iPhone Music Software: This is a demo video of Octavian (App Store link), a $2.99 iPhone Keyboard Calculator.

With Octavian, you can:

• Quickly find scales and chords and transpose them to any root note
• View any mode of any scale
• View chords in root position and first, second, and third inversions
• Build chords on any scale degree
• Use Scale Explore to view all scales that contain the notes of the current chord
• Use Chord Explore to identify chords built on the degrees of a scale
• Traverse the Circle of Fifths by holding down the note selector for 1.5 seconds
• View scales/chords as notes (C E G), intervals from the root (0 4 7), or intervals from the previous note (0 4 3).

NOTE Octavian is NOT a synth. It makes no sound. Bitnotic hopes to make Octavian THE music theory app for the iPhone.

Scott at Bitnotic sent us some info on their new generative ambient music application, chill.

chill 1.0b1 is a generative ambient music program for Apple Macintosh computers that creates infinitely varying songs in a ambient/chill out style.

Songs played by chill can be saved in AIFF, Wave, and MIDI formats. Songs are royalty-free and can be used in podcasts, video productions, and record albums without further licensing. You can also use chill MIDI files as the basis for compositions in digital audio workstations such as Apple’s Logic.

While each song is unique and random, you have several options for shaping the results. The “Mood” controls include Mellow and Swell. You also control the mix of the instrument parts and effects.

Other cool features include chill radio, where a new generative song starts after a specified amount of time (5, 10, 20, or 30 minutes), so that users can listen to continuously generated chill music.

I gave chill a workout and found it to be interesting, but not deep enough to hold my interest very long. I love the idea of generative music software – but it needs to have enough options to let you create deep layers of constantly shifting sound.

The software will probably appeal most to users looking for a simple interface that lets you jump into generative ambient music and people looking for royalty-free background music for videos and other projects.

Bitnotic is actively seeking feedback on the public beta. The company is holding a contest where the three best comments/suggestions/bug reports will win free licenses to the final product. Details are available on the Bitnotic web site.

Preview an example of chill’s output below. Then download it and give it a try.

The track features the voice Junior “singing” about a laptop computer’s obsessive love for its owner. Burgess notes, “When you have a talented performer singing about a subject dear to its heart, that’s pop dynamite!”

The song was created on a PowerBook G4 using the combination of Apple’s Logic Express and VX-323. Bitnotic has published a new tutorial, Tech Dispatch 001 – VX-323 and Logic Express, which explains how to use the speech synthesizer with Logic. We’ve also published an intro to speech synthesis with VX-323.

VX-323 is a MIDI-controlled voice synthesizer software instrument for Apple Macintosh computers. The software enables electronic musicians to easily integrate real-time synthesized speech into their MIDI studios for live performances or CD-quality recording.

Pricing and Availability

“Laptop v1.0″ MP3 can be downloaded from http://www.bitnotic.com/vx-323/audio/audio.html. While free, Bitnotic appreciates a USD $1.00 donation if the track makes it into a your “rotation”.

VX-323 1.0b1 is available now for free download at Bitnotic’s web site. The software runs on Mac OS X version 10.4 and is a Universal Binary application.