Remixable iPhone App is the Future of Music Distribution
10:56 am, February 13th, 2009, Lonnie Lazar
Future Audio Workshop has developed a groundbreaking application for iPhone and iPod Touch that may point a way to the future of global music distribution, making other portable formats look like wax cylinders by comparison.
Deadmau5 Remix is a $3 app that lets anyone with a mobile Apple device running iPhone 2.2 (or higher) firmware, regardless of their level of experience, mix and remix every song on a 10 track album by one of the hottest stars in the electronica firmament.
Users can change BPM, control up to four concurrent effects, skip to the next phrase or back to the last one, loop a phrase, and cross fade between the two tracks, or from one to the next.
And since the tool is so easy to use, it lets anyone DJ a dance party by plugging their device into a stereo and getting a groove on.
This app could lead to a wholesale change in the way music is consumed, according to Wired blogger Eliot Van Buskirk, who points out that, because an iPhone app can contain audio, video, images, software, lyrics, web links and games — all of which are updatable from the server side — an $18 CD starts to look fairly ridiculous.
As other mobile phone platforms embrace the app store model, cellphone makers are sure to enable installing apps like this on millions of devices. When that happens, as Van Buskirk writes, a plain old MP3 could seem just that: plain and old.
Posted by Lonnie Lazar in News | Comment on this article
“This app could lead to a wholesale change in the way music is consumed, according to Wired blogger Eliot Van Buskirk”
For maybe .1% of the people by “consume” music.
OlsonBW, on February 13th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Picked it up in the app store, pretty cool!
peter jones, on February 13th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
This is a little off topic, but I really hate the phrase “the way music is consumed”. Nobody “consumes” music. You might “listen to”, “enjoy”, “buy”, “obtain”, or “download” music… but at the end of your musical experience, the music is still there. It hasn’t been consumed.
Sean Peters, on February 14th, 2009 at 6:29 am
This so cool great find. I love the concept of a new more engaged music “format”. Regardless of the term “consume”, participate, whatever, music is more interactive now, and people experience it less by just “listening” – its searching, downloading, remixing, listening….
Jeremy, on February 15th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Yes, it is cool. As you say its a new format, where the artist releases an application as well as the music. Bloom is another good example. Music Videos for the 21st century!
andrew hoeks, on February 16th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Remixgalaxy.com is a similar app, only web based. I wonder if DJ’s are gonna just bring iPhones to parties in the future…?
Online Remixing Tool, on March 26th, 2009 at 9:06 am