ElectricSun

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I think I might have died and gone to heaven…

ReBirth, the classic Roland Synth emulator that was introduced in 1997, has now been (re)born again on the iPhone. Featuring TWO classic TB-303s, a TR-808 and a TR-909 with full pattern sequencer and effects units, it is possibly the closest you’ll ever get to the original hardware without shelling out a load of cash.

I am a great fan of the 303 (check out the ElectricSun T-shirt) and was surprised when Propellerheads gave up on ReBirth. My copy for Mac OS 9 couldn’t migrate to OS X, so I was left searching for an alternative. It has been available for free download for older operating systems (pre OS X and Vista) since 2005.

There have since been a few 303 emulators and I was delighted when Technobox was released for the iPhone, but this is the real deal. Yes it’s fiddly, but it won’t disappoint. This version will put a smile on your face for £3.99 on iTunes!

More details at Propellerheads.se

There are a number of colour-based apps available for the iPhone and iPod touch, but it is myPantone that caught my eye.
As well as being able to view Pantone colour libraries, you can extract colours from pictures taken from your in-built camera. It can then calculate the nearest Pantone reference numbers, and allow you to email the colour palette to yourself or friends/colleagues as a .ase file. Import this into any Adobe Creative Suite package and away you go! It caters for those still using Quark Xpress too. Available for £5.99 from the iTunes store – where else?

For the first time, I added a webpage to the ‘home screen’ on my iPhone – the BBC iPlayer site. When I did, i noticed it gave me a nice shiny iPlayer icon. I tried it with this site, and all it gave me was an icon with a tiny preview of the page. Not good enough.

If you’ve got a blog or website, you can make your own by doing the following:

1. Create an image that is 57 x 57 pixels
2. Save as a PNG, and name the file apple-touch-icon.png
3. Upload it to the root level of your site. This is where the index file (and favicon icon, if you have one) is stored
4. Refresh the site you wish to add to your home screen and press the ‘+’ symbol. Then press ‘Add to Home Screen’ (see screenshot)
5. Edit the name of the site. You may want a shorter name that fits nicely on the homescreen. (see screenshot)

The iPhone will round the corners and add a ‘gloss’ to the image you’ve uploaded to create a great looking bookmark to your site. Try it with ElectricSun!

If, like me, you are bored of your standard iPhone ringtones, here’s some simple steps to convert some of your favourite tunes into ringtones. OK, follow me…

1. Open iTunes and choose your track (you may want to duplicate it to avoid altering the original version)

2. Right-click (or maybe Control click, if you haven’t set up your Mac for this) to ‘Get Info’ on the song. The ringtone needs to be shorter than the original song, so adjust the stop time (and start time, if necessary) so the total length of the track is less than 30 seconds (see screenshot, below). You will find this under the ‘Options’ tab. Click OK

3. Right-click once again on the track and choose ‘Create AAC version’, if it isn’t already. If you can only see ‘Create mp3 version’, then alter your import settings in iTunes preferences and choose AAC Encoder (see screenshot, below). You will now see a shorter, AAC file underneath the original. It might be worth renaming the file at this point, eg. add ‘_ringtone’ before the file extension

4. Locate the file on your hard drive in your iTunes library. To do this easily, right click and choose ‘Reveal in Finder’ if you’re on a Mac (I think it is ‘Reveal in Windows Explorer’ on a PC). Keep this window open on your desktop. Click on the file in iTunes and press delete – when it asks to remove the file, choose ‘Keep File’

5. Change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r

6. If you haven’t already, tick ‘Ringtones’ under general preferences. Available ringtones will appear in the left-hand column in your iTunes window. Click ‘Ringtones’ and then drag your new ringtone file (.m4r) into this window

7. When you connect your iPhone to your computer, click on your phone icon, under devices and then Sync ringtones

8. Job done… you can now annoy your friends and colleagues with your unique taste in music every time your phone rings!

Everybody needs a 303…
If you’ve got an iPhone and are a fan of acid house and/or old school electro beats, then this is the application to get.
Audiorealism have managed to emulate three classic and influential Roland machines from the eighties; the TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines and the TB-303 bassline synthesizer.
Impressively, the app faithfully reproduces the sound of the originals, which would probably set you back a few thousand if you were to track them down in working condition.
Find out more at Audiorealism’s site, here.