Soldering non talent...

I bought myself one of these iSpin mixers for 15 quid:

At first glance, and watching the videos you'd be right in thinking, "gimicky, silly scratch sound, very limited with only 4 proper effects."

At first glance I thought, "cool, a cheap way to charge my two iDevices (also has 3.5mm line in), a way to cross-fade between the two of them (both running some DJ software) and possibly hackable."

So it arrived, I briefly plugged it in and tried it out. The fader works, the microphone is a nice to have (sits in the fx path if you want) and the headphones can be either master out or cue, which is great. Yes, the "scratch" effect is awful. The other 4 effects though are rather good (reverb, flange, hi-pass filter, lo-pass filter in two switchable "banks" each with two fx). After a few minutes I got out my screwdriver.

First to go were the little "wheel" things, now replaced with some knobs I had lying around. Sadly the central "scratch spinner" is a rotary encoder, so that'll be replaced with a rotary pot soon.

Ok, onto the meaty bit. The fx chip is called the FV-1 by Spin Semiconductor. It turns out it is a much more capable chip than it seems from the built in two patches of fx. You see, it has 8 internal fx patches (with 2-3 fx on each patch) and an external sound bank, where the iSpin's own fx are housed. After a trip to Spin's website I found that you can switch between the internal bank and the external bank if you solder in a switch. You can also choose any of the 8 patches if you solder in 3 more switches (or an 8-position rotary switch, which I thought would be easier).

So some dremmeling and soldering later I've got the 8-position switch mounted into the case (top right corner, next to the right side iPod) and re-hacked the prog1/prog2 switch to select internal/external banks instead. The 8-position switch isn't quite working yet - it can select the first two patches, but nothing else...

A couple of observations thus far:

1. Soldering onto the legs of a chip is a nightmare!
2. My soldering iron is rubbish.
3. My soldering skills are non-existent.
4. I don't think my circuit skills are up to scratch! I thought I could hook "ground" up to the 8-way switch instead of 3.3v but something seems to be creating a short-circuit I think. I don't really know what I'm doing :o)

Next steps are to re-do the switch (a big job) and then somehow replace the rotary encoder with a linear potentiometer. Why, you might ask? Because the FV-1 allows analog control over 3 different parameters for each sound patch. Hence the 3 dials on the front of the device. They are not jog-dials, they control the fx!

Hopefully I won't fry anything, then I'll end up with a whole bunch of new fx, essentially becoming an extremely cheap fx unit that mixes and charges my two iDevices or any of my other devices with 3.5mm outputs.

B Good :o)

Spot the E.T. reference there? Anyway, back in May one of my wishes was to have a Hammond B3 app for my iDevice. C3B3 videos emerged a few months back and my appetite was well and truly whetted.

Well now it's launched, and it is absolutely brilliant! Of course, it looks the part but more importantly it sounds fantastic too.

Everything you'd expect is there:

• Configurable scrollable split keyboards
• Overdrive
• Reverb
• Key click
• Fantastic presets
• Rotary speaker

As soon as you fire it up, you'll be hammering in those classic pieces from rock gods gone by. You just can't help it.

Seriously, I am very, very impressed indeed.

One thing sure to raise a few moans is the use of in-app purchase, which is popping up everywhere these days. On the one hand I hate the idea of constantly coughing up for something I've already bought, but on the other hand this is a B3, for less than 2 quid! Having to pay 59p to be able to save my own presets is a bit cheeky though, but 59p per new sound bank seems fair enough if I knew what they sounded like first. Afterall, the developer has spent the time making those presets so why not get paid for it?

I'd love to have recording built-in (many apps do this very well now) along with using these recordings elsewhere (ioLibrary?). Not only for productivity reasons, but because, well, my talent runs dry very quickly so playing two parts at once is something of a challenge for me. Also my fingers have never felt so over-sized before. This inspires you to want to play big chords, but without configurable key-widths (that I can see anyway) my efforts need to be toned down somewhat!

I can see me spending literally hours with this, jamming along (pathetically) to Deep Purple (apologies to Jon Lord in advance) and all manner of stuff.

What a great way to start a Saturday morning!

Check out their videos here to hear/see for yourself.

iTunes link

Hey Mr DJ put two records on...

Finally the DJ apps that have been held back by Apple are starting to flood in. And what a varied bunch they are!

The one that's been out for a while, and is truly a magnificent turntable simulation is Flare. I've had this since launch and I absolutely adore it. I'd love pitch control, uploading my own background loops and an FX engine, but as it currently stands nothing comes close for those used to spinning the wheels of steel. Even works beautifully with time-code recordings for desktop apps like Virtual DJ. But there's something else I'd like to see added (see later on...)

