I got this for me iphone after seeing some rave reviews on the featured section in the app store

http://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/

really good fun, way better than all the other music making apps I have - really easy to use even on a iphone screen.. looks great on ipad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjG1ms9OM7s&

muchos recommended..

Would like to see a SOS review! or an article about the developers / development process (I think they are English)

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www.myspace.com/hoursandminutesmusic

funny though that the mastering part only shows a Hall reverb and a flanger. Can't miss a flanger while mastering....

I am very disappointed that NanoStudio has flown under the SOS radar. I even emailed you directly.. the one-man developer from the UK is a ready made article! No reply. SOS is really dragging it's feet in recognising the developments in mobile music making. You have just lost a long time reader (15 odd years- just yesterday received my subs renewal letter), as the content of your magazine becomes increasingly irrelevant to me. At best I'm reading news I knew about at least 2 months previously. All the best SOS, and goodbye

Quote rondema:

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I am very disappointed that NanoStudio has flown under the SOS radar. I even emailed you directly.. the one-man developer from the UK is a ready made article! No reply. SOS is really dragging it's feet in recognising the developments in mobile music making. You have just lost a long time reader (15 odd years- just yesterday received my subs renewal letter), as the content of your magazine becomes increasingly irrelevant to me. At best I'm reading news I knew about at least 2 months previously. All the best SOS, and goodbye

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OK. I'll bite............

What was the point of this post? Some of the content in SOS is totally irrelevant to me too. e.g) The video side which has recently just been introduced. It still makes interesting reading though and won't stop me from buying it.

Perhaps you should stick to Playboy and the Beano.

............ and relax.

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And Bagpuss, once he was asleep, was just a saggy old cloth cat.

do you think rondema has something to do with nanostudio perhaps???


I do agree, an article on the relative merits and 'whats out there' on i-app (is that the right terminology?) would be good - but it's a fairly new thing - the music app thing...and Apple notes have covered some of the apps out there.....I reckon we'll see the article by Junes edition to be honest.....

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http://soundcloud.com/seaapes

Wease, you're probably right. And if he is, he deserves alot of credit for what looks to be a very high quality App. That said, the post was just a pointless rant. If indeed his is the developer and wants to get a review of his product, then this is not the best way of achieving that.

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And Bagpuss, once he was asleep, was just a saggy old cloth cat.

Relax dude. The next Notes From The Deadline is all about Angry Birds.*


*possibly not true

i want it to be known i have 3 stars on every level..including the seasons ones

and i'm rightly proud

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http://soundcloud.com/seaapes

what i'm MOST proud of is that there is not a single game of any description on my iPhone..... lots of tuners, meters, levels, measuring apps, mapping apps, remote control apps, file apps, and communications apps, but not one single pointless game......


so there !!!!!

Apologies for the short tempered post. I must stress that I'm in no way affiliated with the developer. He is way more tolerant (and much less contentious) than my nicotine withdrawn self.

I think my frustration peaked when I got to the 'sn-app them up' box in this months Apple notes and 'Akai's Synthstation' were the first two words I read.. followed by no mention of NanoStudio, which I would contend is the leading music making app at this point in time.

I realise that it is my focus that has changed, not that of SOS; I have recently been working solely within the confines of mobile music making and loving it more every day. It's a rapidly changing game and one that I feel strongly that SOS should be keeping abreast of.. maybe other music tech magazines do, but I'm not really interested in them to be honest.

to be fair rondema, i think you have a valid point...maybe the apple notes section could include an 'app watch'...and when windows apps start making inroads then 'app watch' could have it's own slot.

I quite like Nanostudio...i have it on my mac as well....but my issue is actually with my ipod touch which is not as easy to input audio into/hasn't got the speaker of note. I would seriously consider purchasing for an ipad or iphone however....and am interested in nano's future development

as for nicoteen...i feel your pain....and aint nearly so brave as to give up that particular naughty temptress yet

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http://soundcloud.com/seaapes

Guy7, I think you've been a touch harsh there. He said he'd emailed directly, but didn't get a response.

I might be wrong, but I suspect that one of the reasons that this forum was set up was to get customer feedback. Let's not scare people away from speaking their minds - rant or not.

