Nazaray has launched a Kickstarter project to fund the development of Sound Blocks, a graphical music composition app for Mac and Windows.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
“Place blocks of sound anywhere on the grid, connect them together and play!
It’s a beautifully animated experience that really brings out the visual character of sounds — (kind of like synesthesia).
You can add ‘Control Blocks’ to your sequence that act as modifiers for speed, time, randomization and more. Using these tools, you can create intricate musical machines that loop in interesting ways.
It’s a remarkably simple new workflow that removes the obstacles and steep learning curves commonly associated with conventional music production software — and by the nature of its distinct design, lets you do things that you might never think doing of with other music apps.”
Pricing and Availability:
Development of the app is being funded via a Kickstarter campaign. It’s available to project backers starting at $15.
Note: Crowdfunded projects can involve risk. See the project site for details.
A clean GUI version of Midinous with some charm and flavor. I’m already into it. Not reall yunderstanding the whole Kickstarter campaign for an app. Guess they just need money to take it over the finish line.
The kickstarter campaign is to actually fund the app’s development. Not sure why this is being posted here, it’s just a demo with all the sound made in post with Ableton according to the author.
This concept of taking a virtual play-wiper, turning into playback dot(s) travelling along an instructional path is kind of interesting. I guess the idea is that it would force you to produce a different kind of creative output than you would by other paradigms like step sequencers, drum machines, linear sequencers and the like.
Whether or not the workflow is engaging and/or pleasant is kind of beside the point. You will get different results because your natural instincts are being usurped by this model-train approach to music-making.
I don’t hate it. I do wish though that the results they showed in the demo would unleash something truly new, as opposed to something slightly new.
Weirdly, I think I would find myself wanting to recommend this to someone who has pledged never to learn to play an instrument.
When I saw the headline for this I was like, this has been done and blah. But honestly, I’m impressed and really like this. The colors and groups of various components of the sound is strikingly different to me in terms of thinking about composition, rhythm and melody. Would be really cool if you could group the blocks and assign a unique color / image. I’d love to see a way to change modes/scales too. And if you could arrange / sequence changes to “record” a song/piece… super cool. Also, time signatures changes and dynamic tempos – interesting to think about how those would be incorporated. Regardless, gonna try this one out!
yeah, I think the implementation of the GUI is the thing – I loved what Midinous did but it was just that little bit too irksome… there was also a great iPad app I don’t remember the name of but essentially a game that made music but I think responded to tilt as well as connections?