Beatmaker - considering it..

[DigMe]

It really takes a lot for me to spend "big" money on an app but I've got a $25 itunes gift card and I'm considering blowing most of it on Beatmaker. I'm a musician and generally a creative guy and I've never done any sequencing or composed electronic music but I am interested in it. Do you think beatmaker is for me? What about noise.io? Or even just btbx?

Share your thoughts please...

[PhaserFuzz]

I have all of those. I use Noise.io the most. There's word going around it's gonna be compatible with Beatmaker in the future. If that happens, those 2 things will be all you need for making music on the iPhone.

[DigMe]

Yeah, I heard about that.

I wish I knew someone who had any of these programs on their phone so I could check it out in the flesh.

[plinx0r]

I can't comment on noise.io but I purchased beatmaker when I saw a couple youtube videos showing it off. While I'm not musically inclined, I've still managed to create some cool beats using the app. For me this was perfect for wasting 30 minutes in the airport or riding passenger in the car. Being able to sync your beats to the computer was also a selling point for me.

The app is extremely well done and I don't regret purchasing it even though I only use it once or twice a month. Hope this helps. :apple:

/edit here is the video I was referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSpFK_K7jKo

[DigMe]

Thanks for the thoughts.

I'm really going back and forth between noise.io and beatmaker.

[LostLogik]

Can't really help as I've got both (and rate both). What might help you short term is to consider the following;

Noise.io is a fully fledge synth. It generates sounds depending on how you tweak the presets. It does have a small sequencer in it but that is only for small pattern loops. It is effectively the sound creator but currently has no in built recording or exporting facility over and above taking it directly from the iPhone speaker/headphone socket and recording elsewhere.

Beatmaker needs sounds to work (fortunately it does come with some). It is effectively the song creator. It does have export facility (and import) using a small desktop utility, which works quite well with your existing sound files.

There is talk (most of it on the Noise.io website) of integrating the two apps, such that Noise would export sounds in a Beatmaker compatible format but this has yet to appear (and given Apple's ringfencing of apps would probably be done via a desktop PC anyway).

So, if you have sounds and want to make songs, then get Beatmaker. If you just want to make some cool sounds get Noise.io but if you're like me and want to make sounds, songs and play around, get both and hope that one day soon they will "talk" with each other.

Hope that helps.

[DigMe]

Thanks, man. That does help.

[DigMe]

Beatmaker needs sounds to work (fortunately it does come with some). It is effectively the song creator. It does have export facility (and import) using a small desktop utility, which works quite well with your existing sound files.




I did know about the exporting but what I don't know is what format are the files in? Can beatmaker convert to .wav or .mp3? Or is it in a format that Audacity can read and export to .mp3?

Also, can I import samples in the form of .mp3 to use in beatmaker compositions?

[LostLogik]

I did know about the exporting but what I don't know is what format are the files in?

Beatmaker exports songs as wav to play on a computer or midi to import into a sequencer.

[DigMe]

I pulled the trigger on Beatmaker. Hopefully I won't regret spending the dough. I plan on playing with it on my upcoming flight over to Korea for sure.

How much of a battery hog is it?

[LostLogik]

I pulled the trigger on Beatmaker. Hopefully I won't regret spending the dough. I plan on playing with it on my upcoming flight over to Korea for sure.

How much of a battery hog is it?

Good purchase. Hope you enjoy it. (but you'll soon want Noise.io to get some of your own sounds in ;) )

Re battery life, can't really say, as I've nevery really strayed far from an AC supply but factor in screen always on and some pretty intense overheads, you're not going to see many hours of use. Make sure you have a spare external battery to recharge mid-flight.

[DigMe]

Good purchase. Hope you enjoy it. (but you'll soon want Noise.io to get some of your own sounds in ;) )

Re battery life, can't really say, as I've nevery really strayed far from an AC supply but factor in screen always on and some pretty intense overheads, you're not going to see many hours of use. Make sure you have a spare external battery to recharge mid-flight.

I do..I got a 2200mah external battery. Works great but I think even with that I won't have enough juice for the entire flight + airport time!

It looks like the upcoming update to Beatmaker will also make it easier to get my own sounds in there with on-the-fly recording and some other nice features.

[Habakuk]

It is effectively the sound creator but currently has no in built recording or exporting facility over and above taking it directly from the iPhone speaker/headphone socket and recording elsewhere.

The iPhone's headphone (headset) socket is for headphones and headsets only. You can't use it as Line-Out. If you want to use Line-Out for power amplifiers, mixer units or recording facilities you'll have to use the Line-Out connector (similar 3.5-mm stereo minijack via 30-pin dock connector) at the backside of the iPhone's Docking Station!

Due to the great iPhone's Digital-to-Analog-Converter you'll get a clean & professional analog signal good for live-on-stage and studio from both Noise.io Pro and Beatmaker.

