This thing is also a work of art. It is a sound maker's dream tool. It's very cool that the designer gives such credit to John Chowning and Max Matthews (look them up if you are not familiar.) Hours and hours of very original sounds come out of this. Ps. I'm not affiliated with apeSoft in any way. Even if they wanted to pay me to write these reviews i would turn down the offer. ( not vst versions!) Edit: made a comparison to iPulsaret but i was thinking iDensity not Stria. 2 years later i am still impressed.
My initial impression was that this app was good for ethereal sound effects. After exploring it in depth by stripping down to the basics, I am now finding there are quite musical alternate tuning capabilities. The ability to modulate every parameter via the controller page opens up endless possibilities. Been able to conjure up sounds and alternate turnings reminiscent of W. Carlos's "Beauty and the Beast". Very cool.
The only gripe I have with this app is that there is no way (not that I know of) to load your own samples as a sound source. Every other app from Ape Soft has this ability. Other than that this is another stunning, amazing and inspirational music application from Ape Soft. I've gotten some truly odd and amazing soundscapes and sounds out of this app. It's a bit confusing in some ways but if you toy around with it and keep your mind open you'll be pleasantly surprised time and time again.
Stria seems essential to me as someone who loves experimental music, avant-garde weirdness. Amazing way to play with process sound. Fans of apps like SoundScaper will love all of apesoft's apps in this series. It was also a bonus to look into where the word Stria came from in relation to electronic music. Have fun!
Packed with many detailed fine tunings to produce... special effects that are all extremely limited for use in composition. It's beer. Good beer. Sometimes wonderfully delicious beer, with multiple favors. You can drink a lot and get happy, then drunk, then sick, and not want anymore. Do not expect any other beverage. Do not expect a meal. Stria is a one trick pony that the pony does extremely well. But it's really all just the same variation on the same trick, wall of sound effects. Oh, and it's buggy. Some features not working on ipad 3. Restarted, no other apps running, reinstalled. Nope, snapshot pad not working. I did import some wacky sounds into Samplr. There I could add layers, counterpoint, structure, and build a meal. This worked for me nicely.
If you are into CCRMA/IRCAM, or just want crazy unique sounds then this is pretty decent. Not as essential as some of their other apps, but definitely inspiring.
It sounds awesome, but it crashed my iPhone 4. There should be a big warning...If they make it less CPU hungry I will be super happy. Right now I'm scared to open it. I dont get why someone wouldn't think this is musical, guess they just want another virtual analogue.
Nice app with interesting sound potential, but Audio Paste does not work, so you are limited to the sounds that come with the app. If this feature is fixed it will be a 5 star app. Also, support is negligible.
This is a great app! caution: it will make you late for work if you let it. I already thought iDensity was superb but this just IS OVER THE TOP! Thank you for allowing me to buy it!
i find so many usefull sounds and loops from all of apesofts apps. this one is not the same as pulsaret !! vesatile,strange,unique sounds and noises are easy to achieve with this..
This is my favorite synth of apeSoft's lauded catalog of iOS synths. There's a plethora of FM synths available but few that reach the capabilities of Stria. In fact, the quality of sound and range of timbres that Stria offers. I've been trying to get Stria to work with Line 6's Mobilekeys49 controller. To date that is the only negative I find with this delightful synth. As is true with every apeSoft synth there is a good store of sonic mayhem to be had. A couple things that make Stria different are the controls for major and minor synthesis features. If you've worked with iDensity or iPulseret you'll feel comfortable with this similar styled GUI. Even better, Stria has a much simpler approach to FM synthesis. Instead of the typical mimicking of analog interfaces apeSoft uses what they call an analog design, and it works like that, but it is a bit more from the digital age minus tons of menus that obfuscate programming. Programming is simple by FM terms and fairly simple for the amount of function available. I'm a sucker for additive synthesis which is an another great feature of Stria. It's a modest implementation but compared to most "additive" synths for the iOS it's nicely featured and easy to program. So, what about the sound? What's so great about Stria? First of all the quality is very clear without the frequency distortion that plagues many iOS FM synth implementations. The range of sounds are typical FM: great bells, percussion, and motion sounds. The additive sounds are a bit more basic but sound warmer than many additive synths tend to. Throughout its range Stria sounds warmer, fuller, and more organic than one might expect. In part this is due to the intensity of modulation and frequency relations. A very useful part of Stria's sound engine are the many assignments available in the Controller section of the synth. You can work with MIDI or between various editing systems that are part of Stria's sound design system. Think of the Controller menu as a soured up modulation matrix that goes way beyond modulation. Now, for the things I'd like to see: 1) a keyboard 2) a system that allows users to find where notes are, the basics are already in Stria's programming system 3) scale design with the most used as presets These three additions would be very useful and personally welcomed. As Stria works presently (iPad 3, 32gb) you use an X/Y screen for velocity/volume. Each axis works as programmed, usually with pitch on the Y axis as well as anything else you want to program. This is its best feature and why a keyboard should be included.
Stria is rated as a Killer App by Apps4iDevices. Multilevel Interactive Sound Synthesizer Idea and Csound-Orchestra by Eugenio Giordani “Stria” is the title of a very important composition by John Chowning and I would like to say that this computer music piece represents the manifest of Frequency Modulation technique applied to audio synthesis, invented by Mr. Chowning himself. + Audiobus and Inter-App Audio support + Up to 240 Frequency Modulation Oscillators or simple Wavetable Additive + Five Spectral Pitch Grid Generators (Geometric, Harmonic, Fibonacci, Scalar, Temperated) + MIDI Pad With Scale Grid + Effects chain: Doppler, Chopper, Glitch Gen, Sync Grain, Spectral Arpeggiator, FDN Reverb, Dynamic Compressor/Expander + Snapshots Presets Morphing Pad + Control Manager LFO for Parameters + Midibus, Virtual Midi and Network: 14 bit NRPN controllers + Capture Master Audio Output + File Manager, sharing common audio files via iTunes, Dropbox and AudioCopy + Post Fx Chain: Doppler, Chopper, Out Of Range, Sync Granulator, Spectral Arpeggiator, Reverb FDN, Dynamisc Processor + Bluetooth A2DP High Quality + etc...
