as a lack of low-latency performance from handsets. The API also lacks the structure you might like for low-latency applications, though if you’re a developer, check out the AndroidWrapper class Peter Brinkmann wrote for libpd for Android, which presents a useful workaround for any audio app.

COOLOUT music is good stuff; see the full site (including the Android album, via Bandcamp):
http://cooloutmusic.com/

The apps (with Android Market links, though there are other ways of getting to them, too):

Virtual Amp
MusicGrid
Electrum Drum Machine
Jasuto Modular
Ethereal Dialpad [see CDM coverage]
MicDroid
PureData/RjDj
Guitar: Solo Lite
Chordbot
VirtualSynthesizer
Brainwave Tuner
Musical Bubbles
Silicon Oxide [retro virtual analog drum machine]
Buddhist Instruments, Tone Dialer (I think that’s this one)
PP-Electone

A look at some of those apps…

Brainwave Tuner:

Electrum Drum Machine:

Chordbot:

Silicon Drum Machine:

Our previous round-up of Android apps – well worth doing, I thought, because these apps have been harder to track down than those for iOS:
Useful Music Tools for Your Android Phone, and a New Sketchpad Joins Groovebox

…and earlier this month, a Game Boy (and iOS) favorite making its way to an all-Android release:
Nanoloop Comes to Android, with its Lovely, Minimal Music Idea-Making Interface

And, of course, if it is iOS you’re interested in (or you swing both ways), you can find all our coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/ios/

Or for all things music mobile – regardless of platform, don’t miss the exceptional, 24/7 online news channel for mobile music apps, the fire hose of news for this growing genre:
http://the-palm-sound.blogspot.com/

I think the first time I really understood handheld music making was when I first tried Nanoloop on Game Boy. While the more-popular LSDJ tracker is powerful, Nanoloop’s interface was unlike anything I’d seen before: aggressively minimal, it embodies in its interface design the feeling of a blank sheet of paper. Adding an idea feels like composition, like genuinely exploring open-ended possibilities and discovering what melodies may result. Now, Nanoloop – already on iOS – is available for Android, too.

It remains simple stuff, the sense of what a music maker looks like when designed for your hand rather than translated to mobile from desktop, studio-style workstations. There are six fixed channels, each assignable to a synth (FM, noise, or filtered wave) or a sampler. Then, each channel takes eight patterns. There’s a step sequencer, the ability to resample, and song editor with loops. The sampling capabilities are especially nice on Android, as you can now sample from the mic or load samples right onto the SD card. (The mic you can use on iOS, but not the SD card, of course.) You can export OGG files to your library, turning your Android device into a DJ-set-ready pocket music library, or send and receive projects via email. Via iTunes, you can even exchange files with the iPhone version, in case you have an Android phone and an iPod touch or some similar arrangement.

This isn’t a port of the Game Boy nanoloop, developer Oliver Wittchow is quick to note. It’s not for chip music, or emulating game consoles. It’s for … well, Android music. But make no mistake: while the tool feels fresh and native to the new platform, it also carries the spirit of the Game Boy version. And that spirit is handheld music making, not just the aesthetics of the chip, but the feeling of using a minimal device scaled to your hands, something you can use on the go.

Oliver tells CDM that he has used a lot of native code (via the NDK), as he did non-object-oriented C (not Objective-C) in the iOS version. He says it’s about 1:1 C and Java: “I could use the iOS code almost unmodified and get the sound engine and touch input to work immediately. I had an almost fully working nanoloop within few days – without any graphics though.
Now I ‘just’ had to write Java code for GUI, file access, recording functions and the different menu structure.”

The results, he says, are a little strange if you’re looking at the code (lots of getters and setters, C mixed with Java), but it works well.

Android owners, I’d love to hear how this works on your device. Let us know – just be sure to fill out a bug report. As the Market page notes:

Nanoloop works on a variety of devices, including HTC Desire, Motorola Droid and also midrange phones such as HTC Legend and XPERIA X10 mini. However, this is the first release and of course it has not been tested on all Android devices yet. If you experience crashes or other problems, please report them via e-mail or the anonymous bug report form at www.nanoloop.com. Thank you.

Now if we can just have some luck with Bluetooth MIDI at our hacklab tomorrow, this could be another candidate.

