Rubén Terrón Rodríguez Omni is a new Omnichord-inspired pocket synth for iOS, designed for creating chords, strums, and arpeggios.
The Suzuki Omnichord is a unique electronic instrument that features a touch-sensitive strum plate. Every time you swipe, it plays the notes of whatever chord you are currently holding down. The built-in drum machine and auto-bass line even turn it into a rudimentary groovebox.
Rubén Terrón Rodríguez, creator of the 16 Drones app, is now bringing this concept to iOS in an expanded form with his new app Omni: Pocket Synth.
Rubén Terrón Rodríguez Omni: Pocket Synth
Omni: Pocket Synth is a new Synthesizer app for iPhone and iPad, heavily inspired by the Suzuki Omnichord. Important: it is not an emulation of the Omnichord; it just takes the concept and incorporates it into a new app.
According to Rubén Terrón Rodríguez, Omni: Pocket Synth is designed for creating chords, strums, arpeggios, pads, keys, and rhythmic musical ideas with an immediate performance workflow.
Unlike the Omnichord, it features a wavetable and a virtual analog engine with simple pocket controls such as wavetable position, filter cutoff, resonance, and an ADSR envelope.
These are playable with the two stars of the app: the chord pad and the strummer, which are two independent voices.
The Chord pad comes with a number of pre-mapped chords that can be triggered by touch. Custom chord layouts can be created using the dedicated layout editor. There is also a hold-and-latch function.
Additionally, it has a built-in arpeggiator with musical patterns that turn chords into instant melodies. The arpeggios are tweakable with rate, octave, gate, and swing controls.
Strumming, Animating, and Rhythmizing
On the right side, you can find the strum slider. You can play it by pressing a chord on the pad and moving the slider. Omni: Pocket Synth comes with various strum modes, including standard, extended, pentatonic, scale, and chromatic touchplates.
Also, for the strummer, there are hold and latch modes. Take a look at the left side. There you’ll find the mod slider, which adds motion to the chord or strum, or both. You can map a parameter on it and play it alongside the chorder and strummer.
To round off the synth engines, it also houses performance effects, including vibrato, autopan, delay, and reverb.
The rhythmic part in the Rubén Terrón Rodríguez Omni app is provided by a simple pocket drum machine with kick and snare instruments and a 16-step sequencer. They are drum synth-based and can be tweaked with simple controls.
Not happy with the sound engine? No problem. As a bonus, you can use the Omni: Pocket Synth as a MIDI controller to play other AUv3 plugins or external hardware instruments. Plus, it supports MIDI input, allowing you to play the chord from a hardware MIDI controller.
Furthermore, the app supports AUv3 (instrument) with independent Chord and Strum MIDI outs, making it very flexible.
First Impression
Omni: Pocket Synth looks like an inspiring, fun app that lets you work quickly with chords. Anyone who likes the workflow of the legendary Omnichord might really enjoy this app.
Rubén Terrón Rodríguez Omni: Pocket Synth is now available for free download from the Apple App Store. You can unlock the Pro version for an introductory price of $4,99 instead of $9,99 (1-week sale). It runs as a standalone and AUv3 plugin on iOS (iPad and iPhone).
More information here: Rubén Terrón Rodríguez / Apple App Store
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