-Very user friendly

-Wide range of years, 1948-2009

-The option to buy the song you’re listing to

Cons:

-If you have bad service, song will cut out

I’ll be honest.  This is my first review of an app, so I felt it fitting to review one of the first apps I downloaded.  I bought it the second day I had my iPhone, and believe me, I am a frugal shopper when I look at apps.  So when I saw nuTsie’s Top 100’s, and for only $1.99, I figured it would be a good deal.

What I didn’t realize was how far back this thing goes!  Do you like Johnny Cash?  Elvis?  How about Ella Fitzgerald?  Nutsie goes back all the way to 1948, and finishes up at 2009.  That is 6,100 songs at your fingertips.  For $1.99, people.

It’s very simple to navigate, simply scroll to select your favorite year of music and let the music take you back.  Oh, what’s that, this song reminds you of bad memories from high school, getting a wedgie in the parking lot while someone’s car radio blasted “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera?  No problem, simply skip to the next song.

Essentially, nuTsie is a radio type app, like Pandora.  You can skip songs, you can purchase the song directly from iTunes, and you can even go to the YouTube music video while still in the app.

However, for you to enjoy the music to the fullest, you have to be in an area where you get full service, or at least a strong wireless signal.  Otherwise, you will be singing a capella at the top of your lungs to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” when the music suddenly cuts out.

Overall, this is a good app for the cost.  Unfortunately, if you like alternative music that isn’t mainstream, you’re not likely to find many songs here that you’ll enjoy.  But I do have to say that this is an app that saves me from buying songs on iTunes, but keeps me guessing.  You never know when you’ll hear a song that you love, but you completely forgot about.

4.5/5
$1.99

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**Note: This review is a blanket review – having beta tested all the apps in the Groove Maker series, they all operate in the same basic way, the main difference are the sound loops.

The application is a new revolutionary way of creating music and it’s going to change the way people DJ on the go.

Check out this MP3 I created using the app LIVE with the Hip-Hop version!
I simply plugged a stereo cable from my iPhone into my computer and recorded it live in Audacity. Nothing else was edited on the song.

Pros:
-Easy to learn UI
-Export your song via WiFi (as a *.wav file)
-Multiple song pack per app
-A lot of loops per app (about 70-100 loops per song)
-Loops stay on beat – no attempting to match the beat
-Tempo modifier (& pitch)
-Loads quickly (after initial load)
-Intuitive & Interactive Help
-Save songs/layouts

Cons:
-Song created is limited to approximately 3.5 minutes/ 15 grooves per sequence
-No fading between grooves
-No filters
-Changing tempo also changes the pitch

4/5

Intro:

The Groovemaker Apps are a new way of creating great music on the go. Intermediate users of electronic music creation will find this app on top of their best music creation apps for the iPhone.

Buttons & Using the Interface:
The interface is quite intuitive and unique. When you open the app, you can choose from a set of songs. On the initial load, the song will take some time to unpack. After this is done, you will not have to do this again for that song. In the main interface you have pads in the middle, below that is a waveform. Tap on a pad and it displays the waveform for that loop, this will help you introduce loops on the beats you want especially if you are performing live.

The buttons of the right side are randomization buttons. These four buttons allow you to randomize the loops depending on the button you tap on – A – D. This is really a nice touch especially if you are just brainstorming to find your new groove.

Below these buttons is the Tempo button. By tapping on it 3 times, the app averages the beat and sets the new tempo. If you want to be more precise, you can hold down the tempo button until a set of buttons appear (about 2 seconds). You can utilize the tack wheel to speed up/down the tempo or you can even be more precise by tapping the “+” & “-” buttons. By holding down the tempo button again the tempo setting disappear. The only thing I really didn’t like about this was the fact that it actually changes the pitch of the loops, that’s not exactly something I like happening, I’d rather change them interdependently.

On the opposite side of the screen you have the interactive help. The interactive help is very neat as it…well… let’s you interact with the app & helps you get to know how to use the application very quickly. The other buttons are your preferences – allowing you to set which pads are randomized via the randomization buttons. While I found this nice, I didn’t fully enjoy it as I couldn’t pick pads out of order, rather I had to choose 2-5 or 2-7, etc. The next button allows you to go back to the song menu. Next is the sequencer, more on that later, lastly, the master button, this controls the master volume for your song.

In the middle of the bottom side of the screen you have 4 very important buttons. The far right one allows you to pull up a loops list and select a loop for the pad. Tapping on the Track button pulls up another set of buttons. The one on the left coordinate the pads on screen allowing you to empty, lock, solo, and/or mute the pads. The ones ones the right side of the screen allow you to control the volume of the pad/loop and it’s pan. Of course to remove the buttons you simply tap on the track button again. The play button is what gets your groove on (pun intended). Lastly, the Groove snap button, this is explained in the next section.

Music Creation:
I really loved how easy it was to create songs. You simply get the pads going the way you want to, then tap the “Groove Snap” button and this saves the “groove” you have created into the sequencer. Before I continue I must explain some terminology – A “Pad” contains a loop. A “Groove” contains a mixture of up to 8 pads playing at once within an 8 Bar/32 beat groove. The “sequencer” allows you to put multiple grooves together to create your song. With me so far? I hope so.

