ShakeMidi for iOS review

ShakeMidi is a wireless music app with a difference. Instead of controlling your software with touchscreen sliders and faders you just shake your iOS device and The app will send midi note information to your DAW.

This app is a lot of fun to play around with but I'm not sure that I could see myself making any serious music with it. But I suppose that's the main selling point of this app, it's fun. The App itself is set out really well, it's simple to understand and there's a built in help section just incase you run into any problems.

I've had a few issues with wireless midi apps in the past but I had no real trouble connecting ShakeMidi to my laptop. All that you have to do is download and install the free rtpMIDI program on your computer to set up a midi port. When you've done that Shake Midi will auto connect. Then there's the small matter of opening Ableton (or whatever DAW) you're using and selecting it in the settings. If this sounds a bit much there's a help page here.

The app also connects via core midi which means that if you have any supporting apps on your iOS device they can be easily controlled with ShakeMidi. This also works with multiple iOS devices on the same wifi network (for example: you can control GarageBand on your iPad with ShakeMidi on your iPhone).

It's always good when an app is universally compatible, especially music apps. Shake midi is indeed a universal app, meaning that it will work on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with no problems. However, I can't really imagine anyone with an iPad using this as much. I tried it myself and I just felt a bit foolish shaking my iPad around (good fun though).

Anyway, here's a short YouTube video of my shaking my iPhone. I have ShakeMidi hooked up to Massive in Ableton Live.

More about the iPhone midi app here

ShakeMidi is available from the AppStore now.

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First opinions on Lemur for iOS

So yeah, I couldn't help myself. I brought the new Lemur app by Liine. For me, the original Jazzmutant Lemur was the perfect controller, I wanted it so badly but unfortunately the original hardware version was a little out of my price range. The other day I posted here on Voltage-Controlled that Liine had just released an iOS version of Lemur.

I did say that I was going to wait a while before I brought the Lemur app but obviously I had a moment of weakness soon after and brought it. Now I'm in love with it, it's something that I know that I'm going to use a lot and when I say a lot I mean a LOT. It might have quite a high price tag for an iOS app but I can tell you, if you're serious about writing/performing electronic music then it's most definitely worth it.

I'm going to be writing a proper review of this thing soon and maybe posting a few YouTube videos of me messing around with it but for now I'm still learning about the editor and familiarising my self with it.

But anyway, here's a pic of the first custom interface that I made with the Lemur app.

Lemur is available from the app store now.

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