miniMusic releases BeatPad
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BeatPad for Palm
(Click for a close-up) |
May 19, 2000
miniMusic™ has released
BeatPad™, a pattern-based music sequencer for the Palm OS family of
handheld computers. The new software allows real-time control over music
while it plays and an intuitive interface that both beginners and
professionals will find simple and powerful. Last year miniMusic
revolutionized the industry with the first portable music notation
software, NotePad. Now BeatPad continues this innovation and brings more
freedom and flexibility to musicians of all skill levels.
BeatPad allows the user to create and save a number of musical patterns.
These patterns can contain a series of notes (pitch, volume and length of
every note can easily be changed) and up to eleven drum instruments. Every
aspect of a pattern can be changed while it's playing, or another pattern
can be recalled from memory without missing a beat. Such features allow
for performing songs which use multiple patterns, and even improvising as
the patterns are being played.
"BeatPad is an amazing tool for real-time sequencing and performance," says
Simon
Gatrall, president of Swivel Systems. "The analog-style lead sequencer
combined with the grid-based drum programming screen bring everyone's
favorite old school interfaces into the future. Modifying, copying, muting
and soloing patterns on the fly is extremely intuitive with BeatPad; this
system is so much cheaper, smaller, and easier to use than any computer or
hardware based sequencer with equivalent capabilities."
BeatPad was developed in collaboration with Swivel Systems, a hardware
company which will soon be selling the SG20, a clip-on sound module for the
Palm OS Platform to extend the audio capabilities of the handheld
computers. The miniMusic software can play limited music from a Palm
device's built in speaker, but becomes a very powerful tool when connected
to other audio hardware like the SG20, using the industry standard MIDI
protocol. "We want to provide portability that musicians have never had in
software, but with BeatPad you also have a very powerful interface for
controlling all of your gear in a studio, club, or on-stage," says Chad
Mealey, president of miniMusic.
For more information, visit miniMusic's web site at www.5thwall.com/minimusic.
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