The App So Nice I Made It Twice...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
So way back in April, TASCAM approached me with this idea of “re-skinning” the PortaStudio app I’d already made them to make it act like one of their handheld recorders. I said “hmmm…” because the cassette paradigm really didn’t match a handheld concept but what the hell, it was an easy job. So I told ’em “sure” and banged out a new skin and changed the functionality a bit to match. Took me a week or so. Frankly, it wasn’t very fun, but it did what they asked.
Then it got to their QA department in Japan. Their QA department was apparently unaware of (a) what had been specced to me, and (b) the program upon which what they were using was based. (It’s also worth noting that they are apparently unaware that dB is a relative measure, not an absolute one, but that comes later.) Now, when I say I’m gonna do something, I do it, so this put me in a bit of a bind.
[Trauma, heartache, and despair redacted.]
No harm no foul, we call that one done, and they ask me what would be involved in making one that was direct-to-disk recording (PortaStudio works with RAM) etc. So I spec out some features and a price, everyone agrees, and we go to town.
[Further sadness and existential crisis redacted.]
Now, keeping in mind that Audio Damage takes most of my workday, I was doing this largely on the weekends. Every weekend. 16 hours a day. Since April. I lost my entire summer to this app. It actually would have been done two months ago, but again, their QA team, who are (to greatly understate the matter) sticklers, have me going up a dB here, down one there, can you move this one pixel to the left, Chris-san? And features. Features. Features. Let’s add this, change this, move that, put that in here.
Adam told me that a friend of his said that only the very stupid or the very smart do fixed-rate contracts. I am of the considered opinion that I fall squarely in the former category in this particular instance.
In any case, PCMRecorder is now done and in the app store. It is free, and is Universal Binary. It essentially duplicates the TASCAM DR-2d. It is ostensibly for use with the new TASCAM iM-Z and iM2, but will work with any CoreAudio-compatible iPhone mics. Enjoy! I KNOW I DID!!!!
EDIT: The first person that posts in this thread with a bug or feature request is getting banned for life, and you’re lucky if I don’t come to your house and teach you some manners. I honestly lack the ability to put in to words how little the fuck I give is at this juncture.
27 comments
Jesus. You could have put out like three AD plugins or ten other iPad apps in the time you spent on this fucker. The lesson we have all learned today "Only do a fixed rate contract if you are a rare specialist that can afford to charge an exorbanent price." It sounds like your contract was hell, but I'm glad it's over. :)
Amazing work and heroic patience.
Also, a big shout-out to Art "SHORTAY" Gillespie, who helped me immensely with some extremely puzzling bugs. I have a knack for fucking things up in the most obtuse and hard-to-pinpoint ways, and Art has a knack for un-fucking them.
-CR
pat yourself on the back. well done. i have one of those tascam handheld recorders and this app + the new mic they came out w/basically replaces it in many situations
Art is a guy I'd like to meet, mostly because we share a not-super-common last name and post/surf in many of the same places, but not because there's much to say. In other words, "Hey Art! Uh, cool name bro."
Thank you again Art! 'You've done a man's job.'
(Trying to quote Blade Runner but it came out all mysogynistic.)
Congrats.
Jesus H CHristmas ..
http://tascam.com/product/im2/
http://tascam.com/product/ixz/
when did this happen ?
It's clear that mobile devices are the future. I'm just wondering if the vst/au standard will get adapted to it, or if we are starting over again from scratch. It's not entirely clear to me at this point where all of this is headed. I'm leaning toward the former, but i know if Apple has their way it will probably be the latter.
@afreshcupofjoe - word on the internets is that Apple is trying to do away with the file system in OSX and make it more like (exactly like) iOS. but anyone who discusses such things is doing so in a "rumors" thread somewhere.
so, anyway - downloaded this app.. gonna mess around and make hits on my iphone now. ;)
I've heard those rumors too, @boobs, but I don't see how Apple could do that without throwing away the high end of their product line. What is the point of buying a quad-core MBP or one of the towers if you can only have nine browser tabs or one full screen app?
At the very least, Apple needs the traditional machines so that developers can run XCode. And if they are going to support XCode, they might as well continue to support the rest of the pro users of those machines.
no argument from me here.. i just think their long term goal is one OS for everything. i imagine it'll be somewhere between OSX and iOS
There will end up being a two tiered OS system, with just about everybody running what is ostensibly iOS on their phones/pads/mac-minis/iMac-all-in-one-thingamabobs and a few of us in the "Developer" and "Pro" camps running what would be some kind of product roughly equivalent to the OSX Server package. It would basically be a $50 upgrade to get a file system. At least that's my guess...
