When Apple released its I-Phone SDK , developers around the world had a free pass to create anything they could imagine for the multi touch interface. Not surprisingly there has been a small gold rush of apps that allow you to make or manipulate tunes with the newest must have consumer gadget. Here is a short list of some of the interesting ones and not so interesting.
IPhone Midi Controllers Apps
Thanks to Bento-San for pointing out that I forgot to mention there are some apps that allow you to use the I-Phone as a wireless midi controller. There is one package in particular that has a nice X/Y interface, sliders, buttons AND a monome type interface (video)
i3L (pronounced “i thrill”) is Freeware, and was developed using Max/MSP from Cycling74 and is a support application for akaRemote by Masayuki Akamatsu, i3L receives pre-defined UDP messages from akaRemote.app running on the iPhone, scales the values to MIDI, and allows you to configure the sending MIDI channel and control change message number. While this software was developed to work seamlessly with our Real-time 3D VJ software Thrill, ( http://thrill.artificialeyes.tv ) you can use this program with any audio or video software which receives midi messages.
Midi I-Phone Link
The Iano (now re-named moo cow music pianist)
Want to jam out on the piano while djing but your too lazy to get a real midi keyboard? No problem just whip out your Iphone. It may not exactly create a rock star moment but some girl is bound to give you her phone number afterwards.
Moo Drummer
The same people that brought the piano app let you add a vintage beats, samples and drum machines to your sets. Dj Solomon claims the 808 really thumps in the club. If I was at a club though and you played that damn air horn every 10 seconds the crowd would most likely riot. You can also load your own samples
Idj-
the creatively named app thats not out yet.
MixMeister Iphone App
As far as I can tell this is just a branding ploy and serves no functional purpose. Then again perhaps it does. Check out the youtube video
TapTap revolution
Develop your controllerism skills while riding the metro. Youtube demo.
And the photo above?
Its a photo shop mock up. no such app exists yet. Besides, there is no way you could accurately press the right controls. Typing on these things is hard enough. Not to mention there may be one serious deal breaker for any Iphone application. Here is a quote from one of CDM’s readers:
” One problem that will initially inhibit iPhone-based DJ tools is that the iPhone SDK doesn’t currently provide access to the iPod music database. And the provisions of the development agreement are that 3rd party apps may only use officially published API and may not directly access other applications’ data. On the other hand, there are Jailbreak-ware apps currently available for the iPhone that do access the music database (e.g. Tap-Tap-Revolution). So an iPhone-based DJ tool is clearly possible, but not currently by Apple’s rules. ” Richard Lawler March 19, 2008 @ 11:50 am
m 21 years old and a very active musician. I have been around music for a long time and I am very good with the guitar/bass, piano, and am very knowledgeable when it comes to music terms. When it comes to the technical side of music I have a pretty good foundation as well such as connections and computer stuff and making/recording music. What recently has caught my eye is live performance and have always wanted to DJ for people with the dance music I have and what I can create/mix. I love dance/electronic music and just making people dance, but I am going off to college now so I’m gonna need these tools to get started but not as intensive due to lack of space and money. I have a Roland Juno now and amp and guitars and MacBook Pro, but I am probably going to need a smaller keyboard and something easier access for speakers that I can take around on campus. What are some good mixers, and software, and keyboards (small) and cool DJ tools that I can use to start creating the music and playing live for people. I love Benny Benassi and Deadmau5 and what they do, and I wanna bring my musical side out to the dance floor as well and would like to really just do a lot of live stuff but also be able to record my music inside as well. What do I need to get started I have money but not a whole lot so something not too expensive but will get the job done with good quality. Let me know thanks!
m 21 years old and a very active musician. I have been around music for a long time and I am very good with the guitar/bass, piano, and am very knowledgeable when it comes to music terms. When it comes to the technical side of music I have a pretty good foundation as well such as connections and computer stuff and making/recording music. What recently has caught my eye is live performance and have always wanted to DJ for people with the dance music I have and what I can create/mix. I love dance/electronic music and just making people dance, but I am going off to college now so I’m gonna need these tools to get started but not as intensive due to lack of space and money. I have a Roland Juno now and amp and guitars and MacBook Pro, but I am probably going to need a smaller keyboard and something easier access for speakers that I can take around on campus. What are some good mixers, and software, and keyboards (small) and cool DJ tools that I can use to start creating the music and playing live for people. I love Benny Benassi and Deadmau5 and what they do, and I wanna bring my musical side out to the dance floor as well and would like to really just do a lot of live stuff but also be able to record my music inside as well. What do I need to get started I have money but not a whole lot so something not too expensive but will get the job done with good quality. Let me know thanks!
