iOS is getting to be a serious platform for musicians. Lots of musicians already know that, but now some amazing hardware is appearing that takes advantage of the little devices. The latest is Positive Grid’s Bias Mini, for guitar and bass, 300-watt guitar amplifier that takes its sounds from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac app.
The new iRig Stomp I/O is a one-stop box for using your iPhone, iPad or even Mac with a musical instrument. You place it on the floor, drop your iDevice onto the provided shelf space, connect it to an amplifier, mixer or speakers, and you’re away.
The idea is that you can hook up a guitar or microphone and use it with any of the music apps on your device, and control it all with foot pedals.
Apple has come out with a colorful new ad for the iPhone X that shows off the device’s amazing selfie camera at one of the most craziest parties in the world: Carnaval in Brazil.
The new ad is part of Apple’s push to make more regional ads. Apple made a similar ad for Carnaval last year that focused on Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus.
Watch the fun new ad:
Apple’s new HomePod speaker might be the dumbest smart-speaker on the market.
Based on early reviews and leaked info, it appears that Apple has seriously crippled Siri on the new HomePod speaker and removed some features, making it vastly different than the version of Siri that lives on your iPhone.
Logic Pro, GarageBand’s big brother, just got a big update to coincide with the NAMM music trade show. In addition to lots of new effects plugins, and a couple of relaxed new Drummers is something called Smart Tempo. This banishes the click track, and lets you create music that is much more organic, but still perfectly in time.
Apple’s recent acquisition of Shazam might be a great way for the company to drive subscriber growth, according to one early Shazam investor.
DN Capitol chief executive, Nenad Marovac, gained a deep understanding of Shazam’s business model after his firm invested in it back in 2004. Marovac says Shazam will be a great way for Apple to try to catch up with Spotify in terms of subscribers, if it can convert enough Shazam users.
Apple has rolled out its first watchOS 4.3 beta ahead of a public release this spring. The update brings a number of welcome improvements, including a new Nightstand Mode and greater control over your music.
The Eventide H9 is a magical effects box for musicians, and it is especially relevant to iOS users because it can be completely controlled by an iOS app via Bluetooth, putting virtual knobs and dials on the screen of an iPad or iPhone. Today, we’ll review the EvenMidi, which is a box that does one thing — adds bunch of knobs the the Eventide H9 so you never need to touch a screen again.
Apple’s HomePod speaker has once again leaked new information about its self ahead of its launch, including how you’ll manage its settings once you finally get one.
Screenshots from HomePod testers in France have leaked out online showing the different settings options you’ll be able to choose from in the HomePod iOS app.
Get ready to pour some Def Leppard into your Apple Music playlists.
The British rock band has finally released its full collection of albums on Apple Music and other streaming services after years of fighting against the format.
If you want to listen to music on your Mac, you either suffer its built-in speakers, or you plug a speaker into the headphone jack. But what if you want to get sound into you Mac? Or you have some fancy speakers hooked up to a fancy mixer, and the little headphone output doesn’t cut it, quality-wise? Then you should switch to USB. And don’t worry — you won’t have to install drivers, or any of the other crap that makes PC use so painful. In fact, using a USB audio interface is as easy as plugging in a pair of headphones, only better.
IK Multimedia’s new iRig Keys is the single perfect accessory for an iOS musician. It combines everything you need into one box, but not in a Homer’s Car kind of way. It’s more like the iPhone itself, which managed to combine a computer with a camera with a mini touch-sensitive movie screen into something better than a mere collection of parts.
You iPhone is pretty handy for making quick audio recordings. Many musicians use the Voice Memos app, and some have upgraded to Music Memos. Unfortunately, the quality of the recordings from those apps isn’t good enough for actual music making.
For a start, it’s not stereo. Second, the iPhone’s mics are fine, but nowhere near as good as even a cheap external microphone. But using your iPhone to record is so convenient. Roland’s R-07 is a pocket audio recorder that works either alone or in tandem with your iPhone. It gives you the quality of a proper recorder with stereo mics — and the convenience of an iPhone app.
