REVIEWS

Check out this great iSyn review in Electronic Musician online, June 2009!

 http://emusician.com/software/iphoning-it-in/index2.html

USA:

*****"Super fun on a huge sound system!"
I have tried pretty much every iphone musical application having to do with synths or synthesis and electronic music production, and none of them has even come close to this one. I found this one is incredibly fun for playing live when you get your parameters all set up to react to the tilt and x y functions. I actually had a chance to hook this up to a gigantic sound system this weekend to play for people, and nobody could believe that this was all coming from my iphone! To Deep Plya, you can make full songs with it by creating and duplicating patterns within a project and hitting auto play to advance through the patterns. You can easily delete whole songs or patterns at a time by copying a blank one to the one you would like to delete. The manual is pretty in depth I have found and I recommend checking it out. I am looking forward to updates on this one for sure!

Roger Linn/www.rogerlinndesigns.com (Whoa! Roger Linn invented the digital drum machine and the original Akai MPC!)
I just gave it five stars, which is not nearly enough considering that it's $5. The only suggestion I'd have for iSyn is perhaps a help section to make it easier for the uninitiated. But that's small potatoes- it's really a great and very useful design.iSyn is as good as some $200 professional software synths i've seen, but for $195 off.

*****
"Very cool"
I disagree with the reviewer who says this is a "toy" compared to BM and IO. I have both those apps and use them extensively. It's like apples and oranges.. They're just different ... This app does things no other app does, is very intuitive and plenty deep. It's probably one of the best sounding synths on the iPhone, and the control set up is really phenomenal. The keyboard is really well done and the fact you can just drag your finger to get that gliss - theremin effect is really nice. Only improvements I'd like to see are maybe better graphics, more and better drum sounds, and a clearer interface to edit, record and save. Seriously though- for this price the 5 star rating is a no brained. Definitely a keeper.

"iSyn looks most enticing to me!"- Tara Busch/www.analogsuicide.com
As a relatively new owner of an iPhone, I am still sinking my teeth into all the apps we have to choose from - I'm in awe of many of these apps rising to the surface such as Beatmaker and Noise.io and have been longing for a "virtual music studio" that I may also use for live performance. They all serve a great purpose as far I can tell- and iSyn looks most enticing to me!

*****
"WOW- Bravo...."
This app is a phenomenal iphone app. So much progressive thinking here to enjoy! I love the fact that you can map parameters to the X and Y pad included, as well as map the X and Y tilt of the iphone to different parameters. Thats cool. Not only that, it is possible to have multiple destinations
for these assignments. Whats incredible is that as technical as all that may sound to you, the developer manages to make the little manual really clear and simple. If you are new to synthesis it will of course take time to understand those basics, but for any synthesist guys out there, buy this now. You get a lot for a very small investment! Its really cool how you can play a note on the keyboard and slide it to any other note and move your finger on the vertical access to control things like filter etc..... Of course the Bebot app is king in this domain and people would have to work hard to compete with the multiple touch control and auto tuning features that we developed for that. My one criticism worth mentioning here is that it is quite hard to read the menu items. Can't you guys make those clearer so its not a struggle to read?? People would enjoy the experience of using the app even more if this element of the program was a little friendlier.
Finally- thank you for spending the time and making something that sounds great, is easy to absorb and makes it possible to jump right in there and have a great time making music. Hey- that's what it is all about....

"Love the iSyn!!!"- Dave Lenat/www.line6.com
Sitting here on my couch with my two-month old in his swing next to me, making beats, playing them through my Bose sound dock, jamming along on my 1930 National reso guitar. I will use this thing all the time.

*****
"Just great"
Perfect combination of handheld simplicity and sonic quality. You can bang out some useful sounds with this gem. The drum machine alone is worth the price. Synth is high quality for a handheld. I'll be running a line out into my home studio. Finally! an app thats fun, is easy to use, and sounds great. I like the live keys function as well. Good job!

www.musformation.com
We've reported on awesome music-related iPhone apps before, but as time goes on they appear to get better and better. The iSyn Virtual Music Studio looks to have a lot going for it - the filtering options available with the touch screen look awesome!

