Mikrowave the same developer that have also made one of my favorite applications for getting glitchy rhythms, that one is called Kosm-
To read some more about it check under the sub header Automatic Sound generators...
Well the other one is a small groovebox/synthesizer/drum machine and that is Mikrowave.
Always had interest in getting more in depth with it and last month he did a big upgrade of the sound engine and that was my cue!!!
Happy that this happened as now having been using it for awhile and like it,
as the sound has sharpness to it that normally you wont find in Android synths,
also coming with one oscillator that have not found in any Android synthesizer which is a type of oscillator to simulate string sounds. then there is five more oscillators -
Sine, saw, two square and one random.
There is attack, release LFO modulation of the low pass filter and less common-
Frequency modulation using saw, sine or triangle oscillation.
Comes with effects- Low pass filter, delay, phaser, "speak" filter and two different distortions degrading the signal in the digital realm these two last ones making me suspect a deep love for the Chiptune music-
Which also is good fun with this synthesizer as it is based on Virtual Analog but with the possibilities to coax out something brutal, digital.
There is in addition a cute drum machine that can sound lo-fi dirty brutal-
Just four sounds- kick, snare, rim and hi hat.
Comes with the effects-
A switch in between "light kit" and "gravel kit" then comes Compressor, bit reducer, low pass filter, delay and as for the synth a "speak" (vowel) filter with combinations of these you can easily shape the sound in many ways.
But must say that right now there is one thing that is hard for me,
that there is no way to mix the volume of the different drums but that is planned for a future upgrade.
In general you feel that the developer has made something from a highly personal vision.
Something that he wants to see realized with limitations and all and as such it comes with some quirks.
That may dissuade you from going deeper into it.
This may seem like negative critique but must say that for me it has been a blessing-
Let me explain-
My first thought was to try it out with one of my pet music projects-
Translating one of my finger style acoustic guitar songs to something electronic.
BUT...
What the fuck the one sequencer only goes one octave how am I going to translate
finger style guitar in this way!
For that you would need to be able to program the sequencer in at least three octaves.
Well as that was not working started experimenting with one octave and got bass sounds out of it that was both deep and for me the right frequencies and this without trying too hard-
Have I finally found the bass machine that always eluded me?!
Ohhh me thinks so.
At least for one of my projects...
Frank Malm going deep dark dub project.
This is definitively going to be used for my dub fantasies.
(not talking about dubstep, not anything against dubstep but straight forward dub being more my styelelee).
But as you can also play the two octave keyboard or use the polyphonic sequencer you can of course use it as one of the better synthesizers in my opinion.
On top of the sequencer you can open up a keyboard and play chords/melodies using two octaves- both in the sequencer and using the keyboard you can specify which octaves you want to use but it has to be the same sound but that does not have to be to much of a problem as you can either do as in the sound example that comes with this review where the sequencer is used for the bass and the keyboard is played live four octaves higher.
Or use two instances if you have anything that can record multi track and want to separate the different sounds.
This leads me to something that I have been doing a lot of lately and here Mikrowave comes into full play...
Use a mixer and more than one device record directly into computer/recorder and so you can have a lot of fun!!!
Using two, three Mikrowave's or like in the sound example coming with the review using the Mikrowave-
Drum machine, sequencer for bass and keyboard sounds played directly using two more devices for embellishments.
( Synchroid and shape synth ).
As this think that Mikrowave always will have a special place in the set up and hopefully will be playing live in this kind of way in half a year or so using my Android devices....
You can also record live sessions directly in Mikrowave to use as bases for further sonic explorations or save the sequenced synthesizer and drum machine as a wav file,
or for the accomplished Mikrowave user directly to Soundcloud.
Mikrowave is one of these applications that you will use if you are using Android for music creations stepping outside of "one application does it all".
If... you take the time and explore it properly.
Must also point out that the developer is a good guy that will listen to your suggestions or fix any bug that you find.
Yes remember that with Android almost all the developers are reachable being independent and will listen to you, so do not be scared to write them as in 90% of the times they will respond!
To finish there is part of a small jam session to listen to,
totally non produced that got made yesterday evening
and there is more videos with music floating around the internet...
