Your pocket is bulging with power.

Wait… okay, that sounded really wrong.

Anyway, the mobile software revolution continues. There’s so much stuff out there that it can actually be hard to track. Here’s a round-up to help you navigate everything that’s going on this week.

And even if you can’t stand another word about the iPhone, consider this: the explosion of iPhone software, more than just a fad, illustrates what happens when you give developers tools to make multimedia capabilities easier, then provide a distribution outlet. I don’t love everything about the iTunes approach, but those are lessons that could easily be learned in desktop and mobile development alike. The iPhone platform, if nothing else, is surprisingly uncompromising in the sound and visual interaction departments, especially for a mobile platform. And even desktop platforms could benefit from this kind of distribution mechanism (see also: Steam for games).

Also, we do have some of the first signs that the iPhone won’t be alone for long – new functionality on Google’s Android could take that platform in new directions. See my next story, Android/Linux/open source fans.

Disclaimer: don’t worry. I’m not giving up on desktop apps. Relax. In fact, even now as I look across these applications, while there are lots of cool ideas, it’s still clear this is a nascent area. The experience is nowhere near as rich as you get on the desktop. But it’s nonetheless worth exploring some of the ideas before we return to our (more powerful) desktop applications for music.

Field Recording, Microphones for iPhone + iPod touch

The big news this week was FiRe, which promises to be the “first professional field recorder” for the iPhone and iPod touch. The developer behind it is one of which we’re already big fans: Audiofile Engineering. AE make Wave Editor, which has rapidly become the secret weapon of choice for Mac audio producers and sound designers, as well as the batch-processing Sample Manager and adoptive parents of the excellent Rax plug-in host. Anything these guys do would get our attention, and then they go and add specs you wouldn’t expect to see on the iPhone:

• Accurate real-time waveform display
• Live, touch-controlled waveform navigation
• Audio markers
• Broadcast WAVE metadata
• Instant downloading in multiple formats – and easy sharing via FTP, Web server, or even a SoundCloud account
• Tag recordings with location data
• Overdub mode
• VU meters for input and output
• Configurable time units
• Mic flexibility: use Blue Mikey, Alesis ProTrack or even the internal mic

US$5.99, available now.

(Update) Hardware Requirements:
iPhone 3G
iPod Touch (second generation)
First Generation iPhone (headset ONLY)

http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/

iTunes link (which is tricky to find otherwise)

Let’s just cut straight to it: this is, bar none, the most full-featured app out there. It’s the first one that would make me seriously consider using this platform for recording.

This, of course, raises the question of which mic you might want to use.

If you’re on the iPod touch, you don’t have even a built-in mono mic. (Don’t knock it: I’ve put together entire pieces based on simple mono mic samples. Creative sampling artists will use anything.)

Even on the first-generation iPod touch, you can use some simple solutions that will let you do basic sound.

The Smule blog has a terrific round-up of recommendations for touch owners wanting to use their Ocarina app. Their technical needs are much lighter than what you might need for FiRe, but this is still worth a look if you have any interest in recording at all:

Microphones for iPod Touch Ocarina

The Griffin SmartTalk wins out for 2G owners. I have Griffin’s TuneBuds mobile, which has worked well enough for applications like RjDj. (Note that Smule have managed to get their app working with the first-gen hardware; FiRe requires the newer generation.)

At the fancier end:

Blue Microphones’ Mikey is a slim-line stereo condenser capsule that plus into the iPod accessory port. It’s hinged so you can play with placement at least a little, and there’s basic gain control (3 settings). It runs about US$80 street, which means it doesn’t have to compete with standalone recorders. Update: Audiofile Engineering say they’ve seen some issues with FiRe and Blue Mikey, and can’t officially support the combination. Readers have had some issues themselves. If you’ve already got a Mikey, this might be worth a try, but otherwise, you can await updated information as Blue and Audiofile Engineering attempt to address the problem.

Specific update: The problem sounds as though it is the combination of the production Mikey with second-generation iPod touch units running the current OS. This is expected to be fixed with the next OS release. Stay tuned for more.

