iPad Music Apps

iKlip is a microphone stand adapter for your iPad.  It gives you the ability to attach your iPad to your mic stand for optimal viewing.  This is ideal for someone looking to use their iPad in live performance situations. With iKlip you can maximize your ability to do things like play an instrument and work with your iPad simultaneously.  It is lightweight but well constructed and the ergonomic, multi-angle design allows you to get your iPad in the perfect position.

In terms of music production and performance, the iPad can be used in many different ways; as a beat maker, virtual instrument, mixer, effects processor, virtual controller and so on.  The multitude of uses for the iPad make attaching it to a mic stand (regardless of whether you’re using a microphone or not) extremely handy.

iKlip is compatible with iPad and iPad2 and cost $40.

Notion is a musical scoring and creation app for your iPad.    It gives you the ability to produce, manipulate, and playback scores.  Its sampled instruments were recorded by The London Symphony Orchestra and you can expand this library via app-store purchase.  The stock sounds are decent giving you access to several instruments to work with including guitar, electric bass, piano, and various orchestral pieces.

The notation editor in Notion is fairly easy to use and navigate, but lacks some important features like engraving and stem direction.  Notion won’t replace your go-to desktop software for this sort of thing, but it does provide a mobile solution for those who need it.

One of the things I like most about Notion are the host of articulations you get for each instrument and how it easy it is to change the articulation of a note on your score.  If you’re working with a guitar score, adding bends, whammies, vibrato etc. is a breeze.  Another added benefit of using Notion if you are a novice composer or producer is the fact that you’ll undoubtedly start learning how to work with sheet music.

Notion comes with a built-in mixer, reverb and distortion effects, and you can share your work with other Notion users for collaborative efforts.  At $14.99 it’s a little on the expensive side, but it’s still a quality app with a lot to offer.  Library expansion packs range from $.99 to $4.99.

Also grüvtron is .99 cents vs. $4.99.

Grab them today in the app store.

SoundHound is a music discovery app for your iPad (iPod Touch and iPhone as well).  SoundHound can listen to any song playing through a speaker and identify it for you in a matter of seconds.  Ever had a song stuck in  your head but you didn’t know the name of it?  Simply sing or hum the tune into SoundHound and the app will identify it for you.

Once a song is recognized, information about the artist and the song is readily available for you.  You can access Youtube vids, Wikipedia entries, artist website, lyrics, etc..  Version 4.1 includes LiveLyrics, which will play the lyrics for you in real time with the song.  You can easily share your discovered music on Facebook and Twitter and get Twitter updates from your favorite artist as well.  Save your discoveries to SoundHound so you can access them at a later time.

The app’s What’s Hot What’s Not list gives you feedback about what songs are currently popular and what songs aren’t.  SoundHound gives you instant access to those artist and their associated social media outlets as well.

This is a great app for new music enthusiasts and it’s also very useful for music producers because of its song identifier.  No more listening to songs you’d like to sample or remix while wondering how you’re going to find out where the song came from.  Let SoundHound identify it for you, save that discovery, and then you can access that information when you need to.

Vocalive is a sound recording and effects processing app for the iPad.  While it’s main focus is the recording and manipulation of vocals, other sounds can be recorded and processed as well.  The iPad version of this software comes housed with vocal effects like Pitch Fix (vocal tuning),  Choir (harmonizer), Morph (tonal modifier),  and Double (sound doubler).

Vocalive also comes with a mastering section that provides you with sound processors and effects like Compression, Reverb, EQ, Phaser, Delay, and De-Esser.

Other noteworthy features are Voice Cancellation, which will allow you to sing along with songs from your iTunes library by removing the vocals and the Vocal Tools addition for warming up your voice.

While I like the quality of the results this app can achieve, there are several things I don’t like about this app.  First and foremost, is its lack of a audio copy / paste function.  Any time you want to transfer your recorded files elsewhere you have to connect to a computer.  This can be a tiresome and aggravating process over time.   I find lacking this feature to be inexcusable because its usefulness and functionality are well known by iOS music users and developers alike, so the fact that IK Multimedia has not implemented it into an expensive app such as Vocalive absolutely drives me bananas!

