Monday 23 June 2014

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT CAUSTIC MUSIC APP THE BEST

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT
ANDROID APPS
SINGLE CELL SOFTWARE
£5.99 UNLOCK KEY

Good evening or very early morning, Synapse Circuit Readers. I hope all is well with you! Fancy making music on the fly?

#Caustic #SingleCellSoftware #MusicApp #AndroidApps

CAUSTIC: LOVE
ANDROID APPS NOT AS GOOD AS iOS APPS? THINK AGAIN!


London, UK June 24th 2014 –
Hey! Do you remember when I said that iOS apps seem to have the edge over Android? Yeah, sometimes I look at the beautiful hardware that can only come from the Android stable i.e. the Galaxy Note phablets from the first inception to the latest and what’s coming; LG G3; the Samsung Galaxy Tab S; HTC One M8, etc. Great stuff! But when I look at the Apple ads for the iPad especially I see some great look apps – especially for music!

The iPad and iPhone ads prompted me to take another look at what’s out there for music making and I came across Caustic version 3.1 for Android, PC and iOS! Wow! The first sign that things were looking up for Android musicians was Image Line’s Fruity Studio Mobile that can be had for £12.95. The price is a bit steep in the world of apps whereby I reckon £8 to £10 pounds is the limit. Bear in mind that music has lost the edge and is no longer seen as a means to make money. If you believe what is said about Jay-Z and his connections it may be a waste of time to pursue a career in music unless intend to hook up that club. However, for those who love to make music and wish to do so with the Android handset-phab- tablet then Caustic 3.1 is definitely an app to check out!


Above: The FM Synth with pattern / MIDI editor and effect units. 


CAUSTIC

Nope, it’s nothing to do with the album by Palo Nutini! Iron Sky is quite a stand out track from that album – YouTube it! Caustic is the brilliant app by Single Cell Software that is very much like a combination of the popular music software that is Reason and Synapse (no relation) Audio’s Orion Studio for the PC. Therefore the Caustic interface is pretty easy to get to grips with. You can use up to 14 instruments and apply two effect units on each track. It comes across as limiting but I personally find that this is a good thing because people – including me – spend more time downloading free VST instruments and effects for our PC based music making software and do not get any music done! Caustic is a breath of fresh air to get back to the basics of music making without distractions!

What is a delight is that there is scope for automating the synthesizer and effect knobs so that they move on their own within a pattern and song for dynamism.



Above: The Caustic mastering effects and pattern sequencer! Works like a dream!


CONCLUSION

Caustic 3.1 is a great music app that works also with the PC version (there is no support for the PC version) so you can transfer files between the two platforms.

I used a Galaxy Note 2 to test Caustic and I had no problems with it.

I am also inclined to think that Caustic as great scope for yet another PC / MAC / Linux DAW (digital audio workstation) that can incorporate VST (virtual studio technology instruments and effects). In fact, I wonder how difficult it would be for the Android version to take advantage of the VST instruments and effects format. I would imagine that some of the premium quad-core handsets and tablets have the power to utilize VST but I could be wrong. Hmmmm… Sure, it comes across as contradicting what I stated earlier about “simplicity” but for those, like me, who have collected loads of VST instruments and effects over the years, would find it advantageous. But the bottom line is that Caustic is truly outstanding as it is!

There are great YouTube tutorials that go beyond the call of duty and explain not only how to use Caustic but the principals behind the synthesizers! Awesome!

Don’t forget that because you can export compositions in the MIDI file format you can import it into other DAWs! Excellent!

FEATURES

Subsynth - Virtual analog subtractive synthesizer

PCMSynth - Multi-sample wave synthesizer

BassLine - 303-like monosynth

BeatBox - 8-channel sampling drum machine

PadSynth - Harmonic table pad synthesizer

8BitSynth - 8bit equation solver synthesizer

Modular - Fully configurable and routable synthesizer

Organ - Hammond-like tonewheel organ with rotary speaker

Vocoder - 8-band harmonic vocoder

FMSynth - DX-style 3-operator fm synthesizer

KSSynth - Karplus-Strong string modeling synth (new!)

All files are stored on the user-accessible storage, and users can supply their own WAV files for use in the PCMSynth, BeatBox, and Vocoder.

Supports all uncompressed WAV files (8-16-24-32bit, any sampling rate).

The PCMSynth can also load SoundFont files (.sf2), SFZ and FL Studio mobile instruments (instr, .ZIP)

Class-compliant USB MIDI controllers can be connected via USB OTG cable on devices running at least Android 3.2 and supporting USB host mode.

See the in-app help section for tutorial videos and full online manual.

* PLUS!

There are sample packs that are either free or at a small cost to extend the capabilities.

MINIMUM DEVICE SPECS ARE:

1GHz ARMv7 processor
800 x 480 resolution screen
Headphones or external speakers

SCORE

5 / 5 PLATINUM


Go get the PC version here:
http://www.singlecellsoftware.com


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