Tha Alesis ProTrack is even more impressive-looking, but at US$249 list, it does start to get into the realm of “you could just go buy a dedicated recorder.” The ProTrack extends the iPhone by adding a shell with an X/Y stereo mic pair – one that looks quite a lot like the Zoom H4 mics – and even has onboard XLR jacks and phantom power. You also get LED monitoring, a limiter, additional power (four AAA’s), a mic stand mount – basically, it turns your iPhone into a real mobile recorder.

The Alesis has its own app, but the Audiofile Engineering option is looking more powerful. Naturally, that’s the advantage of software – because the iPhone is essentially a computer, you can add whatever software you like.

I still think there’s a good place for a dedicated recorder. I’ve started testing the Zoom H4n, seen at right. (Not an iPhone hiding in a shell.) I’m already blown away – it corrects most of the navigation and quality issues with its predecessor, and unlike an iPod or iPhone, has fantastic battery life and onboard XLR input jacks. (Okay, the ProTrack does have XLR’s, so this is getting a little more interesting.) In other words, I’m not sure I’m giving up on dedicated recorders in favor of one of these yet. It’s still handy to have, though – and who says you can’t use both, given how essential it can be to have a backup recording in many situations?

Updated: Officially, here are the mics supported by FiRe:

• Alesis ProTrack – http://www.alesis.com/protrack
  (Requires iPhone 3G or 2nd gen. iPod Touch)
• Blue Mikey – http://www.bluemic.com/products/mikey
  (Requires iPhone 3G)

Thanks to Gaëtan Gravel and everyone else who sent this in.

Paul Van Dyk’s DJ Tools

This one was a bit of a surprise: Paul Van Dyk has released a DJ app, but it’s not just a quick, attention-grabbing, “DJ on your iPhone” gimmick. It’s more like a utility belt for DJs. I’m surprised to see that as a result it’s actually gotten some criticism. To me, finding some genuinely useful stuff you might want to have on your mobile device is the whole point.

What’s in there?

• BPM counter
• Frequency analyzer
• Noise level (the “NYPD Application”), with an oddly beautiful visualization
• Seismic reader (for testing your turntable, not for telling if there’s an earthquake happening – that you’ll probably figure for yourself)

And then some silly stuff, too – glow stick, anyone?

http://www.paulvandyk.com/

Not yet available – coming late May 2009

All interesting, but you know what this means: now we need Live PA Tools. (I can think of some ironic choices for that. Nominations welcome.)

Nine Inch Nails App

NIN, of course, had their app become available on 4/14. There’s been quite a lot written about it – so much, in fact, that I feel like the whole thing is a bit overhyped. The basic development here is that NIN is taking all their fan data and making it location specific. On the upside, this is a lot more than many high-profile bands have done with iPhone development. But then, these guys should be doing more – they have the budget to hire real developers. I do like the idea of fans being able to interact on their mobile device; that clearly makes a lot of sense. But few artists will inspire the kind of loyalty NIN does, which means the real question is, will someone be able to build a platform for everyone else? And if you are a more obscure artist, what should you be doing?

The app is free, so just a conduit for fans, really.

iTunes link

http://www.nin.com/

Gestural Beat Sharing, Celebrate Cinco De Mayo

ZoozBeat is the application I looked at in the fall: the idea is to make musical improvisation more accessible by allowing people to use fun gestures, taps, and the like to assemble beats. The software is not only for iPhone, but the powerful Nokia N95, too.

That story is worth checking out from the perspective of gestural music in general, not just iPhone or mobile apps:

Gestures, Mobile Music, and the “Low Floor” for Novices: ZooZBeat on iPhone, Nokia

The latest news: the guys have gotten funding, for one. More importantly to end users, ZOOZ Mobile is adding a sharing component, much like what we saw with Smule’s Leaf Trombone. New upgraded software adds a Latin component with Samba and Tejano rhythms and is ready-to-go for Cinco de Mayo. Sounds great to me – and the Latin market has been oddly ignored by a lot of musicians and developers. There are also new Pop, Hip-Hop, and Techno beats.

http://www.myzoozbeat.com/

Unusual Instruments

You’ve got plenty of faux-808 apps for the iPhone now. Our friend Henry Lowengard is taking a very different tack, with drone-friendly creations and detuned pianos. He describes this as well as I could, so here’s what he writes to tell us about.

