Posted: August 28th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Apps, Uncategorized | Tags: Android, app, DroidLive, iphone, live, shoutcast, SPB, streaming, symbian, TV, windows mobile | No Comments »
Today, a $9.95 streaming TV app hit the Android Market that has seriously blown me away.
SPB TV 1.0 has got a whole bunch of channels (the press release today says 100+ in 20+ languages,) an awesome interface, an integrated programming guide, picture-in-picture and the ability to set calendar reminders for upcoming shows.
Screenshot from SPB TV
I don’t generally seek out live streams of anything. Like I’ve said in prior posts, I listen to Web radio and stuff (the DroidLive ShoutCast client is great, by the way) but I’m much more a fan of on-demand streaming.
However, SPB TV has really grabbed me. It’s that slick.
The app has been around already on Windows Mobile 6 and Symbian S60 3rd ed. On those platforms, however, the app is much larger and slightly more expensive: 5MB and $14.95…the Android app is only .6MB and $9.95. Either it’s missing some of the functionality of the other platforms, or we’ve got ourselves a fantastic little app here. (We’ve also gotten it before iPhone…but that’s not so surprising, right?)
I’m actually going to go watch it a bit more, and I’ll update this post with further assessments. Right now I’m giving this a tentative “buy” rating even though i’m not totally sure I’ll ever actually use it.
I may just be enamored that it looks so good and actually kind of works.
Posted: August 25th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Apps | Tags: 808, 909, Android, app, beatmaker, bebot, bend, casio, circuit, drum, ds-10, electrum, iphone, ipod, jam, james, junk, korg, kraftwerk, m-audio, market, music, niko, nintendo, poor, psp, richard, sessions, store, stylophone, synth, theremin, touch, toys, traxxpad, twenty, ubisoft, zoom | 3 Comments »
Because I spent many years as a poor musician, my area of gear expertise isn’t with high quality instruments, it’s with bargain equipment (think Zoom, M-Audio, Casio, et al.), pawn shop finds, and things best classified as “musical toys.”
I keep up with the latest toy musical instruments, and delight in their exploitation. Circuit bending brightens my day, and I’m always looking out for the next Stylophone. I got the Korg DS-10 on the day it came out, I have two copies of Traxxpad for PSP, and I consider the iPhone/iPod Touch to be a full-fledged music platform.
I guess i’m a pretty discerning customer in the “Don’t Expect Much” category.
Electrum was made by Niko Twenty and is available for $3.99 in the Android Market. What you get is a 16-step sequencer somewhat like the ol’ TR-808 in design, and each sequence is built with six samples. You can put together up to 32 different sequences and create full songs. The cool part is that you can export your creations as single sequence loops or as a full song. The dumps are 16 bit wav files (mono).
A blurry, late night shot of Electrum's interface
I had originally intended to put in a couple of quick sequences that I whipped up on the “rock kit,” but I’m having some trouble doing that, so I’ll just say that there’s also 808, 909, Orchestral, Hip Hop, and Human Beatbox kits and 6 free downloadable packs. While it’s pretty light on features, the only thing it’s really lacking is the ability to import your own sample set. (See Comments) I always find myself wishing for a sound recording sampler app so I can make my own Richard James kit of nutty noise captured on the phone’s mic. But I guess I have to wait.
If you’ve ever used BeatMaker on iPhone, don’t expect that level of quality. However, BeatMaker costs 20 fricking dollars and Electrum costs only 4. At one fifth the price of BeatMaker, you get much more than one fifth of the functionality with Electrum. Complaints are few. It does get crashy at times, it has dumped some broken .wavs for some reason, and the UI in Sequence mode looks like it’s unfinished. But it’s a work in progress and junk musicians should applaud Niko Twenty.
This is definitely one of the best music apps we have on the Android Platform, and I’m currently working on a little jam built with beats from BeatMaker, a guitar track from Ubisoft’s Jam Sessions for Nintendo DS, and some Theremin wangling from Bebot on iPhone.