Musical apps that are inspiring me right now

I am continually fascinated by the concept of making music with small handheld devices. I’m not sure if it’s an influence of the style of music I enjoy, the fact that I have limited free time for creativity and need to have the ability to do so at a moment’s notice, that I carry an iPhone, or that it’s easier to keep my gadgets away from the kids (as opposed to a guitar). Regardless, the concept of “app store” has made it easier than ever to sketch out interesting musical ideas than ever before. Here are a few recent applications that have gotten my attention.

Reactable – based on it’s hardware big brother, you can use it to generate sounds and manipulate loops with a tactile feel. It does seem to require a lot of setup on the front end (feeding good loops you’ve prepared), but it’s quite pretty.

filtratron – load a sample, capture a sample through the iPhone mic, or just use the on board oscillator to generate real Moog-like tones. I’ll be using this app to capture interesting sounds, processing them into something interesting and unrecognizable, and exporting them for later use.

It’s a deep app, and just like it’s analog equivalent, every knob interacts with other knobs; it’s not just a singular function. Makes it harder to grasp, but rewarding and more intriguing in the long run.

This app, too, is just gorgeous. Take a look.

Wireseq – This app is a strange bird. It’s a music / phrase sequencer of sorts. You can set up sequences and patterns, defining notes. Then you trigger the patterns with if/then type rules akin to a cellular automata game. The idea is that a red square generates another red square (potentially triggering a note) unless it’s cancelled by another condition (like a blue square, or something like that).

The has a simple synthesis engine included that offers some variety without getting too much in the way. It’s sounds could easily fit into a b-side Radiohead track.

Regardless, I appreciate that within about 10 minutes I was able to get some usable and interesting tones, and the logic/math side of this app satisfied the engineer in me.