Best useless iPhone app ever: sound-recording RjDj
Written on October 12, 2008 – 3:31 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
So it’s Sunday, but that doesn’t mean much for Internet entrepreneurs. Just like Jason Calacanis wants, we spend too much time in our office. But there’s room for fun too. Just now, for example, Robert Gaal showed me the coolest useless iPhone app ever, RjDj.
This iPhone gimmick records sounds from your environment with the iPhone headset mic and remixes them in a playback loop, randomly adding delay, echo effects, and taking certain parts of it.
Involuntary MC’s
I went outside with if for a bit and walked a couple of blocks. Listening to the music the RjDj app produced which was a completely different experience that the regular iPod one. The street noises became part of the music I was listening too, which sometimes can be simply amazing. I’m telling you, a Spanish tourist scared the hell out of me by talking a bit too loud. An ordinary pedestrian turns into an involuntary MC.
(warning: this can cause weird situations, as I started to walk really close to other pedestrians to record their conversations)
There’s a free version with only one “scene” (which isn’t too good compared with the others). The $3 version has six “scenes”, of which the “Loopinger” is my absolute favorite.
Here’s six-minute video demonstration
Where’s the hype?
It actually surprises me that there hasn’t been a RjDj hype, as everybody here in the office is absolutely raving about after the first experience. Yet if you look at this Technorati chart, you’ll notice a buzz is absent. Let’s see if we can get something started here (don’t forget to stumble)
Posts that contain RjDJ per day for the last 30 days.
Get your own chart!
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By Peter Evers on Oct 12, 2008
Hmm, digital drugs? You must have felt like a true Digital Doherty? ;) (And that might also be a better name than RjDj)
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By John Brooks Pounders on Oct 12, 2008
Just bought this. Very cool indeed, I could see this catching on.
-JBP
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By Andrius Endis on Oct 13, 2008
Cool! It’s like an Ableton Live integrated straight into an iPhone. Definitely useFUL when gigging. :]
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By mistrustmusic on Oct 13, 2008
It looks cool for iPhone users, but what are they going to do about us iPod Touch folk?
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is there a mic on the iPod Touch? No, right? Sounds more like a Steve Jobs kind-of Job then.
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By Ian Page-Echols on Oct 14, 2008
I think using the word gimmick is not seeing the possibilities. You can write your own scenes for RjDj and submit them. Pd is similar to Max/MSP, people will come up with weird and interesting, and potentially, really useful scenes for this program.
I’ve already used the Echelon scene as a sort of filter for a song I’m playing with on my Nintendo DS using the Korg DS-10 software.
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I think using the word gimmick leads to interesting comments like yours. Can you share some work? would be cool
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Well, I haven’t actually created anything successfully in Pd, but a little bit in Max/MSP. Here’s a little something I put together last night though which uses RjDj and various other things:
http://vimeo.com/1998966
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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on Oct 14, 2008
I discovered today that the app is quite useless on a windy day, the only thing your when walking down the street is the blowing of the wind.
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