Illuminated Sounds

Since Android’s initial release in late 2008 the android devices, software and market have

evolved to something much greater with a more diverse selection of applications. One

category the mobile linux OS has been lacking is in the music making department. Armed with

a new compiler, GPL, and an army of developers, 2011 is finally starting to make some

headway to compete with iOS’s music producing libraries. Unfortunately a publicly published

market is a double edged sword which sometimes forces users to sift through the garbage to

find the gems, which…can be…..taxing.

After purchasing, testing, and more often than not refunding applications, the best of the

best android music making applications:

1.Mikrosonic Sketchpad

This application quickly became my favorite as I found how versatile it is with

manipulating loops and sequences.

The color/light coding make mixing simple with a long press on the selected pad you

can set the volumes. Clicking each pad starts or stops the loop or sequence, and the edit

button allows you to set the sequencers. You edit ‘scenes’, a saved framework of your

imported/saved settings for the 16-pads, which are easily exported to .wav format for your

sharing needs. My only complaint about this application is it lacks a swing setting, but for

$5.50 its a steal.

Musical Features:

-16-pad screen mixes loops and sequences
-Loops
-Edit feature with 4 variations for each loop pad
-Slicer for recombining loop elements
-Waveform display
-Up to 8-bar long loops
-Samples and sequencer
-4-bar sequencer for each sample pad
-Keyboard for setting note information for each step
-Waveform display
-Gain, pan and tuning knobs
-Envelope control with attack and decay

Technical Features:

-Multi-touch control
-Sample/loop load in .wav format up to 24 bit 96 kHz
-Recording of performances in exportable .wav format
-Direct integration of RD3 – Groovebox loops
-File sharing capability
-App2SD

For those wanting to try the app out:
Demo Version:

SPC – Music Sketchpad

Groovebox is made by the same entity as the Sketchpad(SPC) and seemlesly imports any beats

made with this nifty little app into mikrosonics SPC. With eight different drumkits to

choose from it makes beat production less of a headache in SPC.

Features:

•realtime step sequencing
•realtime processing synth
•high quality filter mode for powerful devices
•multitouch control
•drum machine with 8 drum kits
•4 patterns per instrument
•3 play modes: solo, loop or random
•load/save sessions
•cut/copy/paste pattern

Demo Version:

Uloops gets an honorable mention but I cant help but cringe at the fact that you must have

an active internet connection to even render a single midi note on top of having to create

an account. Still, the application is reminiscent of FLstudio in its sequencer and options.

12-channels loop-oriented sequencer:
• Mix up to 4-bar length recordings, synths, drums and modulators
• Apply effects including delay, flanger, chorus, tube distortion, compressor among others.
• 3-band parametric equalizer with configurable frecuency, amplitude and Q factor for each

band
• Dynamic Pan and Vol, Solo-Mute toggle
• Mixer with vumeters and dB faders
• Export to mp3 or ringtones

Sound Recorder:
• Use built-in mic for live recording
• Metronome during performance
• Apply noise reduction, normalization & effects

Polyphonic synthesizer:
• 7-octave piano roll
• 125 instruments available
• Vcf Cutoff, Vcf Res and LFO effects

Drum Machine:
• 35 drumkits available
• Every drumkit has 17 components, including bass drum, snare, hi-hat, crash, tom-tom, among

others.
• Independent volume, pitch, pan and reverb control for every component

Modulator:
• Analog-like modular synthesizer patched up as an interesting oscillation lab
• Filters: VCO Freq, LFO, VCF Cutoff, VCF Res and VCA
• Modulate your bends using 6 different functions including sample & hold

Song Sequencer:
• Create a song putting together your loops
• Change song tempo, from 60 to 250 bpm
• Mastering Toolbox
• Publish your songs with different licences (creative commons and private ones)
• Receive a full rendered copy by mail

Demo Version:

Uloops Studio Lite for Android on

By special request here are some close up pictures of the main IC’s on the Maschine.  The request comes from a hacking workshop that will be taking place in Berlin next month.  Here is a link for more information on the workshop.

Check out the datasheet for the Lattice here.

Check out the datasheet for the Cypress IC here.

-tron

I updated the 8 band Graphic EQ for the launchpad! I added a button to get into the DSP settings so u can change the input settings and output settings. Sorry it took so long for this crucial update!

Download 8BandEQ2.0 for the Novation Launchpad for (Windows).

if there are Mac users who want this app just holler and I’ll build it for you guys. 

UPDATE 8BandEQ3.0 for the Novation Launchpad for Windows/MAC