Well, I've been doing a lot of work on Droneo ... I think I will release a 1.3 after all and take some of the big ideas and make a new droner that's either Universal or iPad only. 1.3 mainly needs new instructions and a little similar cleanup. The patterns feature is currently specified as the label of a ratio, and it really needs its own spot. But maybe it will remain the way it is for now.

the new program will be much more generalized: it may, however, read both srutibox and Droneo export files!
- mirrors, evolving, churning, counting, and patterns, and consorts will go away because they are all specific implementations of a more generic concept of timed timbre creation.
the new system replaces the old such that each "reed" has:
- a ratio specification. the display mayl also display the Hz, cents, and std versions of that ratio/pitch simultaneously.
the ratio spec, which currently allows cents, ratios and equal temperaments, will also allow Hz (irrespective of base frequency) and maybe Std too.
- an optional label
- the possibility of being perturbed (the way it was via the "rand" button)
- maybe some other ratio-related features in the future.
and a list of these timbre specs, which are advanced per "pulse"
- continue flag (play the same as the last timbre spec)
- source waveform
- target volume
- target pan
- resolution speed (as percent of pulse or as static milliseconds, and curve type (linear/log)
- harmonic choices bitmap (0-31) 0 - silence, 1 - first harmonic, 2 - second harmonic , etc, and we randomly chose among these. thus, "0,4-8"
- harmonic choice percentage (the chance that a new harmonic will be chosen on this pulse)

the idea is to allow up to 16 or maybe more reeds, too, depending on how fast I can make it and what the sample rate is.
the pulse is specified in either seconds/pulse or, when it's fast, pulses per minute.

please email me drone at jhhl dot net with your critiques!

Amongst the things I am cooking up : Sonoctopus. IT's a utility that aspires to take sound from various sources, save it, manipulate it a little, and upload it back in a number of formats and methods.
so: take something off the clipboard, trim it a little, paste it to Sonoma Copy/Paste and mail it out as an AAC. (I don't know about making an MP3, that's a license issue I think).
It works pretty well so far - I'm going to add in the ability to post to SoundCloud and BandCamp and other sound posting places, once I get the authentication for them. It'll also screen scrape web pages for their mp3s, import from iTunes and podcasts, and serve the files via iTunes documents and its own Bonjour-discoverable website and maybe FTP if I'm that insane.

email me with pricing suggestions: I'm thinking this is a pretty useful $4-$5 app.

I'm fiddling with synthicity itself a little .. I don't know why ... but it's getting a timbre picking button, the ability to save and load patches (hmm), from and to the web and record to iTunes documents and pasteboard.
SOme of this is in there. I don't really want to mess with the simplicity, but a little more oomph would be nice!

Droneo 1.3 is getting yet another class of evolving mirror: I'd better stop, or start a whole new droning app (which I want to do any way) - which is pretty fascinating.
Each reed gets not only an interval, but also a specially coded pattern string of harmonics of that interval (or 0). this pattern is played in a loop.
so, play three against two:
reed 1: 1/1 10 length is 2
reed 2: 3/2 100 length is 3 ...

play a harmonically based scale:
reed 1: 1/8 89abcdef
( I use hex digits for harmonics, but extend it 16 more places up to w)

now I can build up polyrhythms in a sensible manner, using an pitches I like, and explore micro melodies and phasing.
Also, I can simulate hammered dulcimer patterns like
1: 1/1 20003000
2: 9/8 02000300
3: 5/4 00200030
4: 4/3 00020003

and then I can change the "string's" tuning the same way.

Although a little tough to type in on the phone, droneo voices can handle them fine, and you could make something pretty impressive and long playing using just these 8 reeds.

There are two new sites coming on line called evolutionaryculture.org and evolutionarymusic.org, and the person behind it, Zac Laurent, has written a very nice review of Tondo. It'll be up on the site(s?) when it launches:


Tondo- a remarkable app for making remarkable sounds

Well, it has to be said: There are a lot of apps out there, especially music ones. Many are great, and a lot, not so great. Most do the same things but just look different.

It was about time I found one that looked and sounds different!

Henry Lowengard has made quite a few apps and this one stands out as being truly one of a kind. Tondo is basically a reactive kind of app in the sense that you can tweak in different way and see harmony and disharmony occur by ever so slight adjustments. It is visually appealing as it doesn't look like a normal music app, and it's likely because it isn't.

And that is why it's so great!

I feel like I'm traveling back in time to the days of early sonic experimentation, like I'm watching greats such as Luc Ferrari or Brian Eno messing with the early synths and theramins. Things were not predictable then, but they are now. I don't want predictability in apps anymore,I have enough apps that do that.

Tondo is a work of art, a masterpiece of an app that I am sure I'm going to use a lot. I beg the developer to add AUDIOCOPY so that the more distinguished and experimental of us iOS producers can export our experiments to other apps and use these unique sound sculpting possibilities for many other projects. As a standalone app it's also great and one can spend hours just tweaking and being immersed in true sonic sculpture!

Well done Henry!