SoundBrush Brings A Visual Element To Music
SoundBrush ($1.99) by LeafNotes Inc. is an interesting new music app that lets you “paint” with music. Paint on the screen with your finger, tap the play button, and each stroke you’ve painted becomes a note.
Choose an instrument. Piano shows as blue, violin is red, flute is purple, and synthesizer is green. Swipe to draw, double tap to delete your latest stroke, and use two fingers to scroll left and right. You can hear each note as you draw it. Tap the arrow if you want to undo your last note, or the “x” to clear the entire composition. On either side of the play button is a skip button so you can get to the beginning or end of your composition in a snap.
Go into settings to choose your playback speed, anywhere from 1x to 4x. Choose your scale: Major, Minor, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, or Blues. You can toggle on and off the grid that indicates where each note starts and ends. If you toggle on the Label Rows option, you can actually which note you’re selecting, as opposed to just dabbling in the dark. Lastly, you can choose whether or not to fill the cells you’re selecting.
It’s really quite a simple app, but you can tap the question mark to access a help menu.
So, no musical training is necessary to enjoy SoundBrush. I’m not a musician, so I just sort of played around and created sort of a mish-mosh symphony. I’d imagine someone with a musical ear could create something really great. I also think it would a fun way to introduce your love of music to a child, since it’s a visual as well an as aural experience.
So, if you’re looking for a little bit different way to create and play with music on your iPad, check out SoundBrush.
