Retrosynth

Very Cool Software’s iStylophone (App Store link) is a new $5.99 virtual instrument for the iPhone that’s designed to be is a faithful reproduction of the original Stylophone electronic musical instrument.

It may be very cool software – but it would be even cooler if Iconic Apps hadn’t already introduced a $ .99 virtual Stylophone for the iPhone, RetroSynth (App Store link).

The Stylophone’s unique sound has featured on numerous hit records, by a diverse range of artists including: David Bowie, Brett Domino, Erasure, Hexstatic, Kraftwerk, Marilyn Manson, Orbital, Pulp, The Raconteurs and They Might Be Giants.

This is a demo of the Retrosynth MiniROM loaded with PPG wavetables, courtesy of Jason Proctor.

The Miniwave is being driven from the sawtooth output of a Serge PCO scaled and offset through an audio mixer and scaling buffer. The wave select on the Miniwave is modulated by a Universal Slope Generator with gain and offset from a CV mixer. The output of the Miniwave is patched directly into the dual channel stereo mixer module for final level adjustment and then it’s off to a small Roland MA-8 monitor.