Holy crap. $20!? Well, it does look like the real deal. Will probably look at others though. Thnx for the suggesstion.
As a heads-up, Beatmaker 2 only works on iPod Touch 3G and newer devices. It's also very complex, so I'd hold off on buying that if you're looking for something more casual. I don't have any dedicated drum apps myself, but the single music app that I've kept coming back to is Nanostudio (which supports drum kits, of course). At $15, it's still my favorite music-making app to date.
So Beatmaker 2 is on sale for $9.99... Must buy at this price, even if you have the first Beatmaker? Looks to be a lot more versatile than the first from the demo I watched. Does anyone here think that NanoStudio still outshines Beatmaker 2?
Beatmaker 2 is very tempting at $10, but I wasn't a huge fan of the first one. Any opinions on it, and is it worth buying if I already have Nanostudio?
Don't have neither the first one, nor Nanostudio, but my impressions of BM2 are definitely positive. Worth this much, but the amount of settings may be confusing at first, so only get it if you're serious about this.
I think $10 is a great price for this, so it's kinda now or never. There are a slew of non-trivial improvements over the original that make it more of a full-featured studio. My only real complaint is that there is no iPad version. lol Having said that, if I could only buy one, I would go with NanoStudio.
You guys with Beatmaker 2: have you had stability issues and data loss as some of the itunes reviews mention?
Rebirth (both Ipad version + Iphone version) is on sale ! - i found the iphone version pretty unusable, but the ipad version is supposed to good. Especially as the biggest criticism of Rebirth was no way of getting the music out, has now been solved May 3rd - What's new Support for AudioCopy.
Figured I might as well pick up Beatmaker 2 - I'm currently writing some game music in Nano Studio - as soon as I've got that nailed down I'll give BM2 a run for my money and let you guys know what I think. Now I've got the rest of the month to decide to pick up ReBirth or not - I bet I'd have fun with it, but not sure how practical it would be since I've already got great samples of these machines to use in NS (and now BM2) Almost tempted to do it just to give Propellerhead a couple of bucks - I've used Reason a lot over the years and don't mind supporting them... It'll have to wait though - I've only got $3.03 left in the account after buying BM2. Interesting coincidence, that.
Picked up Beatmaker 2 because I just couldn't resist for that price. It's really nice! Very powerful, deals with some stuff in a slightly different way than Nanostudio (I prefer Nanostudio), but I still like it very much. Also, Nanostudio 1.2 will come out soon. "meh, 1.13 to 1.2 isn't that much of a progress" you say? Well, this one will be huge! This is the changelog from the blipinteractive forum: There also is a beta version of the upcoming update available on the forums, if you want to try out the new version already.
NanoStudio update is out and it's as amazing as anticipated! Gladly plunked down the $5 for more tracks, not that I especially need them, but I'm happy to support Blip. As for the Beatmaker 2 vs. NanoStudio bit, here's my $0.02: I spent some serious time with Beatmaker 2 and it's good. I didn't really find it all that confusing, in fact I like it's "tap the same spot to switch between modes" bits quick and easy to use. They way overdid it with fancy graphical transitions - they look cool the first 20 or so times, later you wish you didn't have to wait for them. Probably the best thing about it are the sample editing tools and it's depth of effect parameters. Multiple sample mapping in the ROMpler is another thing I miss from NanoStudio (one sample per device - but with all these extra tracks I could dedicate multiple devices to accomplish the same thing. ) Overall BM2 is worth the $10 IMHO, and complements NS fine. But I'd still take NS (even at $20) over BM2 (at $10) if I could only have one of them. (Synth head. ) I really sympathize with the people who bought BM1, they really should have replaced BM1 with BM2 and had unlockable functionality for $5 or something, that would have really made the fanbase happy, or have BM2 detect the presence of BM1 on the device or an intro sale or... something. Then they might not have gotten stuck with pages of "you made us buy it again!" reviews. Crap, that reminds me I never finished off that track for PitMan... (composed 100% in NanoStudio, of course! )
Yeah. I've been reading reviews and watching videos for the last few weeks and will probably get the iMS-20 app. I just wish it had some way to MIDI clock sync. I really want it to be a complement to my synths, not a standalone app. Though even standalone, it is still extremely impressive and useful.
Anyone have any thoughts on the various Ipod Tab apps? I'm specifically wondering about Tab Toolkit. It's on sale for $4.99. I got Guitar Pro free somewhere along the line and I already have Ultimate Guitar's tab app. The Ultimate Guitar app doesn't have much in the way of showing you anything. It basically just lists the tab. I want something that can help me learn tab, slow down stuff, etc. Thanks for any info you can provide.
I did pick up Korg's iMS-20 app the other day and it's fantastic! Totally fun. Once I got familiar with the basics, I started realizing some limitations....only 16, 1 bar patterns per song. Since it seems to be all pattern based (which I like), it also does not seem I can record a lead line. For example, play the pattern for 4 bars, but have the lead play something different during that entire 4 bars. I'd have to use up 4 pattern slots to do it. Well, with the new GarageBand update today (containing Audio Copy/Paste) I can now paste my audio from iMS-20 into GB and now I can use the GB synths on there to record chords and parts over various patterns I've created on the iMS-20. This just took these apps to a new level for me!
Tab Toolkit is outstanding. While I haven't tested competing apps, it's highly unlikely that there is better tab app currently. You have the sheet of music and as it plays, a vertical red line moves with the music and the contact points are displayed in real-time on the guitar neck below. You can manually move the bar at any time to play through sections at any speed. You can also adjust the global speed down to as low as 10%, so you can learn at your own pace. It's easily worth the price.
Picked it up on sale even though I don't have an iPad yet... Love DS-20, and were getting our daughter an iPad once they become a bit more readily available.