Oh, and most of all, I’d love to hear the music you make.

nanoloop on the Android Market (a stunning EUR1 … that’s a no-brainer. Better than an espresso shot!)

nanoloop.de [iOS, Android]

See our previous Android music round-up

For the historical record, here’s nanoloop for Game Boy on CDM – from 2004. It’s actually come quite a ways since that release, but the spirit is the same.
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2004/11/updated-nanoloop-20-game-boy-instrument/

Image-Line has long promised it’d never make a version of its popular FL Studio – aka Fruity Loops – for Mac desktops. Blame the Windows-centered development tools in which this cult-hit all-in-one production studio is built. But it has found its way to a fruit-themed platform of a different sort, with FL Studio Mobile for iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

Leaked specs and early screenshots have surfaced (apparently unintentionally). That means anything said here could change as the app is developed. (Thanks to readers who tipped us off, though it seems I-L didn’t intend to make this public!)

The app looks cool, but it’s largely FL Studio in name only. You get something like 90 preset instruments (only the attack envelopes are editable), a step sequencer, and pad triggers. There’s also very nice MIDI support, both for Core MIDI and the MIDI Mobilizer, meaning this will work with various MIDI accessories both for the iPhone specifically and more generally with MIDI input. Image-Line also claims they’ve balanced battery life with low latency.

All in all, it looks like a decent on-the-go sketchpad for quick ideas, but hardly a big departure from other apps we’ve seen on mobile. In fact, while it promises the ability to open your projects back in FL on the desktop, you don’t even need to be an FL user – MIDI file export is available, too.

I see some FL Studio users, loyal to a non-Apple desktop OS, are already unhappy that this isn’t on Android. But my real disappointment here is that I don’t see anything beyond the superficial look of the step sequencer that makes this look like FL to me. I would’ve liked some of the quirky personality of the original on handheld. It’s a useful-looking tool, but put that name on there, and some people may come away feeling like they’ve got artificial fruit – only 5% real juice.

I like things like this – you never know when an idea will pop into your head that you want to get down. (And the app, now via updated screenshots, looks really nice and clean and touch-friendly.) But it does serve as a reminder that the $500 spent on a tablet could also go to a pretty amazing laptop that’s more than capable of all the depth and power of the real FL Studio.

Official specs on the app from I-L The specs we got from Image-Line’s public site are apparently “placeholder” specs, so not entirely complete or accurate. From comments: “To clarify, that spec page was actually just a placeholder with the specs of Xewton Music Studio. FL Studio Mobile, which is being created by the same developer, will have different sample content, amongst other changes.” But they look as though they’re at least in the ballpark, so here they are:

Save projects and load in FL Studio personal computer edition.
Photorealistic dynamically configurable 85-key keyboard
Instant positioning via the slide gesture and resize with the pinch gesture
90 studio-recorded instruments (16bit 44.1kHz sampled from real instruments)
40 free instruments, 50 available in the in-app shop
4 categories: classic, band, electronic, world
Release and attack time configurable per instrument
Sustain samples • Pitch bend via accelerometer
Low-latency, highly optimized, high-polyphony, battery saving audio engine
100 beats (drum loops)
5 real-time effects with lots of parameters
3 high-quality reverb algorithms, delay, 3-band equalizer, amplifier, filter
128-track sequencer • Beat & metronome settings (tempo, signature)
Per-track mute, solo, effect bus, pan and volume adjustment
Edit whole tracks or bars, down to individual notes:
Draw, quantize, transpose, repeat, move, length, velocity, etc.
MIDI import and export
Save and load your songs and export to wave
Wi-Fi and iTunes file transfer with your Mac/PC
Songs and MIDI files can be opened directly from Safari and Mail
Unlimited undo and redo
Detailed in-app help
Play or record 2 different instruments at the same time with 2 keyboard rows
Key labels (Cs only, all keys, all keys colored)
iPhone 4 Retina Display supported
Compatible with: Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer, Akai SynthStation 25, CoreMIDI

http://www.image-line.com/documents/flstudiomobile.html

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.

