For all the variety in synths and control methods, patterns and sequencing often tend to be rather same-y.

That’s why it’s wonderful to see things like this short video from Jakob Penca. In it, rhythms mutate and vary, all as clever gestures on an iPad manipulate the beat-making noises of an Elektron Machinedrum. The app is still under development, but it’s nice to see this early glimpse. Description:

a quick improvisation demo of my upcoming iOS app for the Elektron Machinedrum. This shows how you can mutate a pattern with copy & paste operations directly on an iPad.

This app itself is not a sequencer; it works directly with the onboard sequencer on a Machinedrum. The bad news, for those of you without Machinedrums: you need a Machinedrum. (Think p-locks, Machinedrum owners. Everyone else: this works with the hardware sequencer rather than sequencing its own events, so you can’t just use it with your own MIDI hardware.) The good news, for those of you with Machinedrums: you may be about to have a whole lot of fun.

We’ll be watching this one.