Going from Listener to Music Maker?

[akumpf]

Hi everyone,

I've been playing instruments for many years now, but I've always been curious why so many people love listening to music by hesitate to ever pick up an instrument. To me, that's like learning to read without ever trying to write! :)

My career/education has led me to building lots of mechanical, electrical, and digital things, and naturally I've gravitated toward making musical instruments whenever I can. Over the last year I've had a lot of time I could put into making something from scratch, so I decided to make a new digital instrument that's designed to make learning to play a new instrument simple while having lots of deep music theory built in so you can really create rich tracks.

The instrument I created is called Firo; it's currently free and works on the iPad. You can check it out directly in the iOS App Store. :)

From the app's description:

Firo is the fastest way to get a musical idea out of your head and into audio.

Make your own songs, riffs, and compositions with an instrument that's designed from the ground up to bring your musical ideas to life. Fully compatible with MIDI, AudioBus, and IAA.

Here's a super short demo of Firo (Fiddlewax Pro) in action:
[video=youtube;It4Gh4-9FFI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It4Gh4-9FFI[/video]

And if you're curious to look at the technical detail, there's also the Firo Guide Book with tons of info.

What do you think? Could this be a helpful instrument to have in your toolbox for songwriting, framing up melodies, chord progressions, etc?

The app is still evolving, so suggestions/questions are great and can help to make it better.

Cheers!
Adam

[Jerome]

It would be very handy to jot down ideas - like a musical notebook you can use when you are flying somewhere etc. When you say you've been playing instruments, does this include analogue/acoustic instruments or only digital synths etc? Just curious. Incidentally the drum beat in the sample video is out of time!!!

[akumpf]

I mainly play guitar at this point, but I've also spent some quality time with the trumpet and piano.

The "out of time" drum beat is part of the video's charm. I say that jokingly, but it's actually kind of true. You can snap beats to quantized intervals in Firo, but I personally like it better when the output depends only on my input and doesn't snap things to a grid. I guess the real take-away is that I need to practice more!