Imagine a piano in a summer home on a small lake, far in the north of the Northeastern United States. Imagine the piano sitting there for 60 or 70 years, untuned and unmaintained.
The naturally prepared timbres of the Lake Piano are now here for you, each missing felt, each individual nuance of the key action and character-filled tones. Briskly recorded one summer in lo-fi, these samples also contain sounds of children, cats, screen doors, and the summer breeze.

The first version of Lake Piano is relatively minimal, Henry says, played as a double row of scrolling piano keys and the ambient sounds stolen from a videotape he recorded. Henry promises more playability and more ambience in an upcoming upgrade, but you’ll get that automatically when it’s done, so you can always go play now.

And for droning on and on – literally:

Hi Droning fans:
I just sent in my new droning app Droneo to Apple for approval, so with luck, it’ll be in the store next week.
I’ll send a more widely distributed email when that happens, but I though you (pl.) might like to take a look at the Droneo "instruction site", http://www.jhhl.net/iPhone/Droneo/ and listen to this tantalizing demo:
http://www.jhhl.net/iPhone/Droneo/Audio%20Examples/Mp3/complex1.mp3
It’s basically my iPhone SrutiBox simplified to 8 oscillator voices, allowing a little more CPU time for complexity, and removing the preconceptions about Carnatic music and harmonium sounds that Sruti box engenders with its somewhat unpronounceable name.

For more on the SrutiBox, see our previous story.

Okay, I’m exhausted. Back to the desktop.

And of course, for the best source of up-to-the-minute mobile music creation news – well beyond just iPhone – be sure to read:

Palm Sounds

Black Friday? Cyber Monday? Who need them? The entire month of December seems to be on sale when it comes to music tech.

Christmas (and Hanukkah, for that matter) are nearly here. Whether it’s economic pressure or just some aggressive holiday pricing, there are some big deals out there that could make excellent gifts – or might just give you a nice list for shopping for yourself before or after the holidays. (Yes, it’s true: most of what readers suggested in our “gift guide” for the CDM Winter 08 special wasn’t really all that practical. But it does make a nice list of things you love.)

Here’s some of what’s on our radar screen:

Big Ticket Items Get a Break

$999 Tenori-On. In the US, at least, the Yamaha Tenori-On – the Lite Brite-style instrument tablet from innovator Toshio Iwai – gets a $200 discount. Based on reader feedback, that hardly moves it into impulse buy territory, but if you’ve been on the fence, your timing is right. Yamaha has also rolled out some very practical accessories (like a case and “survival kit” with stand), so if you know someone who owns one of these, accessories could make a nice last-minute gift.

And for the rest of us, there’s the US$20 t-shirt. You could mod that with LEDs and sensors and just let people play your chest. See the US store (curious to hear reports from The Rest of the World):

Tenori-On Store US

Moog bundles, Little Phatty break: The Moog Little Phatty is now available in Stage II Edition. (mmm, black!) It seems to have a slight street price break, down below US$1300 from a $1395 list. And to further sweeten the deal, the Moogs are presently bundled with a CP-251 control processor for feeding some analog control into your new synth. (See the video above. Really, an excuse to post this video is worth it.) In very much not a Recession Special, Moog also re-introduced the Taurus Bass Pedals.

Or, more fitting my budget at the moment, you can just get DVDs, books, and tasty apparel. Or perhaps a tattoo gift certificate; I hear the Moog fans love those.

Komplete, More Komplete – Komplete + Kore: For a limited time, AudioMIDI have bundled Kore 2 – Native Instruments’ software and controller – with the Komplete pack (basically everything NI makes on the producer/instrument side). US$895 for the total, which is what you’d normally pay for Komplete alone. You don’t need much justification here as Kore 2 doesn’t add any cost, but to me, having the physical controller and the ability to easily navigate all the NI sounds makes Komplete more manageable. (And we’re big fans of using Reaktor inside Kore, because you can easily assign controls to all your custom Reaktor creations.)

I just stumbled across AudioMIDI’s deal; we’ve heard other folks find bundles like this in stores. So it could be worth shopping around in your neck of the woods.

Cakewalk Holiday Bundles: Cakewalk is bundling extras with their software, including video tutorials and a download of pyro Audio Creator, an audio recording, editing, CD burning utility (which can itself make a nice software stocking stuffer for your Windows-using friends at $40). You can get a pretty full-blown version of their SONAR DAW for about US$299 (even though that looks more like the upgrade pricing of Pro Tools), and I see they also offer the E-MU Proteus Pack for lovers of the old E-MU racks.

