Have you searched the term “MIDI” on the iTunes App Store recently? If you haven’t, give it a try. As a word of caution I’ll warn you to not be overwhelmed by the results you’ll find. There’s a ton of apps that reference “MIDI.” Like many things on the App Store in general, you’ll need a much more refined search or a direct link to an app to find value.
Or - you have a friend share with you about something that works for them. That’s why we’ve started “Apps We Got To Have.” (Yes, it’s grammatically a mess, but there was more fussiness about “Apps We Gotta Have” so whatever. Maybe we'll find a new title for this after we get more of them under our belt.) We've screened a lot of apps for use with the jamstik, and we’ve certainly got our favorites and “go-to’s” for certain sounds or functionality.
"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. Hopefully we uncover something you might have missed or didn’t know was out there in the App Store. Yes, we’re going to review some of the obvious choices, but we’ll hit the new releases too and pass along our findings so you won’t have to guess.
So to lead off the series we’re giving you three installments of “Apps You Got To Have.” (Sheesh, that grammar is already killing me…) We took a look at Apple’s GarageBand, UVI’s BeatHawk, and Onemie’s M3000 HD. Enjoy!
Christopher Heille
Music Product Specialist
Zivix
GarageBand on the iTunes AppStore - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garageband/id408709785?mt=8
BeatHawk on the iTunes AppStore - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beathawk/id839563064?mt=8
M3000 HD on the iTunes AppStore - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/50th-anniversary-edition-mellotronics/id375100093?mt=8
Also in Jamstik Blog
Revolutionize boring GarageBand tracks with killer drum samples
For all of GarageBand's amazing features and improvements, there's one place where some users believe GarageBand falls flat quickly; drum sounds. This blog is going to walk through a specific AudioUnit Extension enabled app, UVI's BeatHawk, to play new drum sounds in GarageBand like a software plugin.
Have you ever wanted to score your own composition or riff?
If you've wanted to use the jamstik+ for composition or notation, Guitar Pro 7 allows you to do exactly that for guitar, bass, drum, or keyboard using tablature and/or standard notation!
Expert Advice from Kendrick Lamar's Producer - Use Your iPhone
If you haven't already seen Wired's piece on Steve Lacy—he's a producer with a track on Kendrick Lamar's latest release, and he does everything on his iPhone. If you're a jamstik+ user, this should have some inspirational power for you.
Chris Heille
Author