m 21 years old and a very active musician. I have been around music for a long time and I am very good with the guitar/bass, piano, and am very knowledgeable when it comes to music terms. When it comes to the technical side of music I have a pretty good foundation as well such as connections and computer stuff and making/recording music. What recently has caught my eye is live performance and have always wanted to DJ for people with the dance music I have and what I can create/mix. I love dance/electronic music and just making people dance, but I am going off to college now so I’m gonna need these tools to get started but not as intensive due to lack of space and money. I have a Roland Juno now and amp and guitars and MacBook Pro, but I am probably going to need a smaller keyboard and something easier access for speakers that I can take around on campus. What are some good mixers, and software, and keyboards (small) and cool DJ tools that I can use to start creating the music and playing live for people. I love Benny Benassi and Deadmau5 and what they do, and I wanna bring my musical side out to the dance floor as well and would like to really just do a lot of live stuff but also be able to record my music inside as well. What do I need to get started I have money but not a whole lot so something not too expensive but will get the job done with good quality. Let me know thanks!
m 21 years old and a very active musician. I have been around music for a long time and I am very good with the guitar/bass, piano, and am very knowledgeable when it comes to music terms. When it comes to the technical side of music I have a pretty good foundation as well such as connections and computer stuff and making/recording music. What recently has caught my eye is live performance and have always wanted to DJ for people with the dance music I have and what I can create/mix. I love dance/electronic music and just making people dance, but I am going off to college now so I’m gonna need these tools to get started but not as intensive due to lack of space and money. I have a Roland Juno now and amp and guitars and MacBook Pro, but I am probably going to need a smaller keyboard and something easier access for speakers that I can take around on campus. What are some good mixers, and software, and keyboards (small) and cool DJ tools that I can use to start creating the music and playing live for people. I love Benny Benassi and Deadmau5 and what they do, and I wanna bring my musical side out to the dance floor as well and would like to really just do a lot of live stuff but also be able to record my music inside as well. What do I need to get started I have money but not a whole lot so something not too expensive but will get the job done with good quality. Let me know thanks!
That shit is bad ass
[quote comment=""][…] clipped from http://www.djtechtools.com […][/quote]
looking for iphone app that turn ipone into krog kaoss pad mini
[quote comment="looking for midi that turns iphone into kaoss pad"][…] clipped from http://www.djtechtools.com […][/quote]
@neural
Yes, it's a limitation of the hardware. The iPhone uses a dedicated chip to handle decompression. The chip of course only decodes one stream at a time.
As for CoreAudio support; yes it does support the entire CoreAudio API. You can manipulate multiple audio streams, but with the limitation that only one can be from a compressed source.
The API docs state this quite clearly. I remember it because I was disappointed when I read it.
Its also possible to use your iphone as a wireless midi device to control Traktor or other midi driven software like Ableton Live. See this youtube video to see what i am talking about –
No need to wait for an iPhone SDK license when you can write this app on Google's Android platform in Java today. Do an interesting enough job and they'll most likely send you a phone to try it out on (no promises, but they guys in Android are that kind of generous).
Like Neural, I would argue that a simple mixing interface can be emulated on the iTouch. Check out Eans article on the Pacemaker device a few months back. The Pacemaker is a simple iPod like device with a few physical controls and a touch sensitive pad. And for simple mixing, it seems to do fine… Although there is not a lot of real estate on the iPhone / iTouch / iWhatever, you gotta remember that you don't need to display both "decks" and your mixer and playlist… A lot of us have gotten spoiled with the real estate we have on our laptop screens… but back in the days of vinyl… we had to take our eyes off the turntables and mixer and dig in our crate, which wasn't so easy if you weren't organized like me… 😛 We didn't reference the BPM counter of the other song playing, because we didn't have that either!!! And we had no effects!!! But alot of us learned to rock crowds regardless…
So imagine one main mixing screen that just had volume faders and an a-b fader. Perhaps there'd be one more slider to scroll the view left and right displaying virtual left and right decks… When viewing each deck, you'd only really need play, stop, and cue… and I'm sure scrolling through the actual wave form for cueing can be handled by another slider.
