By Carolyn Heneghan

Barcelona hosted the 20th Sonar International Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art June 13th-16th where gurus and devotees in the realms of music, art and all things digital gathered to display and discuss the music and media of the future. There was a techie’s buffet of app goodies at this year’s Sonar App Bar, which put 15 different apps on display for hands-on instruction and interaction.

The bar featured 15 different highly technical music, media and puzzle apps, including:

  • Borderlands (Chris Carlson)
  • DJ Vadim: Don’t Be Scared (Immersive Album)
  • Energy Flow (Field)
  • Hundreds (Semisecret Software)
  • Mental Rotation (Binaura)
  • Mini-composer (Karl Bartos/Kraftwerk & Masayuki Akamatsu)
  • Ninja Jamm (Ninja Tune, Seeper)
  • OKO (Nadezda Suvorova)
  • Rework: Philip Glass Remixed (Scott Snibbe Studio)
  • Rubans for iPad (Small Lab)
  • Samplr (Marcos Alonso)
  • Starlay (Editions Volumique)
  • Sum05 (Lia)
  • TuneTracer (QApp – Queen Mary University)
  • Visua Musio (App Art)

Let’s take a look at some of the music-centric apps featured at the Sonar App Bar this year.

Borderlands

Borderlands Granular came to light last year (SoundCtrl even reviewed the app) when developer Chris Carlson decided that sound was better controlled using gestural interactivity over the traditional buttons, knobs and sliders. The app is highly technical and complex with demo screens full of colliding sound waves and colored circles, but its complexities are what makes the sounds it creates so rich and unique. The app allows the user to manipulate each sound on a granular level granting him or her full control over the epic soundscape he or she is creating.

DJ Vadim: Don’t Be Scared

DJ Vadim explores the concept of immersive albums with this app. He has not only remixed the nine tracks on his album Don’t Be Scared, but he has transformed them into multitrack visual escapades. The user can tap, swipe and drag various elements of the album artwork and remixes to create their own unique experience with the album.

click the image for video from Sonar

Mini-composer

A fun, simple synth, Mini-composer has four different backgrounds for creating basic synth patterns. Users simply touch any of the boxes on the screen for the selected note to be played as a bar passes over the image. The images change the sound and sound pattern for each block, and the drumbeat can be toggled on and off to add a beat to the song.

Ninja Jamm

Ninja Jamm is the ultimate handheld remix tool. Users can play tracks, adjust tempos, and apply endless effects to transform the original track with just a few taps. When the user is done with the song, he or she can then upload the completed track to SoundCloud for instant sharing.

Rework: Philip Glass Remixed

It begins with the album Rework: Philip Glass Remixed, a tribute to the composer complete with 12 remixes of Glass’ work from the likes of Beck, Dan Deacon, Tyondai Braxton, Nosaj Thing and more. The app includes interactive visualizations of 11 of these songs which include everything from vibrating sound waves to pulsating 3D shapes and shattering colored crystals. There is also the Glass Machine, which allows users to use Glass’ early works as inspiration for their own musical creations.

Samplr

Interpretive gestural technology returns with Samplr, a touch-based app designed especially for live performance. It has all the normal controls of a mixer but with the ability to see and manipulate the soundwaves themselves using only the user’s fingertips on the multitouch-enabled screen. For each bit of a sample, any tap, drag, swipe or flip means endless possibilities for the overall song and its live performance.

TuneTracer

This is arguably one of the coolest new apps featured at the App Bar. The app essentially interprets drawings and turns them into music. Simply draw a design on a piece of paper, and take a photo with your device. The app will scan the photo and create music out of the lines, shapes and patterns it reads.

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