DopplerPad

Developer: The Retronyms LLC
Category: Music
Version: 1.0.5
Release Date: August 31, 2009
Size: 3.6 MB
Price: $9.99
Rating: 10/10

The Retronyms have released an impressive, eclectic selection of apps into the App Store. Doppler Pad is the most involved and professional app of the bunch, a beautiful iPhone version of a synthesizer/mixer/touch instrument that produces professional results.
 

This is a great app for DJ's, home video producers and any music fans out there who like to put  together their own beats, jams and soundtracks. This app is not like a standard mixer that restrains you to a studio looking keyboard, drum pads and mixing devices. Creating music is intuitive with this app, you move your fingers on a touchpad and produce sounds utilizing 37 different instruments. There are 2 separate touchpads to use on either side of the app. The visual feedback of your recordings allows you to "see" the groove you have created, a mesmerizing feature. You can record in 2 modes, overdub and replace. The recording features and sound control features are incredibly impressive for something that fits in your pocket and can be brought anywhere. Create loops and phrases, adjust the octave and key, utilize the mixer for cross fading. You can use both an external or the internal mic on the iPhone. The possibilities of what can be done are as endless as your imagination.

The complexity of the app forced me to work with it for quite a while before I mastered it and really started to create intricate beats. It was fun to play around with and learn, and extremely satisfying to master. I am a huge fan of Dub Reggae and I eventually started producing respectable rhythms of bass, drum and horns that I have saved for use with my iMovie productions. Lee Perry would be blown away by this app, I wonder if he has an iPhone down there in Jamaica.... I fooled around with some techno and industrial music too and found it incredibly easy to create and tweak great beats. Hooked up to my stereo system everything I created sounded professional.

This is one of those apps that really brings out the capability of the iPhone. I wonder how many DJ's out there have pulled off a show with this app, it's completely do-able. Check out the videos on YouTube that The Retronyms and others have posted, they'll blow your mind. DopplerPad is the coolest of all of the complete mixing/music devices I've found in the App Store. It expertly utilizes the intuitive nature of the iPhone platform to produce a really fun and original form of music creation. Look out when (if) the Tablet is released, this app will be ridiculously fun on that hardware! Whenever I use DopplerPad I find myself getting lost as time flies by unbeknownst to me. It is priced as a high end premium app at $9.99, and for serious music fans it is well worth the price.