Bazza

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This time next week, who'll give a sh*t
http://www.podcastrevision.co.uk

I haven't been scared off yet - and I admit that I clearly have had a rant

I reckon now is a good time to implement a dedicated mobile music section in both the printed issue and within the forums; Android, Windows and other mobile platforms are bound to make up ground on iOS over the coming months/years.

I find having a recording studio in my pocket a liberating and amazing experience; I'm keen to inform and involve as many other like-minded musicians/producers/engineers as possible. There is currently no one great centralised resource for all things mobile with the exception of a handful of blogs, notably
http://the-palm-sound.blogspot.com

That is all

Quote rondema:

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I find having a recording studio in my pocket a liberating and amazing experience; I'm keen to inform and involve as many other like-minded musicians/producers/engineers as possible.

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Say what ? studio? pocket? producers ?
Nanostudio has studio in the name but no in reality. Neither it has, could have much serious use (as yet or ever) for any pro, semi, quarter pro or serious amateur.
It is interesting,even amazing, definitely talented people involved in it but application for pro ? To do what exactly, and why ?
Why would anyone other than school kid passionate about music and using it secretly under the desk, ever had to use it for anything.
I like lots of others, formed already a habit of working on the move, no more wasting time on planes, airport etc, and it is not just some editing or corrections, actually open environment, watching people, traffic, landscapes etc can inspire different ideas then in closed studio. 13`` even 15`` MBP ( or some top pc notebook) let us use our regular softwares, no compromises, just a mobile extensions or normal studio enviroment.
I am absolutely for app section on SOS, there are many truly useful apps and real jungle of trash making good ones difficult to find. If not for such fora as this one I wouldnt find the ones I use.
I see valid reasons why serious publication like SOS did not review it as studio software - it is not. Just interesting, stunning gadget with not clear purpose or use. iPhone by the very nature of its size is excellent for all those meter, remote, calculator etc,etc purposes, wish there was new Mikey to work with new OS since it is ideal as little ideas/field recorder but `studio` ? It is the only of the music related apps that other than buying and testing a bit , never used.
Sorry for me it is only useless toy, though would love to be educated that I am wrong.

Edited by aviray (23/01/11 12:20 PM)

Useless toy seems a bit strong.
I think to dismiss the current and emerging platforms out of hand is a bit shortsighted. Of course there are many compromises, but for me songwriting is the goal and many of the limitations imposed actually increase my productivity substantially. As regards quality, of course there are compromises; however I can cope with 44.1khz/16bit for now.

I'm not suggesting that anyone should be looking to replace their studio with a iPhone and some cans.. I have however found some difficulty stuffing my laptop, interface, mics and controllers into my back pocket.

If you're still at all interested, my current workflow involves:

iPhone 3GS 32gb, Blue Mikey 2 (also provides stereo line in)

recording/ arrangement apps:

FiRe field recorder
NanoStudio
Looptastic Producer - for improvising and mashing loops from NanoStudio
Fourtrack
Ricepad

'instrument' apps:

Thumbjam
Jasuto
Curtis
And many more..

Audio (loops and full length tracks) can be moved between apps using one of two audio copy/paste standards. Many apps allow audio to be shared via Souncloud, email etc. NanoStudio allows wav export of either sequencer tracks or mixer channels for use in your 'real' studio.

I hope that is in some way enlightening.

Well, you did not answer main question regarding Nanostudio - "why and what for?" Portability is questionable since with all necessary adds on audio/midi like Akai Synthstation it gets more compared to 13``or smaller notebook with 100x or more CPU.
If there is some "why and what for" for Nanostudio, I would love to know, since I own this so unsed gadget and could be great to find some use for it ( though when I think of my school and uni times, I could see me using it all the time at boring lectures and seminars). Unless showed otherwise I see SOS ignoring it as absolutely understandable, it is lovely, creative, innovative but useless toy.

Quote aviray:

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compared to 13``or smaller notebook with 100x or more CPU.

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I don't know about you, but I'd struggle to fit a 13" laptop into my pocket. I don't have an iPhone, but I feel dissapointed when the 'It'll never catch on' crowd rear their head.

I've lived (kept my mouth shut and ears open) through:

Personal computers - will never catch on
Digital recording - will never catch on
Computers in recording - will never catch on
The CD - will never catch on
Disco/dance music - will never catch on
Touch screens - will never catch on
The synthesizer - will never catch on

and quite a few more. Before these there were:

Electricity - will never catch on
Recorded music - will never catch on
Analogue tape - will never catch on
The wheel - will never catch on
The electric guitar - will never catch on
Rock and Roll - will never catch on
Anti slavery laws - will never catch on

and quite a few more.

