Developer Daniel Kuntz’s Cycle is a free app, for iPhone and iPad, designed for making ‘tasty soundscapes’, using a decades-old decaying looping technique.
The app is a modern implemention of American minimalist composer Terry Riley‘s ‘Time Lag Accumulator’.
Riley’s system used two tape recorders, with a tape looped between the two recorders. Sound recorded on the first recorder plays back on the second recorder, after a delay determined by the distance between the two. By varying the feedback signal, you can control how long sounds will repeat, and you can ‘accumulate’ layers of evolving sound. Riley use the system in his 1963 piece, Music For The Gift.
Cycle implements this same idea, as an iOS application.
“It’s a simple, but very powerful idea, allowing you to easily create fascinating and often unexpected sonic textures,” notes developer Kuntz. “The system naturally lends itself well to long and slowly evolving musical ideas.”
Features:
- 12 sound options. Samples by @electronisounds.
- Inter-App Audio (IAA) and Audiobus support
- Controllable tempo
- Controllable reverb wet/dry mix
- 5 new colors
It’s available now as a free download.
does this app allow you to use your own samples?
also is there an option for making the sounds sustain?…. is there a way that the different slots can have their own tempos…. ?
Wow cool concept, and it’s a free download.
Needs actual tempo settings in bpm, and the ability to overdub any of the samples that come with it for more complex soundscapes would be nice, but loading your own samples would be even better.
IAA dinosaur. No Auv3.
There is a lot of scope here! This is a great little idea generator, especially for fans of Terry Riley and the SFTMC. The ability to record segments and export them as .wav and/or midi (as multiple separate tracks!) files makes this app a useful composition tool. In minutes I had a sequence in my computer recording system and could assign any instruments and effects to each track. Then I discovered the quirky pitch bending feature of the app! Another night with very little sleep! Absolute gem of an app!