What Apps Should I Buy?

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What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Fri Jan 13, 2012 4:40 pm

So, it turns out that I've won an iPad 2 from HMV - I was automatically entered into a contest when I bought an itunes gift card for my sister for Christmas. Nice!

Does anyone here have any experience using these for making movies, songs, anything? I know nothing about their sound capabilities, other than that Moog makes something called an Animoog that I'll probably have to get :)
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Re: What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:55 pm

Congrats! Ask Andrew about mac stuff...since he has an iPhone. I'm more of an android guy myself.
"Volume automation takes time. You don't got that kinda time. You could be getting naked with somebody somewhere." -Slipperman

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Re: What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:36 pm

Thanks! I've wanted an apple computer, and this will be a neat little "in" to how they work.
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Re: What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby macrae11 » Sat Jan 14, 2012 3:11 pm

I do have an iPhone, but have very little experience actually working on them. They do make Garageband, iMovie, and Photoshop for them, but I haven't really used them much because I do most of that stuff on the computer. I'll give you a list of apps that I use, but many of them may not have iPad versions.

Music
iStoboSoft - great little tuner, but really needs a line input because the mic only works ok.
Tonepad - fun little noisemaker
Backline Calc - Musical calculator
AmpliTube

Media
PhotoShop Express
Bluefire stereo field recorder
VLC
Vimeo app
DROPBOX!
Stanza - favorite reading app, although iBooks and Kindle are good too.

Finance
BMO mobile banking - not that great, but you can check balances and transfer funds. Most banks have these now days.
metalQuotes - follow the price of silver, gold, platinum, palladium
XE currency - great currency compare app
Realtime Stocks - only real time stock app I've found

Travel
Urban Spoon and AroundMe are great when you're somewhere unfamiliar and want to know where to eat.
Google Maps - saved my butt a few times
Translate - great way to translate, you can just speak into it and it will say things in your language of choice.
Kayak - great for flight tracking

And of course all the usual ones, facebook, twitter, skype... Oh and the Mercury web browser is far superior to Safari.
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Re: What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:24 pm

Thanks, Andrew, I really appreciate that. One or two I had heard of when doing my research (Dropbox and, of course, Garageband and iMovie), but the rest are welcome suggestions. Anything Apple had always been a luxury item for me, so I never paid apps much mind before.

I've already downloaded my first app, before the hardware's even arrived: iSequence HD, soon to be followed by an in-app purchase of a chiptunes soundbank :) (The program was $5 for a limited time, normally $15, so I figured why not?).

I'll be checking out those suggestions, though! And figuring out whether or not I want that one that makes the screen look like a Star Trek PADD. Thanks again!
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Re: What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby fish » Sat Jan 21, 2012 7:46 pm

I'm also going to have to suggest GarageBand. It's not as good as a full fledged DAW, but it's great to have for quick ideas. You mentioned "animoog", and it's very good. There are a few different midi interfaces for the pad you may want to check out, but of you have a board that's completely powered via USB, you may be able to get away using the apple camera connector kit. It also works for CoreMidi, if the device doesn't require an external power supply. Do you play guitar? If so, an interface and Amplitube and/or AmpKit are THE BOMB!
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Re: What Apps Should I Buy?

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:08 pm

fish wrote:Do you play guitar? If so, an interface and Amplitube and/or AmpKit are THE BOMB!

I've been thinking about this, actually! I've been wanting to work with amp sims, but paying $4-$500 for a good POD is out of my price range right now, and the free amp sims for my PC are not user-friendly at all (I usually prefer hardware over software anyway, just for the whole tactile ease n' all that). I'm hoping that AmpKit would sound just like I was using a POD, only with an awesome, touchable interface.

Now, a lot of my "real life" pedals (reverb, delay, etc) I enjoy rely on stereo effects, and I'd hate to lose that. I've read that I can connect my usb interface I already have (a Tascam US-122L) to my iPad via the camera connection kit, which may or may not work. Since AmpKit and Amplitube both offer free "lite" versions, I should be able to find out if I can do stereo tonight, after I get a connector kit from Future Shop (which will be useful anyway, even if it doesn't let me use my audio interface).

EDIT, for posterity: when I plug my audio interface into the usb-in on the camera connector kit, it just tells me it won't work because it requires too much power. I can go out and buy a powered usb hub (one that requires an ac adapter) to power the device, but there's no guarantee that the interface will work with every app the way I want it to. Since this is all "unsupported," it's a crap shoot; I think I'll wait until I find a cheap hub somewhere on sale.

EDIT 2: I found a list saying the Tascam will not work, mostly because it would normally require drivers to be installed. I've decided to order an interface for AmpKit, put some distortion pedals before the ipad and some modulation pedals after it so I can get my stereo spacing and my own personal distortion sounds, and just play around to see what happens. The amp and cab sims being in the middle of the chain should make things...interesting?
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