In 2010, Hong Kong musician/producer/composer Gaybird Leung invited Henry Chu to create a music app for his show Digital Hug, he was inspired by SoundGyro and want to create an instrument that could respond to body gesture like a theremin. Squeal is aimed to launch with 100 faces and you are invited to take part. The team has gathered faces from designers, artists, athletes, musicians, office ladies, writers, directors…. If you are interested to become part of this app, send them your portrait and information and they will put into our queue. They cannot guarantee your face will be used but of your information will be kept securely and will only use for contact only.

The app is currently in development and expected to be submitted to the AppStore in July.

Henry Chu is a Hong Kong based new media artist / interactive web designer. After he finished his Electronic & Electric Engineering Degree in University of Auckland, New Zealand, he came back to his birthplace Hong Kong and started his digital design career in 1998.

Previously:
Squiggle [iPad, openFrameworks] – Draw lines, and play them as …
SoundGyro [iPhone, openFrameworks] – Sound by gyroscope /by …
Sound Yeah [iPad, Sound, openFrameworks] – Tap to play, drag to …

www is the latest iPhone application by Kazuyuki Okamoto (OKAHON), the name behind NNN Mono, Powon and iOSC, experimental sound applications for the iOS platforms. www is a new step, creating an abstract sound toy using strings/waves analogy as a core method to generate sound soon available for both iPhone and iPad.

What makes “www” musical instrument unique is the extent of functionality hidden behind what may at first appear as a simple guitar like instrument. When you start the app, you will find three strings on the screen which you can straight away play with. At the bottom left corner you will find a very small “+” sign opening a whole set of new options. The first layer includes record, play, stop, repeat. The next “+” sign that you will see as one of the options that has just appeared you can swtich on/off any of the strings. Longer tap on any of the on/off buttons will bring additional settings for that wave, allowing you to change mass, ConstK, Drag, Attack force, Tention, Play Mode, Accel Force, Accel pan value, Portamento value and Wave Control Point Display toggle. Tapping on the bars at the top of the screen will allow you to switch to Pitch transpose pad or draw bars where you can adjust Adjust the amplitude of each harmonic. Further down you have a number of other options including ability to frequency of tempo modulation, depth of tempo modulation, change colours of the UI, and finally access to sequencer which is also available.

The app has just been submitted to the AppStore and should be available soon for $1.99. See video below.

For more information, see okahon.com

Platform: iPad/iPhone (Universal)
Version: 1.0
Cost: $1.99
Developer: Okahon

Previously:
NNN Mono and Powon [iPhone]: Two experimental sound apps from the …
iOSC [iPhone]: OSC Controller for your iPhone …

Featured in our “Must have iPad Apps” but never got a post of it’s own, Thicket is now version 2 and with that it’s own feature on CAN. In case you missed it, Thicket is an audiovisual app created by Joshue Ott and Morgan Packard. It is also a world of texture, movement, line and tone. Thicket is part toy, part wind chime, part spiderweb. The app is now also on sale for $0.99 – to celebrate the new release (normal price $2.99).

If you like snowflakes, chaos, fire, and music without words, there’s a good chance you’ll love Thicket. It’s wonderful + visual joy guaranteed!

What’s new in ver 2:
-completely new mode system: simply tilt your device to change modes.
-two brand new modes.
-5 different modes total!
-added more information to the info screen
-new ultra smooth VGA out mode (non-mirrored)

Also, Thicket is a side project of intervalstudios, a collective Joshue Ott and Morgan Packard. Joshue’s also known for his SuperDraw app, while Morgan composes and performs with his own SuperCollider application called Ripple. You can hear his music here. (edit 09/11/2010)

In case you are interested how to get the video out in your app, Peter has a nice post about both the Thicket and Video-Out on the iPad.

