xewton music studio, Soul Nectar's guide to...

On Oct 2nd 2009,

Xewton released a piece of software that comes straight into the ipod/iphone music production team to give the big dogs, Fingerbeat and more relatively Beatmaker a run for their money...

In previous hubs I have talked about the capabilities of some great Music production apps like, FingerBeat and Beatmaker, which set the pace for music production software on the ipod touch & iphone.

And it seems that Xewton have tried to go far above and beyond where their competitors left off and have gone all out on a full Music production studio environment with full step editing, quantization, full sequencing mode and a whole lot more!

Until now the only software that had similar capabilities was Beatmaker with its step editing, drum pads, Wave editing and sequencing abilities.

Here is a quick run down of some of the main features that set Xewton apart from the rest:

85 Key piano Key Board

21 professionally sampled instruments including guitars, drums, pianos/keyboards, brass, wind and percussion and sustain samples!

Real-time effects including: Re-verb, Delay, Equalizer and Amplifier

Keyboard scrolling and resizing using pinch and slide gestures

Professional sequence recording and editing of samples and sounds (Already built in)

128-track sequencer: bar wise editing and full volume and pan mixing of instruments

Full note editor customizable quantization and transpose and velocity editing

This app even offers export to WAV and Midi and even the ability to transfer via WiFi to your computer!

Xewton is looking to be the hottest music production app on the range of i-hardware to date, it's like a mini studio and orchestra in your pocket.

It seems to me that Xewton is a very classical piece of software, by which I mean that it seems to be geared more towards the production of more classical and orchestral music, as there isn't much in terms of hip-hop or funky house type samples, where as apps like Beatmaker have a more heavy focus on drum loops and patterns, but persistent musicians will still be able to create the sounds they are looking for after fiddling about with their sound for long enough.

Using the app is simple and very open and there are plenty of customizable options for your tracks.

There is however one thing which I feel should have been added as standard seeing as it has already been done in fingebeat which is, the ability to record your voice!

This was quite disappointing, as this really would have completed the studio experience, but with the ability to export to midi and WAV, there should be no problem getting it onto your computer to import into Cubase or whatever your choice of software for recording is. Even if you are at a mates and you come up with something on the fly and have left your ipod/iphone lead at home you can take full advantage of the WiFi export function.

The only other things I would say let Xewton down a bit.

1. For your 94 Meg download there are only twenty-one instruments (all very well made) which, after you have played about with enough, can leave you wanting more to play with. As it stands Xewton are working on updates that will contain more instruments.

2. The Price. Xewton comes straight in the App store at a hefty £11.99 putting it in direct pricing competition with beatmaker it's main rival which is also £11.99. Some people might be more inclined to go for the Fingerbeat app, as it allows voice recording and sampling on the fly, is only an 8Meg download and has a miniscule price tag of only £2.39...

So in conclusion, Xewton Music Studio looks very promising and is definitely set to give the big players a good run for the money, but only time will tell which company has got the minerals when it comes to portable producing.

I believe that the company that updates their app the most consistently will be the successor of this battle as constant updates and add-ons will ultimately keep the apps alive with new instruments and features.

We shall see...

Please leave comments on your own experiences with any of the apps mentioned, but especially anything on Xewton.

Have a great day in Jesus's name,

Amen...