Where music, culture and worship meet.

This blog examines, reviews and discusses how worship is being lived out in culture and in the church. We tackle everything from songwriting techniques in corporate worship, to interviewing worship leaders and pastors, to reviewing the last big rock concert.

May 06 2010

Amplitube iRig for the iPhone/iPad

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IK makes some quality modeling software and from the looks of it, can build a pretty good iPhone app as well. They recently announced their Amplitube iRig for the iPhone/iPad which is a full amp and effects rack for bass and guitar. I don’t see any screenshots of it on an iPad so I’m wondering if they are just upscaling the iPhone app, which would be a bummer.

They will release 3 different versions of the app, free (2 stompboxes, 1 amp+cabinet, 2 microphones), LE @ $2.99 (4 stompboxes, 1 amp+cabinet, 2 microphones), and full @ $19.99 (entire collection of available gear with 10 stompboxes, 5 amps+cabinets and 2 microphones). Then you have to pay for the adapter to plug in your guitar which runs $39.99, which seems ridiculous to me. Here’s what IK has to say about it:

AmpliTube iRig is a combination of an easy-to-use instrument interface adapter and guitar and bass tone mobile software.

With AmpliTube iRig, you can plug your guitar into your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and jam anywhere with world class guitar and bass tone right in the palm of your hand – from the leader in studio-class guitar and bass software.

Simply plug the iRig interface into your mobile device, plug your instrument into the appropriate input jack, plug in your headphones, amp or powered speakers, download AmpliTube for iPhone Free and start rocking!

You’ll have at your fingertips the sound and control of 3 recombinable simultaneous stompbox effects + amplifier + cabinet + microphone just like a traditional guitar or bass stage rig!

Add amps and effects as you need them — you can expand your rig with up to 10 stomps, 5 amps, 5 cabinets and 2 microphones in the AmpliTube iRig app custom shop.

Read more here.

Curious what practical applications there would be for something like this outside of jam software. Thoughts?

November 19 2009

Tip: iPhone SPL dB Meter App

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SPL Meter FrontThere aren’t too many more touchy issues than volume when it comes to worship in the church. Usually the chain of events goes something like, lady in church complains to pastor it’s too loud, pastor tells the sound man to turn it down, sound man gets defensive and says he can’t control the mix with how loud the amps are on stage, sound man yells at the guitar player and guitar player says he can’t get the tone he wants with the amp turned to 1. Then more and more barriers are placed around the drummer for good measure.

Sound familiar? This is where a good SPL dB meter comes into play. It gives you a reading of how loud you are and gives you something consistent to set the mix to. They can range in price from $40 to $250, and for many churches it’s just not worth the money. Well in comes the iPhone and a nice, accurate SPL dB meter for $0.99. You can’t really beat that.

I used it at my church and we got a reading that the pastor was happy with and now we know from week to week what to set to. I’d highly encourage you to get some kind of dB meter, but this iPhone SPL dB meter certainly gets the job done. It even has some configuration options for using external mics, but comes pre-configured for the iPhone internal mic.

September 29 2009

Promo video for the iPhone app I work on

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Many of you are aware that I don’t get paid for ministry work, I am what I like to call, full time volunteer. Yesterday I made a promo video for the iPhone app I work on that pays the bills. I did the soundtrack in GarageBand, great for quick little beats.

If you are interested in downloading the app we have a full version and free version on iTunes. Free version has static instead of animated radar, doesn’t let you set any radar options (transparency, speed), doesn’t let you drop pins on the map to get weather in precise locations and only lets you save 2 favorites. Go for the paid!

June 12 2009

Weekly Link Roundup: Ed Young cussing to Re:Sound launch

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Here’s what caught my eye this past week:

March 25 2009

Review: ‘Tempo’ iPhone App – portable click track

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I recently downloaded the Tempo iPhone App for $0.99. It has quite a few features for a little 99 cent app. When you first launch the app you see this screen:

Tempo iPhon App home screen

First impression is not that pretty of a UI. Color scheme isn’t my favorite, not soft on the eyes. But they do present you with all the basic functionality you’d expect out of a click generator. You can set your time signature, beat type, volume controls and setting the tempo either through tapping or explicitly setting the BPM. The tapping feature seems a little sensitive, but after a while you can get the tempo average to mellow out and give you a decently accurate setting.

The only other screen available is the settings screen:

Tempo iPhone App settings

The Animate Meter Change is kind of a worthless setting. Just turns off a very brief animation when switching time signatures. Play mode is pretty cool. Overlay mode allows you to play a song from your iTunes library and run the App on top of it. So you can tap out a time to a song in your library. That’s pretty darn handy. Sound set just changes the audio that’s played for the click. Digital is the best sound they have I think. The bummer with the drum kit sound set is they don’t offset high-hat and snare based on the time sig. Both high hat and snare just play together on every beat. That’s not really what you want when using a drum kit click track. Tuner feature is kind of nice, just plays the note tone. Maybe in a pinch it could be handy. Would be much better if it read tones from the mic of course.

The biggest annoyance with the app is stability. You can make it crash every time if you start the click track, then navigate into settings and change some setting. So they have some work to do on bugs. Practically I think the best uses I see for it now is tapping out tempos in your library and having a portable click track for rehearsals and laying down scratch ideas. Here’s the final score based on a 5 point score, 5 being the best and 1 being the worst.

Appearance: 3

Features: 4

Usability: 4

Price: 4

Stability: 2

Overall: 3.4 / 5

August 15 2008

Video: iDrum app for iPhone walkthrough

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The UI on this is pretty slick, quite apple’ish in fact. $5 seems quite reasonable as well, they have 2 versions, the Hip-Hop Edition and Club Edition.

 
iDrum for iPhone from Art Gillespie on Vimeo.

[via Synthtopia]

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