Making music on the move has long been a reality with your iPad and iPhone and now the iOS format can integrate perfectly with your recording studio, so here is MusicTech’s Essential Guide to iOS music production…
The history of music technology has always been exciting (well, to us here at MusicTech, naturally!). That’s not to say that it hasn’t had its moments of darkness – strap-on synthesisers, for example – but the last few decades have seen the technology that lies behind studio production twist and turn on a quite magical journey.
At one time, it was all about ‘digital’ technology, then ‘in the box’ plug-ins, then a swing back to ‘analogue’ – all phrases that studio boffins have come to know and love, as technology advanced and swept us all along.
But who could have predicted at the turn of this century that we would become obsessed with ‘touch’ technology – that swiping, gesturing, pinching and tapping would become so much a part of our existences and that mobile would become the latest tech to sweep the music-production world?
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.