Awesomeness: ZOOZ Mobile has just released a Nokia N95-compatible version of its flagship application ZOOZBeat, which turns your phone into a gesture-based mobile musical studio.
I tested the iPhone version, which is as addictive as it is entertaining: ZOOZBeat comes with different styles of background beats which users can enhance with additional layers of sound bites. The app makes perfect use of the built-in accelerometers of the iPhone and the Nokia N95: you can pick an instrument and simply tap, shake or tilt to create your own masterpiece. It’s really fun to use as an amateur, and I’m pretty sure even professional musicians will get a kick out of it.
The application was built by a group of graduates and faculty members from the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, who also created ZOOZControl, which turns your iPhone into a wireless PC game controller.
ZOOZBeat comes with a free Lite version which only features 2 background beats and 10 instrument sounds, which is a bit limited in my opinion. If you like the app, you can upgrade to the full version for $2.99 and double the amount of beats and instruments, as well as unlock some cool features like voice recording and the ability to save/load tracks. There’s also a Pro version in the works which will enable synchronized group play, song sharing and professional sequencing capabilities.
The new version for Nokia N95 is now available: you can sign up here, and the first 100 TechCrunch readers will be contacted for a free upgrade to the full version.
Check out the videos below to see ZOOZBeat in action.
After reading the posting, first reaction to this was give it a FAIL. But after watching the demo, gotta say it’s really pretty cool. Already laughing at the number of clowns that will end up accidentally chucking their phone out the window as they be creatin’…
I felt the same way. I guess its one of those things you need to see (and hear) to get in to. I’m not a musically inclined person, but I bet I could annoy the hell out of my girlfriend with it.
at first these musical apps were cool now we are seeing a market flood
Retarded. Prepare for the influx of youtube bands with the stupid shit. What happened to having talent?
Jeez, why all the hate?
I just bought the $3 version. Its algorithm for making your taps sound “nice” can be a little heavy handed, but it still sounds nice.
Still, considering it’s just like 4 measure loops, I wouldn’t count on it setting youtube on fire just yet.
For mobile drum machine for S60, check out the following link:
http://www.byte...ers.com/BeatEd/
I dont know about the iPhone, but on S60 devices the audio lag is massive and basically makes it very difficult or even impossible to do any realtime audio stuff. I made some “live mode” experimets to BeatEd, but it didnt work due to the lag…
The iPhone uses the CoreAudio subsystem for realtime audio, the same as desktop Mac OS X and high end applications such as Logic Pro. Some of the realtime apps are amazing.
I have it installed on my Nokia N95 (original) and it works really well. I didn’t experience any lag.
If you have no musical talent or don’t like music in general or playing around with beats and sounds, then don’t waste your time loading it on your phone.
It’s a cool application with endless possibilities and outcomes especially when you combine 7 instruments with 4 different beats.