Oliver Greschke’s Elastic OSC continues to blossom as a mobile instrument. Packed with open-source algorithms from Mutable Instruments’ Plaits as oscillators, Elastic OSC has added powerful modulation and now supports Android and MIDI Polyphonic Expression.
This could have all just been Plaits on an iPad, but it’s become far more—like a glimpse of an alternate timeline where Plaits had a mini-keyboard, full-synth version instead of just being a Eurorack macro oscillator. Oliver’s mission when he set out was all about how you could take those now-popularized oscillator algorithms and build control around them. And to me, that’s true to some of Èmilie Gille’s own vision of, well, mutable instruments — from those simple control schemes that you’d open up a spectrum of possibilities. (Elastic OSC is unaffiliated with Mutable Instruments, but adheres to the requirements of Plaits’ open-source license; the code is MIT-licensed. See the Plaits GitHub repo.)
So, yes, you can mash around with your fingers on the on-screen keyboard and get some fun results and tweak Plaits in new ways. But then the 1.20 release added modulation, which is almost essential for a mobile app. Gavinski has some details on that, as well:
Now you get MPE support. On the iPad itself, that means just using the two-axis touch control on the onscreen keyboard. But this also transforms the app into a useful voice for any MPE controllers you may have handy, as revealed here with the Erae 2 controller:
That opens up all kinds of fun mobile combinations, too, since you can quickly convert controllers into instruments even if they lack onboard sounds.
And Android? There’s not much to say! It’s identical to the iOS version, though priced for Android customers — so buy that thing, if you want more commitment to the platform.
Ooh, this plus the IRCAM stuff, and there is absolutely a reason to dust off the iPad! (And to dust off the Android tag here on CDM….) Even if I do sorely miss Ashley Elsdon as our perennial mobile guide, all the way back to the Palm!
MoMinstruments / Elastic Instruments