iOS – WILL KUHN

In defense of the iPad

John Walden, for Sound on Sound:

Of course, instead of an iPad, today’s aspiring music technology junkies could buy a computer-based system. Whatever route you take, there is still a bunch of other ‘stuff’ (mics, headphones, speakers, software) you have to acquire alongside the computing platform itself and I’d absolutely agree that the laptop (or desktop) system is likely to be more powerful than the iPad. That said, I love my mobile iPad-based music workstation and, despite its more modest grunt, it’s still a capable device for crunching zeros and ones.

However, price and power aside, lots of today’s aspiring musicians have bought into mobile devices for other reasons. For them, and for their overall IT needs, it is simply their computing platform of choice. The fact that it can do music technology is, for many, a bonus, but one they can happily exploit with relatively low additional costs for software.

The last part is tricky for schools. For many aspiring musicians “the fact that it can do music technology” is simply not enough. They want to “do music technology” the way the pros do, and that’s with “computer-based systems” (probably meaning laptop or desktop computers – technically stomp boxes are computer-based systems).

But yeah – when you sit back and think about it it’s pretty amazing that you can just plug a guitar into your phone and lay down tracks. The world is crazy.

Apple legitimizes Audiobus, throws Jack under the bus

One day after Jack was announced, Audiobus was officially canonized with its inclusion in GarageBand. No coincidence that Jack was to be released on iOS and Android, possibly leveling the playing field. I’d wager this will persuade the team behind Jack to focus less on iOS than Android – a third party (especially a niche like Audiobus) supported in GarageBand is a strong statement of preference by Apple.

It seems that Apple is then going to use Audiobus as the Rewire for iOS. Smart move, and a big leap from where things were a year ago. Once it’s in GarageBand, you can be assured it will be supported for some time (Apple similarly adopted Audiocopy last year along this same logic).

The simple interface exponentially increases the iPad’s value as a music creation tool by letting you do all the recording and sequencing on a single device without complex file imports, as well as enabling apps to talk to each other. For example, you could now record a synth track in Korg’s iMS-20, filter it through the Amplitude amp modeler, and record the results as a track in GarageBand.

Via The Verge

Traktor for iPad

Native Instruments is getting serious about iOS. Apps like this are why Android tablets are still very much behind iOS ones.

Some juicy details:

Traktor recognizes class-compliant USB audio interfaces, so a separate cue/mains mix is possible in stereo (lots of DJ apps hack this by making you pathetically use a headphone splitter).
It recognizes transients, and makes them playable sampler-style hits that can be played while the song is going on. Very cool – and something that is much harder to do on a full computer.

Also this:

Traktor DJ also does something DJ apps haven’t done before: it builds a recommendation engine into the app itself. That seems to me to be inevitable in the Spotify and Last.fm age. While it may make some DJs cringe, the software itself now uses tempo, key, and even timbre metadata to work out what music will match well with what you’re playing.

Huh? We’ll see if that one works out in real life.

Anyway, read the full post over at Create Digital Music.

Auria – 24 simultaneous track recording on iPad

Now we’re getting somewhere. Auria, a 48 track audio-only DAW, has been released on the App Store. This is the first audio recording app I’ve seen that really grabs ahold of the potential on iOS devices.

From the article, some great things are ahead too:

Since Auria supports a special iOS version of VST plug-ins, we’re in talks with several plug-in vendors at the moment. You’re likely to see more great plug-ins becoming available in the near future. MIDI support is also something on our list for a future version, along with virtual instrument plug-ins.

The old guard had better watch their back – these little companies are going to steal the spotlight before too long.

Reason 6.5 released today

Remember, the big news is the Rack Extensions. It’s the only way forward on future platforms like iOS. Even with cross-app audio APIs, providing curated plugins (rather than manually added ones) seems to be the ideal way to provide add-ons for your audio software in the new sandboxed era of computing.

Who else is ready?

Ableton: Max for Live could conceivably become their version of an “internal” add-on store.

FL Studio: Synthmaker patches could serve this purpose as well.

Logic: Apple can use the architecture from GarageBand lessons to provide add-ons within the app (you could say the “jam packs” are a precedent as well).

Pro Tools: *cricket, cricket*

Skate to where the puck is headed, audio companies. With Microsoft sandboxing Metro, and Apple becoming the GateKeeper, there’s no question that external add-ons are on the way out.