Review Instant Beat

[rating: 4/5]

One man band or just looking to replace that awkward drummer? This is the app for you.

Instant Beat brings the next generation rhythm composer to the iPhone and iPod Touch. It provides you with an extremely fast way of creating studio quality rhythm arrangements on the go. Everyone from the beginner to the studio pro will be creating beats in minutes thanks to the simplified user interface.

This is a drum machine with a twist, rather than record what you personally play on the pads to be played back again, mistakes an all, this app has both pads and a sequencer where you simply tap squares on a grid and it plays the particular beat. Configure your bpm and drum type (6 different types to choose from) then tapping grid and away you go, forming your drum rhythm as the yellow bar moves over the green squares. Once you’ve completed your masterpiece you can save the pattern for future use after entering a custom name with an onscreen keyboard. Going one step further with a view to live performances you can setup sessions, which let you choose what patterns are loaded into the quick launch row of buttons above the pads at a moments notice. As far as I can tell you are pretty much unlimited (device memory providing one would assume) with the amount of different sessions and patterns you can have stored which is always a good thing but I would like to see more drum kits available just to bulk out this application’s longevity.

My gripes with this application, would be that adjusting the bpm is hard work, stuck with tapping the + or – button once for every one digit adjustment, which if you play at different speeds for different songs is going to be a killer pain in the neck to stand there and adjust it back and fourth. While most of the settings in the menu are used for loading and saving patterns and sessions the show/hide instrument numbers is off by default and will be off every time you launch the application which could be annoying as it’s the only way of telling which pad does what between the pad and grid views. I also feel the interface could do with more work to maximise screen real estate as there are some rather large gaps that could be better used to make the interface elements larger so easier to use in the heat of the moment.

iphone-app-reviews-promo-codes-official-app-store-badge_touch_4Price: $2.99 (free version available)

The Good

  • Clever use of a well known music interface
  • Session loading
  • Near infinite configurability

The Not So Good

  • …but let down by a limited range of drum kits
  • Bit of a touch/sound delay?
  • Interface needs work

Reviewed by: Tyler Durdan

Instant Beat Screenshots

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