The most publicly held back DJ app was Touch DJ by Amidio, creator of the uber-synth, Noise.io. As my coffers are stretched at the moment, courtesy of buying an iPhone 3GS, I'm not quite ready to try this out at $19.99 but that's not to say the price is too high - it really looks like a premium product and $19.99 doesn't buy you much else in the world of the desktop DJ! It uses an interesting visual-mixing technique, where you see the key beats on each waveform and line-them up before hitting the x-fader. A nice idea for getting around the obvious problem of the iPhone only having a single stereo output. But there's something else I'd like to see added (see later on...)

The interestingly named Sonorasaurus also arrived this week, with a gorgeous looking interface. I haven't seen much in the way of video demos of this (only one on youtube that I could see) and I'm not sure if it allows looping like Touch DJ appears to. It is, however, half the price of Touch DJ. But there's something else I'd like to see added (see later on...)

Also allowed out to play are abcDJ ($3.99) and "and Scratch" both by Sanken System. I think "and Scratch" is a single-deck version of abcDJ, with a price ($1.99) to match. Both apps look similar to Flare, but with extra functionality. Unfortunately the demo videos on Youtube have quite poor audio quality so it is hard to say how they truly compare. But there's something else I'd like to see added (see later on...)

Finally, from what I've seen, is DJ Player Blue Edition at the top end of premium at $24.99 for what appears to be a single-deck application. I imagine that price may be revisited fairly swiftly in light of the competition. It appears to have a Kaoss pad inspired FX section, which is nice. But there's something else I'd like to see added...

Ok, so what is it I'd like to see added to all of these? Is it the ability to use tracks straight from your iPod library instead of having to upload an additional copy of the track per app? Well, that would be nice, but I think that's an Apple restriction so you can't ask the developers to do something beyond Apple's limits! No, what I'd really like to see is this:

Use local wifi to sync and stream a "deck" on two iDevices (e.g. iPod and iPhone) and crossfade between them! So one device could output the crossfader mix (i.e. what the audience hears) and the other device could output a headphone mix for the DJ's use. How awesome would that be? No more worries about single audio output, "visual mixing", guessing the mix etc. I'm sure a few people now have a couple of iDevices thanks to upgrades etc, plus second-hand 1G iPod Touches are now really cheap.

Anyway, it's something I'd like to see :o) Any devs wanting to give it a try let me know!

I've got the power

Just watched Synth Britannia on the BBC, all about the rise of synth music in the UK from the 70s onwards. Some awesome stuff on there, including a few snippets and interviews from Kraftwerk. After watching Vince Clark talk about the DM performance on Top of the Pops and how they lugged their synths on the train to get to the TOTP studio I realised just how much synth and recording power now resides in my coat pocket when I wander around.

I need to spend more time playing and less time looking for new apps I reckon!

Is Apple losing its edge?

First the iPhone 3GS was a major disappointment, with very little in the way of exciting updates from the 3G. I was poised to buy the 3GS if the camera was any good, but it turned out not to be. For that reason I stuck with my 1G iPod Touch and bought a fantastic Sony camera that does HD video. I felt that maybe the next generation of iPod Touch would be basically the iPhone 3GS minus the phone part, i.e added compass, GPS, camera and microphone. Like many others I patiently awaited the launch event.

What did we get? A faster processor and some more storage. And that's it. So underwhelming that Apple's share price seems to have taken a hit, and I have yet to see a good word written about this "new" model.

Insult to injury? Apple once again brags about the vast number of games on the App store (over 20,000) but fails to mention that you can't even install 200 of them and have them visible on your device. Ths is despite the new 3.1 operating system. What we can do is move the icons around in iTunes instead. R-i-i-i-g-g-h-h-h-h-t....

Someone please innovate in this space, because Apple has forgotten how to.

Trouble in (app) store

In addition to the limited number of categories in the Appstore making it very bothersome to find the music apps you are looking for amongst a thousand "official band" and radio station apps, the biggest thorn in the side seems to be pricing. Not just as in, "that app is too expensive," but also in terms of the volatility of app pricing. I've sometimes benefitted quite nicely from waiting a bit until an app dropped in price (Rectools 08 for example) but also been stung heavily by jumping in straight away.

Anyway, whilst perusing my favourite app-list website I came across this beauty. I mean, when do you jump in and buy this thing?

Ports I'm awaiting

Porting an app always sounds like such a simple idea, after all you've got the assets already right? Ok, sure you may have to change the resolution of some images, or change the sound format and quality of a few samples, and obviously there may be extra features of one platform, such as accelerometer and touch screen, or no buttons, and of course a finger-touch device needs a different interface to a stylus-touch device to a mouse-driven device to a keyboard-driven device, and it goes without saying that the RAM and storage will be different, and who would expect binary compatability with an entirely different OS and CPU, and .... oh, maybe it's not such a simple job. But anyway, those trivial things aside, I'd love to see the following make an appearance on the iPhone:

• CellDS
• GlitchDS
• Griff
• Pocket Stompbox
• MeTeoR
• DS10 (heh heh)
• ProteinDS

Anyone know if any of these are pending?