FourTrack – iPhone App Review

FourTrack ($9.99)

Version – 2.0

REVIEW – “Record real music on your iPhone!”

I never dreamed that I would have multi-track recording software on my phone.  With FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works you have an excellent recording resource available wherever you go!  I will say this though, the built in microphone on your device is probably not the best choice to record live audio but it does do a much better job than I thought that it would.

True to its name this app offers four independent tracks that you can record one at a time and then mix together to make a final recording.  The main screen shows you those four channels along with various controls for each individual channel.  To record you first have to select the channel you would like to record on by pressing the “Rec Arm” button and then touch and slide the record button to the right to begin recording.

At the bottom of the screen there is a scroll wheel that you can use to navigate through your recorded tracks.  You can also move to the beginning or the end quickly by pressing the arrow buttons on either side of the time display above that wheel.  Just below the scroll wheel is the record button, a play button to play back what you have recorded, a “Song Tools” button, and finally a small button that just gives you some basic information about the app.

The “Song Tools” button takes you to an interface  where you can browse through all of you previous recordings.  From here you can start a new song by pressing the “New Song” button at the bottom of the screen, or sync your files with your computer via Wifi.  Touching any of your recordings will take you to a new screen where you can name/rename that file using the text box.  You can also enable or disable the metronome feature to help keep you in tempo.

One of the best features of this app is that it actually has the ability to help you mix more than just four tracks.  You can do this by using a feature called “Bounce”  What Bounce will do is mix four tracks down to just two tracks.  By using this feature multiple times you can add virtually unlimited tracks to your recording!  Be careful with this feature though, I would recommend that you either make a duplicate copy of your recording or at least make sure you “Bounce” to a “new Song” instead of “to this Song.”  If you don’t you will lose the ability to go back and control the volume on your individual tracks.

Something that Sonoma Wire Works did an excellent job with this app is giving it all of the basic functionality that you might need, while also not make it incredibly complicated.  Yes there are features that you might like to have in a full recording suite that you will not have access to in FourTrack, but if you are doing a full mix of a song you will most likely want to add effects and such using a full-blown computer recording solution.  What this app does do is allow you to quickly create a “demo” without a lot of extra hardware, or easily record song ideas to use later.  With the right microphone you could probably even use this to record the tracks for your finished song.  In fact others have already done just that!

If you are a musician looking for a simple solution for recording music wherever you might be the wait is over.  At just $9.99 this app is a steal when you consider how polished it is and all that it is capable of.  This is the app that you just can’t afford not to have.  So what are you waiting for?  Head to the App Store and get FourTrack today!

- David H.

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Developer – Sonoma Wire Works

URL: http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack/

DEVELOPERS NOTES

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© 2009, Davidh. All rights reserved.