Bundle pricing is different in different parts of the world, so if you’re interested in this offer, best to check your local store:

http://store.cakewalk.com/

Applied Acoustics Modeling Collection: AAS is having a sale on their lovely psychically-modeled products, so Tassman (modular environment) + Lounge Lizard (the electric piano) + Ultra Analog + String Studio (the terrific modeled string instrument) + Strum Acoustic = US$349. Check out the Modeling Collection in their store. Ableton users got treated to a couple of these instruments in Ableton-styled remakes, but if you haven’t bought those yet or don’t exclusively use Ableton or want the whole suite, this is worth a look.

Native Instruments sale: Native is offering upgrades 50% off, software bundles (including a free synth with their Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface), and other holiday deals through 12/31.

Bargain Buys

Steinway? Never heard of ‘em. The Steinway piano, photo (CC) madabandon.

Gary Garritan has a bunch of his sampled instruments on sale for US$99.99: Personal Orchestra, Jazz Big Band, and Marching Band. The sale ends 12/21, so you’ll want to get on this quick. The nice thing about these instrument packs is that they’re fairly well-focused and lightweight, so you don’t need a massive hard drive and sample-playing machine to get them running. They’re ideal, for instance, if you’re working on a score and want a quick rendition. Garritan also has the lighter “Basic Edition” of the Steinway-authorized Virtual Concert Grand. It’s 1.3GB uncompressed, so you can download it, making a perfect last-minute gift for someone (or yourself). I’ve just grabbed it myself and hope to have a review for you next week. You don’t get all the multisamples, it’s 16-bit only, and you only get the classic audience view, but I imagine this is how a lot of people use their sampled piano a lot of the time anyway. It only officially comes out Wednesday, but that gives you time for a Christmas Eve install.

Garritan Order Page [includes Christmas special]

Steinway Comparison Chart

As always, the Garritan community has done a free Christmas album:

http://garritan.com/Xmas.html

And perhaps there’s a deal on a real Steinway somewhere, too, though that doesn’t quite fit into our budget category.

Costco Meg-bundle with Snowball Mic: Costco (the US-based discount club) is generally not a place to go buy music tech gear. But they have a pretty terrific deal running right now, if you can find it. Blue Microphones’ Snowball USB mic, a convention basic dual-capsule condenser with 16-bit digital converter, is bundled with some other extras. You get Koss UR40 headphones, and Mackie’s underrated music editing workstation Tracktion 3. Given that the mic and Tracktion usually sell for $100 or more on their own, US$99 for the three is quite nice.

Snowball Mic Bundle

It’s hard to beat this as a $100 gift for newcomers you know. The Snowball isn’t the best condenser mic around by any stretch, and lacks fully-adjustable gain, but it’s a nice little mic to toss in a backpack and plug in via USB.

[Update] Fantastic Image-Line sale: Whoops, meant to mention this and didn’t in the first draft of the story! Image-Line’s software always makes a fantastic discount buy (which is why it topped our software list in the CDM Holiday Guide). But it’s an even better deal now, thanks to discounts and a free time-manipulation effect. Adrian Anders writes in comments:

Maximus & Morphine – $99 each

Every order of $99 or more comes with their new upgrade to WaveTraveler, one of those plugs in FLStudio that made Mac-heads question their loyalty. It hasn’t been announced but there’s a good chance an OS X version is in the works :D

More deals to follow.

Image-Line Sale

Peak Pro 6 Sale

The Mac-only audio editor has gotten some major upgrades to its playlist, RAM-based editing, new DSP goodies, dither modeling, another UI upgrade, and additional delivery and dynamics processing. Correction: only the upgrade pricing gets you as low as US$99. But there is a DDP export extension and free mastering plug-in with Peak Pro 6, an upgrade sale, plus other discounts:

Peak Pro 6 sale

Of course, that still leaves the “everyday low price” of Wave Editor from Audiofile Engineering at US$79, which has earned big fans like CDM contributor and game sound designer W. Brent Latta. Wave Editor has added some delivery options of its own, meaning you could easily choose either one. That makes two terrific choices on the Mac, which had traditionally been a bit behind on straight-up audio editors when compared to Windows’ Sound Forge and Audition.

