Elastic Melody was already a go-to melody generator for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, with an internal synth engine inspired by the brilliant Dave Smith Evolver and the ability to output to other apps or hardware gear. Now it gains new Pitch and Filter Drive modes, so it can also be your bassline maker and percussion source.
Oliver Greschke continues to be on a roll with the Elastic line. (Disclosure: I worked on the original version of WretchUp and a preset collection for Elastic OSC.) I’m personally excited to work with this one again, both because of its internal engines and melody-making capabilities for other apps—including Oliver’s own Elastic OSC.
Some of this is available via In-App Purchase (indicated), but even the free upgrade gives you a lot.
- Four more oscillator waveforms
- Pitch modulation
- FM and FM decayed (add-on purchase)
- Improved mixing interface: master level and volume meter, more convenient Solo and Mute placement, and long-tap tracks to edit their names.
- Rnd shift knob — this is a clever idea; every set number of repetitions, the sequencer randomizes a note’s pitch, for ever-evolving results, with a double-tap to reset to the original pattern. Perfect for adding variation… and acid.
- Automation recording (pictured above — that big wave you see!)
- FX sends (yeah!) — and EQ is relocated to the end of the FX and dry sections.
- New Ping Pong Delay, Datorro Reverb (add-on purchase)
- Preset improvements for easier management and favorites
- Improved timing, performance when swapping Bluetooth headphones, Buffer Size switch, better macOS operation, and more.
All of this in a handy app that runs standalone or as an AUv3 plug-in (both on desktop and mobile), plus provides quick randomization, Ableton Link support, and song mode. That covers a whole lot of use cases, right?
SOI and Another Machines each provide new presets for this release. Think heavy techno from Another Machines.
DFAM’s influence is again visible. Moog proved that you can make a sequenced synth function as percussion, just by modulating steps and adding some noise. Here, the pitch modulation and FM, plus the new filter types, build on that idea, but in an Elastic-y way.
You can make Elastic Melody a sequencer choice for anything you want, so that includes Elastic OSC. But as Oliver just wrote me, “Elastic OSC is clean, precise, and digital, while Elastic Melody is analog, warm, dirty, and growly.” Sounds about right. Nice to have them together. (I think my presets are pretty dirty, but not in an analog way!)
Here’s a tour, and if it sounds a little bland in the opening moments, keep listening/watching. That’s rather the point. This can go in a very different direction.
Or listen to this. Actually, this relates directly to what Mad Mike was saying in the archive interview I posted yesterday. You could get someone’s older-model iPhone or iPad for a couple hundreds bucks (or even hand-me-down), for instance, and produce techno in this app that with a little mixing someone else might think was a modular system, really. (Among other methods…) I’m the last person to say we all need to get caught in upgrade cycles destroying the Earth with endless consumer electronics products. But look at how much potential lies dormant in this silicon, often going unused.
Go forth and techno, y’all.
https://mominstruments.com/elasticmelody