Platform: iPhone/iPad (Universal)
Version: 2.0
Cost: $2.99
Developer: intervalstudios

Soundrop is a sound toy application for iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch which allows you to create sounds by drawing lines on the screen and have ball bouncing off them. Each time the ball touches the line, a sound is generated. Depending on the location of the line on the screen, the tone of the sound is set. You can move the ball emitter, changing the nature of the composition. You can modify the location of lines by dragging points that define them alternatively double tap on any line will clear it. Wonderfully simple and a lot of fun to play with. Check it out..it’s free.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0
Cost: Free
Developer: Develoe LLC

SunVox is a modular sequencing application that has been ported to almost every platform under the sun (sorry, terrible pun). It’s especially targeted to mobile platforms – in addition to working on Windows, Mac and Linux, it also works on PalmOS, Windows Mobile, and now the iPhone. I spent a little time with the iPhone version and am pretty pleased with what I’ve seen so far.

The interface is split into 3 areas which can be resized more or less at will by tapping on the resizer bar. This is very important because SunVox packs a lot of features onto one screen. The top area features a Tracker style pattern editor. Users of Buzz, Psycle, Traktor, etc. will find themselves right at home. The bottom right features a module view where you can create and link up modules and the left area shows the settings for the selected module. Figuring out how stuff works is fairly easy and for the most part everything works as expected.  The tracker pattern area takes a little getting used to since you don’t move the cursor by direct tapping, but instead by dragging.  This setup makes sense  when you don’t want to obscure what you are tapping on.  Plus you can do the pinch/zoom gesture to zoom in and out.

Overall the GUI is very snappy and it doesn’t ever seem sluggish. I appreciate the nice big font in the tracker view and the overall look is nice, but could use a little more color in places to jazz it up. I also like that each pattern has it’s own user drawable icon – a nice creative touch that works great on the small screen. While the interface is good there are a few things that could be improved to really optimize the experience for the iPhone. For one – there’s no reason to display the iPhone status bar at the top. It’s very easy to hide and would free up valuable screen real estate. Second – while the resizing windows works well, I think the ‘one window’ approach would work better on the iPhone. I would have 3 icons to switch between the three windows and show each  screen full sized. Having to constantly resize your workspace depending on what you are working on is a waste of time.

My other critique has to do with the built in sound modules. While they are interesting and easy to play with, they don’t really offer much in the way of tweakable parameters. If you are looking for even a simple 1-Osc synth with an enveloped filter you may be disappointed. SunVox keeps the same modules across all platforms which is great, but I know the iPhone is capable of a little more than what’s offered. That said, the simple modules should let you hook up lots of stuff, and you can also use samples, so users should still find lots of creative alternatives. Having simpler modules also gives the app a signature gameboyish sound, which is cool.

Gripes aside, SunVox is a really nice platform for sketching out musical ideas. I had a little tune up and running within minutes.  I can see this app really appealing to fans of other hand-held sequencing platforms, like the Gameboy, PSP and DS, and anyone who’s longed for a handheld version of Buzz. The fact that you can hook up Generators and Effects however you like should allow for a lot of fun experimentation. This app is a lot deeper than most iPhone apps and is really worth exploring.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.4.5
Cost: $4.99
Developer: Alexander Zolotov

From the creators of iOSC, an iPhone application that can communicate with other compatible hardware and software nodes on your network, come two new sound application: Powon and NNN Mono. Considering Powon is a free app, this makes it a must download. If you are looking for creative synthesiser app, NNN Mono definitely deserves a closer look. There are plenty of videos on the site (see some below), that should give you a good overview of features the app includes. Here is some more info on each app.

NNN Mono, a more complex monophonic synthesizer and musical instrument. Costing $3.99, the app includes a number of oscillators (with OSC output), low pass, high pass, band pass, band stop filters, three envelope generators, a number of modulations, arpeggiators, delay and other features wrapped in a gorgeous minimal interface. You can save your settings and your creations are created in 44.1kHz stereo. To see full specification and tutorials, check out this instruction booklet (PDF) and plenty of videos available on the site, two of which are embeded below.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0.1
Cost: $3.99
Developer: OKAHON

Powon

Powon is a sound toy, a free app that allows you to generate sound using waves. You can play simple music with 1 octave. It includes eight kinds of sounds, you can change the screen color, adjust the wave movement, use as a simple OSC controller by entering the iP address and port number. You can remote control the middleware such as Max MSP, Processing, ActionScript (FLOSC) and many other devices that support the OSC protocol from your iPhone. There is also an application for Windows, Mac that can be operated with Powan and you can download it here (see video below)

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0.1
Cost: Free
Developer: OKAHON