[jblock]

The iPhone's headphone (headset) socket is for headphones and headsets only. You can't use it as Line-Out. If you want to use Line-Out for power amplifiers, mixer units or recording facilities you'll have to use the Line-Out connector (similar 3.5-mm stereo minijack via 30-pin dock connector) at the backside of the iPhone's Docking Station!

Due to the great iPhone's Digital-to-Analog-Converter you'll get a clean & professional analog signal good for live-on-stage and studio from both Noise.io Pro and Beatmaker.

This is not entirely true. While the headphone jack is not a dedicated line out you can use it as one; just make sure you use the iPhone's volume to control any clipping that may occur. I've done much recording using this method and the results are fine.

[DigMe]

This is not entirely true. While the headphone jack is not a dedicated line out you can use it as one; just make sure you use the iPhone's volume to control any clipping that may occur. I've done much recording using this method and the results are fine.

Yeah, it's not a balanced line out or anything but you can easily plug it into a mixing board or wahatever using a standard 3.5mm plug just like I use to plug it into my aux. input on my car stereo.

bc

[Habakuk]

I've never got an acceptable signal out of the headset jack other than for headphones or headsets. The line out at the docking station is fine for most music applications (except Ocarina p.e.).

[DigMe]

I assume you could also use the Apple A/V cable and just plug in the RCA audio to a mixer or use an adapter to 3.5mm

[Elloise]

I've noticed the new sample option in Beatmaker now.

Has anyone used a line in to capture sound? I know it works from the headphone mic, but I want something cleaner.

I predict issues with monitoring and am dying for griffin to make a headphones/mic/line in jack adapter.

Anyone tried this anyway?

[DigMe]

I've noticed the new sample option in Beatmaker now.

Has anyone used a line in to capture sound? I know it works from the headphone mic, but I want something cleaner.

I predict issues with monitoring and am dying for griffin to make a headphones/mic/line in jack adapter.

Anyone tried this anyway?

I haven't tried it yet. I usually use Audacity on my PC to make samples and then download them on my iPhone. Why not use the Shure mic adaptor. Seems like it would be better quality than a Griffin and it's already available.

[DigMe]

BTW, here are the tracks I've made with Beatmaker so far. I'm really enjoying it:

http://www.soundcloud.com/digme

[Elloise]

Why not use the Shure mic adaptor. Seems like it would be better quality than a Griffin and it's already available.

Thanks, but I need a jack to be in place where that inline mic is. Essentially I want one male jack at one end to go into the iPhone, splitting into two female jacks for mic/line and headphones.

Then of course the option to be able to monitor while recording.. I see this as key to the progression of apps like 4track which looks great, but could really go to a new level with a decent line in and monitor function.

I'd even settle for something that used the dock/usb connector at the base of the iphone.

Thanks for posting your tunes too, I'll check those out when I get home.

[dalvin200]

i've had beatmaker since it was released, and hell yeah, it was worth the money!

although i'm finding it a bit limiting now as you just want to do more and have more samples etc... but that's my greed.. as this is a mobile app and not a fully blown piece of kit you'd generally pay > 100 for!! :)

i've not tried noise.io.. will have to check it out though....

[Elloise]

Hey Dalvin, have you downloaded the software from the intua site? You can import your own sample banks into Beatmaker.

But I know what you're saying, out and about I really want access to more samples/loops which is why I want a mic/line adaptor to use with the sample option. Combined with my two mini kaos pads the possibilities are endless.

[DigMe]

Hey Dalvin, have you downloaded the software from the intua site? You can import your own sample banks into Beatmaker.

But I know what you're saying, out and about I really want access to more samples/loops which is why I want a mic/line adaptor to use with the sample option. Combined with my two mini kaos pads the possibilities are endless.

It'd be cool if maybe Intua had a repository for user-created kits. Everyone could upload their custom kits and then there could be a feature in Beatmaker that would allow you to see the entire online collection and download from there directly into beatmaker.

Only thing is I don't want this program to get much bulkier. After that last update it requires more memory and has crashed a few times for me. I've also gotten the low memory warning. Neither of those things ever happened to me before the 1.3 update. It did bring some nice features though!

As it is I usually snatch samples using Audacity, export to .wav and then use Beatpack for PC to make my own kits or samples for loading to other kits.