-William
Art Gillespie, of Bitshift/Glaresoft? Weird, this has happened to me several times this week. I was thinking last night "What did that guy do after he sold the company?" but couldn't remember who it was.
I wish someone would spruce up idrum a little bit. I still use it.
I'm pretty much with William on this one. I think he's exactly right. It's no secret whatsoever that Apple is trying to do away with consumer access to the filesystem. They proved it could work with iOS devices; now they just have to wean normal computer users off it.
@bongo_x: Yes, the same Art. He owns TapSquare now, which is an iOS dev shop down in Tucson. He's the one you can blame directly for "I Am T-Pain." Other than, well, T-Pain, I guess. But right now he's on a boat. Probably.
-CR
@wgparham - that sounds more probable.
The epiphany for me came at Jobs' last keynote, when he was demonstrating GarageBand for iPad, and he said "and this is totally pro. You can make a song with this."
My LOL at the time was to hide my initial thought: dude, there's no such thing as a "pro" app. There are professionals, and there are nubs. The professionals are willing to spend more on better tools. The nubs use GarageBand.
But that said, it brings another point to light: Apple makes _WAY_ more off iOS shit than their Pro App division could ever hope to accomplish in 10 lifetimes. I mean, honestly. A company's gotta do what a company's gotta do. Look at Audio Damage. We've done 4 major upgrades to Discord, and none to 914. That's because we can do basic math. I'm sure Apple can, as well. The Pro Apps division is a vanity project at this point.
-CR
@CR - yeah.. their income from ipods/phones/pads crushes their computer income
the other rumor is apple giving up on the mac pro and making some kind of expanded mac mini
but they have to make computers still to tie it all together i think.. _until_ the cloud is embraced by enough people anyway.. download stuff directly to the device..back ups stored remotely for a fee. who needs a back up drive?
then i guess as said.. computers with file systems will be for developers/professionals.. which means all the apps will get shoe horned through the app store? or will they allow people to download from 3rd parties?
didn't Jobs say something about "we'll always make the mac pro. It is apple" or something like that?
my shit works now and i'm having no trouble making music with it. i only just got an intel mac a year ago and just got an iphone a few months ago after replacing my nearly 4 year old shitty flip phone.
I'm with boobs.
Congrats, Chris.
I'm all out of SHIPPED, BITCHES! t-shirts, but I'll hook you up on the re-order.
I can see the Mac pro going away . An iMac with 4 cores and a TB port is as powerful as the Mac pro was a few years back and I can see 6-8-12 cores happening sooner than later no doubt . The file system .... Idk ? I can only make assumptions what that would or could mean for me as an end user . I know I use x-11 but just for wine based apps but that is as close as I come to dev tools . Apple likes simplicity and " clean lines " but they have always taken pride in the power of their tools too so for every " they wouldn't " I can think of there is an equal " why wouldn't they " to counter so all I can say in the end is IDK ... Just like everyone else .
There will always be a need for a sports car. The Mac Mini and iMac are laptop motherboards, built for power efficiency. I really hope Apple doesn't give up on the high end. If they do, I hope they at least make "Hackintosh" machines easy to build.
p.s. Please download our app to help get it in the charts!
Ha - I know what you mean about their QA dept... A company I work with did some contract with Akai years ago and although the end result was just about groundbreaking (for the time), I've heard the interactions with their engineers and management were pretty surreal.
Chris Randall
Just be glad you don't actually work inside of a Japanese company.
There are three great things about this app's release: 1) it turns an iPhone/iPod into a handy portable recorder. I don't think I'll give up my DR-2d for field recordings, but this app means I'll record stuff I wouldn't record otherwise (i.e. when I don't have the DR-2d on hand). 2) It's free. Thanks, TASCAM! 3) I don't have to listen to CR whine about it any more.
--Adam
Its kickass man, used it to record a practice straight to the iPad with the built in mic. No distortion, and it sounded like a decent bootleg from a show..
Your pain is our gain Chris.
I for one, appreciate the blood soaked fingers that built this app! : )
I used the app to record an angry squirrel. Very clean sounding and an easy to use app. I'm hoping to get that im2 mic for Xmas.
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