How apps are revolutionising music; Music apps are revolutionising the way music is made and challenging the very definition of music itself
June 27, 2013 Leave a comment
How apps are revolutionising music
June 27, 2013
Iain Gillespie
Music apps are revolutionising the way music is made and challenging the very definition of music itself.
“Strange days indeed, most peculiar, mama.” Apply those words to the way millions of people are now creating music, and they are more relevant today than when John Lennon wrote them shortly before he was murdered 33 years ago.
For example, imagine the Beatles’ surprise, as they grappled with antiquated tube mixers and a four-track tape recorder at Abbey Road, if someone had whipped out an iPhone and offered a modern recording studio with 167 tracks and full digital quality.A gifted musician is always going to come through – doesn’t matter what they’re using, whether they’re banging on a stick or a rock or using the most advanced mobile technology. If you are a Mozart, you’re going to come through.
Singer-songwriter James Reyne
Not only 167 tracks, but the ability to play back 64 simultaneously using an 85-key polyphonic keyboard, some 65 instruments, plus 60 more as add-ons, a microphone input for vocals, MIDI export and import, and a plethora of effects – and that’s not even the half of it.
Not so reckless: James Reyne prefers making music with an acoustic guitar to iPad-based apps.
Music Studio for iPhone or iPad, by Austrian developer Xewton, comes with a 55-page manual and sells for $15.99.
Advertisement
A host of other mobile apps like it, ranging from complex to simple, have burst on to the market and they’re not only revolutionising the way music is made, but also challenging the very definition of music itself.
For instance, if you croak horrible discordant noises into your iPhone and the sound is converted into harmonic and rhythmic elements with full instrumentation, as apps such as LaDiDa will do for $2.99, the end result might sound great – but is it real music?
Kalle Paulsson, product manager for Propellerhead, a leading app developer in Sweden, says that in response to a changing market, his company has just withdrawn from sale its complex music app Rebirth and started again from scratch.
The result is a much simpler app named Figure, so simple that a tone-deaf six-year-old could make music using one finger on an iPhone screen by choosing from different loops of drums, bass and guitar, and changing keys, beats and patterns.
Propellerhead has sold 500,000 of the apps at $1 each, but Paulsson still worries if he made the right decision.
”We would have had at least three times as many downloads by now if we had made them free of charge,” he says.
”That’s the gamble, I guess. If you make it free and more people download it, you can potentially make more money by selling add-ons. Although Figure is really great to use, there are quite a few restrictions, so people will still want to buy extra features.”
Jump a world away – in both distance and technology – and you’ll find Melbourne singer-songwriter James Reyne at home, where he wrote his latest highly acclaimed album, Thirteen, using nothing but an acoustic guitar and piano.
He admits he wouldn’t recognise a mobile music app if it jumped out of a tree and screamed at him.
”I don’t use any developments in technology,” he says. ”I’m not against them, it’s just that I’m an idiot and I don’t know how to use any of them.
”Still, there have been massive and significant changes in the way people create music. You can do it literally in your bedroom, and people can make what used to cost $100,000 for just a few dollars.
”I saw a friend of mine only two weeks ago sitting on an aeroplane, wearing headphones and mixing his latest album during the flight.”
Reyne believes the older generation of successful music-makers is not threatened by the latest mobile wizardry.
”You’re only limited by your imagination, and you can soon tell the men from the boys in any area of music,” he says. ”A gifted musician is always going to come through – doesn’t matter what they’re using, whether they’re banging on a stick or a rock or using the most advanced mobile technology. If you are a Mozart, you’re going to come through.”
Another Melbourne musician, Brett Goldsmith, is much less resistant to using music apps. He has his own recording studio, has produced records for Olivia Newton-John and has successfully released his own album, Ordinary Life.
”Having had a good look at what you can do in terms of recording if you only had an iPhone or iPad, there seems to be some really good things out there,” Goldsmith says. ”I think I might put myself to the challenge and do it myself.
”A lot of people use these apps like DJs. They layer one pre-recorded track on to another, add traditional studio effects like flanging or chorus or echo, then upload their masterpiece on to SoundCloud and share it with the world.
”Another group is more interested in getting an organ sound, a piano sound, a drumbeat or a keyboard-based guitar and then maybe singing on top of it, but they’re not actually players themselves. They can plug a MIDI keyboard into an iPhone and source every sound sample in the world to tinker around with.”
Goldsmith says vocals or real piano sounds can be recorded at a high-level bandwidth using a microphone into an iPhone and then mixing them across 24 tracks. ”You probably could make a professional record, if put to the test,” he says.
”Hypothetically, it would sound as good as the studio I’m sitting in now, but the real challenge would be the extra time and difficulty involved in playing a keyboard and mixing tracks on a small screen like an iPhone’s, or even on an iPad.”
Livewire took up the challenge and did its own test by downloading the Music Studio app on to an iPad and asking two musically talented 16-year-olds, who were completely unfamiliar with the software, to see how quickly they could create their own song.
They did so without even consulting the manual, and the surprising and entertaining results can be seen on the video above.
■ LaDiDa at khu.sh
About bambooinnovator
Bamboo Innovator 