Frank Malm
To read some more about it check under the sub header Automatic Sound generators...
Well the other one is a small groovebox/synthesizer/drum machine and that is Mikrowave.
Always had interest in getting more in depth with it and last month he did a big upgrade of the sound engine and that was my cue!!!
Happy that this happened as now having been using it for awhile and like it,
as the sound has sharpness to it that normally you wont find in Android synths,
also coming with one oscillator that have not found in any Android synthesizer which is a type of oscillator to simulate string sounds. then there is five more oscillators -
Sine, saw, two square and one random.
There is attack, release LFO modulation of the low pass filter and less common-
Frequency modulation using saw, sine or triangle oscillation.
Comes with effects- Low pass filter, delay, phaser, "speak" filter and two different distortions degrading the signal in the digital realm these two last ones making me suspect a deep love for the Chiptune music-
Which also is good fun with this synthesizer as it is based on Virtual Analog but with the possibilities to coax out something brutal, digital.
There is in addition a cute drum machine that can sound lo-fi dirty brutal-
Just four sounds- kick, snare, rim and hi hat.
Comes with the effects-
A switch in between "light kit" and "gravel kit" then comes Compressor, bit reducer, low pass filter, delay and as for the synth a "speak" (vowel) filter with combinations of these you can easily shape the sound in many ways.
But must say that right now there is one thing that is hard for me,
that there is no way to mix the volume of the different drums but that is planned for a future upgrade.
In general you feel that the developer has made something from a highly personal vision.
Something that he wants to see realized with limitations and all and as such it comes with some quirks.
That may dissuade you from going deeper into it.
This may seem like negative critique but must say that for me it has been a blessing-
Let me explain-
My first thought was to try it out with one of my pet music projects-
Translating one of my finger style acoustic guitar songs to something electronic.
BUT...
What the fuck the one sequencer only goes one octave how am I going to translate
finger style guitar in this way!
For that you would need to be able to program the sequencer in at least three octaves.
Well as that was not working started experimenting with one octave and got bass sounds out of it that was both deep and for me the right frequencies and this without trying too hard-
Have I finally found the bass machine that always eluded me?!
Ohhh me thinks so.
At least for one of my projects...
Frank Malm going deep dark dub project.
This is definitively going to be used for my dub fantasies.
(not talking about dubstep, not anything against dubstep but straight forward dub being more my styelelee).
But as you can also play the two octave keyboard or use the polyphonic sequencer you can of course use it as one of the better synthesizers in my opinion.
On top of the sequencer you can open up a keyboard and play chords/melodies using two octaves- both in the sequencer and using the keyboard you can specify which octaves you want to use but it has to be the same sound but that does not have to be to much of a problem as you can either do as in the sound example that comes with this review where the sequencer is used for the bass and the keyboard is played live four octaves higher.
Or use two instances if you have anything that can record multi track and want to separate the different sounds.
This leads me to something that I have been doing a lot of lately and here Mikrowave comes into full play...
Use a mixer and more than one device record directly into computer/recorder and so you can have a lot of fun!!!
Using two, three Mikrowave's or like in the sound example coming with the review using the Mikrowave-
Drum machine, sequencer for bass and keyboard sounds played directly using two more devices for embellishments.
( Synchroid and shape synth ).
As this think that Mikrowave always will have a special place in the set up and hopefully will be playing live in this kind of way in half a year or so using my Android devices....
You can also record live sessions directly in Mikrowave to use as bases for further sonic explorations or save the sequenced synthesizer and drum machine as a wav file,
or for the accomplished Mikrowave user directly to Soundcloud.
Mikrowave is one of these applications that you will use if you are using Android for music creations stepping outside of "one application does it all".
If... you take the time and explore it properly.
Must also point out that the developer is a good guy that will listen to your suggestions or fix any bug that you find.
Yes remember that with Android almost all the developers are reachable being independent and will listen to you, so do not be scared to write them as in 90% of the times they will respond!
To finish there is part of a small jam session to listen to,
totally non produced that got made yesterday evening
and there is more videos with music floating around the internet...
Frank Malm
Playstore link:
Mikrowave
Mikrowave
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