Jordan Rudess releases Geo Synthesizer for iOS

Having already achieved great success with his MorphWiz and SampleWiz apps, Jordan Rudess has now expanded his iOS reach with the release of the Geo Synthesizer.

Developed in collaboration with regular cohort Kevin Chartier and Mugician creator Rob Fielding, this is both an instrument and MIDI controller,

"Geo Synthesizer is a dream come true in many ways. It is the fastest truly playable iOS instrument that I have put my hands on to date," explains Rudess. "I can fly through the range of an instrument while expanding on the kind of advanced pitch control we introduced in MorphWiz. As someone who grew up with synthesizers, I can tell you that pitch bending has never been this good!"

"Geo features many of my custom sounds and in addition, Geo is also a MIDI controller, so you can use it with any external midi instrument or virtual MIDI. Virtual MIDI allows you to control an app running in the background on the same device!"

"A great feature of Geo is that internally and externally we send independent voices on each note played, so as an example, you can pitch bend one note and not the other, or add unique expression on every note! I can't wait to see the YouTube videos of all of you guys rocking out with Geo Synthesizer!!!"

Speaking of videos, you can see a demo of the app in the one above, while a feature list is below. Geo Synthesizer is available now from the App Store priced at £6.99.

Geo Synthesizer features

- ability to load waveforms from SampleWiz presets
- octave rounding for effortless soloing over large ranges
- whammy slider with absolute and relative modes
- 12ET, 24ET, 53ET, and 665ET temperament options
- mono, string, and full-polyphony modes
- tuning and transposition controls
- snap speed control to affect how quickly the instrument pulls notes in tune
- playing surface options for number of rows and columns on screen
- octave and fifth harmonics synthesis options to rich, organ-like sounds
- gain control to add distortion to the sound
- FM and touch FM controls for timbal variation
- mono out for use with guitar amps
- sine, sawtooth, square, and custom (SampleWiz) wave options
- attack and release controls
- synthesis body control
- lowpass filter with resonance
- stereo delay
- reverb
- MIDI output with polyphonic note bending and multiple configuration options to allow compatibility with a wide range of hardware and software synthesizers
- performance menu lets you make your own custom menu so all the controls you need are always right at your fingertips
- 40 presets carefully selected by Jordan Rudess, including patches from Jordan's personal sound library

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.