Comments on: iOS ukulele app: the Futulele

By: Patrick Eslinger

Patrick Eslinger — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:59:00 +0000

do you guys ever write about mobile devices that are not Apple products? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non iPhone “apps for kids” or any other article about a new app tec that wasn’t Apple.

By: Red Pill Junkie

Red Pill Junkie — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:58:00 +0000

Beat me to it!

By: Neal McDonald

Neal McDonald — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:51:00 +0000

You know, not to toot my own horn too much, but my ukulele sim has been up a year, doesn’t need two iDevices, has been totally ripped off by Smule, has a chord chart, lets me play along with my Gil Evans, has a happier soul, and actually is an interface innovation.

Just saying.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id384001838

And I totally agree with the point about getting a $40 uke. All ukieshaker has going for it is portability.

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:57:00 +0000

Oh I say.

By: Daniel Norman

Daniel Norman — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 05:35:00 +0000

http://www.tradlessons.com/

By: lecti

lecti — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:41:00 +0000

wtf did I just see? Am I going to go insane in a few days because of this?

By: woid

woid — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:51:00 +0000

An exercise in Futulelity.

By: noco87

noco87 — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:59:00 +0000

Ha! I’m gonna have nightmares now. How do I go about un-seeing that?

By: txhoudini

txhoudini — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:10:00 +0000

Scrabble also does this. iPad as the gameboard, iPhone or iPod Touch as your tile rack

By: Ben Burger

Ben Burger — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:08:00 +0000

hey I’ve got a crazy idea, how about you play a real ukulele?

By: Dignan17

Dignan17 — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:07:00 +0000

I had to stop this in the middle. While the technology at work here is pretty neat, I couldn’t stand the rhythm being off like that.

By: ike

ike — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:27:00 +0000

I don’t know. If skeletons having sex on a tin roof sounds like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5BdyIGtYcg
…then I think these iOS music apps that aim for the sound of a single ukulele have a ways to go.

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

The rhythm heard bears only passing resemblance to her simpler up-and-down hand movements. All she really needs to do is select the chord with her left hand and the machine does the rest. Why pretend to strum? It’s clearly unnecessary.

By: Spraynard Kruger

Spraynard Kruger — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:45:00 +0000

The problem with this thing is that it doesn’t play much the same as a real ukulele. The strum pattern on even the one demo song was stilted and unmusical. Now, I don’t know what the price of this contraption will be, though I did see the guitar one at NAMM and it doesn’t look like it’ll cost less than an ACTUAL ukulele that’s just as good or much better for practicing. Just buy a ukulele, seriously. Get a crappy one for $10 or $20 and if you get good and/or really like it, then go splurge and spend a couple hundred on a pretty good one.

By: Avram Grumer

Avram Grumer — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Is there a name for this category of software, apps that work across iPad and iPhone/iPod? There’s a painting app pair that does it too, with the main canvas app running on the iPad and the color-mixing palette app running on the smaller device.

By: noco87

noco87 — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:43:00 +0000

Sounds like skeletons f%^*ing in a dustbin

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:41:00 +0000

You can get a perfectly serviceable uke new for, like, $40. I would recommend that.

By: Andrés

Andrés — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Bad thing is: it sounds awful.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:37:00 +0000

…you ask that question as if those are two poles of a continuum, and not utterly orthogonal.

An equivalent invention to my mind would be a cheese slicer that instead of a wire, features a high-powered laser. (and yet is designed to look and function exactly like a traditional cheese slicer)

By: Editz

Editz — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:35:00 +0000

Get back to me when they figure out a iOS bagpipe.

By: Timothy Jannace

Timothy Jannace — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:58:00 +0000

To answer your question: Ambivalence–sorry if that was a rhetorical question.

By: ryuchi

ryuchi — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:28:00 +0000

The good side of such (of what i feel is complete) crap is that it insites you, makes you wanna play the real instrument, to draw on the real paper–endless batteries, extremely high bit resolution, completely analogue etc..

By: Stooge

Stooge — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:04:00 +0000

On the other hand, being able to play the uke without altering your standard nailcare regimen is a practicality plus point.

By: splashu

splashu — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:55:00 +0000

Practicality is definitely not its strongpoint. Playing a stringed instrument without feeling the strings is a bit…. counterintuitive.

By: renke

renke — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:48:00 +0000

art as in genius or as in madness?

By: mkultra

mkultra — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:22:00 +0000

What I love about this is that it’s taking the most incredibly simple, easy to build, easy to play musical instrument and recreating it in the most over-the top, technically-complicated, mind-bogglingly complex way. …and yet it all looks and plays pretty much the same.

I don’t know if this is a great musical tool or not, but conceptually I think it’s a work of art.