Spoke Groove Machine For The iPhone

This video demos the Spoke groove machine iPhone app (App Store link).

According to developers The Strange Agency:

The drum machine began with analog sounds, but its brain was always digital; the step-sequencer places voltage potentials on a grid.

Analog synthesis was, in truth, merely a convenience; it did the job adequately. Analog is great for warmth and richness, but analog is shit for timing. So-called analog sequencers are, at their best, digital with regard to the time axis. True analog was never feasible for timing.

Contemporary sequencers have extremely high resolution; Logic has a resolution of 960 ppqn. Theoretically, Spoke places beats at sampling resolution. At 120 bpm that is 22050 ppqn. A frequency of 22050 Hz is sufficient to reproduce audio at the threshold of our hearing range. What is the threshold of our timing range?

At 22050 ppqn we are surely beyond the limit of human timing sensitivity. At 22050 ppqn position becomes effectively analog.

This is what Spoke seeks: analog positioning on a digital platform.

One thought on “Spoke Groove Machine For The iPhone

  1. Yah sure, but can you actually address that fine of a resolution on the iPhone screen with a human finger? Seems like a spurious feature.

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