Music Made with Korg iPolysix – And Nothing Else: Live Demos to iPad Chip Music

Music Made with Korg iPolysix – And Nothing Else: Live Demos to iPad Chip Music:

Doing more with less, and embracing limitations: it’s oft-repeated advice in music making. Maybe it’s repeated so often that it ceases to mean anything; I can find no harm in making music using the massive possibilities of a packed studio of gear or the endless depth of a computer.
So, instead, doing more with less can be something you do just because it’s liberating. It means you can make music on a budget. It means you can make music when you’re on a bus with nothing but a first-generation iPad and a copy of Polysix. It can mean, psychologically, that feeling of looking at just one tool and saying, here I go, I’m going to make something – and finish it.
Listening to these tracks made on Korg’s new iPolysix is liberating in that way. It’s a reminder that you can curl up in bed tonight with this app and produce something. It also demonstrates some of the benefits of Korg treating iPolysix in this case as a full-blown production workstation, with multiple instruments and drums and mixer and performance tools, in a way that means you don’t necessarily have to bring in any other tool. (See my preview from Monday.)
And if you thought that official demo track that came with iPolysix sounded good, we’re pleased to learn it comes from Friend of the Site Rutger Muller. Rutger has made a name for himself doing more with less, with a series of Nintendo DS-only albums and performances using Korg’s DS-10. (Composition trumps so-called audio “fidelity” again – for anyone complaining about sound quality, Rutger makes great, grungy, grooving tracks on that Nintendo game console.)
Watch Rutger jam with that track live:

Rutger reports a pleasant surprise: you can do this even on the first-generation iPad – the early-adopter device many developers are now more or less ignoring. (Sounds as though his iPad was straining – I’d still encourage picking up an iPad mini or iPad 2, minimum, if you can, finding it used if you have to. But if you already have that iPad “1,” the lesson is, don’t be shy about using it.)
More details from Rutger on this production – plus lots of additional listening on iOS and DS alike:

Jamming on an iPad 1 with the official demo ‘Submarine Drift’ track I made for KORG’s new iPolysix app.

- More of my KORG iOS music: http://www.Soundcloud.com/iNALOG
More of my works:
- Hypnotic School (dreampop/triphop):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oMEgwWyD00
- AuxPulse (acid/IDM on Nintendo DS):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPPPuGTKslI
- DS-10 Dominator (various EDM/acid on Nintendo DS):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTPFcn7fTsk
- Chiptune Music

http://www.Soundcloud.com/DisketteDeluxe

- My complete portfolio:

http://www.RutgerMuller.nl

Rutger says he’ll have more videos on the way.
The other iPolysix production we get early on comes from Keishi Yonao, available via SoundCloud:
Keishi is a renowned Japanese game composer, and it shows.
In fact, if you want to forget about iPolysix, nice as it is, there’s … this:
The YM2151, aka OPM is Yamaha Corporation’s single-chip FM synthesis implementation, an eight-channel four-operator sound chip,created originally for the Yamaha Corporation’s DX series of keyboards,it was also used in many 80′s arcade games and home computers.iYM2151 is the The world’s first FM synthesis music workstation app using Yamaha Corporation’s YM2151 simulator engine for iApp.

What just happened? You watched a live “dump” of parameters, via the Detune-released iYM2151, an iPad app that simulates the chip inside the Yamaha DX series. (Bonus: your iPad is a heck of a lot easier to use than a DX, for what it’s worth.) That app is a fascinating creation. Details:

The YM2151, aka OPM is Yamaha Corporation’s single-chip FM synthesis implementation, an eight-channel four-operator sound chip,created originally for the Yamaha Corporation’s DX series of keyboards,it was also used in many 80′s arcade games and home computers.iYM2151 is the The world’s first FM synthesis music workstation app using Yamaha Corporation’s YM2151 simulator engine for iApp.
[iYM2151 for iPad]

-uses YM2151 simulator engine for iApp

-4 operators per 8 Algorithms

-8 voices

-3 software LFOs

-max 99scenes (1scene with 64 steps)

-easy FM edit mode

-MML mode : programable huge FM parameters in every steps

-DUMP mode : realtime all FM operator parameters viewer

-song data file sharing and mail attachment

-good old days 80′s design user interface

Keishi is a master composer – like his compositional brain is just moving faster than ours. Check out more of his work:

http://yonao.com/
Fire up your iPads on these two apps:
iYM2151 on iTunes App Store

iPolysix on iTunes App Store

DIGITAL JUICE