The iPad is a product of Apple’s design and engineering genius, and by allowing third-party developers to toy with its SDK or software development kit, just about every kind of app has been created for every kind of person.
Music is one of those things that has found its home in this mobile device, with tech-minded music lovers finding ways to turn it into a virtual musical instrument. For all music lovers out there, check out the following apps:
Pianist Pro
Based on the first piano app for the iPhone, MooCowMusic Ltd. has upgraded the original to pro. It boasts of having the entire 88 keys found in an actual modern piano, which can be modified in size and layout.
Made specifically for the iPad, Pianist Pro even has the soft and sustain pedals and matching velocity depending on where the virtual keys are pressed. Those with knowledge of scales can make use of the built-in arpeggiator to play complicated pieces. The Scale Piano interface also allows users to choose from different musical scales, or just create new ones.
With full recording capabilities and MIDI file support for import and export, songs can be recorded anywhere.
DM1 – The Drum Machine
Anyone can be a producer with this app that lets people compose their own beats using 64 electronic drum kits. Fingerlab really promotes its love for electronic music making, giving users plenty of options with 45 of their very own kits and 19 standard classics that every beat-maker must have.
With 9 drum pads that can accommodate any finger size, users can start banging out beats in an arrangement that can get polished up with automatic quantizing. The app can be customized to adjust beat pitch and length, as well as how it pans and rotates.
The FX trackpads let users overdrive, delay, filter, and reverberate their beats. Once recorded, the music file can be easily exported for convenient media sharing through SoundCloud and Facebook, among others.
Bass Drop
This app allows people to make basslines that sound much like that cool new music called “dubstep” all the kids are raving about these days. It uses a 1-octave keyboard (composed of 13 keys) and sampler pads, along with over 300 wobble bass variations to achieve that specific sound. With pitch and volume modification capabilities and a choice of 10 effects and 10 loops, users can create a wide variety of mixes.
While the app doesn’t have recording capabilities, there’s still plenty of fun to be had just by making bass lines that get stuck in people’s ears and get them dancing.
These are just a handful of virtual music apps that the iPad offers with plenty more available in the iTunes App Store.