Cash Back on Live

Ableton has a Holiday Special with up to $150 cash back on Live 7, Live LE, and Ableton Suite. There are some other promotions on, so well worth checking.

No promotional fees were collected in the making of this article. I do accept candy canes from readers if you happen to run into me. 

Deals by You

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface here. Seen any great deals / discounts yourself? Picked up anything you want to share?

If you haven’t yet, do check out all we stuck in our Holiday Guide:

On Demand: CDM Winter 2008, with Gift Guide, Bending and Slicing Tutorials, More

Who’s sampling what? When is sampling stealing? Who’s stolen sampled samples, and was the sampling stolen stealing? Is anyone actually playing live? Does anyone know what the law is? Does anyone care?

Yes, it’s been a lively November so far for massive, complicated legal battles, PR battles, who-said-who-sampled-what battles, and general sampling messiness. Here’s a quick round-up for those of you who haven’t been able to keep up (understandably).

And we’re going to play a game. I’m going to start talking, and you can see at what point your head starts to spin and you need to go lie down.

Ready?

Here’s the executive summary:

• Justice steal samples and talk about it, because you can’t recognize them.
• US courts said long ago “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” to the dismay of even the RIAA.
• German courts, disagreeing with the US and with other German courts, say it don’t mean a thing if you can’t hum along.
• FL Studio turns “Faxing Berlin” Deadmau5 demo content into “Berlin” mostly-the-same demo content and a bunch of people start screaming obscenities at each other and most of us lose interest.
• Justice can’t keep their USB cables from falling out, may have to pirate samples of themselves.
• The Killers (or MTV, more to the point) plagiarize an entire stage.
• My head hurts already.

1. Justice admits they steal samples. French duo Justice admitted to borrowing the likes of 50 Cent without clearance because “they are such short samples no one can recognize them.” (See Beatportal story.)

Of course, the fact that they’re non-recognizable is kind of defeated if you talk about them. In a sane legal world, a completely unrecognizable sample warped until it might as well have come from a field recording of tree frogs wouldn’t be litigation bait. But this is the United States. As I covered way back in early 2005 for Keyboard Magazine, the standing circuit court decision in the US says all sampling is illegal, whether it’s recognizable or not. The elimination of what lawyers call a de minimis (plain English: common sense minimum) standard actually got the RIAA and the plaintiffs concerned about over-litigation. (Yes, you read that right: the ruling was so stupid, the plaintiffs appealed a case they themselves had just won.)

Don’t like it? Move to Germany. No, really.

2. German court says sampling is fine, unless you can whistle the sample. Kraftwerk suffered a legal defeat that made it (via Associated Press) all the way to the front page of CNN.com. It seems a court in Hamburg said what US courts did – no matter how small, sampling is illegal. The highest civil court in Germany says the opposite, but then goes on to be explicit about what constitutes illegal sampling (if un-cleared):

The civil court ruling, however, forbids sampling of a song melody and insists that the sample must be part of a completely new musical work bearing no resemblance to the original.

What’s interesting about this: the length and nature of the sample of Kraftwerk (two seconds of rhythm from “Metal on Metal,” as used un-cleared by Sabrina Setlur) is the same as the sample in the US civil case (two seconds of Funkadelic’s “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” as used in N.W.A.’s “100 Miles and Runnin.”) That’s neither here nor there, except to say if you sample anything in a recognized track, some court somewhere will probably make your life miserable, especially with no international framework to smooth out the difficulties. (Case in point: the US samples had been cleared by N.W.A. – the movie studio No Limit simply forgot to clear the samples in the song for sync rights when they used it in a film.)

3. FL Studio user uses demo loops, meets irate Deadmau5. Thanks to reader Scott Metzger for tipping us off on this one. FL Studio 8 ships, as do many programs, with included loops. It also comes with demo content. An FL 8 user released a track that uses some of that demo content almost wholesale. Now, some people are defending the FL user, because Image-Line says its loops are released royalty free. (They claim they never said that explicitly about demo content, causing confusion.) Image-Line clearly should have been more explicit about this, or this might not have happened. But royalty-free sampling is one thing – plagiarism is another. The user in this case released a track that basically was Deadmau5’s Faxing Berlin. He even copied the name, calling his track “Berlin.” (Smooth.) It’s almost not different enough to count as a remix. I could make some general criticism, except that he’s already been roundly flamed in especially colorful terms by the FL forum users.

