Auxy review – the latest app aiming for a hit from iPad music-making

Right now, my workroom sounds like Kraftwerk falling down a flight of stairs, albeit only after their roadies had de-tuned a couple of their keyboards first. And it’s all the fault of a new tablet app called Auxy.

Released for iPad today, it’s the work of a Swedish startup of the same name, which is aiming to give “spreadsheet music making” the boot. By which it means over-complex music creation tools that are about as fun to work with as an Excel doc.

Auxy isn’t an entirely new approach to music-making, though. If you’ve ever used a sequencer app – professional or amateur – you’ll feel at home, as you paint beats, bass lines and melodies onto grids to create loops.

It’s beautifully designed, though, from a step-by-step tutorial that doesn’t outstay its welcome, to the stripped-down neon graphics and logical use of multi-touch gestures to switch or copy loops, drag sounds around and flick between different instruments.

Auxy is very much a tool for making electronic music – no synthesised guitar riffs here – but the more you explore it, the more flexibility you’ll find, from expanding your loops from one to four bars, and playing around with the sounds to find the squonk or wub you’ve been looking for.

One thing I didn’t spot at first in the tutorial is recording. Accessed by a button at the top-left, you can start recording and trigger your various loops to construct a song, then share it via email; export it using the AudioCopy technology and on to SoundCloud; or transfer it to iTunes or other apps like Dropbox.

Here’s an example of the sounds I was making after a few days:

Other requests? An Android version would be nice, obviously, and there’s also scope to add more instruments and features in future updates.

The latter is how Auxy is planning to make its money – from in-app purchases – since the app is free at launch. That should at least ensure plenty of people get to play with it and provide their feedback on how they’d like to see it evolve.

Who is Auxy for, though? Clearly there are more powerful creation tools out there for professional musicians, but that’s not really the point about Auxy – or indeed, about similar apps including Figure and Musyc or DJ apps like Pacemaker (which shares a design aesthetic with Auxy).

The thing about these apps is not that they’re some kind of shortcut to the talent and experience of professional musicians, in the same way that Instagram doesn’t turn you into a pro photographer.

Instead, it’s that they open out electronic music-making to a wider audience: the chance to enjoy the experience – and when things click in Auxy, which they do quickly, it’s hugely enjoyable – and perhaps even enhance your appreciation for the craft of people who actually do this for a living.

Actually, my opening paragraph undersold Auxy. The ease with which you can drag notes and beats around means that now, I’m making music that may still sound like Kraftwerk falling down the stairs, but at least the keyboards are back in tune, and hitting each step in the right rhythm.

Ralf Hütter isn’t going to be giving me a call next time he boots out a band member, then. But Auxy is putting such a goofy smile on my face from the sounds it’s helping me make, I probably wouldn’t fit in.