Recording - January 2012 - 61

and then through a master “virtual Valve Force” tube emulation to warm the mix. Performance options include a conventional keyboard and a pair of XY Kaoss Pads, one for controlling parameters and the other for playing notes in your choice of scale with a sweep of a finger. Songs can be uploaded to SoundCloud, downloaded as audio and as data sets, and shared, and the program supports WIST, Korg’s new protocol for wirelessly synchronizing apps on nearby iOS devices using Bluetooth. Put all of this together and you have a powerful, great-sounding “old school” music construction system that is as educational as it is fun. Highly recommended.

Moog Animoog
$29.99; www.moogmusic.com

Animoog is the newest of these apps, having been released only a week or two before this issue went to press. But I’ve had a great time playing with it and can give you a pretty good idea of what to expect when you try it out. The “ani” in Animoog is the Anisotropic Synth Engine, which is Moog’s first software synthesis platform... and an impressive platform it is, too. The main display is an XY pad that shows an oscilloscope output of the current sound as a backdrop to a display of a user-definable Path, which modulates parameters of the sound engine. As the user plays notes, their Paths are illustrated on the display as well, with one color per note played. Paths are further modified by an Orbit, a cycling modulation whose width, depth and rate can be set to travel through 8 Timbres. Said Timbres are a collection of waveforms from a variety of analog synths that can be chosen from a popup list and added to a given sound. Then we have the usual yummy Moog trimmings: a gloriously thick multimode filter with envelope modulation and overdrive, three 4-stage envelopes with breakpoints, a syncable LFO, four user-definable modulation buses, and two postprocessing modules, Thick (bit crush, overdrive, detuning and unison modes) and Delay (also syncable). A built-in Record module lets you capture your playing and overdub to create thick sonic landscapes that can be copied and pasted to other apps with AudioCopy and AudioPaste, Sonoma Wire Works’ rapidly-spreading audiosharing standard.

The virtual keyboard is worth a mention—it’s a Buchla-esque series of touchpads that can add modulation to individual notes by sliding the fingers up and down. You can select which notes are displayed/playable by choosing a scale constraint (minor, major, pentatonic, various modes, etc.), or by choosing Chromatic and selecting or deselecting certain notes in the scale. Pitch and modulation strips can be added or hidden in the Setup menu, and you can determine how tightly Animoog constrains side-to-side motions as pitch bends. The end result is a very playable and excitingly organic synth engine with lots of sonic complexity and a very intuitive playing style. While I think that Moog’s claim that Animoog is “the first professional polyphonic synthesizer designed exclusively for the iPad” smacks of hyperbole, that doesn’t detract from the amazing sonic possibilities contained in the app. Animoog is a sound designer’s dream, and makes very good use of the iPad’s multitouch capabilities to bring lively and expressive nuance to a fantastic synth engine. I can’t wait to see what the world’s synth hounds do with it!
RECORDING JANUARY 2012

http://www.moogmusic.com

Recording - January 2012

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