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Steve Woodward
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Get that bleedin' kettle on

Paklsound vs. MS20

Someone had to do it - here's a rubbish video of Paklsound shoved through the External Sound Processor of my lovely old (but humming worryingly) Korg MS20. Um, let's see if Posterous can handle video, then.

Get the Flash Playerto see this player.
(download)

One of the functions of the External Sound Processor on the MS20 (the section bottom right of the patch panel) is that it can convert sound to voltage, detecting both pitch and a trigger level for turning the synth notes on and off. Hoohah.

Just to explain that bit in plain English: so Paklsound on my 2007-vintage iPod Touch is controlling the 1978-vintage MS20 synth. Hooray for technology, especially the old stuff.

This is a bit rubbish right now, but hey ho, it's a start.

Filed under  //   ipodtouch   paklsound   synth  
Posted August 21, 2008
// 0 Comments

Bleeping marvellous: Tenori-on style app arrives in the App Store

Come on - the first Tenori-on-style app for the iPhone has just arrived in the App Store, and is yours for the princely sum of 59p.

That continuous bar of blue dots travels across the screen and plays the dots it bangs into, with the higher the dots is up the screen the higher the pitch of the note. 

There's also a drum machine screen as well, and you can flip between the two screens using the buttons at the top. There's one instrument, a sort of tiny short flutey thing, sounds like it's off a SNES or something, pretty similar to some of the early Tenori-on demos I heard.

For 59p you can't really complain too much - but I'm a bleedin' cheapskate so I will a bit. The dots are pretty tiny (do I have unnaturally fat fingers?) so you do tend to hit the one next to it. More serious is the pause when you change patterns, you can almost hear it thinking "oh blimey, you want me to play something different? ah, ok" and pausing. 

Also it's really quiet on my iPod Touch, and there's no volume control to ramp it up a bit. I'm guessing you iPhone types would just use the volume controls on the side.

Anyway it's good fun, even if everything you do with it will sound pretty similar to this...

  
(download)


The developer promises more sounds and layers in future. There's more info at Paklsound1 site.

Filed under  //   application   ipodtouch   music   paklsound  
Posted August 16, 2008
// 0 Comments