So dont be too quick to judge, even if something already does the job and always remember Moore's law!



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11011110110010101111 - 110000001111111111101110 - 101110101101
Hexadecimal binary coding anyone?

Quote idris y draig:

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what i'm MOST proud of is that there is not a single game of any description on my iPhone..... lots of tuners, meters, levels, measuring apps, mapping apps, remote control apps, file apps, and communications apps, but not one single pointless game......


so there !!!!!

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Spirit for iPhone

Quote aviray:

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Unless showed otherwise I see SOS ignoring it as absolutely understandable, it is lovely, creative, innovative but useless toy.

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I apologise if I upset you with my first post.. however you seem to be failing to understand me and I'm not going to reiterate myself for your benefit. Please feel free to re-read my posts above more carefully. There are no necessary add-ons.. I only use the Blue Mikey because it improves on the dynamic range of the iPhone mic and adds line-in. It will fit in another pocket.

Quote Freuman:

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...always remember Moore's law!

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Thankyou for your reasoned and rational response! Clearly we are not all of an age or maturity to benefit from hindsight

On the mobile music making topic (although iPad focused)

This discussion at Palm Sounds was prompted by this post at Synthtopia

I have nanostudio and whilst I haven't yet used it much, it does have some interesting possibilities and considering it is running on a hand held device, it is a remarkable little app.

Should SoS be covering this (and other apps)?

It will be the first nail in the magazine's coffin if they don't!

10 billion iPhone apps downloaded by Sunday just gone. I think there's not much else that can be said.

NanoStudio has won the best iPhone Music app category for 'Best App Ever 2010'

http://bestappever.com/2010winners.pdf


v1.13 just submitted to Apple brings:

Support for Core MIDI using the Camera Connection Kit (iPad only)
Added MIDI thru for Akai SynthStation 25 (NanoStudio will respond to MIDI events received via the SynthStation's USB MIDI port)
New Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer library
OSX version has improved MIDI input parser (fixes stuck note problem with some MIDI controllers)
Eden pan/filter modulation bug fixes


v1.2 which is not too far behind is planned to bring:

- Another bank of 16 samples for the TRG-16 (I think any more banks than 2 might be better solved by being able to add another TRG instrument in future)
- Increased polyphony of 16 for Eden and 32 for TRG
- 2 Insert effects on each mixer input track and 3 insert effects on the main mix output
- New compressor, EQ, filter and bitcrusher effects
- Offline processing of samples in the sample editor using these effects
- Maybe a bitcrush setting per TRG pad

Apparently work on the dedicated iPad version begins after v1.2, from what the developer has said it should be in the Spring. All of this (plus top notch user support and interaction) from one man.

Quote Sam the Scholar:

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Would like to see a SOS review! or an article about the developer

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I have to say Nanostudio is an amazing little app, I say little, it's not really, it's quite extensive in it's capabilities and expanding all the time.
It has some great synth sounds, all fully editable and creating patterns and songs is quite easy, even for a novice like me who had only ever used 4-track many years ago!
Now, I'm no pro or even amateur musician, just someone who loves music, so I can't really come across all geeky and go off one one about the relative merits compared to having a laptop running this that or the other....
Nanostudio is £8.99 it's very user friendly and you can create some truly wonderful sounds on it, it has an inbuilt sampler and editor, and within minutes you can knock up some decent, unique sounding loops.
I've demoed it to a few musician friends and they were very surprised at the quality of the sounds and it's capabilities. I'm not a total musical novice, I've had a Novation bass station for over 15 years and now have a Korg microsynth, so I can vouch for the synth sounds on the Nanostudio being of decent quality, and the drum sounds, while not mindblowing, are quite adequate, and you can load new drum kits, and create your own percussion if you so wish.
I would also mention that The gorillaz new album was produced on an ipad, so there's a glimpse into the near future if ever I saw it. No doubt there will be some purists aghast at such sacrilege, but for me, it has been an easy way to quickly create music on the fly, on the tube, in my lunchbreak, whenever, with instant gratifying results.
I'd certainly checkout it's capabilities before dismissing it as a "toy" no, it's not a pro bit of kit, but you will be surprised as to what wonderful sounds you can tweak out of it.