*****
"Serious musical tool and a blast at that"
I've played with every single music making app on the iPhone in hopes of having something that I would have with me all the time for an "idea capture" or "sketch pad". Beatmaker is good but also has some really corny aspects about it. The iSyn knocks these other apps to the ground and calls them names. That's not really fair since it's not trying to be what the other apps are. It's not intuitive, and most of the people who have complained about missing features in other reviews simple haven't found them yet. Apple has yet to come up with a good delivery mechanism for more "on phone" documentation than one screen of info.
The iSyn is not really a competitor to Beatmaker so much in that its really a Synth with some other tools thrown in. The strength is in the Synth itself which actually sounds really awesome and original and allows for real programming potential. You have to invest more time in iSyn than others but you walking away with stuff that doesn't sound like it was made on an iPhone. I'd like to see more iPhone to computer compatibility so that you can take your creations and really blow them up on your computer if they are the spark of genius. But for $3.99, you are getting way more bang for your buck if you put the time in.

*****
"Much better than BM and Noise.io..."
...because it's approachable. God only knows how many buttons knobs, and functions there are in noise io (I find new ones every time I launch the app)...it's insane. The funny thing about noise io too, is that even with ALL that complexity, it's still mono!? Beat Maker is cool, but it's sample-based only. IMO iSyn is the best of both worlds. It's easy to program, the synths sound fantastic, the timing is perfect, and the filter and effects can be controlled with tilt! I've had more fun with iSyn in the last day, than any other music iPhone apps I own combined.

*****
"Wow"
This is by far the coolest synth app I have seen. You get two synths, each whith fully programmable 3 oscillator, filter, Lfo, fx sections and more. A very nice capable drum machine and a piano roll style sequencer AND you can paly live input along with the sequencer, either with a keyboard for the synths or a kind of mpc style pad thing for the drums. Now just to be clear, I don't work for virsyn... But they have been making software synths for years which means YES! You get synths created by people who actually know how to make synthesizers! The incredible list of parameters for each aspect of the sound backs this up. So, to close.. Sorry if this sounds like and ad but I'm just really excited to finally have something that I can actually spend time programming and writing fun little tracks with! Hopefully more audio companies will follow suit. iLogic anyone?

*****
"Like a lite version of the Korg DS-10"
I have been carrying my Nintendo DS around for the past few months so that I have my DS-10 handy at all times. This program is close enough that I just removed an entire device from my bag. While it doesn't have the cool patch cords that the DS-10 has, it makes up for by how it stores individual sounds and handles the storage of sounds, tracks, and songs. Also, check out the developers site. The first post release post was made in the 'forum' and the developer immediately replied to the suggestions made. If they are going to be this responsive, I have VERY high hopes! This little program has earned a place right next to noise.io and BeatMaker on my phone!

*****
"Sweet"
Best multi-instrument studio, and I've tried most of them.

****
"Amazing"
I bought this app yesterday and ended up spending the whole day playing with it. It took me a while to get used to it because im a noob at this. Overall i gave it 4 stars because its has room for improvement. I bought iDrum a few weeks ago for the same price but this one is far more complex. Go figure.

United Kingdom:
*****
"Really unbelievable"
I have to say that I didn't like this for the first 10 minutes after downloading. that was because I couldn't work out how to use it. now I'm getting the hang of it I love it.. it is so much fun..

*****
"It's amazing"
Its godda be the thing i have been looking for for ages. A must have.

*****
"Fantastic"
The best synth on app store and I've bought most of them. The keyboard implementation is very musical and you can get a lot of expressiveness using it. More the a real keyboard. Makes me want a iPhone the size of a real life keyboard just for this app.

*****
"Very very very cool"
This is an awesome bit of kit. I would even go so far as to expect that I'll use this more than beatmaker. The synths are very nice sounding, the preset bank a are very current, the drums are great and the fx are very usable. One of the nicest features though is the playing method of the keyboard - much more expressive than you'd expect! I don't know what experience the guy writting the very negative review has, but I've been programming synths for years, and there is nothing wrong with the sounds in this app - maybe just not his taste but this is no way a 2 star app. It's a v1.0 app that's great to use right now and has too to develop in the future. Fantastic!

