Are you a table drummer? Then here’s a fantastic way to annoy your family and friends this weekend. It’s a iPad and iPhone app called AAS Objeq, which uses the iPad’s microphones to listen to your ceaseless, OCD tappety-tapping, and transforms it into more drumlike sounds. That it, the sound of you whacking the table becomes a bass drum, a chopstick on a water glass can become a hi-hat, and so on. The possibilities for irritating those around you are almost endless.
Teach your parents a lesson they won’t forget
Photo: Applied Acoustics Systems
Objeq costs $4, and is worth every penny if it helps you to teach your family a lesson this Easter Weekend. How dare your parents and siblings dare to cross the country to visit you in your student home so you don’t have to leave your studies or friends behind? Even better, Objeq requires headphones, so you can really let them know that you’re ignoring them.
Objeq works by processing the sounds from the microphone, and applying various filters to tune those sounds into percussion. It runs either as a standalone app, or inside another app like GarageBand or AUM as an Audio Unit.
Photo: Applied Acoustics Systems
The app offers three acoustic resonators: Beam, Drumhead, and Plate. These work as filters to change the sound. You can also alter the pitch, the day, and the tone, as well as other parameters, like whether you are hitting the virtual object in its center, or on its edge.
The sounds are pretty great, although they may not sound like the drums you were expecting. The app also picks up on background noise, although you can use the Mix control to fade the “dry” background noise from the headphones, and listen only to the effected sound.
Objeq can also be used as a filter on other sounds. Because it works as a plug-in inside other apps, you can use it as an effect, and feed other instruments through it. You could play a guitar through it, for example, adjust the pitch and timbre of the guitar sound. Of you could use it like a DJ uses filter when performing live, by adding it at the end of the chain, after the music.
So, while Objeq may be an amazing way to piss other people off, it’s also a serious music tool. It’s also a lot of fun, and it even looks great. Check it out.
Price: $3.99
Download: AAS Objeq from the App Store (iOS)
