Is That a Synth in Your Pocket...?

Related link: http://www.chocopoolp.com/microbe/reference.html

Music is fun.



At least, that's the rumour.

When you make music for a living, sometimes you can get caught up in the business of the thing and lose track of that. And anything that brings that unbridled sense of joy back to this cynical old audio guy is more than okay with me.

Chocopoolp has done this for me, with their little inexpensive app for the PalmOS, appropriately named "Microbe".

Microbe is a 4-track 16-step-sequencer with two "synth" tracks (referred to in the documentation as "analog bass synthesizers") and 8 simple sample players set up as 4 drum samples and 4 "extra" samples. It comes with TR808 and 909 samples but you can assign any sample you have loaded on your device or on an SD card attached to your device as the source sample.

There are 32 individual 16-step sequences that can be created, and then arranged and saved as a song. You can chain sequences together to get single sequences of longer than 16 steps if you so desire.

Each track has independently adjustable wave form (for the synth tracks), plus controls for cutoff freq, resonance, fmod, decay and volume - adjustable in real time for live performance interaction with your sequences.

There are even 3 effects busses, with real-time parameter control.

All of this on my phone. :) Talk about your multi-use device.

That's the coolest thing for me - having all the fun of an old style sequencer in the palm of your hand. It brings back happy memories of many hours playing around with an Arp Axxe that was owned by a friend of mine. Pure fun. And now, no matter where I am - say, waiting in line at the bank - when the creativity strikes, I can capture that beat or that sequence with a few flicks of the stylus. Or I can just goof off for a while, enjoying the moment and the process of creating whenever the mood strikes me. Which I tend to do more often than not. Hey, it doesn't all have to be art. :)

There is even a free trial available so you can play around with it for free. What more could you ask for?

Remember when we made music because it was FUN? "Microbe" will remind you of those happy days.

Have you tried it? Love it? Hate it? Share...