Retronyms have been long time pioneers of mobile music since the early days of the iOS app store with apps like DopplerPad, which is still one of their best in my view, and I really wish that they’d update it – I think it could be so good. However, I digress.
Now Retronyms have brought another of their iOS apps to Android, Phase84, which has been on the iOS app store for well over 2 years now.
Here’s what Retronyms have to say about it:
Retronyms has expanded mobile app ecosystem to now include Google Play with the launch of Phase84 for Android. Previously only available on iOS in the Apple App Store and Samsung Galaxy Apps Store, Phase84 is the first Retronyms music app on Google Play. Phase84, a next generation phase distortion synthesizer, fuses gritty digital sounds with traditional analog punch.
The app features over 110 presets, containing all sorts of basses, leads, pads, bell tones, sweeps, atmospheric sounds, pseudo-realistic tones, and more. Phase84 offers a multitude of unique features, such as the groove gate, a 16 step rhythm matrix with tweakable envelope, patterns, and tempo while in perform mode. Experienced synth tweakers will be thrilled at the sheer variety of unique sounds that can be produced with this incredibly versatile synth, as well as musicians exploring Phase84 for the first time. Phase84 takes the basic phase distortion technique and supercharges it, giving musicians endless amounts of creative options.
Phase84 author Louis Gorenfeld expands on this, saying, “The sound of Phase Distortion exists somewhere in the space between traditional analog subtractive synths like the Minimoog and Yamaha’s chilly plucky FM tones.” Phase84’s roots date back to the 80s, with the wave shaping synthesis in Casio’s CZ line of digital synthesizers. “Casio’s resulting CZ synth line found use on albums from a diverse list of artists from Moby to Jean-Michel Jarre to They Might Be Giants,” explains Gorenfeld. With Phase84, users can customize their waveforms much more than on the original Casio CZs. The app in particular can create warm pads, glitchy sounds, dirty basses, filthy sweeps, screaming leads, and anything in-between. For those familiar with the typical Moog-like synthesis, think of the “shaper” as being synonymous with “brightness” or “filter cutoff”. An organic semi-randomized unison mode helps it produce killer pads. The oscillators can be FM’d together for even more complex and rough tones, or phased using pulse-width modulation.
FEATURES:
- More than 100 presets
- USB MIDI controller support
- Low-latency audio on both Samsung and non-Samsung devices
- Advanced Keyboard section
- Expressive Perform Mode with Groove Gate
- Precision Knob mode
- Preset saving in Standalone Mode
- Phat, naturalistic unison feature for super thick pads and sweeps
- Oscillator Section: 9 Params, 2 General-Purpose Oscillators, 1 Formant Oscillator
- Mix Section: 8 Params including Delay Amount and Pulse Width
- Envelope Section: Amplitude and Shaper Envelopes; fully visualized and
- interactive ADSR plus special Fade Param
- Delay/Filter Section: Stereo delay with loss modeling and a punchy overdriven analog-style filter
- 3 LFOs: More flexible than your average LFO, this has 4 waveforms, optional delay and repeat count, and can go into the audible frequency range
Phase84 for Android is available now on Google Play for $9.99.