I’m still looking for ways of getting a laugh from fellow nerdsters by sneaking some of the roundly-despised Ableton demo track into a set. But, in case your eyes haven’t already glazed over, here are more of the gruesome details of this story.

FL Studio user faces legal action for using built-in samples [MusicRadar, who have more patience for digging through this story than I do]

Don’t use FL Studio loops! [FutureMusic, inadvertently giving users some good advice]

Lesson: software developers, label your loops. (And in all seriousness, it does sound as though Image-Line has lost some of their credibility on this one.) Users, don’t … do this, okay? Just don’t. We can hear you. We can hear those stupid Garage Band loops, too, for crying out loud. Or, alternative names, how about “IMing Hamburg” or “Skyping Munich” or “Snail Mailing Frankfurt”? Maybe change your name to L1v3M0us3 or Deadr4t. I’ll stop. We’re not even done with this damned round-up yet. There’s more.

4. Justice, the Milli Vanilli of Our Time? In case Justice weren’t in trouble enough already telling MTV they’re sampling illegally, they’ve got MPDgate to contend with. Beatportal showed an image of them grooving away with an MPD24 that was, rather inconveniently unplugged. (Their answer: the cable fell out.) Don’t worry, though, Justice fans — Resident Advisor springs into action with a series of photos that would do Oliver Stone’s JFK proud. (There it is – a loose USB cable on the grassy knoll! The screen gone blank, then on again in the Book Depository! Again! Change the angle!)

I’m inclined to give Justice the benefit of the doubt, especially because I care less about this one gig than I do about this outrageous comment by Beatportal’s Terry Church:

Anyone with a shred of understanding of how the music is made knows that it’s near impossible to play electronic music 100% live, unless you have the talent of somebody like The Bays.

Of course, if it were 100% live, it wouldn’t be electronic music. (You could get really literal and claim that you have to be Bobby McFerrin and not even use instruments.) But taking this as I think Terry meant it, uh, Terry, the entire readership of this site has something they’d like to discuss with you.

He also didn’t say “play electronic music 100% live well,” which means for each time one of us has screwed up catastrophically onstage by getting overcomplicated with live sets, we’ve done our bit to demonstrate that we’re not faking it. Unless the USB jack fell out, in which case, no photos!

But yes, I think we can safely say Justice are performing clips they stole from 50 Cent completely live.

5. Killers Plagiarize / Sample an Entire Stage. Okay, forget about two-second samples or even FL Studio demo songs. How about if you showed up in motorcycle helmets and a giant pyramid that looked exactly like Daft Punk? Erm, not in a tongue-in-cheek, parody sort of way.

Etienne de Crecy did a live stage show in France with giant projections mapped to a big cube, as produced by the talented Exyzt crew in Paris. Then, US band The Killers does … exactly the same thing?

Exyzt installation Ripped off by “the Killers”

In fact, the two were so much alike that over at Create Digital Motion, we just assumed it was another Exyzt install job. (Apparently, that isn’t so; even if it were, uh, novelty wears off a bit when you do exactly the same thing with another artist.)

Originality. Try it. It’s amazing.

You know what, by contrast have at those two seconds of rhythm that no one can recognize anyway.

(In fairness, as Wallace points out, MTV is likely to blame here. The Killers were just playing in the cubes and, most likely, were not directly responsible for the stage design.)

How’d you score?

How far did you get before you had to lie down, or strum an original tune on a ukulele? (Wait, damnit, that sounds just like “All the Things You Are.”) Let us know in comments.

What could a pocket-sized computer be? It could be a new kind of album extra (yawn), a new kind of generative musical format that samples and responds to the world around it (whoo). It could be a more effective controller (fun), or an Indian drone (really). The Apple iPod touch / iPhone, as always, brings both wonder (potential as an art platform or recording device) and trouble (respectively, restrictions on who can see your art and problems actually getting mic input or transferring files). So here’s this week’s snapshot of what’s happening on Apple’s micro-sized pocket Mac phone mediaplayer thing.