Moog Music, they of the normally analog-only gear, have built their first iOS application. We’ve acquired exclusive details of the innards of the app, and I’ve been testing it today on my (second-generation) iPod touch. Blasphemy? Perhaps, but it’s a nicely-designed little application, and with audio input capability, could turn your Apple handheld into a tiny recording and effects-processing unit alongside other gear. (Game Boy plus iPod touch? Casiotone plus iPod touch?)

The application, Filtatron, hasn’t yet been announced. There’s no information on pricing or availability, accordingly.

Divided onto several pages (see screenshots), it represents a set of modules for recording, sampling, effects, and filtering. The controls are cleanly laid-out, and everything makes some sound, making it familiar and fun for people who know how to use it but very “tweakable” for someone who’s never touched something like this before. (There’s no question this could be a gateway drug to Moog’s genuine analog gear for the mass market on iOS.)

What it does:

• Filter + LFO
• Amp (drive) + feedback for distortion
• Adjustable, time-syncable delay
• Sampler with adjustable playback speed, loop points, and live recording
• X/Y pads for tweaking and performance, plus preset sharing.

You can actually use the app without any input, by transferring files from your computer or another application (with AudioCopy supprot). But connect a mic or line input (or use the internal mic on a device like the iPhone), and the Filtatron turns your device into a live filtering unit.

In case you’re afraid Moog are giving up on gear, there’s a Catalog link on the about page from which you can buy one of the Moogerfooger line. Or, you can just sport this app and a t-shirt. (It’s like owning a BMW lighter but no car. Well, okay, somewhat more useful than that.)

So, what could this be used for? One of the Moog engineers imagined importing audio, processing on the go on the device, then re-importing to your music environment. (Just in case you want to adjust that LFO just right on the bus.) You can use it for real-time effects. Or you can even use it as a really unusual field recorder, recording only in Moogified sounds.

I will say this: my impression so far is that it’s a lot of fun to use. Yes, there are other apps that do things like this. No, it isn’t nearly as satisfying to use as the Moogerfooger hardware – losing the tactile response really loses a lot. But it’s a different experience; something you could easily add to a chain of other devices or use on the go in a way you might not expect.

I also notice that, aside from getting Moog-like sounds, you really appreciate big, simplified controls. That says to me that software generally could learn a lot from hardware, not just in sound or tactile feel, but in design. Review forthcoming, but here’s the full run-down on specs.

Complete Specifications

Audio input will work via any adapter. You can use the headphone/mic jack directly (though to get audio out, you’ll need to use a 3-prong minijack – more on that as I test my camcorder cable with this and other apps). You can also use third-party devices like the Blue Mikey (good if you need a mic) or IK Multimedia iRIG (good for mono instrument/guitar input). I’m also testing the iRIG.

Via an internal design documentation, I’ve got the details on the internal specs for the app. The goal, says the document: “filtatron allows you to combine several sound sources and apply effects to them in realtime. Sound sources include line or mic input, looping sample playback, and an internal oscillator.”

Audio engine: 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. (Some apps, like RjDj, actually use less, so that’s worth noting.)

Filter: modeled 4-pole resonant filter, which Moog intended to be matched to their analog filters. Lowpass, highpass, cutoff, resonance, self-oscillation at high resonance – you know, the usual.

LFO, Envelope Filter: Routed to filter cutoff. LFO: sine, ramp, sawtooth, square, sample&hold. Crossfade/morph between LFO shapes. Bipolar LFO (sweep up or down). Free-tuned LFOs, sync to tap tempo.

Envelope Follower: Route sound inputs to sweep the filter, with adjustable reaction speed.

Tap tempo, separation, mix.

Amp (overdrive) effect with feedback. Also can self-oscillate.

Delay effect. Delay with its own LFO. Adjustable from a short flange to longer delays.

Pads. X-Y pads controlled by multi-touch control parameters for live performance/tweaking. Assignments:

VCF pad controls filter cutoff and resonance, LFO pad controls LFO Rate and Amount, Delay pad controls delay time and feedback. VCO pad controls oscillator frequency and level (amplitude) – if the VCO “Release” parameter is engaged (ENABLE button on VCO panel, main page), then the VCO x-y pad also controls the VCO volume gate — the VCO is silent when you are not touching the pad and sounds a note on each touch. ENV pad controls envelope follower amount and speed, and AMP pad controls amp drive and feedback.

