Moog Music releases version 1.1 of the Animoog app for iOS devices. I’m always excited to see new Animoog sound packs and features. This particular version features

  • extended record time
  • MIDI CC numbers
  • MIDI out
  • preset organizer categories
  • acoustic sound pack
  • metallic sound pack

New Sounds & Timbre Expansion Packs
The new version packs a mighty punch complete with new in app purchasable sound packs. The Acoustic Expansion Pack warps familiar extracts of voices, bells, piano, bass, flutes, and effects into Animoog’s Anisotropic Synthesis Engine. When playing the acoustic packs presets it feels as if you have an entirely new synth sitting in front of you. These smooth sounds are so well designed and the sound is so natural. More natural, in fact, than one would believe the Animoog is capable of sounding. This is definitely the composer’s sound pack. It includes 32 Timbres and 30 presets and weighs in at a mere $1.99.

Meanwhile, the Metallic Expansion Pack features ringy, glassy, and hard-edged soundscapes which are extracted from Ethnic instruments, bells, and synthesizers. They have been twisted and tweaked to excel in the Anisotropic Synthesis Engine. This pack is more hard edged and grimey. I suspect many dance and dub step heads will be drawn to this sound pack. But it is certainly worth the in app purchase for anyone looking for edgy, hard and loud sounds. It includes 26 Timbres and 31 presets and also weighs in at a mere $1.99.

New Midi Capabilities
Possibly the most interesting and certainly the most intriguing addition in my opinion is the MIDI expansion pack that allows you to turn the already expressive Animoog into an even more expressive midi controller. Now you can use Animoog’s expressive keybed, XY pad, and knobs to control external synthesizers, virtual instruments or any MIDI controlled device. Most of Animoog’s controls and features can now be mapped to MIDI CC numbers. The midi pack weighs in at $4.99 and adds a midi out to the set up page. But it doesn’t stop there. Moog wants the Animoog to be your go to piece for controlling other synth apps and plugins with its cc mapping feature and midi out.

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New Presets Organizer
One of the things that I found to be a bit of a nuisance with the initial introduction of the Animoog was the list of presets. There was not way to organize the presets. When buying new sound packs previously the just kind of landed in the preset list in alphabetical order. So the preset pack had to have each preset titled with a prefix. So if Bboytechreport released a sound set for the Animoog (not a bad idea by the way) we’d have to label the presets something like “bboytech_FXcreepy flybot” in order for all of our sound packs presets to fall into the list together. Now in this new version the presets are well organized in the new presets organizer. This is such a huge help. Moog actually listens to its patrons. I do believe this was a suggestions directly from their FB page or their forum. Either way, this is a great addition. Now if I could only find a way to create my own BBoyTech category.

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Random Preset Function
An extra goodie included from a previous update is the random preset function. I absolutely love this feature. To use it you simply go to the Set Up page and touch the random preset button. Now play your new sound. Marvelous. I’ve noticed that most of the random presets are created using extreme settings that most of us would probably not use for anything other than efx. However this serves a really nice starting point to tweak those knobs and make something that you may just want to save into your new preset organizer. This is a super easy way for Animoog users to get into the swing of making their very own sounds.

So in all, Moog new Animoog version 1.1 is worth the download and in app purchases. I would recommend it to any one, especially my boombap beatmakers who are interested in extending their sound pallets with much more bang for much less bucks.

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