While there'll probably always be a market for fast and fun iOS music making apps, we're also seeing many deeper and more complex releases coming to market, too. Take iMusicAlbum's SoundScaper, "an experimental sound mini lab for creating unusual soundscapes, atmospheric textures, drones, glitches and noises based on circuit bending ideas."
This offers three sample-based oscillators that you can mix together and apply filtering to (a selection of samples comes included and you can also import your own). These are based on the schematics of 8-bit lo-fi sound playback chips and have 'circuit bending-like' controls. There are also three LFOs to control the filter and mixer parameters.
SoundScaper offers Audiobus and Inter-App Audio compatibility, though at least a third generation iPad is recommended if you want to make use of either standard. It's available now from the Apple App Store priced at £4.49/$5.99.
iMusicAlbum SoundScaper features
- Three sample-based oscillators with circuit bending like controls.
- Three LP, HP, BP filters and two range delay for each oscillator.
- Spatial mixer/reverb with side and distance for each sound source.
- Three low frequency oscillators for automation mixer and filters.
- Possibility to randomly generating parameters for each oscillator.
- Built-in library of natural samples grouped by categories.
- Scenes for storing and loading all operation parameters.
- Possibility to download additional samples in different audio formats.
- Uploading samples thru Web access, audio clipboard, from another app and iTunes.
- Different color schemes available for the user interface.
- Detailed application description.
- Supports Audiobus with "State Saving" feature.
- Inter-App audio compatible.
