Filip Brož I firmly believe that only a handful of users knew about the iMaschine application until yesterday afternoon, probably musicians who use the iPad to create, in the same way as the Chinese band Yaoband. This group appeared in an Apple promotional campaign "Your Verse" and it was thanks to her that the iMaschine application came under the spotlight.
An attentive viewer must have noticed what this application was used for in the mentioned video, and it received by far the most space in the one-minute spot compared to the other mentioned applications. I couldn't resist and downloaded the application that evening, and late into the night with headphones on, I tried everything that could be squeezed out of iMaschine. I have to say that I was very surprised by what the application can do.
The principle and use of iMaschine is very simple. iMaschine works with so-called grooves, which form the rhythmic component of every music group or song. Groove is typical of today's popular music and is a very important element in music genres such as swing, funk, rock, soul, etc. As laymen, we encounter groove in every song that makes us dance, and we tap our feet to its rhythm. In short, we like it and the rhythm or melody is very catchy. Groove therefore uses all possible sounds of percussion instruments, guitars, keyboards or bass lines, etc.
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Also in iMaschine you will encounter a lot of different sounds according to different music genres, styles and currents. There are various classic sounds of drum kits, guitars, elements of techno, hip hop, rap, drum 'n' bass, jungle and many other genres. You can conveniently filter all sounds in the application and you will find a very clear menu here. Overall, it can be said that the application uses three basic functions, between which all the sounds are hidden.
The first option to use the application is grooves, which are always presented in the menu according to the already mentioned music genres and various names. You can always work with a total of 16 sounds, which are displayed as orange squares, with four tabs at the bottom of the screen hiding another potential place for new sounds.
The second option is to use the sounds of the keys in iMaschine, which are again divided in different ways, you can mix between them in any way possible and click over the entire musical scale of all tones.
The third option – brilliantly captured in the aforementioned Apple ad – is to record your own sound. For example, you can record your own sound of running water, snapping, sneezing, banging on all kinds of materials, street sounds, people and much more. In the end, it's always up to you how you process and use the given sounds. Subsequently, you just arrange the desktop in the mentioned tabs according to what suits you, and the game can begin. What a square, a different tone. Subsequently, you can, for example, set various repetitions, amplification and many other conveniences. In short, just like the nice Chinese guy in the video, you'll go wild and enjoy the music to your heart's content.
Of course, iMaschine offers many other features, such as a very intuitive equalizer, different kinds of mixing and settings. You can upload and sync songs purchased or downloaded from iTunes to the app, and you can conveniently and easily record everything and then export it either to iTunes or to the SoundCloud music app and share it with others on the Internet.
With iMaschine you have the possibility to constantly experiment with different sounds and, exactly as shown in the advertisement, you have unlimited freedom in your own experience of music. The pleasant thing was that immediately after the second launch of the application, I was offered to download dozens of new sounds and various sound enhancements for free, all I had to do was register with an e-mail address. Basically, the iMaschine costs four euros, but you get an almost endless amount of musical entertainment. However, developers could work on exporting finished mixes, for example direct uploading to cloud services would be ideal.
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I would just like to add that the main idea of the iMachine is to prepare a project, record sounds in the field and when I get home, connect it to the Mac, download it and finish it in the Maschine program with a hardware driver. The imaschine itself is great, but after a while without it completed on the PC, it ends up just being fun anyway.