drum

NoisePAD Review

Developed By MediaGROE

Its Noisy

NoisePAD is straight forward “drum computer”, sequencer and beat maker designed for live performance.
NoisePAD has a very nice look. It’s elegant in appearance and quick to navigate. The design is streamlined, making it very easy to use and understand fast. A quick, to the point INFO page will easily answer any “how to” questions within the app.

Delivered with 5 preloaded sound-banks, each containing 12 samples, NoisePAD comes ready to get started.

The built-in sequencer is programmable up to 12 patterns each with its own length of bars from 1 to 99. Patterns flow seamlessly; one right into the next.

With some nice effects controlled via sliders, there’s some great sample tweakability at your finger tips. The included effects are: Pitch, Delay, Cut-off, Phase, Reverb, and Bit-Crush. They sound alright, and suit a party atmosphere very well, but have no real controllable parameters to fine tune the FX. Recording and performing on the fly are just a tap away. Mute, Solo, adjust BPM, and Swing without interrupting the flow. Same goes for selecting samples, loading new ones won’t disrupt the performance. Paste in your samples from the paste board and custom organize sample banks however you like. If you want more samples there is an option to purchase them via IAP additional sample banks. I have noticed some slight latency from the pads here and there, but really not very much or often.

The preloaded samples in NoisePAD range from good to outright absurd. I honestly cannot imagine anyone buying another sample bank that really anyone could make. I mean, some of the samples are just terrible vocals of some kid swearing, dropping F bombs, or no brainer one liners we have all heard a bazillion times, and whatnot. “Damn Girl” “Drop It” “Hands up,” “Party people” are some of the overdone hype samples you’ll hear. I get that it’s intended to be for fun, but they just aren’t inspiring to me at all. The drum samples are pretty good; but with only 12-36 samples per IAP they leave a lot to be desired with some wasted on vapid vocals. Seriously, these are popular “artists”? Can’t you just sample yourself shouting “Put your hands up”? There, you’re a popular artist.

Most of the drum or instrument samples are not really worth the expense as they are all easy to make yourself with the right apps.

To be fair I supposed plenty of people think these kinds of tired samples are great fun. I get that, and NoisePAD is fun, especially after you load it up with your own creative samples. It does make things convenient. That said, it falls a little short of professional.  It’s not something I would suggest using for a pro live set if you want to impress anyone.

It seems to me that NoisePAD is really a party DJ performance app intended to make adding samples to live sets fun and easy. It does that very well. If the FX, sample packs, and general quality  matures and improves, NoisePAD could contend for the attention of a more serious, artistic crowd. The future of NoisePAD could develop into something very special. Keep an eye on it.

                    3 out of 5 Stars

                            Available in iTunes.