SoundGrid

Brad H | Apr 26, 2010 Music

User rating:

(15 votes, average: 2.93 out of 5)

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A few months ago a friend of mine sent me the you tube promo video for the Novation Launchpad for Abelton Live. The device is a controller for making beats and loops. I fell in love instantly and even though I’m not in the music scene I totally wanted one.

Now thanks to mifki and their app SoundGrid I don’t have to spend more than five dollars to have my own beat maker only iPhone. It’s no Novation but this thing is AMAZING. This app is by far the best music app I have played with. It’s easy enough to pick up right away and hammer out some beats, and the mixing options are there to get complex with your beats.

Everything is broken up by layers and patterns. You have separate layers for each different instrument and you can have up to eight instruments. With each instrument you can make eight different patterns to switch between.

When you first load up the app you need to go into the menu and under the instrument settings where you can download more instrument options (for free) giving you a total of 31 separate instruments.

Once you have all your instruments downloaded choose one and get started. You have a 16×16 grid, by tapping a spot it will play the sound, when you hold the spot for a second it will lock in that sound to always play on the loop. Each spot horizontally represents a different sound and the spots vertically designate when in the loop it will be played. Each layer is a different color so you can differentiate the sounds, and as your mix is playing you get a nice little light show.

You can record your mixes so the more loops you create, the more choices you will have. There is a live play mode that shows each layer and pattern created so you have easy access to all of your loops. Then when your feeling adventurous you can start messing with the bpm ratio, volume levels, distortion, etc etc..

This app is loads of fun to play with even for someone without a musical background like me. Another thing to note is that this is version three and I saw some old demo videos and mifki has made some great improvements to the app so you can count on this app being supported into the future.

For all you iPad owners this app doesn’t loose a thing when in the 2x mode.