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Anytune releases Anytune 3 Practice App for iOS

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Anystone Technologies

Anytune has released the Anytune 3 practice app for iOS.

Musicians can use Anytune to learn to play or transcribe songs by slowing down the tempo, adjusting the pitch, repeating loops, setting navigation marks and sharing timed comments using their favorite tracks. Anytune features the ability to slow down mp3 music with the Anytune slow downer app.

Anytune 3 is designed to produce HQ audio allowing musicians to import their music, slow mp3s, visualize their songs, and practice at their own pace and pitch. With the redesigned Anytune 3, users can refine their music practice and learning using FineTouch EQ and LiveMix.

Anytune 3 is available from Apple's App Store in free, Pro ($9.99), and Pro HQ ($14.99) versions.

Anytune 3 YouTube Feature Video

Discussion

Discussion

Discussion: Active
stickwolf
stickwolf
16 July 2012 at 3:55pm

This looks high quality, but these features, slowing down etc. are available in some Free and Open-Source programs such as Sonic Visualiser and even Audacity to some extent. The reason these programs can't be made for iOS is that Apple doesn't allow it! Apple's TOS is incompatible with software freedoms that are required by many free software licenses like the GNU GPL.

This situation stinks. Apple and these other companies are profiting big time by getting people into a platform where functional community-developed competition is blocked.

anystone
anystone
16 July 2012 at 6:44pm

Hi Stickwolf,

Our base level of slow down and pitch shifting makes use of the SoundTouch open source library which is licensed as LGPL. The author of the library explicitly allows its' use in iOS and Android commercial apps. You are more than welcome to try it out in our free version of Anytune. So not every variant of GPL is strictly incompatible with iOS - it just depends upon how strict a developer of a particular open source library is to the freedoms required by GPL. BSD or MIT licensed products would have no such issue, for example.

What we found in the case of Anytune, however is that there are much, much higher quality time stretching algorithms available for commercial licensing. The audio quality difference between what is available in an open source time stretching algorithm vs what the Pro and HQ audio modes provided in Anytune is striking. These libraries of course cost money, and the making of Anytune was not cheap.

Having said all of that, I completely agree that it is a shame that some of the licensing terms weren't more compatible, as in the end it really hurts the customer the most.

Cheers!

Sean - CTO Anystone.

http://www.anytune.us

stickwolf
stickwolf
16 July 2012 at 9:28pm

Thanks for the reply! I really don't intend to bash your seemingly excellent software. I just wish I could deal with you without Apple being the middleman controlling the terms.

So maybe you'll release an Android version at some point?

And yes, the LGPL is exactly meant to allow use like you have done. But the full GPL is blocked by Apple's TOS, and that's bad for users and for free market competition.

Anyway, the Rubber Band library is MUCH better than SoundTouch, and it's available under GPL as well as commercial: http://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/

And the Subband Sinusoidal Modeling library is also good, and GPL.

The only reason a totally free GPL-licensed iOS app using Rubber Band library can't be released on iOS is because Apple has taken excessive control of the system, to the detriment of users.

Anyway, I just want to remind people to consider the options. I just want you to compete on a level field with the alternatives…

Good luck.

anystone
anystone
16 July 2012 at 10:51pm

Thank you for the pointer to rubber band! We may look at that in the future should we need a library to support a platform which is not currently covered or supported by our existing time stretching library.

We are considering doing an Android version, but we don't have the development resources to do it justice at the moment. One of our part time developers is doing some experimentation on Android out of personal interest. There are also concerns around whether or not an app priced at $15 would sell in the Google Play marketplace. I suspect we'd need to consider other pricing strategies (freemium?) to make the development investment worthwhile.

Thanks again for the pointer! I didn't expect that the Anytune announcement would trigger a political discussion. ;)

Sean - CTO Anystone.

http://www.anytune.us

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