Here is a new application that for sure is going to make some of you very happy.
It came out on Saturday and did not have a much time to try it out but the little I did has all been positive impressions.
First impressions being that it seems very well thought out and a lot of the design has been towards a different workflow than similar apps and on paper it can feel a little bit gimmicky but it makes sense when you sit down with it. Would say that it is very well thought out for making electronic music as it all revolves around the idea of flexible arpeggiations and manipulating the resulting loops in different ways.
There is three different sound sources that being a synthesizer, 36 sample instruments and then 15 drum/percussion sets. You can use four tracks for the Synthesizer/sample instruments and two tracks for percussion. The percussion tracks with a standard sequencer the synthesizer/sample instruments with a different way of sequencing.
You choose the notes you want to be used and then the steps you want the notes to be triggered on. Now comes the interesting and different part. It uses flexible oscillations to determine how the notes will be played. Making oscillators be the decisive faction of the arpeggiation/note sequence. It is possible that this is not totally clear but it will be when you use the application.
So it offers a new way that I have not seen in any other application to compose music and being designed to be used as a groovebox it is very easy to change things on the fly.
So for example decide on a scale and use the notes on the four melody/harmony tracks and just start to manipulate and almost everything that you do will come out good but without sacrificing the feeling that you are in control and that it is your own music being created.
You could use this for making whole songs and there is already music that you can hear as examples here:
It came out on Saturday and did not have a much time to try it out but the little I did has all been positive impressions.
First impressions being that it seems very well thought out and a lot of the design has been towards a different workflow than similar apps and on paper it can feel a little bit gimmicky but it makes sense when you sit down with it. Would say that it is very well thought out for making electronic music as it all revolves around the idea of flexible arpeggiations and manipulating the resulting loops in different ways.
There is three different sound sources that being a synthesizer, 36 sample instruments and then 15 drum/percussion sets. You can use four tracks for the Synthesizer/sample instruments and two tracks for percussion. The percussion tracks with a standard sequencer the synthesizer/sample instruments with a different way of sequencing.
You choose the notes you want to be used and then the steps you want the notes to be triggered on. Now comes the interesting and different part. It uses flexible oscillations to determine how the notes will be played. Making oscillators be the decisive faction of the arpeggiation/note sequence. It is possible that this is not totally clear but it will be when you use the application.
So it offers a new way that I have not seen in any other application to compose music and being designed to be used as a groovebox it is very easy to change things on the fly.
So for example decide on a scale and use the notes on the four melody/harmony tracks and just start to manipulate and almost everything that you do will come out good but without sacrificing the feeling that you are in control and that it is your own music being created.
You could use this for making whole songs and there is already music that you can hear as examples here:
As gets obvious after listening to the tracks is that the sound quality is very good.
I do like the synthesizer a lot and it can be very gnarly in a good way and you have a lot of options to manipulate first and foremost the oscillators of course as everything is based on oscillation in almost everything you do. There is the possibility to combine and intermix oscillators in a many a ways and it does sound good right away without any help from effects. As said before there have not been much time to look into the app yet so I have not tried any of the sampled instruments or any of the drums yet but they seems very good to.
All in all if you do electronic music I do recommend this application highly as you can use it for doing whole songs or part of songs to import into other applications but it is made for direct manipulation so it is great app to use as a part in a live setup.
There is some concerns though-
You will need a good device but if you have one that is good enough the app feels very stable and it seems hard to overload it creating nasty CPU overload which is a big bonus if you want to use it for live recording/performance. It has some limitations in sequencing as you will have to adapt to the specific workflow. Having said that,
it is also one of the strong sides of the app.
Finally screen size.
Do recommend a 7 inch or bigger. I have tested it on a 4.7 screen and it is workable but to fully enjoy it think bigger and can not see it being enjoyable on smaller than 4.7 inches.
It is half price for now as introductory price and it would have been better if they had a demo version to try first but I would say that if you like to make electronic music it feels that you are going to be able to use the app in one way or another and think that it can be a very good addition especially if you like groove boxes and direct manipulations.
It is also a very nice addition to your synthesizer palette as you can get great tones out of it.
I do like it and felt sceptic when it first got announced as it seemed to me that it was just a variation of existing apps but when it got tried and there was an understanding of how it is set up I got excited to start to use it in some of my music or even as a main compositional tool for some tracks.
This is a very limited overview and hopefully next week after finishing some other projects there will be time to get into this deeper and take a look at the video and remember that it does add another way of thinking that is not totally obvious in the video.
For anyone that have some experience in slightly more advanced music apps it is easy to figure out things intuitively and even though the application offers a lot of possibilities it did not take me long to figure out most of the functions.
Here is a short review published by iosmars.com:
http://main.iosmars.com/2014/05/30/oscilab-review-a-new-sequencergroovebox-from-2beat/
and remember it is half price for now...
Play Store link:
Oscilab
For more sounds...
https://soundcloud.com/oscilab
I do like the synthesizer a lot and it can be very gnarly in a good way and you have a lot of options to manipulate first and foremost the oscillators of course as everything is based on oscillation in almost everything you do. There is the possibility to combine and intermix oscillators in a many a ways and it does sound good right away without any help from effects. As said before there have not been much time to look into the app yet so I have not tried any of the sampled instruments or any of the drums yet but they seems very good to.
All in all if you do electronic music I do recommend this application highly as you can use it for doing whole songs or part of songs to import into other applications but it is made for direct manipulation so it is great app to use as a part in a live setup.
There is some concerns though-
You will need a good device but if you have one that is good enough the app feels very stable and it seems hard to overload it creating nasty CPU overload which is a big bonus if you want to use it for live recording/performance. It has some limitations in sequencing as you will have to adapt to the specific workflow. Having said that,
it is also one of the strong sides of the app.
Finally screen size.
Do recommend a 7 inch or bigger. I have tested it on a 4.7 screen and it is workable but to fully enjoy it think bigger and can not see it being enjoyable on smaller than 4.7 inches.
It is half price for now as introductory price and it would have been better if they had a demo version to try first but I would say that if you like to make electronic music it feels that you are going to be able to use the app in one way or another and think that it can be a very good addition especially if you like groove boxes and direct manipulations.
It is also a very nice addition to your synthesizer palette as you can get great tones out of it.
I do like it and felt sceptic when it first got announced as it seemed to me that it was just a variation of existing apps but when it got tried and there was an understanding of how it is set up I got excited to start to use it in some of my music or even as a main compositional tool for some tracks.
This is a very limited overview and hopefully next week after finishing some other projects there will be time to get into this deeper and take a look at the video and remember that it does add another way of thinking that is not totally obvious in the video.
For anyone that have some experience in slightly more advanced music apps it is easy to figure out things intuitively and even though the application offers a lot of possibilities it did not take me long to figure out most of the functions.
Here is a short review published by iosmars.com:
http://main.iosmars.com/2014/05/30/oscilab-review-a-new-sequencergroovebox-from-2beat/
and remember it is half price for now...
Play Store link:
Oscilab
For more sounds...
https://soundcloud.com/oscilab
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