*****
"Ambitious, but pulls it off!"
A fabulous addition to the "serious" apps for music making. Synths are the stars of the show with some excellent patches in there and the automated XY pad is cool. I could (and probably will) write a wish list a mile long but if you love music making you should buy this now. Top of the list though will be sharing of songs and patches as people with far more talent than me will do wonders with this and I want to hear it!

*****
"Awesome App"
Great sounding synth app, built in sequencer makes it easy to get a groove going with a bass, drum and lead track. There is depth there to if you want to go deeper with the sounds, mixing, modulations etc. I actually wrote a tune with it in the first ten minutes of owning it lol, sampled it in Ableton Live and got a proper retro groove going so score for me lol :)
Cheap as well, buy it :)

*****
"iSyn is another for the exclusive club of the best iPhone/Touch music-making apps"
Beatmaker, noise.io, technobox, some of the finest imho, isyn is right there with them.Twin programmable 3osc synths, drumbox, fx, sequencer, mods and mod fx with tilt and x/y, patterns, projects, and all the rest.2 years ago this would have been laughable if anyone said you could achieve this with these levels of quality and functionality on a phone (albeit a fairly special phone) isyn sounds fabulous, in saying that I refer to the outstanding quality of synthesis as you would expect from Mr Gohs of Virsyn along with a thoroughly professional attractive graphic user interface which makes isyn a joy to play around with and get creative....oops!!, nearly forgot to say, the price?...giveaway!!!

*****
"This is great!"
Wow! What a great sounding beatbox! The synth sounds just like a MiniMoog!! Still trying to figure out the controls, but so far so good. 5 stars simply because iSyn sounds and looks great! 5 stars because this is the best so far of all the "grooveapps"! :-)

Australia:
*****
"Brilliant."
This is a very serious awesome sounding synth. Along with Beatmaker and IO this is right up there. Great effects, intuitive piano roll style pattern editing, zero load time for patches etc and excellent control matrix (pad and tilt etc) quality filters this doesn't sound like a toy; I'll be using this in productions. Check out the video and manual on the website. These guys made VirSyn Terra VST for PC I believe. This blew away everyone at work ( I work in a music store) played through the PA, is capable of very Korg Radius / Access Virus type sounds. Can't reccomend it enough really, one guy here bought an iPod Touch just for this. (Was considering a Microkorg, this just blew him away.) The method of keyboard expression (vertical slide) is done well and I love the left to right pitch bend slide, why hasn't anyone else done this??

Canada:
****
"The Most Powerful Synth for the iPhone"
An amazing amount of features and programmability has been packed into iSyn. It is a wonderful little sketch pad for sound designers or producers of electronic music. While the synth is groundbreaking, the interface is not, and suffers from desktop shrinkage design which makes some of the features hard to use. Also at the moment there is no way to export audio or MIDI. The developer has said that export, as well as polyphony, is on the to-do list, so I think iSyn will be "the" program for on-the-run producers. Five dollars? It's a steal.

Finland:
*****
"Excellent!"
I'm familiar with Virsyn's softsynth VST instruments, so I was anxiously waiting for this app. No disappointments here, the sound quality is excellent, tweakability is great and there's no lag. The user interface is lean, even a bit sparse, but very functional and easy to use. Top pro synth app, suitable for non-pro users too.

The next couple of reviews are in Spanish, and I don't speak a word, so I'm really hoping these are positive reviews saying how sweet iSyn is. Someone tell me if they say that iSyn stinks :>P

Spain:

*****
El mejor sinte de la appstore hasta la fecha"
En mi opinión suena mejor que noise.io o por lo menos está a la par en sonido y algo mas completo. Un gran emulador analógico con el que esbozar pequeñas ideas, permite muchas posibilidades con dos sintes monofónicos (aunque de tres osciladores nada menos) y una caja de ritmos estilo 909/808/LinnDrum aderezado con una sencilla sección de efectos. Puedes guardar tus secuencias individuales en cada instrumento y mezclarlas o guardar un proyecto completo. Una gozada por este precio.

*****
"Espectacular!"
Solamente he oido los presets y tocado un par de ritmos y me he quedado impresionado los paneles de control de osciladores,si esto es un sinte de verdad,son muy claros está aplicación está realmente currada y a ese precio es IMPRESCINDIBL.