Expert's Rating
Pros
- Great sounds
- simple to get started
- custom mods
- Facebook integration
- MP3 export
Cons
- No high-res export
- interface too detailed for touchscreen
- no MIDI support
Our Verdict
ReBirth rewards the casual dabbler and the hardcore techno geek alike. If you want to produce electronic music with your iPad it’s one of the few essential apps.
Essentially, ReBirth is a suite of sequencers – loop-playing machines that let you draw in notes while they’re playing. There are two bass synths and two drum machines.
It’s easy to get started; load a demo song, click the Play button, then browse the patterns, and use the controls to edit the sound.
After you’ve created some patterns, go into Song Mode and chain them together to build an arrangement. Even better, in Song Mode, if you hit the Record button and start moving the knobs around, your actions are captured.
Further sonic variety can be added by using the onboard effects – a delay, distortion, compressor, and ReBirth’s famous PCF filter. Sadly, ReBirth doesn’t support any MIDI sync options, which is a shame – this would be a great way to jam alongside friends.
Usually ‘old’ software is something to be avoided, but not in ReBirth’s case
ReBirth’s sound quality is great, but the app’s projects can only be exported in the native ReBirth format for playback and collaboration via Facebook and email, and as low-quality MP3s. This is a serious shortcoming for an app that can produce such usable sounds. iOS AudioCopy can help, as it allows copy and paste from ReBirth into other, more accommodating music apps. Because of the small controls, we prefer ReBirth on the iPad to the cheaper iPhone version.
https://images.macworld.co.uk/cmsdata/reviews/3309563/Available-on-App-Store-190.jpg” alt=”” width=”190″ height=”66″ />