Many of us want to be musicians. Many of us can play instruments. Many of us have rhythm or timing. But what about the rest of the population who want to make sweet, sweet music? There's an app for that. and it's FREE. TonePad from LoftLab is a free and simple music application that will have you making tunes in no time at all. What does it look like? Let's look at the interface: Rather than taking on a standard interface as you may have seen in apps like "Tweetie" or "BeeJive," when tabs on the bottom are the navigational side of the app, TonePad has opted for a more computer-like feel, having buttons for "File" and "Edit" like you can probably see at the top of your browser window now. You'll notice the grid too, which is customisable in the sense that you can change the colour of it. Just tap "Colors" and it brings up a colour wheel and selector, and you just pick the colour you want. I'm quite a fan of red.. How do you play? As I said in the intro, you hardly need any musical knowledge at all with this app. You'll have yourself writing catchy jingles in no time at all. All you have to do is draw on the grid, filling in the dots. It's already set up in a suitable scale for you - that will work. The high notes are at the top, and the low notes at the bottom (although I can't hear the low notes through my 2nd gen's built-in speaker..) So let's say you want a simple tune? Just scribble! You now have a looped melody which won't sound too bad! If you are musically minded, you can remove clashes by trial and error or working out the scale you're in - Try not to put too many notes on top of each other, that will be a clash. Watch this video: And that's it. I've spend ages with this app trying to make some brilliant stuff and I've done alright, I'd say. What else can you do? You can upload your tracks and download other peoples'. However, the flaw with this feature is that there's not a list of tracks, like there is in Smule's Leaf Trombone. If you want to download a song, you need to ask your friend for their code, and if you want to share, you need to tell people. Tell you what... if you make a tune you think is impressive, why don't you paste the code here? Then maybe other people can give you feedback on your tune. There's also other features in the Edit menu, like "Rotate" "Flip" "Shift Left" "Shift Right" which you can use to alter your melody to see what it sounds like - Be sure to save your original first though if you're happy with it! Overall Aesthetically, the app looks good. You can customise and the grid area is big and it looks good when the lights light up! There is an advert bar at the top though which I tend to tap a lot by accident, which takes you out of the app. Autosave feature is present though. As for what you can do with TonePad, there's a lot of features other than just "draw a squiggle and see what it sounds like" - For example, try pictures. I drew a dog up there ^^ (If you were wondering what that was.) Overall, I'll give it 9 because it's free and easy to use straight from the off. Although it could be improved by having a list of all songs to download and by having tabs instead of pop-up menus. Grab it here: www.itunes.com/app/tonepad
This looks awesome! I am currently downloading and experimenting with it. Will post back in a while with my thoughts. By the way, it is nice to see you having time to write a review. I guess you do write a lot on HackTheiPodtouch though...
He's a maven, for now... Anyways, that's a great review Abc. I enjoyed it just like some of your other reviews on HtiPt. Keep it up.
Sorry about calling you a mod. For a second I thought Kiks posted this but after posting I scrolled up and realized. Lol. By the way, I'm glad you brought this app to my attention. I have been messing around with it and it seems pretty cool. I just don't like how it has a similar beat all the time.