The Boss Katana Air looks like the ultimate living room amp for guitar players. It looks cool, it runs off mains power or AA batteries, and it features a wireless dongle that plugs into your guitar and means you never need to trail a cable across the room ever again. It even has a companion iOS app so you can tweak all the settings not available from the knobs and buttons on top of the amp.
Music industry legend and Apple Music boss Jimmy Iovine is planning to leave Apple later this year.
According to reports, Iovine is set to leave Apple in August this year after joining the company in 2014 as part of Apple’s acquisition of Beats.
Focusrite’s iTrack One Pre might be the ultimate portable recording gadget for musicians. It’s a little cube that fits in a pocket, but that packs in connections for a microphone and a guitar, as well as a port for charging the iPad or iPhone you connect to. It can even supply Phantom Power to a microphone, and has it’s own gain (“volume,” kinda) knob.
What would happen if you took an electric guitar, made it as thick as an acoustic guitar, and stuffed the extra space not with boring old air, but with speakers and an electronic brain that works with your iPhone?
Then, you might put in a cutout on the guitar top to hold that iPhone, and a rechargeable battery to power it all. If you did all that, then you’d have invented the Fusion Guitar.
The iPad has many, many amazing effects apps for making music, and several high-level apps just for emulating guitar amplifiers and effects pedals. But what if you just want to plug in and play a song, and have your guitar sound just like the one on the record? That’s exactly what Tonebridge is for. Under the hood, this simulator app is as powerful as the others, but it’s way, way simpler to use.
Whereas most apps present a range or virtual pedals and amps, Tonebridge is based around songs. You fire it up, plug in your guitar, and search for the song you want to play. The app loads up the sound of the song, and you can play along. The app is impressive, nailing the tomes of pretty much any song you ask for, without any tweaking necessary.
But now, with the latest Tonebridge release, you can also dig in to the settings that used to sit behind the scenes. Let’s take a look.
One of Apple’s biggest competitors in the music streaming business is about to bite the dust.
Tidal, the music streaming service owned by Jay-Z, is allegedly facing some serious money problems. According to a new report, user growth has stalled too making the company’s cash problems even worse.
If you’re still living in the early-to-mid ’00s, then you may still be interested in personal ringtones for your iPhone. And if you are, there’s no easier way to take a piece of music from your iTunes library, or to rip it from YouTube or SoundCloud, than iRingg.
This app from Softorino lets you quickly create a ringtone and push it wirelessly to your iPhone.
Apple is adding another key weapon to its war chest in the battle against Spotify, based on a new report that claims the company plans to acquire the app Shazam.
The popular app helps users identify any song, TV show or movie in seconds just by listening to it via a smartphone’s microphone. iOS integrated Siri with Shazam a few years ago, but it appears that Apple’s looking to bring the entire operation in-house.
Novation’s fantastic Launchpad app for iOS just got a massive update, with a whole new interface, and a great new in-app-purchase which unlocks all its features for just $15.
Apple has released its yearly “Best of” list, highlighting its picks for the top apps, games, albums, movies, podcasts, books, and TV shows — just in time for your holiday purchasing!
As is always the case, the lists combine Apple’s own hand-curated picks and popularity-driven charts, based on purchases in Apple’s various services such as iTunes, the App Store, iBooks Store, and Apple Music.
Drummer is one of GarageBand’s best features. It’s a virtual drummer that comes up with entire drum parts for your song. Or rather, it’s 15 drummers, each of whom has a different style, from hard rock to Latin rhythms, to trap and dubstep, to the hippie Finn, with his cajon and hand claps.
Drummer is amazing if you play another instrument and just need a drum track to play along to, but it is also extremely powerful, and can be used to create an entire song. And best of all, none of GarageBand’s drummers will ever turn up drunk to a gig. Let’s take a quick look at the basics, and then I’ll show you some neat hidden tricks.
Spotify is in for a rough future, according to Apple’s Jimmy Iovine, who is warning the music industry not to place too much faith in the tech industry.
Iovine sat down for a new interview where he discussed the future of the music industry. According to the Apple Music boss, record labels are “100 percent” overly optimistic about where things are headed with technology.