Quote:

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aviray:

Say what ? studio? pocket? producers ?
Nanostudio has studio in the name but not in reality. Neither it has, could have much serious use (as yet or ever) for any pro, semi, quarter pro or serious amateur.
...
Sorry for me it is only a useless toy, though would love to be educated that I am wrong.

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Nanostudio has been one of the most sensible buys I've made in over 15 years of hardware and software music making.

It has, within the space of 3 months, become my primary go-to environment for turning the sounds and structures in my head into a cohesive format ready for export into Ableton Live.

The four Eden synths are beautifully well thought out in their simplicity of architecture and interface, providing me - in a world filled with bloated and over-featured VSTs - with the means to rediscover the fun of bare-bones synthesis, combined with resampling and ample control envelopes to take simple beats into the realms of the MachineDrum. Each Eden has its own pairing of distortion/EQ and chorus/delay effects; with similarly useful group EFX on the master, this time replacing the distortion with a limited, but useful enough reverb unit.

Root source of most beats is of course the TRG-16. Again, like the Edens, the unit has both resampling and sample import, this time for each of the 16 pads. Each pad is available to two tracks in the 6 track sequencer, making Nanostudio an incredibly versatile digital 4-track. Again, this has taken me back to my late teens/early twenties, messing around with cassette 4-tracks... only loss-less audio and 15 years more experience of music.

Quote:

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http://soundcloud.com/ekcoplastics/sos - 45 minutes work in Nanostudio in response to non-user aviray

Sound at the start of the track was recorded with the iPhone mic - All other sounds are preset synth patches and the 808 drum set (some transposing and repitching made) - No control envelopes used in this initial version - Recording, arrangement and mixdown made entirely within Nanostudio - Exported as WAV with Nanosync to Windows XP PC - Converted to 160kbps mp3

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Like any musical instrument, the skill and inventiveness of the performer is key and thankfully Nanostudio provides an environment just open-ended enough to surpass the competition. Far from limited to the phones and iPads of the electronic music scene, it provides musicians of any taste to do something very few interfaces can... get an idea down... ANYWHERE. Even down to recording a quick vocal snippet into the phone's mic as the basis and building the idea over successive daily commutes. Take all that, export individual instrument audio tracks as WAVs, the final mix to A/B against in your DAW of choice and the component MIDI tracks in order to apply your favourite VSTs on a more powerful platform.

A gimmick, toy, or flash app for mobile music oneupmanship? Hardly. This program will prove itself to be one of the winners in future music making... who knows, maybe even a repeat of the success story that was emagic (much as a PC user, I forever hold some anger at the loss of Logic and SoundDiver) - whatever recognition and rewards come his way, Matt Borstel certainly deserves it!

I know sometimes it can be a fine line but freedom of expression and a passion for something is all good in my book.......just make sure to stay on the right side of the line and don't have any valid points pale in significance to an overly explosive rant.

On the subject, it is certainly interesting to me. I am currently going through a major shakeup of my home studio and my issues surround space and the ability to have a work flow environment. While in no way would an iphone/ipad "studio" replace my keyboard and PC it would certainly be nice to have a decent sketch pad. Currently my issues at home have brought any song writing ideas grinding to a halt simply because I am not fully up and running......a mobile sketch pad that has some nice features would at least give me a means to get a semblance of a song recorded - so I fully intend on having a look in to this side of things.

But I think for the majority it is virtually impossible for anything along these lines to be an alternative to what they are used to. If someone is strictly working with beats etc.., and not actually playing an instrument, then it does give them bigger flexibility but for a keyboard player like myself I'm always going to have a hulking digital piano/synth in my set up.

It's all good though and the passion shown has actually led to me reading through this thread and not just merely reading the first line, dismissing and moving on.

If you enjoy doing what you are doing, regardless of what you are using or actually doing (within the law you dirty, dirty people ) then keep going. I made a bit of a balls up a few years ago when I moved from a more simplistic recording setup to a PC based home studio. The software and possibilities are amazing but I spend more time fooling around on the PC than actually playing!! In the past it was all about the music........this is all my fault though and I now hope to merge artistic expression with technology at last.

Peace

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Hail Hail and up the VSTs