Do Have A Budding DJ On Your Holiday List? There's An App For That

Southfield (WXYZ) - If you have a budding DJ on your holiday shopping list, there’s an app for that. In fact the industry leader in music electronics has several apps.

Korg has upgraded its popular $33 iMS-20 app to support MIDI functions, which means the iPad can control various electronic keyboards and synthesizers.  Korg also released an enhanced version of its $20 dollar iElectribe App , which now features beats created by the popular virtual band Gorillaz .

I’m a novice when it comes to figuring out synthesizers, mixers and beat boxes, so I called in a professional.  Vincent “Shortstop” Abate is the Mixmaster for Detroit’s Channel955 radio. He also backs up rapper Brilliance . “Shortstop” knows a few things about electronic music.

“Absolutely!” He exclaims,  “All different kinds from analog keyboards to you name it. And DJ equipment that’s my specialty. ”

Shortstop jumped at the chance to test the Korg iPad apps.

“When you said it was a Korg application that I was going to be playing with I thought this could be kind of cool and I’ve come to find out it actually was cool. ”

Korg spokeswoman Kristen Bean says the company has packed a surprising amount of power into the inexpensive apps.

“It is quite surprising because you imagine ‘ok I’m just using an application on my iPad how powerful of a sound could it really be?'  But they’ve created it in a way to actually mimic the device. ”

“Shortstop” admits Korg hit the mark. Without consulting an operations manual, the professional DJ quickly figures out how to lay down a multi track beat, complete with synthesized accompaniment.

His only suggestion is for the company to figure out how to enlarge some of the virtual knobs. And, Shortstop suggests the ability to export each track individually to a professional mixer would make it nearly perfect.

Still, he found the inexpensive Korg apps live up the company’s stellar reputation.