Today I try to overview music programs for the "Android" platform. A lot of them has been written, and now I review only a few to leave the topic open for further discussion and elaboration.
"Back to the old-school!" - my attention was immediately attracted by a simple but quite interesting groovebox RD3 from Microsonic. Minimum and at the same time, a complete set of tools for anyone caught by "acid" wave in the 90s: a drum machine + TB-303. What else do we need to pump the dance-floor?! BTW, now many house-techno-musicians are looking for new inspiration in the "acid" sound...
Let's look more closely to sequencer: it is understandable in control, as well as most of the "hard" machines of that time. We turn to the "beats" tab and begin to "program" on drums. Immediately strikes a serious lack of the groovebox - there is no pan. Thereafter, we can not call this machine of full value. But never mind, we can create up to 4 patterns from 6 drums (choice of patterns is in the "mixer" tab), and then either run them in order, or use the algorithm of random choice of patterns. 8 sets of instruments of the cult drum-machines are available to us (Roland TR-808, -909, -606 and CR-78, LinnDrum, KR55, RZ1 and DMX).
Drums are programmed, and we go on to the "bassline" tab, to meet face to face with the king of old-school - Roland TB-303 Bass Synthesizer. Surprisingly the "king" did not disappoint my hopes and sounded so cheerfully and lively, that I ruffled nerves of all my friends on the first day of my acquaintance with the program. Options called "accent" and "slide" give very "truthful" sound, also there is a traditional resonant filter and modulation envelope. You should experiment with the wave form (available in "saw" and "pulse" mode) and you step into a world of good old "acid"-vinyl! Here we can also program up to 4 bass-patterns. Let’s go back in the "mixer", set the tempo, add a little of "overload", mix volume of the signals, and either manage our song in "live" mode, or give ourselves to the will of the case (at this moment: randomizer). Consider that your first live-performance was held!
It seems the producers are so inspired by the sales, that recently released a version of this groovebox marked HD: here we get the whole 2 TB-303, number of drums extended to 8, also there are effects (distortion, phaser and delay). Very impressive!))) But again I just did not find a panorama... :(
Also basing on the principle of vintage drum-machines has been built another music app: "Electrum" by Niko Twenty. There are more advanced functions of a sampler, the work with loops (up to more accurately fitting of overall tempo of the track), the ability to make a song of 32 different patterns. In result there will be 8 instruments available for you, but your own collection of samples and loops will expand the limits of the drum-machine. The more Niko has prepared for you a lot of sample packs for any taste. But again I HAVE NOT FOUND PAN FUNCTION! And this is exactly the reason why I did not stay with this program...
For snacks I left my favorite product to create music on the "Android". It is called "Nanoloop". The creator of Nanoloop was originally making this product for "Game Boy" and "Game Boy Advance" platforms.
Here, in addition to traditional sequencer, we have a sampler (be prepared for surprise: program will cut all your favorite 16 bit WAV samples down to 0.5 seconds, so get back BACK TO 90s :) You will need to convert your library into 8-bit samples))).
There's also a very interesting synthesizer that allows you to comprehend the foundations of sound design. The presence of a "white" noise generator makes it possible to create even percussion sounds (snares and hi-hats). In the "channel view" mode you can program a pattern, and then you can switch to a sampler (with the recording through a tablet microphone!) or synthesizer. All in all there are 6 channels available. In the "song view" mode vertical tracker is waiting for you, and you can program a very long song! I will not take bread from the author of the program and paint all its charms in this review: because Oliver Wittchow made an excellent and very competent manual for this program and it is available directly from the program (press "help" in menu mode), and on the official site.
My Nanoloop techno-minimal beat (synths only!):
Of course the program is not without flaws and different bugs, but I fear that for the owners of feeble "Androids" this is the only way: a simple program interface doesn’t overload the system unlike in RD3. When you work with RD3 the sound or image often hang up, but "Nanoloop" works out rather stable. Well, plus an amazing opportunity to touch the history of music trackers: the first release of the program was made in 1998, and for the original cartridges with "Nanoloop" for "Game Boy" you still have to run!
And finally the bad news... THERE IS ALSO NO PAN FUNCTION!
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