The Strange Agency » iPhone

Strange MIDI in HyperSpace

lucas — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:40:58 +0000

HyperSpace 1.1 was just released, adding MIDI input and VGA output. Now you can control HyperSpace with your MIDI keyboard or DAW, and you can send just the visualization graphics to a TV or projector. It’s an instant VJ setup! Just add an Apple VGA output cable. Both MIDI and VGA support are new to us, so please comment away below with your feature requests and suggestions. A map of MIDI parameters can be found on the HyperSpace page. Portamento (slew or glide to some of you) has also been added for a more smoothed-out sci-fi sound. See it in action:

Mega Update, MegaCurtis 1.3

lucas — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:45:29 +0000

The latest MegaCurtis update has gone live at the App Store. It adds a slew of new features, making the app more fun, more playable, and more strange. There are now selectable scales and modes, a fat key option for those of us with fat fingers, and there’s a new wave keyboard overlay mode that lets you play by touching the wave, selecting pitch and granulation position simultaneously, with four-voice multi-touch. Check out the video below to see it in action!

MegaCurtis v 1.3 from strange agency on Vimeo.

Selectable keyboard scales for easier jams
All new keyboard overlay mode
Fat keys option for easier keyboard playing
Fixes voice assignment glitch
Fixes occasional deallocation of source sound
Adds some default sounds
Activates iTunes file sharing

MegaCurtis, more Mega

lucas — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:23:55 +0000

Version 1.2 of MegaCurtis just dropped at the App Store. The previous update gave us iPhone 3GS (and iPad) compatibility as well as a vocoder-like live granulation mode. Now MegaCurtis adds new visuals and an improved control interface. A single touch will control granulation position and filter cutoff, while a second touch lets you drag position modulation rate and depth settings. This setup is far more expressive than that of the previous version, but do drop a note below if you’d like to see a different control scheme.

Introducing MegaCurtis for iPhone 4 and 4s

lucas — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:38:02 +0000

Today we launch the latest iteration of the Curtis granular synth series, MegaCurtis for the iPhone. The app was completely rewritten for better performance, longer recording time, session recording, polyphony, Retina display and more! We’ve added jitter, LFOs, amp envelope control, and even a proper keyboard.

See it in action at http://www.youtube.com/thestrangeagency

More awesome features are on their way to the app store as free updates, but the launch version is only $.99 for a limited time. So, save a few bucks and get your tweak started early.

If you haven’t yet, grab Curtis Heavy for free to get a taste of the sound. Record vocals, drums, guitar, or even your cats, and turn them into synthesizers!

Strange Solstice

lucas — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:30:46 +0000

In desperate love with our iPads, we left the iPhone apps languishing unmaintained. They don’t copy or paste, they don’t play well with others, they’re all still rocking 3G. Yet, they still tweak sounds quite strangely, and so gentle(ladies and)men, we will rebuild them!

This holiday season we’re cooking up a whole new series of strange toys for the iPhone, and when we launch in the months to come, the current crop will have to go. As of today, the free sample versions of our paid iPhone apps have been axed.

How can you get some strange samples, you ask? We’ve made the paid apps free!

Slice beat-juggling freakout is free!
Curtis Heavy granular glitchfest is free!
Sound Scope Space wave sculpting is free!
Spoke rhythm massage is free!

See you next year

Curtis updates big and small

lucas — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:49:00 +0000

A couple Curtis updates just appeared on the App Store. On the iPhone, Curtis Heavy now uses file sharing through iTunes, ditching the peculiar browser upload. It still uses the first four seconds of your WAV file. Curtis on the iPad has had some major memory fixes, so it handles large files far better than before. Great news, finally enabling crash-free access to the awesome included library by Richard Devine. Sorry it took so long! Enjoy the grains.

Slice has launched!

lucas — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:18:33 +0000

We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of Slice, our beat-juggling app. You’ve watched the demos, salivated over the possibilities, and now you can grab the app and juggle our beats as well as your own to your pounding heart’s content.

The Slice debut features graphic design by Sally K Russell and sound design by Claus Muzak. Mountains of thanks for their efforts!

Slice loop contest

lucas — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:24:24 +0000

While hordes of strange agents wrangle little gleeks of funk from Audio Units to bring you Slice, it has come to light that SLICE NEEDS LOOPS!

So where can we get the phattest breaks on the planet? From you!

The Strange Agency is holding a contest for the best loops to package with Slice upon its release! Loops must be hecka, hella quantized and ready for slicing, dicing, cutting, and milking. This app is all about tight timing and recombinant beat synchrony, so slop cannot be tolerated.

You must forfeit all rights to any submission. Slice users will want string-less, royalty-free loops to play with, otherwise where is the fun? We will credit you in the app, and we’ll say prayers for you nightly, but that’s about all we can offer beyond the endless paeans of your peers who will break out your beats at shows, on albums, in BMW ads.

We need your sounds by September 11^th. We will submit each loop to a rigorous ass-test. If the ass don’t wiggle, no dice. Oh, and YOUR OWN SHIT ONLY please. Let’s not all get sued? God bless.

Send us your loop

Curtis Heavy saves

lucas — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:57:59 +0000

Curtis 1.4 just popped onto the scene, so those of you with long IP addresses can now also enjoy file transfer between Curtis and your computer. We fixed the address truncation bug and added saving, so now your favorite recordings can be accessed again and again.

Spoke Free is free

lucas — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:55:14 +0000

For those of you who have been reluctant to give Spoke a spin, a limited free version is now out on the App Store. Give it a whirl, give us some feedback!

We have some new features in the works as well as some optimizations coming up. Apparently Spoke actually runs slower on OS3 than on OS2.2.1, and this is something we are working hard to diagnose and address.

UPDATE: We tracked down the issue with OS3, and Spoke will soon be running much faster on an iDevice near you.

For the developers out there: using NSTimer to frequently trigger a UI update on the main thread is a bad idea. For some reason detaching a new thread that sleeps often yet still performs the UI update on the main thread leads to huge performance gains. Anyone know what’s going on under the hood that makes this so?