Google Android takes on iTunes
Rumor has it that Google will go for a holiday-season launch for a new music download service. Google’s new msic service would be deeply connected to the Android mobile operating system. Apparently the company would go for the launch of a music download service first and then have that followed by an online subscription service next year. The service Google is aiming at would be a cloud-based subscription service with the ability to stream directly to Android mobile devices.
It remains to be seen if ‘Google Music’ will be able to present a serious threat to Apple’s iTunes. AdMob reports have already revealed that Android users are half as likely to pay for mobile apps as iPhone users. Users of the iPhone download an average of 8.8 apps a month, of which just 1.8 are paid for. Android users, meanwhile, download 8.7 apps a month and only pay for 1.1 of them. Good to know, AdMob is Google’s mobile ad company and Android is its mobile platform.
New groovebox app for Android phone
Mikrosonic RD3 is a new groovebox app for Android phones. It combines a 303-style synthesizer and a drum machine with different drum kits.
Features:
- realtime step sequencing
- realtime processing synth
- high quality filter mode for powerful devices
- multitouch control
- drum machine with 8 drum kits
- 4 patterns per instrument
- 3 play modes: solo, loop or random
- load/save sessions
- cut/copy/paste pattern
RD3 sells for €3.49.
System Requirements:
- Android 2.1 or higher
- screen resolution 480×320 (HVGA) or higher
- 550 MHz CPU or faster supporting ARMv7
- Tested on:
- Motorola Droid/Milestone
- Nexus One
- Samsung Galaxy S
- HTC Desire
Androidome, a freeAndroid-based emulator for the monome music making device
Android users have a new music tool to check out – Androidome, a freeAndroid-based emulator for the monome music making device.
Androidome is a portmanteau of Android + monome, android being the popular operating system for mobile phones, and the monome being a minimalist instrument/controller/interface/toy. Like the monome, the app itself doesn’t actually do a whole lot out of the box, it simply provides an interface for sending and receiving data to and from your computer.
If you’re an Android owner, check it out and let us know what you think of it!
Features:
- Connects to Max/MSP over WLAN.
- Responds to incoming led messages.
- Provides multitouch input from phone to Max/MSP.
- Works with mlrV, polygome, boiingg, (hopefully many more too).
Androidome is available now as a free download.
iPad, as a music prod tool, up for serious competition from Google
Today’s big rumor, coming from an un-named single source by way of the Download Squad blog, is that a Google tablet, made by HTC, running Google’s Chrome OS, and available on the Verizon network, will go on sale on November 26th this year. That’s Black Friday.
Or, maybe not: Citing similarly un-named sources among “upstream component makers,” Digitimes asserts that it’s Motorola, not HTC, that is Google’s first choice for a tablet, which Digitimes says will be based on Android.
The Motorola-made Google tablet will utilize Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor platform, and will have a 10.1-inch Sharp-manufactured LCD that’s not as bright as the iPad, but is thinner, says Digitimes. It will be in production by the end of 2010, the paper added.
Judging from the number of micro synths and drum machines that has popped up for Android, I guess it is just a matter of time before we see a similar development on the tablet side
MicDroid is a free AutoTune-style app for Android.
MicDroid is a free AutoTune-style app for Android.
According to the developer, it’s similar to the I Am T-Pain app for the iPhone, but not as fully featured.
It’s based on the AutoTalent LADSPA plugin, by Tom Baran.
MicDroid gives you many options to adjust the pitch of you vocal recordings and gives users the ability to save recordings, make ringtones out of them, and even email them to friends.
It’s available on the Android Market for free, although there is a donation version for $2..99 (in case you want to show support to the developer). The app is purely for entertainment purposes and will probably result in lots of laughter (unless you can actually sing).
mSpot on Android
Android users might find this a rather interesting offering. Mobile entertainment startup mSpot has debuted its free music cloud service. mSpot’s service allows you to sync your entire music collection across Android phones and PCs/Macs to the public. Launched into private beta in May, it streams music to your browser and Android phone. The application will manage your music for you, making automatic updates whenever changes occur in your library, and on across different connected devices, again, quite similar to what a cloud storing service like Dropbox does (sign up now via this link and you get an extra 250 MB of bonus space). Other features include the ability to see lyrics of songs and to make a ringtone out of any song.
Jasuto for the iPhone and Android
Some of the new features:
- nearly alias-free analog oscillators
- pulse width control on the square oscillator
- all the filters have been re-written and have been fattened up quite a bit
- several wave-shapers
- ADSR envelope editor
- note on/off for sustained notes
- multi-page/octave sequencer
- you can now draw notes/modulation in the sequencer
- recording into the sequencer via the midi keys
- sample recording/re-sampling
- full featured sampler
- and manymore…
Jasuto is still under pretty heavy development, so it will be improving/changing quite often. Feedback will certainly have an influence over the development direction.
Jasuto is the first truly modular synthesizer for the iPhone and is basically the 2nd coming of my previous modular synth experiment known asMode
There are several main design goals that I wanted to achieve with this.
The first goal was to make synth building fun and easy all while adding some unpredictability to the process. I’ve come up with some amazing sounds almost by accident in a lot cases that I would have never even thought of doing in a conventional synth.
The 2nd was to blur the line between patch and synth, so creating a synth should be no different (or any more difficult) than creating a patch.
The 3rd was to unify control and audio rate signals allowing everything to be a modulation or be modulated.
And finally I wanted to make sure that it was simple and efficient to add motion to a sound. So every node on the screen can record its own motion. E.g. if you wanted to create a simple LFO for a chorus effect just attach a constant to the delays time port, click the record button and wiggle away. After you are done recording hit stop and it will auto-magically blend the loop points for you. All motion including the step sequencer are syncable via triggers, more on this in the “Basics” section.
Android music apps gears up
This video captures a demo of a step sequencer application, Monotroid, running on an Android mobile phone-controlled Korg Monotron:
- Android is connected with Arduino by Bluetooth.
- The Arduino is connected with Monotron.
Adding the iPhone app to the Monotroni creates a surprisingly potent combination.
Synths and drums for Android phones
This weekend I started to download a whole bunch of different synths and drum pads for my Android / Google phone and boy was I surprise how much crap their was. I believe I downloaded 10 or so different synths and drum pads and none of them was even close to being funny to play around with.
Here are a couple of the ones Itried:
- Drum Hero Lite
- Free drum pad for Android
- aPorta Studio
- Synthesizer 2
- Virtual Synthesizer
- KeffMeff
Good thing with them was that all of them worked (!) and was fairly easy to load, learn and play around with, but none of them was even close to something I would even consider using in any music production. Sure they are all free or very sheap, but still comparing with some of the free games you can access and considering what you can get via your iPhone – Android Market has a long way to go.
So what have I learned – if you want to download some kinky toys for your kids to play around with for five minutes on your way to the supermarket in your car, then Yes go ahead but if you actually would like to have something that you can enjoy – wait another 6 months before accessing the Android market again, if you are looking for cool music making software, or better yet continue to use your iPhone.
All things negative, well I have to say that KeffMeff at least had some cool sounds going 
Happy 20 years birthday – S.P.O.C.K
Spent an evening with the old but very happy S.P.O.C.K crew. The event was held in conjunction with the monthly SpaceLab party held in Malmoe, Sweden. On the pic below you will see Mr. Android himself and the former band member Johan (can´t remember what he called himself …noid something I guess, hehe). Too bad Eddie B didn´t show up.
If you want to join future SpaceLab events – you will find them here >>
And of course an old SPOCK video, incl Eddie B:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzXZWJIsJc]
DATAMASKIN
