iPhone Beat Maker

[Andy Tarpinian]

Sent this out during the foot and plug incident. A couple things have  
changed since - The manual and the beta version of Beatpack are  
available to download on their website.



Right off the bat this is an incredible release for a 1.0. You can  
tell that the people involved in this have experience and this is not  
their first gig. The level of polish and usability is just astounding,  
especial considering this is a launch app for the 2.0 OS software. A  
manual will be out shortly but let me try to give you a run down.

On launch you are greeted by a home screen. From here you can load,  
export and save projects, kits, and samples. Also there is an  
information screen that gives a mini manual, RSS feed, Custom  
Beatmaker kit info, and Beatpack server info. Apparently you will  
transmit information(samples) from and to you computer and device over  
wireless. Beatpack is not out yet but we are told will be shortly. On  
a side note the developer is saying that sample packs can not be  
larger than 35mb.

Taping on the top left of the screen gives you a navigation menu;  
Home, Pads, Sequencer, and FX. Similarly tapping on the bottom left  
gives you your transport controls; Play, Record, Loop, Metronome, BPM,  
and Bar : Beat location with in the track. Both of these menus are  
really slick as they are accessible from any of the main program  
screens and they slide down when you need them and slide up when you  
decide you don't.

Pads features 16 playable pads that can each be loaded with a sample  
of your choosing. On the left there are a few controls most important  
of which is Edit. Pressing it changes the left hand screen to, you  
guessed it, the edit screen. Hit select at the top and then select 1  
or more pads to put them in edit mode. From here there are 3 main  
sections; Wave, Output, and Tune. In Wave you can set the sample start  
and end position either with sliders or a graphical pop up of the  
waveform. Using the waveform view with your finger is a simple  
addition but really helpful and down right cool. Also in this view you  
can hit "Load sample" to pull up a menu to change to a new sample.  
There is a Chop feature but I have no tried it out yet. In the Output  
screen you set the volume of the sample and where the sound is routed  
to - Main, FX1 and FX2. Main is your default output and the FX  
channels rout the signal through one of the 2 effects busses. There is  
no mixer available to you so this is the only place to adjust the  
volume of sounds. At the bottom of this view is Mute and Mute mode for  
muting your sounds live. Next is the Tune view, here you can set the  
pitch, scale, semi-tones and reverse your sample. One thing that is  
missing from all this is a sample loop option. Back on the main Pad  
screen there is a record button that when hit lets you bash out your  
beats live using the pads and records them to the sequencer. The  
software features quantization for keeping your recording on time.

Let me just quickly mention the included sound banks. They are for the  
most part much better than I expected, there is even one by Richard  
Devine. They are very usable to learn the program while waiting for  
the Beatpack software. Once that comes out I will only be going to the  
internal sounds for the single hit drum sounds which do sound very good.

The Sequencer is quite easy to use but a little confusing at first.  
Where you would normally have "tracks" running down the screen, here  
you have patterns. So on pattern one you tap on the area where the  
first 4 bars are and a shaded box appears, then you tap on the pattern  
1 box to edit. The new screen you get is your typical xoxoxox  
interface for laying down a pattern, all of your pads are available.  
At the top you can set velocity and groove. Each of these gives you a  
nice little screen where you can draw a bar graph with you finger,  
cool. Also at the top of the sequencer is duplicate which copy's the  
whole pattern to a new one, clear, and return to song sequencer. Now  
the trick here is you can only have one type of pattern for each  
pattern track and your only option for each measure is to have it play  
or not play. This interface is disappointing at first because you  
realize it does not function like a real DAW sequencer, but then you  
realize this is not a DAW and this interface is actually a pretty cool  
way of chaining patterns. Last but not least, as far as I can tell you  
never have to turn the sequencer off, you can go to any screen and  
make any change you want anywhere and leave the track running,  
impressive.

In the FX section you get 2 effects channels for sending your samples  
too. Each feature a Delay, 3-band EQ and a Bit Crusher, which is your  
typical sample rate reducer. All the effects sound pretty good, but  
things like reverb and a few more channels are sorely missed.

While MPC style sample based music creation is not my personal  
favorite way of creating music I have to say this application is quite  
fun, and the sound quality is top notch. This app goes way beyond toy  
and right into the land of musical tool. This is a quick review and I  
glossed over a lot, but the bottom line is this program is great, and  
a steal at 20 bucks. My biggest issue is not having any type of  
keyboard interface that samples can be mapped to and transposed, or  
even just pitch automation in the sequencer would be a start. Right  
now there is the pitch and scale adjustment in the pad window but they  
are really not ideal for adjusting samples to make melodies and there  
is no way to automate it. At the end of the day what really blows me  
away is the quality of this application from a UI design stand point.

* Couple notes, if you get a phone call or text message while working  
it will pop up over your screen, close them, if you answer the program  
will quit and you will lose your work(if you have not saved it.) Also  
for some reason my FX bypass settings are not saved along with the  
project, they always default to "bypass on" on first load up. Also  
depending on your screen settings if you are playing the sequencer and  
not touching the screen and your phone screen turns off the music will  
start to stutter till you wake it up.