Jordan Rudess demos WI Orchestra – an orchestral library and composition tool for iPhone and iPad.
Wi Orchestra is a free download, and comes with an example instrument from different sections of the orchestra, including Violins, Trumpet, Flute, Tenor Saxophone and Timpani. Full orchestra sections are available as in-app purchases for $2.99 each.
Here’s what developer Wallander Instruments has to say about WI Orchestra:
You can now create and record your own orchestral music on the iPhone, layer by layer, using the instruments and built-in recording features of WI Orchestra. Choose between a full range of orchestral strings, brasswinds, woodwinds, saxophones and percussion.
When starting WI Orchestra for the first time, press the “play” button to listen to the included demo song, which was made with the WI Orchestra app in only a few hours!
WI Orchestra features a velocity sensitive keyboard (requires iOS 4.0 or higher) allowing you to play different dynamics by touching the keyboard harder of softer. The simplest way to use WI Orchestra is to choose one of the dynamics presets (pp, p, mp, mf, f or ff) and play only using the keyboard.
You can work on as many as 98 different projects at a time, and export your songs to your computer, as *.wav files, via the “Apps” tab in iTunes (requires iOS 4.0 or higher). iOS devices with less than 256 MB RAM are capable of 1 minute length projects (iPhone 3GS and earlier) while iPhone 4 and iPads are capable of 5 minute length projects.
For those who are unfamiliar with orchestral music, each instrument in WI Orchestral comes with a picture and description of the instrument.
For the brave, you can also choose to use the microphone as a breath controller!
TIP: For first-time users on iPhone/iPod Touch, in order to access the keyboard you need to press the “Play!” button!
WI Orchestra is a universal iOS app, with a native full-screen iPad version and beautiful high-resolution graphics on iPhone 4 retina displays. It’s available now in the App Store.
via JCRUDESS
Not such a useful video. First of all, why not record from the headphone out rather than from a $#|++y mic picking up the tiny built-in speaker. Secondly, I can't tell if there is anything resembling velocity sensing from this.
Sounds nice, but it would be better with MIDI support and without the 5 minute project length limit.
I’m new to Wi orchestra…can’t figure out how to create layers or save the music…and the ? button doesn’t offer this info. Can someone please help. It’s great fun! Thank you!
It has core midi in support, at least.
As for the layers, as far as I can tell, you record each instrument separately, export the wav files to a PC based DAW, and manipulate them further from there.
sounds nice. at least as a tablet instrument. maybe not so much yet for music production. but then again you’d spend more than $2.99 usd for something to put on your tracks. i’ll likely have it for the sake of playing instruments and doodling creative ideas (once the second ipad mini is out). as far as i know this is the most portable playable orchestra out there. one should differentiate between music playing and music production to appreciate this, imho.