When it comes down to it, keep it simple… That's one of my biggest gripes about today's digital DJ… Half of us wouldn't know what to do if we didn't have a loop function or effects for transistioning. I mean I don't wanna sound like the old man.. "Back in my day… etc etc etc…" But it is true, when it comes down to it… all you need is two turntables and a mixer, virtual or not.
Anyway, Numark has demonstrated through the iDJ device that two audio streams can be cranked out of an iPod, so I'm assuming that the iTouch and iPhone can do the same… I'm not saying that the iPhone will replace all existing devices, I'm just saying that it is possible…
<blockquote cite="#comment-4816">1. You can only decode one compressed audio stream at a time. You could play a cached un-encoded wav parallel to the compressed stream, but the iPhone is RAM constrained making that difficult. Not forgetting that you need to decode that wav file _first_.
Are you sure about your statement? Then why during the SDK presentation Steve Jobs said that SDK had full featured CoreAudio? I guess you're thinking about the fact the iPhone may send compressed audio to a specific chip which can proccess one compressed stream at a time, but I didn't digg into Apple's SDK enough to see how audio works.
<blockquote cite="#comment-4805">
I'm not expecting any serious mixing with the iPhone, a laptop will always do a better job at it, but I think that, if possible, someone could bring up a minimum of features to keep a gig going in case your laptop is dead.
For the moment, the best way if you don't want to bring a CD player and CDs for backup solution is to bring your iPhone or iPod and one of those Numark mixers with iPod dock. It's pretty expensive at the moment though.
I second this.
Joke: we need nanotech to get tactile feedback from our touchscreenz.
It'll be some time before we see anything like a DJ app on the iPhone. Two main issues hamper efforts to develop a DJ app ? on the technical front at least, aside from Apple's policy re the iTunes DB.
1. You can only decode one compressed audio stream at a time. You could play a cached un-encoded wav parallel to the compressed stream, but the iPhone is RAM constrained making that difficult. Not forgetting that you need to decode that wav file _first_.
2. Only one audio out. Makes it difficult to monitor mixes. A hardware add-on could address this, but most attachments that draw audio from the dock-plug cause the headphone out to be switched off, this is a feature of the phone itself.
And just a bit of commentary; putting tiny turntables in a DJ app is a sign of shallow thinking. It couldn't possibly emulate the real thing, it takes up more room than it needs and moreover it means nothing _interesting_ is happening. We need innovation in interfaces, not lame eye-candy.
Errrrr? soz, that just occurred to me then, and I had to say it! 🙂
If we exclude all the in/out/dvs things, I think it's possible go have a basic two deck mixing app that is usable in a small screen like the iphone's. That will be better than nothing in case your laptop gives up during a gig.
@neural, such dream is quite an overkill for a device that is a PHONE.
This device would only be usefull as a xy fx controller. The creen is too small for any serious control/state overview.
I rather see the iPhone as a backup solution in case your laptop crashes during a gig. The minimum feature-set would be a very simple two track mixer, two decks with play/cue/set buttons, why not a little three band equalizer and a good song browser with search.
As it could be quite a challenge to monitor output with only one audio-out, a good BPM detection and a sync function would also be useful.
If such a software was available and was stable enough, I would finally be able to leave my DENON dual CD-player and my CDs which I still carry just in case when using TraktorScratch and controllers.
The only remaining risk is that I forget to enable the airplane mode while mixing though ;).
IPHONE MIXING OF MY DREAMS:
Once all that is done and is stable, one can still try to implement monitoring and (each one using one channel of the stereo output) and if you are crazy enough, 1-deck DVS support using the iPhone's mic-in to get the tracking signal! I guess it could be technically possible using a cable which splits the headset/mic jack to two RCA outputs (for the monitoring feature) and a mono input (connected to your turntable for DVS signal). Another way would be to make a special sound card for the iPhone with two stereo outputs and inputs and a dock connector.
An app that could view your tracklist and send hot key commands to traktor would be very cool. Useful if you have to go to the bar or go for a pee.
Maybe it was a bit early for that kind of postings. I expect your follow-up after the release of the iPhone's 2.0 firmware and software downloading platform!