My next problem is the price tag.  Vocalive starts at $19.99 for the basic version of the software and this version only comes with a single track recorder and no Master FX section.  You will need to spend an extra $14.99 to upgrade to a four track recorder and to get the Master FX that come with those invaluable tools for dynamic and tonal processing of vocals like compression and EQ.  Now, add this to the fact that you will need an iRig or iMic to record vocals or instruments into your iPad and you just spent a ton of money for iOS standards.  I will say that technically you could use the mic built into your iPad, but I wouldn’t expect to get great recording results.

All in all, I just don’t know if this app is worth the $35.  My advice would be to try out the free version first and see if it’s something you really need or make frequent use of.  Again, this app is capable of achieving quality results, but a lack of common sense features and a hefty price tag make Vocalive a questionable purchase.  I’m a fan of IK Multimedia and have been for years so hopefully they  can step it up and get this app where it needs to be.

Ever wish you could read and interpret sheet music?  This tends to be a dilemma for the majority of us who didn’t grow up taking lessons or join the high school band when we should have. I know this to be true because I am one of these people.  I have a good insight on musical theory and I produce music full time for a living (Pop, Hip Hop, and RnB), but put me in front of sheet music and I’m about as useful as a sprinter with two left feet running circles around his elbow just to scratch is backside.

Hopefully, that will all change for those of us who are less musically educated with the birthing of Steinway Etude for iPad.  I haven’t used this app personally but I had a fellow colleague call me up last week high on life because he was finally beginning to read and understand sheet music thanks to this app.  Thus, I decided to write a review on it because more of us so called producers need to learn how to read sheet music.

Based on our conversation here are the key points I gathered from his experience using this app.

It’s tailored toward piano players.  Download a song and the sheet music for that song gets interpreted visually on a piano roll in real time.  As a song progresses you can look at the scores and corresponding keys you need to hit on the piano to play that music.  Do this enough over time and slowly but surely you are learning to read sheet music and play piano – simple but effective in its own right.

You can download a wide range of songs that suit many musical genres – anything from Classical to Billboard hits.  Slow a song down to learn its intricacies  or speed it up to challenge yourself.  The choice is yours.

If you’re not fluent enough to play a song with both hands you can choose to practice each hand separately, which I think is very cool as well.  You can also score your own music within this app so you don’t have to do it on paper.

All in all, if you want to learn how to read sheet music and play piano this a good way to go.  Best of all this app is free – enough said.

VocalizeU is a comprehensive vocal suite for singers most noted for its vocal assessment and training regiments to help vocalists improve their performance.  Owners of this app can run through different vocal tests to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and then get feedback, as well as, a customized exercise program to make improvements.  Sounds pretty cool right?

The app has a wide range of vocal exercises and gives you weekly reports on the progress you’ve made.  Ear and Pitch Training can help vocalists and musicians alike to correctly identify the pitch of notes and keys.  Record songs and import karaoke tracks.  Easily export songs to numerous social media outlets like Youtube.  The Vocal Journal allows you to organize all progress and workout data and the app also has customizable warm-ups and cool downs.

This is a detail oriented, feature laden program that has a lot to offer vocalist, but the coolest thing about VocalizeU is that you can work directly with professional vocal trainers right within the app!  Working with the tools this software provides in conjunction with a trained professional could potentially translate into major gains for any aspiring vocalist.

I think VocalizeU is a great app from DS Vocology LLC and I would recommend it to any singer looking to improve their performance.  The performance component to singing makes a vocalist no different than an athlete per say – to perform at higher levels you must train, exercise, and consort with those (coaches) who are more knowledgeable and experienced than yourself.  Doing so, couldn’t be any easier for a vocalist taking full advantage of the tools provided in VocalizeU.  If you’re looking to become a better singer don’t even bat an eyelash at the hefty price ($39.99).