It is sometimes the simplest of ideas that catch your interest. Audreio is such an idea: a way to stream and record audio from a desktop DAW straight to another device, without having to leave your DAW.
When it comes to virtual effects and instruments, Sugar Bytes don’t really do ‘normal’. Even Unique, on the surface a pretty conventional-looking software synth, manages to pack in a twist or two...
ROTOR is the latest release by Barcelona-based Reactable Systems, and brings another slice of their attention-grabbing virtual modular synth to a wider audience.
Audiobus is compatible with Inter-App Audio as a host, and can make use of node apps in the same way as apps written to support Audiobus natively. Version 3 introduces two new areas of functionality: MIDI pipelines and a built-in mixer.
Slicing audio samples based upon transient detection is a well-established technology, however, VirSyn have added two very interesting further twists that up the ante considerably in creative terms...
GarageBand For iOS continues to impress as it becomes more sophisticated; and while you likely won’t finish a full production with this app, it’s becoming an increasingly good sketchpad — especially with the increased Logic interoperability.
For those wanting realistic acoustic drum parts, we don’t yet have a candidate for ‘EZ Drummer in an app’. Which is something that Blue Mangoo, the developers behind the excellent iFretless apps, are trying to achieve with Drum Session.
It’s getting harder and harder to produce an iOS sequencer with enough personality to stand out from the crowd, but it’s just possible Fluxpad is such an app.
Steinberg update Cubasis 2 with real-time time-stretching and a “carefully redesigned user interface”, which amounts to a flatter, cleaner design that’s a little crisper and more pleasing to the eye than previous versions.
Addictive Pro adds more complex oscillator configurations, a better effects implementation and a hot-rodded arpeggiator, but has surprisingly dropped the very useful four-track looper of the original Addictive Synth.
A numerical increase in a new iPhone’s name is usually representative of a significant change in the device’s physical design. The iPhone 7, however, breaks with this tradition and looks remarkably like the 6 and 6s models of the past two years. So what has changed?