NoInputMixer 4+

I was on the beta program for this app and have bee using it for a couple of weeks before it was released. Like all of the Dev's previous apps, they allow you to explore the more esoteric sonic gardens, normal experimental synths might sail past.

Within a few minutes I was tweaking it here and there and finding interesting soundscapes, but just as easily I lost them as well. I quickly learnt by experimentation, and found that the app requires subtly and finesse, but when you find that balance, it rewards you with new and interesting soundscapes.

I have to say that on the surface this feels like the Dev's previous apps, but dig a little down into it and something new starts to shine thru. For instance, when I've been exploring my favourite app Synthscaper, I've kind of known what to expect when you ramp up one of the LFO's, but with NoInputMixer you have to wing it and feel the sound evolve. Remember, as its dealing with feedback loops, too little and you get no change, whilst too much and it blows out, and for me this just reinforces the ethic of slowing down.

But this thing really comes into it's own when you put it as the instrument in an AUM chain. Add a slicer app like BeatCutter, along with some OTT reverb using FAC from Alteza and you have a dreamy output that sounds AWESOME.

From my perspective, it's the closest I've come to feeling the sounds evolve. A big hats off to the Dev for such a fun experimental app, and here's to an interesting future.

This app is an instant hit with iOS music experimentalists. Despite the complex looking interface, it’s easy to use and produces evolving and pleasingly unpredictable results. The recent YouTube tutorials (esp Gavinksi’s) are worth watching to help find your way in. The interest lies in making slight adjustments to a closed system and listening to the significant changes to the output sound.

No-input mixing seems to be having a bit of a moment at the moment, what with Cuckoo and other YouTube music influencers giving it a go recently with actual hardware.

Now anyone can experiment with this avant garde sound technique, using an audio mixer itself as an instrument, either on its own terms, or as the creator of future sample fodder, making controlled use of feedback to create amazing drones, glitches, and out-there sonic textures. And since it is a software recreation of an audio mixer, you don’t have to worry about blowing up your actual, real, expensive hardware. (Though it still pays to watch your levels with this app, and maybe supplement the onboard limiter with an external one in your recording environment, just to be on the safe side.)

You begin by injecting an initial sound source eg various colours of noise (white, pink, brown etc), then feed the output of that back into itself, drag it through a fistful of onboard effects, mix it into other channels (which you might also have set to feedback) and so on, before having the resulting glorious (and probably unpredictably varying) noise exit into your AUV3 recording environment, eg AUM. It is an experimentalists delight.

The app is, mostly, easy to understand but has a super dense manual and in this first iteration, some interface quirks (labels which are only sometimes buttons, etcetera) so be prepared to learn by, well, experimentation, and check out Gavinski’s Tutorials on the YouTubes for a detailed run through which is more fun than that electronics degree of a manual. Clarifications to the slight wonkiness interface wise are promised for future updates.

Getting interesting noises out of this thing is actually far easier than it’s dev has managed to make it look, actually. If you are looking for another identikit EDM synth, look elsewhere. But if you don’t need telling who Hainbach is, you’ll probably love this.

It is a lot of fun, and the relatively high price for IOS does get you full cross platform compatibility with phone and MacBook too, so there’s that.

I bought it as soon as it dropped. I am not regretting my decision! :)