DrumJam vs Roxsyn Guitar Synthesizer

DrumJam is a whole new world of percussion and drums for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Designed by award winning international percussionist Pete Lockett and Sonosaurus LLC, the developer of ThumbJam, this app is a real first for percussion. It's an exciting and powerful tool, opening up the world of rhythm in a completely hands-on and inspiring way. Whether you are a novice just looking for a bit of rhythmic fun, a songwriter or producer looking for a fresh rhythmic idea, a percussion student writing arrangements for a project, a music teacher looking for rhythm ideas to teach, or a drum circle facilitator seeking to expand their repertoire, this app has something for you. Pete Lockett has been top of his game for decades and has performed with the stars, from Peter Gabriel and Bjork to Robert Plant, Dido, Jeff Beck and many more. He has also worked extensively in the film industry, arranging and recording all the ethnic percussion for five Bond 007 films. The app is a direct and personal route to his rhythm factory with all the individual percussion parts recorded by Pete. These are not ineffective sequenced patterns but actual recorded audio waiting to groove with rhythm at multiple tempos through your very own mobile device. Through his decades of studio experience Pete has become a master of layering various percussion instruments into mesmerising rhythm fabrics and flowing grooves. Shakers and congas interwoven with Indian ghatam, pop drum set and Arabic req or else a Carnatic kanjira with some Cuban bongos, Latin cowbells, rock drum kit, seed shakes and surdu. There are dozens of different looped instruments to choose from, each with up to 20 different patterns. You can change the levels, alter the pan, mute, solo, and tweak a low-pass filter giving you a great degree of flexibility over each individual part. Or simply press the random button to randomise all (or some) the parts and get some really funky and unexpected changes. It can even automatically randomise periodically for hands-free unpredictability. The excellent time stretch system and multiple-tempo loop recordings mean that you can get great natural sounding audio across a wide tempo range. Change the number of beats to use in the loops to alter time signature. Pick from a wide range of solo instruments where you can jam away over the top of the grooves you create. These include all sorts of ethnic percussion instruments from Kanjira and Ghatam, to Djembe, Bongos, Dube and Cajon, and more. There are also custom drum kits from great drummers such as Johnny Rabb, Russ Miller, KJ Sawka, Dave Langguth, Steve Sidelnyk and Scott Pellegrom. With a detailed and complete range of quantize options performed by simply dragging your fingers around, it is possible for even the absolute novice to get some funky grooves immediately. Additional loops and pad instruments are available for in-app purchase, but rest assured that the base app is loaded with kits and loops! There are also incredible filter, pitch bend, delay, reverb, lofi, and distortion effects available for the solo instruments, which really adds a whole new dimension of live performance possibilities. With multiple save and export options, it is possible to record loops or a whole performance to later import into your DAW or other audio app as 44.1kHz 16-bit WAV files. This is great for studio use and can form the basis of a new song idea very easily. DrumJam supports export via iTunes file sharing, open directly in another app, email, AudioCopy, and export to SoundCloud. There is support for background audio, Audiobus, Inter-app-audio, and a MIDI implementation that supports clock sync in/out, and playing the solo kits externally triggered via MIDI input, or outputting your live pad performance via MIDI output! Also has Ableton Link support! Whatever you do in music, we are certain there is a use for DrumJam in your world. Give it a try and join forces with an ancient percussive energy.

Introducing a revolutionary new way to turn your guitar or bass into a fully featured polyphonic synth: Roxsyn, the world’s first metamorphic guitar synthesizer. Expressive, fast and responsive to every nuance, it is a league apart from all other guitar synths to date. Unhappy with cold and temperamental guitar-to-MIDI synths that dominate the market, we developed a completely new approach to guitar synthesis. Our all-original technology synthesizes your guitar directly, without the use of MIDI notes. Rescued from being a poor keyboard substitute, your guitar suddenly becomes an integral part of the synth. It's alive! There is no pitch tracking involved. There are no pitch estimation errors, octave glitches, or garbled chords. There is no over-complicated G2M between your guitar and synth to destroy everything human about your playing. Instead, Roxsyn’s metamorphic sound generation technology retains all the personality of your sound: vibrato, slides, bends, dynamics, even extended technique. The result is a polyphonic synthesizer that is as fast and accurate as it is richly expressive. No need for special MIDI pickups or hardware, either: just plug into your favorite Lightning/USB audio interface, and start synthing! ::Powerful Synth Engine:: Roxsyn’s big synth heart is its three metamorphic signal generators (AKA oscillators). Each generator offers 5 unique waveforms, and has a 4+ octave range to cover a wide spectrum of frequencies. They also feature stereo panning, and can route into either of Roxsyn’s dual filter banks. You can even dial in your guitar directly into the synth engine for even bigger sounds. ::Dual Filter Banks:: Each containing four custom virtual-analog filter types and dedicated envelopes, the filter banks help sculpt the synth generators in countless new ways. The envelopes are specially designed for the guitar, and are driven by a fully adjustable automatic trigger generator controlled by your playing dynamics. Envelopes offer original features like finite-duration sustain stages, as well as the ability to receive or ignore trigger-off messages. They can also be triggered externally via MIDI controllers like an expression pedal. An additonal envelope controls the amplitude of the signal, giving you even more options in creating synth sounds. ::Arpeggiator:: Instantly transform sustained guitar notes into fast (or slow), complex patterns with Roxsyn’s powerful yet easy to use arp. There are 8 stepping algorithms to choose from, as well as settable note value, swing, and note repeats. You can even route the arp to any combination of the 3 voice generators — enabling you to layer a non-arpeggiated sound with an arp pattern. What's more, the arp can send trigger signals into any of Roxsyn’s 4 envelopes, and even reset the LFOs. So it’s also a handy rhythmic / trance tool as well! ::Modulation & FX:: Roxsyn’s user friendly modulation matrix lets you manipulate parameters (pitch, amplitude, filters, etc) using its two LFOs and mod envelope. Add subtle vibrato, even glide simulation, or go full-on berserk. LFOs each have 9 waveforms, and feature beat syncing. Each matrix row can take LFOs or the mod envelope as a modulator or control, and can even use external control sources. And if you like your synths on the spicy side, Roxsyn comes with top-notch stereo FX specially developed to evoke extra synthiness: Powerful algorithmic reverb with the sound of countless rooms, phasing, modulating, 2-channel delay, and graphic EQ. ::Pro Features:: 500+ factory presets with bass, lead, pad, arp sounds & more. Easily create & share your own presets. Audio Unit v3, Ableton Link. Native 64-bit processing at up to 96kHz. 160+ MIDI controllable parameters; MIDI learn & map save/share; tapedeck (in the standalone app), so you can record, loop & share your ideas on the go, and many more handy features.