Sampler: Play included loops, record your own samples, or bring in your own loops using either the AudioCopy/AudioPaste API or an FTP connection. Sampler includes play controls, playback speed (-2x to +2x), and tap-and-drag controls for loop start and stop on the waveform.

Record audio into the sampler dry, or record with effects for resampling capability. Recording is limited only by available storage, but playback is limited to 10MB each (ca. 2 minutes).

Preset recall and storage. Includes a number of presets, allows you to save your own, and provides onboard email sharing of presets.

Exclusive CDM Moog April Fool’s Pre-announcement

The Minimoog XL for iOS. All 61 keys, so small you can’t hit them. Still monophonic. Seriously. I want to see it in the traditional April Fool’s announcement, you guys on North Carolina.

More Q&A, More Moog

From comments:
Christopher Wolfe, developer of the superb Jasuto (modular for iOS and now Android), is evidently behind some of the implementation here, collaborating with the Moog design team. Great work, Christopher. So it’s sort of a meeting of Chris’ mobile development experience with Moog’s hardware and design experience, as I see it.

Looping is not something you can do live; that’s not really the focus of the amp. But once samples are recorded, they’re fun to play with.

Apologies for not having a video, but here in the CDM workshop, we have some… other things happening, too. Moog have released a video with Richard Devine, but we can do one that’s quite a lot clearer! (Looks like they only had time for a teaser. I like the Wall of Moogerfoogers, though.)

Oh, and for the record, I’m actually surprised there isn’t much controversy here regarding a Moog iPhone app. But shows that – like them or hate them – people have at least come to expect iOS music apps.

If you do love hardware, though, check out the Slim Phatty, a news story Matrixsynth broke yesterday with a leaked ad. (Thanks, sgnelson.) $799 for a rack mount-style module, leaving the question of choosing which keyboard to use to play it. $800 is a great deal on a Phatty; Dave Smith Instruments, of course, remain a strong (and incredibly affordable) choice in the same price range.

Sing along, those of you who don’t like these iPhone apps moving in on the hardware.

`Cause I’m the Slim Phatty, yes I’m the real Phatty /
All your Moog iPhone s*** are just digital crappy /
So won’t the real Slim Phatty please stand up /
please stand up, please stand up

Y’all act like you never seen an iPhone app before.

Finally, the headline from the terrific Tara Busch and AnalogSuicide.com says it all:
Moog to Release New iPhone, iPad app, “Filtatron”. Embrace it!

Tara also makes no apologies for focusing on Moog at the moment. (Don’t worry, CDMers, we can and will also cover Smith, Linn, Chowning, Mathews, Roads, and company. All in due time.)

With the recently-announced Korg M1 app and DS-10, the Nintendo DS handheld remains a surprisingly-good choice for handheld music making. A new app could take that further.

Nintendo may have struck a blow to homebrew music developers by successfully blocking hardware that allowed it to run. But while it’s not nearly as open to development as Apple’s iOS, Nintendo’s DSiWare can work for an independent developer. The proof: Rhythm Core Alpha, created by T.B. Trzepacz.

What’s unique about this application is that it emphasizes real-time production. Sound playback never stops during editing. The crowded interface packs some fairly powerful-looking features:

• A Drum Grid with 12 tracks x 64 beats x 122 sounds
• A Note Grid with 8 tracks x 64 beats x 166 sounds
• A Solo Mode that places six octaves of notes onscreen for playing
• A 1000-step pattern mode with chord, drum, and note modes, plus looping
• 7 velocity levels for everything (okay, not a lot, but that provides simple velocity control)
• Quite-nice scale mapping (see screenshots) to keep you in tune – and yes, it’s also possible to override them

See the video demonstrations below.

Pricing is 500 Nintendo Points, or US$5. Naturally, you’ll need to have a DSiWare-capable handheld in a location with access to the store, but assuming you’ve got a newer model, this is much easier than the homebrew route, and pricing is similar to iOS apps.

Rhythm Core Alpha – Unrehearsed Jam at Kulak’s Woodshed, April 2010 – V2 from SoftEgg on Vimeo.

http://www.softegg.com
Facebook group

Rhythm Core Alpha on Nintendo DSiWare panel with SoftEgg’s Tim Trzepacz at Pasadena Rock ‘n Comic Con from SoftEgg on Vimeo.