[liptonlover]

I've been looking into this stuff extensively, but I'm still not sure... which app is closest to garageband? What I'm looking for is the ability to create "professional" songs, without anything but the one app. I'm looking for multiple instruments, multiple tracks at once, an actual note editor for each track, saving, loading, creating, the works on a smaller level. Reading descriptions, and viewing screenshots/demos, I see that a bunch of apps have different parts of that. Zoozbeatlite has a note editor and a bunch of tracks at once, but you can only play a roughly 5 second bit in a loop. I also have band, which is probably the closest but there's no way to edit the notes except to delete what you just did and re-record, which is painstaking and frustrating. It also has an annoying interface; deleting what you just recorded means like 10 clicks before you're ready to go again. Also, it always starts from the beginning. Finally, there's no sign of an update with new features as far as I know.

After all that, can anyone help?
Nate

[DigMe]

I've been looking into this stuff extensively, but I'm still not sure... which app is closest to garageband? What I'm looking for is the ability to create "professional" songs, without anything but the one app. I'm looking for multiple instruments, multiple tracks at once, an actual note editor for each track, saving, loading, creating, the works on a smaller level.


As far as I know Beatmaker is probably the closest to that. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "note editor" but you can change the tone of each sample. So if you had a single flute sample you could turn it into eight different samples that would make a scale. You can only have 16 samples available at once to choose from for each project though (there is a slightly tedious workaround to this that involves using your computer). You can have an endless number of patterns/tracks going in your project. You can save, load, create, export as .wav or .midi, load your own custom samples and kits. There are two FX channels and a clean channel. The available effects are Delay, EQ, Bitcrusher and a filter that can be set for high pass, lowpass or band filter. You can assign any sample to either FX track or the clean main track. Tracks can be as long and complex as you want them to be. There is onboard pitch editing, panning and waveform edit. There are other features but those are the highlights I guess.

[liptonlover]

By a note editor, I mean again something like garageband. Something I can use to add a note, choose how long it is, change where it is, or delete it. So, effectively, a song writing tool to apply to certain tracks. Thanks for the info!

[DigMe]

By a note editor, I mean again something like garageband. Something I can use to add a note, choose how long it is, change where it is, or delete it. So, effectively, a song writing tool to apply to certain tracks. Thanks for the info!

Oh, Ok. I don't have a mac so I didn't know what you meant since I've never used Garageband. What Beatmaker CANNOT do is to create synthesized tones. You have to work from samples. There are a bunch of default kits and samples on there or add your own. But you can do all of the above with the samples...you just can't "add a note" in the sense of creating a tone midi-style.

[Elloise]

@liptonlover
I don't think what you're after is out there, yet.

As an aside, has anybody been using the ITM suite and the like to use the iPhone as a Midi Control surface? Now that's fun.

[DigMe]

@liptonlover
I don't think what you're after is out there, yet.

As an aside, has anybody been using the ITM suite and the like to use the iPhone as a Midi Control surface? Now that's fun.

What's this?! I hadn't heard about it but I'm interested!

bc

[DigMe]

@liptonlover
I don't think what you're after is out there, yet.

As an aside, has anybody been using the ITM suite and the like to use the iPhone as a Midi Control surface? Now that's fun.

What's this?! I hadn't heard about it but I'm interested!

bc

Nevermind my question. I looked into it and spoke with the developer today. Unfortunately it doesn't support 64 bit operating systems at this time (one of the very few programs that I've had that issue with since I made the switch to 64 bit). He says that he is currently looking for a new midi driver that will support 64 bit though so I will be watching for that. Would love to have this up and working with Vienna.

[Habakuk]

As an aside, has anybody been using the ITM suite and the like to use the iPhone as a Midi Control surface? Now that's fun.

Yes, I am using iTouchMidi Suite. It works very fine with Garage Band, Absynth and all the synths under Leopard. iPhone/iPod Touch as a WIRELESS (WiFi/Airport, no BT) MIDI/synth controller!! Try it out - it was free when I've looked for it last time. It's real fun and very professional!

Musicradar.com writes: "However, it doesn't end there. Silicon Studio's are also working on some other apps to slot alongside the ones mentioned above. First, there's the iTM MCU, which is a Multipoint Control Unit that we presume may allow more than one iPhone/iPod Touch to be used at any one time. Next, there's the iTM Tilt, which is similar to the iTM XYPad except that it uses accelerometers to read user gesturing. Last, there's the iTM DJ, which can be used for controlling digital DJ software such as Native Instruments' Traktor."

Very, very promising! :cool:

[DigMe]

Musicradar.com writes: "However, it doesn't end there. Silicon Studio's are also working on some other apps to slot alongside the ones mentioned above. First, there's the iTM MCU, which is a Multipoint Control Unit that we presume may allow more than one iPhone/iPod Touch to be used at any one time. Next, there's the iTM Tilt, which is similar to the iTM XYPad except that it uses accelerometers to read user gesturing. Last, there's the iTM DJ, which can be used for controlling digital DJ software such as Native Instruments' Traktor."


Those have already been released except for (I think) iTM DJ. I saw them on iTunes yesterday when I was looking at all that iTM stuff.