Numerical Audio, in collaboration with synthesist Jakob Haq, has released Agonizer – a new monophonic bass synthesizer for iOS.
They say that Agonizer is designed for “deep and dirty bass sounds, ranging from classic drum n bass inspired sounds all the way to heavily modulated modern sounds.”
Features:
- Monophonic Synth Engine with focus on bass sounds
- Built-in stereo effects
- 140+ fine tuned factory presets designed by Jakob Haq
- Supports ROLI Seaboard and other MPE controllers out of the box
- Standalone operation with support for USB audio interfaces, wired, network & bluetooth MIDI
- Audio Unit v3 Extension
- Inter App Audio support
- Audiobus support
- Ableton Link
- Synth Voice:
- Dual Wavetable Oscillators with 40+ Wavetables, Morphing & X-Mod
- Dedicated sub osc & noise source
- Mangle Section with pre-filter Drive, Bitcrush, Lift and Push controls
- VA Ladder filter
- Wobulator (Highly tweak-able Sequenced LFO)
- LFO with Key and BPM Sync
- Variable Slope AD & ADSR Envelopes
- Valve emulation based master drive
- Effects:
- 2x stereo effect units
- Vintage Chorus
- Digital Delay
- Input/Expression:
- MPE MIDI hardware including but not limited to ROLI Seaboard Rise, Seaboard Block, Lightpad Block
- MPE MIDI software including but not limited to Geoshred, Geoshred Control
- Regular MIDI keyboards featuring channel or poly aftertouch, pitch- and mod wheels
- Onscreen 2D Touch Keyboard (supports slide and glide)
- Plain MIDI Input
Pricing and Availability:
Agonizer for iPad is available with an intro price of $9.99 USD (through Nov 18th, normally $19.99).
What a nice introduction to this app. Now I gotta buy another app.
For people who may think this is just for wobble bass, the wobble thing is just one way of thinking about and using this app. It’s worth saying that we don’t have many keyboard instruments that let you shape the sustain of the sound in this rhythmic way, so it may continue to develop as a part of the musical art form.
Massive kudos to Kai and Jakob for designing and building such an incredibly versatile bass synth. The engine is clever, flexible, and very high fidelity. This is a bass synth I would use in many styles of music. It seems equally capable of making top-shelf electronic kicks, and other type low tones. Maybe high synth stuff too?
Having a sine wave as a sub oscillator is just plain correct. The morphy waveforms go beyond the usual beans & rice. And it’s good to see a dedicated noise gen. The AD envelope is truly snappy and clean (I didn’t hear any zippering at all).
I generally like this skeuomorphic design. The glitching display is an expression of Jacob’s humor, but it bugs me a little. The dirty, cracked LCD screens is funny, but I’d imagine some people with dirty, cracked iPad screens might think it was a little too much. Perhaps a later version could have “skins” so you could have a more pristine user experience, if that’s your preference.
I suppose “LIFT” is an innocuous enough term, but it is a little unintuitive to turn up a knob to decrease something. I guess once you know it, you get used to it.
He said he put a high-pass filter before the chorus to remove mud from tails. That makes sense for the delay. But doesn’t make sense for the chorus. It IS important to high pass before the chorus so that chorus doesn’t cause any destructive cancellation of the low end. It may seem counter-intuitive, but getting rid of the low-end coming from the chorus means the dry low-end comes through intact.
Lastly, I hope they include MIDI release-velocity as a control source, if not now, in some future version. It is essential for bass tones. You can make low MIDI release velocities have longer releases, and high release velocities have fast releases. Bingo.
One of the best sounding synths on my iPad.
More sonic amazingness for my iPads. Great job Jakob. (Always enjoy your videos).
Worth it.