This video, via SyntheticBits, demonstrates FunkBox on an iPad synced up with BassLine and MoDrum on iPod touches via WiFi, Electribe EMX-1 via USB/CCK, and Ableton Live via Wifi.
While the state of MIDI on iOS is not where we’d like it to be – developers are moving it forward quickly.
neato. props 🙂
cool and everything,but that music is like 12 years too late.update your sound bra.
Synthtopia might be the only thinly music related blog where even the articles are written by trolls. Nice job.
So, what the fuck happens if someone calls you on that iphone during your set??
Cool music demo..bakck in 1996
Ahhh, feelin' a lot of love this morning!
Yes, when I decided to record a music video using a couple vintage drum machine apps, an 80's bass synth app, and a vocoder, I was frankly surprised when the end result turned out a bit retro sounding. You see, I was shooting for dubstep. Rats! Consider it a tribute to MIDI, nearly 30 years old and still going strong…
As for your question, if I received a phone call on my iPod Touch in the middle of a raging Thursday mid-afternoon acid techno set at the retirement home, I'd make a mental note to dial back on the drugs just a bit next time, wink at your grandma fist pumping in the front row, and forge ahead through bat country!
If I was using an iPhone, I'd first try putting it in "Airplane Mode" and then turning only the WiFi back on. What is an "airplane" anyway?
Haters gone Hate. They see all your cool gear and get MAD @ their mom. Sounded good to me. What's wrong with throwback music?
1996 was a good year. I wish I could bring those days back. It sure didn't have idiots talking shit on the Internet back then. These fools were still in diapers.
Very cool set up! And screw those guys, the music is good. Things don't suddenly get crappy when they get a bit older.
I was actually alive in the eighties and nineties and this got my head bobbing. Nicely done!
Thanks. And yeah, 1996 was a definitely good year…
Anyway, this is a tech demo video. I wrote that app on the iPad (FunkBox), the other two apps (BassLine, MoDrum) are the only other two iOS apps that support network MIDI sync like this. I wanted to make a video showing iOS MIDI sync doing device-hardware through USB, device-device through WiFi, and device-laptop through WiFi.
It's not my live set, I don't have one of those any more, it's a few of my dev test devices and some old Electribe patterns I dug up and dragged out from my long and undistinguished years as an electronic musician. I spend my time updating my apps now instead of updating my sound. So it goes.
Synthtopia put the video up here because the tech being shown is new and maybe interesting, not because the music is groundbreaking. Like I mentioned these are the first three apps that support wireless MIDI sync like this, funnily enough all three are retro. There will be more apps that support this sort of thing and that have a more modern sound, I'm sure. That's part of what I'm doing, I'm trying to hype it up a bit so other devs will implement it in their apps and you young punks start getting excited about the possibilities of using it all, and come up with new interesting ways to use it musically.
Setting up three devices like that is maybe a little silly, I had trouble keeping track of it all in the video. But I'm showing it can be done if you decide you want to do it. I could have put more devices in there if I wanted to also, the sync works great with a lot of them. There are some interesting possibilities for synced up collaborative music making and/or interactive art, and I'm sure someone will come up with some way to make something cool using like 10 of them at a time themselves.
Alright, afternoon nap time, then some applesauce, then Jeopardy. Peace!
Don't take it personally – some (most?) synthopia readers seem to prefer music from 1986 or 1976 rather than 1996. You could say they're a bit analogue-retentive.
Analog Retentive – put that on a t-shirt and sell it!
The Korg Emx is cooler than the ipad. Let those punks do their blip analog shit, real music was made in the 80s and 90s.
amazing. hope the midi capabilities of the ios apps will all allow this in future.
music is ok not my taste but productionwise absolutely fine.
well done!