Making music is no simple feat. You have to combine a lot of different factors and find the right balance to produce songs pleasing to listeners. Granted that everyone has their own taste in music, each genre still has standards on which titles are great and which are not.
For both aspiring and established bands out there, you know how important technology is in helping towards success. This includes everything, from instruments to effect pedals to amplifiers and more.
Fortunately, smartphones today have capabilities that, when combined with apps, make for effective musical tools. So, with that in mind, here are some apps to support you and your band’s love for making and spreading music.
GarageBand (iOS), Walk Band (Android)
If you’ve been in the music scene for quite some time, you might’ve heard or even used at least one of these two apps. A lot of amateur and professional musicians use these, especially GarageBand.
GarageBand and Walk Band have more or less the same purpose: to serve as portable band equipment in one app. They let you play a variety of instruments including guitars, drums, keyboards and synths.
AppAdvice listed updates on GarageBand earlier this year, such as a virtual drummer and 1,200 new loops and sounds. On the other hand, Android Authority mentioned additional features available on Walk Band like multi-track recording.
BandsinTown (iOS, Android)
Of course, there’s no sense in making music if no one’s going to listen to it. This is why it’s important to spread the word, all the more when you’re in a band that’s just starting out. BandsinTown lets you promote your gigs and engage with fans in different regions. You can also sync with social channels and your website, if you have one, for extra reach and easier schedule management.
Moreover, TechCrunch reported about the recent partnership of BandsinTown with Ticketmaster. Take into account a wide audience and integration of ticketing systems, and it’s easy to see why you need this app for your musical career.
Bandcamp (iOS, Android)
Bandcamp leans more towards indie artists according to Billboard Magazine. What’s great about this app is that it eliminates the ‘middleman’ and only takes a small portion of the sales as compared to other distributors. If you’re a young band, you need all the support you can get. There’s also a ‘pay what you like’ feature, which means that it emphasises talent and musical art much more than the commercialism that’s rampant in the music industry today.
RecForge Pro (Android)
When you’re away from the studio, and you need to record something real quick like a sample or demo, a recorder will come in handy. RecForge Pro supports multiple file formats including mp3, ogg and wav and you can convert one format to another as well. Just tweak some settings based on your preferences and you’re good to go.
Year after year, it seems the functions of many machines get integrated into smartphones, especially entertainment machines. Now you can opt against turning the TV on and just watch your favourite show on your mobile.
Furthermore, gaming consoles got ported to handheld devices. There are now emulators which allow you to play gameboy and PSP titles on your smartphone. Some games on full consoles such as PlayStation 2 can now be emulated by Android devices through an app called Play!.
Other entertainment machines like slot machines have been ported to mobile platforms as well. Of course, music artists and bands became sources of inspiration, too, for these games like in Guns N’ Roses Video Slots for instance. The mix and match nature of music nowadays even went on to inspire the same slot provider to launch hybrid games such as Slingo Extreme, which adds a high-octane twist to the normally lax game pace of the slingo/bingo amalgamation. Games like this show how the evolution of tech, and collaborations between bands like Aerosmith and Run DMC with ‘Walk This Way’ have inspired a slew of crossover themes.
It’s not surprising then, that musical instrument apps gathered steamed relatively quick, much like gaming apps, and now offer musicians a wide range of tools to rely on. Additionally, the utility band apps mean that there’s a lot of convenient tools to further boost that musical process.
