iMatik - Album Made Entirely with Instruments on The iPhone

Tom Freeman wrote in to let me know of his new release iMatik which was created using nothing but an iPhone. The following is the press release followed by a detailed list of the apps he used.

"Music producer Freematik creates an album completely using an iPhone

An entire album has finally been created using only an iPhone! From the mind of Freematik, a Bay Area local rap & hip-hop producer who has produced many projects in a "traditional" music studio, this first of it's kind concept album breaks new creative ground in modern music production.

Tom Freeman, the producer and artist known as Freematik, had this to say about the album:

"iMatik is a fresh DJ mixtape full of phat beats, DJ scratching, live synths and all types of crazy sounds, made using only an iPhone. Everything was made using apps available from the iTunes app store, such as Beatmaker, iDrum, Flare, Jasuto, etc. The parts were programmed over the course of a few months, in places including hotels, motels, the beach, bars, and anywhere else you would bring a phone. While this initially started just as a way to have fun and do some music "on the road", it transformed into an awesome psychedelic hip hop and electronic music experience. Not my normal type of project but I really love it, maybe more than anything I've ever done. Plus it was crazy fun to make."

Check out the album at: www.freematik.com

About Freematik
Freematik is a music producer who works mainly with underground rap artists in the Bay Area. His production skills can be heard on a number of mixtapes, as well as in bars and clubs around the Bay Area. He produces his own albums as well, which are available at www.freematik.com."

The following are notes for three tracks if you want to hear how each app fit in the mix. You can find the download links to each on http://freematik.com/.

"3. Now You Know: Good example of an Intua Beatmaker MPC-style beat, with DJ scratches supplied by Flare, and low synth provided by miniSynth. I also used the "toy" app iSkream on this track for the "Now You Know" vocal sample, which is my girlfriend talking into the iPhone. That app lets you play back samples in real time, and mangle them with a variety of effects.

10. e: This beat was made with iZotope iDrum Club Edition, with synth sounds from NLogFree. There is a vocal sample that is stretched out at the end, and that was done with Sound Warp, which lets you drag the sample playback by moving your finger on the phone's screen.

12. Is This Your Special Bush: This track is a great example of Flare, the best DJ scratching app for iPhone. I overdubbed a bunch of DJ scratching effects over a beat I made in Beatmaker, and it really to me sounds like a "DJ" album ala DJ Shadow, except done on just an iPhone."

I asked Tom how he recorded and mastered the tracks:
"Since the iPhone can't do multiple apps at the same time, and what I wanted to do definitely involved playing one app over another, I ended up tracking everything through a Universal Audio 2108 Stereo Pre, by way of a mini-dual 1/4" cable. Everything was tracked into my Mac Pro running Cubase 5. I used a Summit DCL 200 Stereo Compressor on the mix buss, and used a huge amount of Universal Audio plugins, including the new Manley Massive Passive on individual tracks and in mastering.

My thought about it is if I was doing an "all-saxophone" album, for example, I wouldn't stop at not using a DAW to multi-track, mix, etc. so I think the same applies to an "all iPhone" album. But if running multiple apps was possible I would have kept it all in the phone, just because it sounds fun to try."

Note multi-tasking is coming to the iPhone.

Apps used in iMatik:
Intua Beatmaker []
A-Sync Games Flare[]
iZotope iDrum Club Edition []
iZotope iDrum Hip-Hop Edition []
iZotope iDrum Video Game Edition []
iZotope iDrum Beatboxing Edition []
iZotope iDrum Wu-Tang RZA Edition []
Jasuto & Jasuto Pro []
miniSynth []
NLogFree []
iSkream []
Thereminator []
Argon []