MusicRadar
The No.1 website for musicians
Round-up: 7 iPhone music-making apps
More software for your Apple handheld
Computer Music/Future Music, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 10:33 am UTC
Amidio Inc. JR Hexatone Pro
£5.99
The peeps behind the Noise.io synthesiser have collaborated with Dream Theater keyboard maestro Jordan Rudess, and the result is not a cheesy virtual keyboard, nor a performance instrument of any kind - it's a drum machine with a hex-citing sequencer.
A Hexatone session uses six sampled sounds (400 are supplied and you can import WAVs), each with parameters like tuning, panning and variable distortion/bitcrushing. Each sound originates from a central, coloured hex pad and moves randomly from pad to pad at its specified rate.
You can influence movement with the Grid mode, which sets the 'priority' of individual pads - higher priority pads always take preference. The sounds jump back to their start points every couple of bars, thus maintaining some regularity.
The Sound tool designates which pads trigger sounds (shown by a red outline), but most exciting are the Cells pad modifiers, which can do things like force a certain route; retrigger the sound, IDM-style; modify volume/panning; wait a specified duration, to create funkier rhythms; and slice up sounds.
It feels like you're playing with an abstract puzzle game, as you set up crazy rhythmic chain reactions, and while 'normal' beats are possible, this is missing the point - you'll probably get it wrong anyway and hit upon something entirely unexpected! Your creations can be exported as CAF/WAV files and shuttled straight into Intua's BeatMaker app or pulled onto your desktop computer via a simple built-in webserver.
While the basic concept of JR Hexatone Pro works well, it would benefit from, say, filtering or reverb, in order to add life to the static samples, as the results can be sonically uninteresting. Furthermore, the retriggering is really a 'loop sample' command (so it's ineffective with longer sounds) and the slicing often clicks.
Still, it's a solid start for this funky, forward-thinking rhythm machine and it runs on your phone, so we shouldn't grumble too much.
