Amazon Appstore's Free App of the Day, 9/11/2011: SPC - Music Sketchpad

Amazon.com has promised to make a paid app free every day in the Amazon Appstore, and today's app is SPC - Music Sketchpad.

SPC - Music Sketchpad is priced at $5.50 in the Android Market, and is normally priced at $4.99 in the Amazon Appstore. As we noted previously, prices sometimes differ between the two stores.

SPC - Music Sketchpad is described as follows:

Turn Your Android Device into a Sound Studio

Create, play, and perform your own music with the SPC: Music Sketchpad, a dynamic synthesizer app for your Android device. Play or program audio loops and sequences, then produce, record, and share your live tracks anytime and anywhere. Accomplished and aspiring musicians alike will enjoy this robust creative tool.

Customize Loops and Sequences

When you open this app, the Sketchpad introduces the audio "scene": a 16-pad multi-touch enabled screen that lets you play loops and sequences. While you play, the pads light up rhythmically, making it easier to create music instinctively.

Upload and manipulate your own loops or use the ones provided in the "scenes". Program your own sequences by setting steps and notes. You can produce, record, and share live tracks anytime, anywhere. If you already use mikrosonic's popular app RD3: Groovebox, loops you've created there can also be worked into your music instantly.

SPC: Music Sketchpad features multi-touch control, sample/loop load in .wav format up to 24 bit 96 kHz, recording of performances in exportable WAV format, and direct integration of RD3: Groovebox loops. This app comes with two pre-programmed scenes, and there are additional scenes available at the mikrosonic website. Naturally, there is file sharing capability.

Even More Options

SPC: Music Sketchpad includes direct trigger mode for live tapping, browser option for loading WAV files from anywhere on the SD card, and integration with the SoundCloud Sharing Kit.

This app also has OpenSL integration for lower latency. SPC: Music Sketchpad is optimized for the Honeycomb OS and Android tablets.

Loops

• Edit feature with 4 variations for each loop pad
• Splicer for recombining loop elements
• Waveform display
• Loops up to 8-bars long

Samples and sequencer

• 4-bar sequencer for each sample pad
• Keyboard for setting note information for each step
• Waveform display
• Gain, pan, and tuning knobs
• Envelope control with attack and decay

SPC - Music Sketchpad has a 4.5-star rating in the Android Market, and a 3.0-star rating in the Amazon Appstore.

Interestingly, the Amazon Appstore version has a 4.0-star rating, despite the fact that a few of the ratings were downgraded because the users say they received the Lite version, instead of the premium version. Others say they received the premium version. It's unclear what happened, but the majority of people have received the paid version, as did we.

Those who are considering "buying" a Free Amazon Appstore app might want to consider what it means to developers.

Amazon.com opened up the Appstore despite a lawsuit by Apple, which has previously trademarked the term "App Store." Microsoft has filed an appeal against that trademark, saying the term is too generic. Amazon.com has responded to the lawsuit in the same manner.