Here’s some pretty big news for iOS musicians: AudioKit’s Digital D1 synth is now an Audio Unit. What? That means that, instead of running as a standalone app, you can now run it as a plugin inside your music app of choice. It also means you can run more than one copy, putting one instance on each track of GarageBand, for instance.
And what makes D1 more interesting than other synths for iOS? A few things. One, it’s open source and built by volunteers. Another is that it looks and sounds amazing. And finally, it’s totally ’80s, giving you the synth sounds of pop music’s best decade. Radical.
AudioKit Digital D1 Synth
Photo: AudioKit
Here’s my quick description of the D1, taken from my post about its launch.
AudioKit, the developer behind the incredible Synth One, is back with the Digital D1. It’s a virtual analog synth inspired by the synthesizers of the ’80s and ’90s. In addition to its rad retro synth sounds, you get effects like reverb, a phaser, delay, distortion and that ’80s essential, chorus. More than a gigabyte of samples have been squeezed in (and compressed to make the app just 150MB to download).
The D1 mimics classic synthesizers like the Yamaha DX7. I probably don’t need to do much explaining, because one listen to this clip will tell you exactly what this app is capable of:
In addition to these sweet retro sounds, the app offers hundreds of presets to get you started. Plus, it plays nicely with pretty much every iOS music app technology: syncing via Ableton Link, AudioBus, Inter App Audio. And of course, you get the new Audio Unit capabilities, letting you use up to three instances of the same app at once.
AudioKit Digital D1 Synth
Price: $7.99
Download: AudioKit Digital D1 from the App Store (iOS)
Photo: AudioKit