First, some quick updates that I’m genuinely pleased about:

Controller Updates

A lot of you have been having a great time with OpenSoundControl and the OSCemote tool released last week. It’s worth noting that even if you don’t have an OSC-compatible app, you can use a tool like OSCulator (Mac) or GlovePIE (Windows) to use this as a controller.

But here’s some more good news: the iTouchMIDI apps are making their way onto the iTunes app store, now under the name “iTM.” You no longer need Leopard to run the Mac client that receives MIDI over wifi, and creator Nonnus says a Windows client is coming soon, too. iTM MCU, the all-in-one software controller, is available now (pictured above), as are a number of apps including the free iTM MidiLab. Well worth giving these a try; I expect to post hands-on information soon.

Version 1.3 has made improvements in reliability (see Palm Sounds for more). By working with Mackie Control, you can integrate more tightly with software like Ableton Live, Apple Logic, and the like.

i, Art Platform?

I’m hearing a lot of speculation that Apple’s mobile devices could be a platform for artwork. I certainly like the idea of having a mobile palette to create intimate digital performances; I wondered this aloud on Create Digital Motion after seeing a mock-up of a sensor-driven, faux 3D animation. With tiny devices, tiny screens, and tiny projectors, the idea of creating something personal has some appeal. But as I hear more word of people making this kind of work, I wonder: if exclusively targeting Apple’s gadgets, isn’t there a danger not only of limiting the audience to gadget owners, but becoming overly tied to Apple’s proprietary platform?

With that caution in mind, here’s a very interesting app called RjDj that makes use of the accelerometer to respond to surroundings and even samples sounds via the mic:

And here are some folks playing with it:

(See coverage on Making Music, and screen shots and lots of info on the RjDj blog.)

The idea is not just a single work, but a collection of works by different artists which you can manipulate — work that’s never the same twice.

Most interesting, the RjDj team is using Pd (Pure Data); not only is it open source and multi-platform, but Pd’s scenes structure is perfectly suited to this kind of generative, interactive music. (No accident that Pd was also used in the creation of the generative Brian Eno soundtrack for the upcoming game Spore.) I’m quite eager to hear how he’s able to make Pd work and get this approved on the App Store, but we’ll see. Expect more detailed coverage soon, as I’m really looking forward to having a conversation with the developers about the possibilities of non-linear, generative, and interactive musical works, on mobile devices and beyond.

While on the subject…

He tends more toward the visual side, but Chris O’Shea reflects on the possibilities of software art. So far, Andreas Muller and Golan Levin each have works coming, though interestingly just ports of previous works, not actually new stuff for iPhone.

Snow Patrol and More

MusicRadar reports that SnowPatrol are planning an iPhone app release with their album. Wired’s Listening Post reports that this is just the tip of the iceberg; expect iTunes releases to have accompanying apps with interactive album extras.

Okay, I’ll say it: this sounds actually pretty dreadful. The iPhone and iPod touch already have online connections, yet I imagine many of these “apps” will simply duplicate existing content. If these really extended the album artistically in the way that brilliant album cover art did, that’d be one thing, but it’s hard not to be skeptical. And everyone seems to forget that this idea has been tried before, with various takes on “enhanced CDs.” I owned quite a few of these back when we are all buying CDs. I don’t think I ever saw the feature used in an interesting way, and the storage capacity wasn’t actually all that different.

That said, I’d love to prove me wrong. Speaking of Brian Eno, maybe a fully generative EnoApp? Or perhaps Laurie Anderson releasing some cool interactive experience? (Anyone remember the Puppet Motel CD-ROM from Voyager, or was I one of the only owners?)

Still, here’s my bet: the really smart artists will unshackle themselves from Apple distribution altogether, and release “content” on formats that allow a more expansive experience. Think DVDs or Blu-ray discs in hand-crafted cases, or limited prints, things that are the tangible counterpart to the digital realm.

A Visualizer

I wondered if someone would figure out a way to do this: iQualizer is a visualizer for your phone. I imagine this won’t do wonders for your battery life, but having spent more than my share of time blissing out at my computer monitor when the first mass-market visualizers appeared in the 90s, I can see the appeal.

iQualizer, via Palm Sounds

Next step: an easy tool for developing your own, so you can use the video out jack of an iPod or iPhone to add live visuals behind your band.