Continuing on… Once you have your pads in place you tap the Groove snap button, this saves you pads and whether they are on or not, you then can change the pads and press the Groove Snap button again to save another groove. These set of actions is what make Groovemaker so unique, you don’t have to turn off the music to save a piece of your music. Once you feel you have saved all the grooves you want, tap on the sequence button on the right side of the screen.

All the buttons will be replaced by the sequencer except for the buttons on the right. The sequencer is separated into four portions – the top one contains all the grooves you’ve saved, the second one (from the top) is your sequence, the third section displays where you are listening to in your sequence and the very bottom are buttons allowing you to empty you sequencer, place certain grooves into the sequencer, play the sequence, mix browser (allows you to save you song/sequence to edit later) and finally the almighty Export button – you’ll need WiFi for that.

The main thing that happens here is – you drag saved grooves (first row) into the sequencer (the second row). While I found this very easy to do, I wasn’t a fan of being limited to only 15 grooves in my sequencer… it broke my groove. I suppose a way around this is to export the first 15 grooves, create a new set, then export and so on.

If you are wanting longer song exports and more control in-between groove changes, I’d recommend exporting your grooves independently, then mixing them on another sequencer. Hopefully in one of their next updates they will allow this to occur.

Performing Live:
Live performances are possible however depending on how you are soloing & muting buttons, it can easily get confusing to which pad is actually playing. However, you can select multiple pads and press the solo/mute buttons. The main issue here is you have to “hold” down one pad while tapping on other pads to select multiple pads at once.

Overall:
I found this app quite nice and easy to use I’d recommend this to anyone interested in creating music in their spare time, but for anyone that likes making their trance (for instance) songs longer that 3.5 minutes or creating sudden changes in the song rather than over a 32 beat section, this might not be the best application for you.

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Pros:
-Extremely interactive, great for anybody!
-Sound is very good
-Very cool global view
-Stream live to the world!

Cons:
-Sound echoes (reverb)

4.7/5

$0.99

Something that really impressed me was the breath-velocity & sound-output. Depending on how hard you breath into the mic, it will affect how loud the tone is.

By tapping on the tower icon (wifi-looking-tower-thingy), a toolbar will appear with four icons (left to right) – the first is the Ocarina screen, the second is a global view, the third, a settings page and the fourth, is an about page.

Upon tapping the second icon from the left (the global view) what looks like Google Earth will appear (but of course you can’t do much zooming here) there are several yellow dots on the globe, these indicate other
Ocarina users. The app will automatically begin displaying a tune in this view, what you are hearing is someone else broadcasting their tune, (hence the tower emitting green circles in the Ocarina-view). At the top-left of the screen a heart icon is displayed, it you tap it, and then you are simply saying you enjoyed what the user was playing (you can view your stats in the about page). Next is the user that is broadcasting, their user name (you can create your user name in the settings tab). Then the icon on at the top-right allows you to skip to another user. What I really like about this view is the ability to visually see the stream coming from the user’s location as well as each tone that is being played.

On the settings screen, you can name your Ocarina, change the root (the lowest note that the Ocarina begins its scale on [I think.]) You can change the modes, the colors of the “holes” and the “breath” You can switch on/off the “Play melodies when asleep” or “Share your
melodies,” I believe these options are self-explanatory.

Overall I was extremely impressed with this application for a mere $0.99 .

This application is nearly perfect to me, I am giving it a 4.7/5, mainly because it’s a great app for $0.99, I however would like to see improvement on the sound output, as the echoing sounds annoy me a little. Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts]]> http://www.theiphoneappblog.com/ocarina/feed/ 0 http://www.theiphoneappblog.com/fingerpiano/ http://www.theiphoneappblog.com/fingerpiano/#comments Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:54:00 +0000 Matt Sawyers http://66.147.244.179/~theipho4/?p=20

Pros:
-Full keyboard
-Interesting take for a piano application
-Should be a fun app for kids

Cons:
-Inaccurate template for tempo
-Sound quality poor for repetitive key presses.

FingerPiano is a piano app with a twist, it shows you which keys to press in order to play a certain song. All the song are classical songs from which you may have heard at one point in your life. There are some 52 songs within this application. Some of the songs include a left set and a right set. So you could possibly play along with a friend that has the same app.

As you tap each key the scrolling bars advance to you know which key to press next. In the top right-hand corner there are 4 buttons that look like a rewind, stop, play and a fast-forward buttons. The fast-forwards
& rewind buttons allow you to move from song to song. The play button will automatically play the song so you can hear the song and follow the tempo of it.

The blue bars represent the White-keys and the green bars represent the black-keys to be pressed. The length of each bar is supposed to determine how long of a pause there is before the next key is pressed,
however, this is not always accurate and is somewhat frustrating for the quicker notes.

The sound is okay for slow notes, but for fast notes, the notes cut off the previous notes, making it sound awful. You can press up to 5 keys at a time without getting distortion.

I would like to see the ability of scoring like a quitar-her-type game. And if nothing else, I’d like to see half on the song played by the app while the user plays the other half. Or something like a test-mode

Video:Normal | Mobile

3.5/5

$2.99

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