Akai Synthstation Review - iOS Blog
Even though I have been an iPhone user for 4 years now (yes that’s since the original iphone and before we had widespread 3G *gasp*) I have never really fallen for the iOS app craze and have been especially sceptical of music production on smart phones. Yes I’ve dabbled in a couple of apps over the years and it has been interesting to monitor the rapid development in iOS technology but I’ve found the lifespan and general functionality to be limited at best.
Intua’s Beatmaker for example had me fascinated for the first evening of use – I mean, come on, a sampler and sequencer on your phone! Brilliant. However, as mentioned above, the limited functionality left me reverting straight back to my laptop and Logic. At the time beatmaker was only functional as a stripped down MPC and therefor only useful for creating drum breaks and sample loops.
A year or so later I find myself looking for an affordable way of triggering samples at live shows – with my current budget a Nord Wave or MPC 1000 is completely out of the question. I soon stumbled across a band using an iPod Touch with an AKAI Midi Control Dock to trigger synth sounds at a show whilst on tour in Bilbao…. “cheapskates”, I think to myself, “that’s even lower than using a laptop and softsynths”. However I must admit that it did plant the seed and soon got me thinking about all the possibilities available on such a compact system. Before I knew it I was in the market for the Synthstation 25.
Now as I’m writing this I am roughly a third of the way through a US tour (well currently in Canada) and, being the disorganised fool that I am, forgot to bring any projects to work on during the long journeys and, quite frankly, am sick of trying to set up a mobile studio in tour busses and on budget airline flights. Setting up a laptop, soundcard, headphones and midi keyboard in a four-foot square when my knees are already up to my chin makes an already uncomfortable journey far worse, it doesn’t make for an ideal writing environment and is hardly inspiring.
On the Second day of the tour we popped into the Guitar Centre (big chain of music shops in the US) in Brooklyn to grab some supplied.. In a glass cabinet by the counter I saw the AKAI on sale for $40… !! SOLD !!
This thing is awesome.. I downloaded the Akai Synthstation app for a bargain £1.49. It’s very basic, it only allows the use of 4 instruments (1 drum machine, 2 mono synths and one polyphonic synth) but it is designed for use with the hardware and works seamlessly. Within 2 hours of opening the box I had gotten quite comfortable and already thrown together 3 ideas, one of which I’m pretty confident will make it on to the SubDivision album.
The keyboard itself is (at least for the money) extremely well built, all the moving parts feel pretty tough and it has a fair amount of features for such a small unit. 25 mini keys (think MicroKorg), pitch and modulation wheels, 8 soft buttons (the usual octave jumps and 6 others for controlling software), headphone port with volume knob, phono output, mini usb port and of course the all important apple dock.
The Synthstation works with a wide range of iOS apps including the fantastic NanoStudio (that’s a whole blog to itself). If you already own one then just by docking your iPhone/iPod into the keyboard and opening the AppStore will automatically direct you to a list of compatible apps.
Now my original plan of using the device for triggering samples is on the back-burner again.. I just can’t quite trust computers at live events yet. However, when I’m on the move and want to jot down ideas, this WILL be my first point of call. Being able to through together ideas so quickly has revolutionised my composing. Where as before with writing on a laptop it may have taken me around an hour to get a rough idea together only to find out that it wasn’t quite how imagined, I can now (in the same amount of time) put together 4 or 5 disposable ideas and grab the one that works!
Ok, so maybe we’re not going to be creating CD release quality tracks on our phones just yet but as for creating new ideas on the fly.. This is hard to beat.
If you’re a musician and an iPhone user, do yourself a favour… Just buy it – you won’t regret a thing.