Animoog Review

Music, in my opinion, is about discovery. Whether it be discovering one's self, exploring a mood or contemplating life's unknowns, it enhances experiences. Picture prom without slow songs or action films without intense sound effects or scary movies without the deathly sounds of a single high-pitched piano key strike sounding one at a time in slow intervals.

Thanks to music pioneers such as the late Dr. Robert "Bob" Moog, inventor of the Moog synthesizer and Founder of Moog Music Inc., the path of innovation and discovery continues with Animoog, the world's first professional polyphonic synthesizer. This isn't the company's first foray into the app store. They released Filtatron, a real-time audio effects engine and studio tool, in 2010 with great success.

For professionals, they will understand the complexities of the app right away and know that it is possibly the best and most robust synthesizer on the app store. And while the app will please the professional, where I believe it truly shows its worth is the simple user interface it features which bridges the gap between said pro and the everyday music enthusiast like me. I love the idea of being a musician, but mainly stick to music apps and the occasional guitar strum.

The app is setup with a large X-Y pad, which looks like an oscilloscope, on the upper left and with filters and record options on the right. On the bottom is a keyboard, but not like the piano keys most are used to. These keys are polyphonic, which is one of the most entertaining aspects of the app. Because of this, the player is not stuck to one sound at a time. They can play multiple sounds at once to get a true and very unique mix of sounds. The perfect app for discovering musical sounds that appeal to the user.

As the user mixes and creates sounds, the X-Y pad visually relays the frequency of the sound on the screen while on the right different filters can be selected. My suggestion is to check out the presets in the lower left first to see what possibilities there are and after checking them out going back to the right to tweak filters for more interesting and various sounds.

Animoog is not just for the professional. It's for anyone that loves music and wants to discover their own way of expressing what music is to them. Packed with presets and the ability to record and playback musical creations, this app is well worth the full price of $29.99. Luckily, it's on sale for a few more weeks at $.99.