"Apps We Got To Have” is a series dedicated to sharing info about the apps that we love to use with the jamstik. We’re not concerned with doing “deep dive” style reviews where we go over every detail of an app in exhaustive fashion, we’ll leave that to Dischord and Synthtopia. What we want to do is demonstrate the one or two things we love about an app, what makes it valuable for use with the jamstik.
The acronym MIDI stands for “Musical Instrument Digital Interface.” In the simplest explanation, MIDI is a language (technically speaking, it’s a protocol) that allows digitally-controlled musical instrument devices to communicate to each other. MIDI has been around since the early 1980’s. It was primarily used with synthesizers and sequencers, but quickly got implemented on all kinds of musically-related gear (drum machines, mixers, drum pads, synchronization boxes, etc.)
Recently, I re-created Charli XCX’s song “Boom Clap” using only a MIDI guitar controller (jamstik). We set out to do as much as we could with the jamstik exclusively in GarageBand and the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6 really works well for this, so it’s not really a challenge to work only in the iPhone as a “limitation.” Like we demonstrate in our “GarageBand Loop Recording” video, you can record your ideas without stopping the music if you make your instrument track selections in advance.