Recording

It’s kind of silly that Apple leaves out recording to begin with, and even skimps on including a mic at all on the iPod touch. But filling the void is Plum Amazing’s Plum Record:

Plum Record Page | iTunes Download Link

Now, that leaves only two problems. First, there’s the mic. I spoke to Plum’s Julian Miller, and he confirmed that you should be able to use the app on an iPod touch by buying a third-party mic (which could theoretically improve upon the iPhone mic’s quality, as well). But Plum hasn’t personally tested these, and neither have I — anyone out there gotten one of those mics?

Second, there’s the issue of how to get the files to and from your computer. In their infinite wisdom, Apple has decided you shouldn’t have any way to get files on or off their device outside of iTunes. Plum has a “server” app that you run on your computer to make this happen — Mac only for now, but with Windows and Linux coming soon.

All in all, it’s anything but an ideal recording situation, but if you just want to make a quick recording of a musical idea or practice session, it could do in a pinch. And I love the interface. This could be a fantastic way of keeping an audio “diary” of sorts, if we could just solve the mic problem.

Let us know if you try any third-party mics.

Go Indian: Sruti Box

Finally, here’s an app that’s actually unique: Sruti Box emulates the drone used in Indian music and spiritual practices. Creator Henry Lowengard writes, “It’s pretty simple: 12 virtual reeds, four interval scales, chorus, random interval perturbation, timbre adjustment. In this case, simplicity is good.”

US$2.99, available now:

SrutiBox Product Page | iTunes Link

Update: There’s a new release that came out as I was writing this (there’s a bit of lag as updates head over to Apple, before they get posted). Henry writes:

version 1.0.1 is available in the AppStore.
SrutiBox 1.0.1 is a minor update from 1.0:

• less off-centered icon (can’t tell from the store, but trust me)
• slower chorus speeds available
• lower base frequency now: 10 HZ (you can get some interesting beating with a low frequency mixed with high harmonics)
• changes to the Instructions.

Known annoying thing: I left in an extra ‘<' in the Instructions page's tuning description table. That is gone in the next version, which may be called 1.1.0, since it's got a lot of changes.

That’s it for this week’s round-up. Releases are settling down a bit, which means time to actually use this stuff and make some music. iPod/iPhone owners, let us know how your experience with these and other apps we’ve mentioned on CDM are going. Non-iOwners, we’re curious to hear what mobile apps and tools you’re into, so let us know that, too.

More iPhone/Touch Music Stuff

Last week’s round-up: iPhone/Touch Roundup: BtBx Acid Bass, iDrum Workflow and Babies, OpenSoundControl App

Mobile Music Platform Survey Results, Plus Beatmaker MIDI Export

iPhone News: iDrum, BtBx In; Mixtikl Out Citing Apple Rules

Pro Tools Controller for iPhone, iPod Touch Available; More DAWs Coming

Noise.io, “First” Synth for iPhone/iPod Touch, Will Bring Gestural FM Synthesis Control

BeatMaker for iPhone: Upcoming Features Q&A, Video Review

Our friend Jeane Poole, who hails from the island continent pictured in the screen grab, has a terrific overview review of Live 7 — the upgraded app and suite. And, bonus, there’s some good resources for plug-ins and learning, to boot. The verdict:

The Ableton Berlin kids are still slaying with this release. They’ve refined and extended the features of the application, integrated new instruments and processes, allowed ever more complex workflows and at the same time have managed to retain a smooth and consistent interface. When it comes to real-time audio – there’s really nothing else in town.

The “nothing else in town” bit is important — there are lots of other good apps for making music, but none quite as complete for, as the name implies, being Live — at least not without a lot of DIY work. Ableton co-founder Robert Henke once complained that reviewers were being so uncritical of Ableton, but I think the reason is that no one has really offered a strong competitor. In the meantime, we keep using and loving the tool.

But the best part of this review is a handy little set of links to tutorials, plug-ins, and (as Jeane Poole doubles as one of Oz’s leading VJs) commentary on live visual capabilities. And if CDM ever has a softball (Ultimate Frisbee?) team, it will be the Create Digital Mutants — thanks, Jeane.

The Sweet Ableton Live 7 Suite : Review [Skynoise]