sonogrid: Drum machine on steroids on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

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sonogrid helps you deeply explore music.

You can use it like a drum machine, an advanced metronome, an ear trainer, compositional sketchpad, or just to have fun with sound and music.

No musical experience is necessary to enjoy the app, and that's what makes it fun, but certain features might feed your creativity if you already make music. For musicians, there are new time signatures, polyrhythms, scales, and the possibility to combine any of them in new ways. For dancers, a highly-flexible accompaniment that never needs to stop. For teachers, a clear way to represent time and help students understand the space between beats. For improvisers, something fun to play along with and to take you to new spaces. For composers, a way of exploring complex rhythmic ideas and layering without heavy symbolic language. For music nerds, plans cancelled.

Use the app's powerful features for beat making, ear training, keeping time, performing, and creative exploration. Most importantly, have fun!

Features

Tenori to the limit.

The familiar step sequencer has been transformed to be more flexible, but the idea of turning notes 'on' and 'off' is the same.

Part imagination, part puzzle.

The main concept is to put looping rhythms on the screen in a way that they all relate to each other. Transform rhythms visually by shifting, stretching, and snapping.

Easy button or eighty-eight keys?

Notes are selected automatically by default so that you can start quickly, but if you need more control you can manually select one for each track from a full-size piano keyboard.

Plays nice with others.

The app comes with many built-in instruments but you can also send notes live to other apps if you want to have custom sounds. You can send MIDI out (maybe to a synthesizer app like Audulus, or a DAW on your computer like Ableton Live). You can also export your project to a standard MIDI file which can be played back on any device.

You already know how to use it.

The interface is similar to multi-track recording software so you can mute, solo, move, stretch, and manage tracks intuitively.

You've got options.

The powerful transformations on each track are easy to access and understand. No mystery-meat navigation.

More than 2, 4, 8, 16.

The app is designed as a creative tool, with a screen that's mostly a blank canvas for your ideas. It is a new way to explore the deep world of rhythm, and with virtually infinite possibilities you are not limited to even numbers.

When does it line up?

The phase is automatically calculated so you know when the pattern will repeat.

21st century notation.

Specifying simple and complex rhythms is completely effortless without western classical music notation - you have never felt anything like this.

Birds eye view.

Projects are saved automatically with a zoomed out view so you can identify it. Add a name later, when you are ready.

Technical Specifications

Create looping rhythms
Transform rhythms visually by shifting, stretching, snapping
Snap to non-standard time grids
See visually when uneven rhythms start together
Add, subtract, double, halve, subdivide rhythms
Invert, rotate, reverse, randomize rhythms
Create serialist melodies (using all tracks equally)
Set notes automatically or manually per track
Choose from a variety of musical scales
Set instrument per track
Choose from over a dozen instruments made with organic homemade samples
Mute and solo tracks
Lock tracks to prevent shifting
Add up to 16 tracks
Start from scratch or from templates
Many factory templates featuring time signatures, polyrhythms, grooves, indian taals, tenori layouts, and more
Create your own templates
Plays in the background while using other apps
* [Ableton Link is not yet supported but coming in a future release]
Audiobus support with state saving
Send MIDI out
Set MIDI channel per track
Export project to MIDI file
Export projects to JSON file
VoiceOver support
Clean interface
No complicated instructions
No annoying ads or review popups
No behavioural analytics or 3rd party trackers
Universal app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch