DonkPad [Video]

Posted on February 16th, 2009. Written by Arron.

Designed and developed by Dominic Wroblewski (@Domness), Donkpad is a virtual drum and bass synth machine for iPhone and iPod touch. Hit the jump for the full video look! ..

After signing up for the developer program in just late Jan 09, you could say Dominic is very new to this game. Never the less, he too now has two active applications on the store, the other being iMood [App Store] (59p).

Although admittedly a very simple app, Dominic’s DonkPad does exactly what it says on the tin. The app allows you to be your own DJ. Opening DonkPad you’ll be subject to a 4 x 5 grid full of donks, hi-hats, synths and more. The left column of the grid is where you’ll find the 4 synths included. Along the top row, are the 4 (aptly named) ‘Donks’. Below this you have 2 further rows of various hi-hats [Wiki] and beats.

I think looking at the app, I can safely say it is designed to be plugged into an in-line port of say, a speaker system, and played out loud. Although if you don’t fancy doing that, DonkPad is pretty loud anyway. A ‘feature’ which I found pretty great was the ability to play iPod music while using the app. This essentially meant I could tap along to the tracks I was listening to, in sync, (or not in my case). It gave DonkPad that little bit of depth it was originally missing when I first opened it.

See it in Action:

(I’m not very good, I am? Haha ..)

What’s Next?
I manged to have a chat with Wroblewski about the next release of DonkPad. In it he said that an update is currently in the works which will bring a new ‘timed’ steady beat, able to be set to play for a certain amount of seconds or minutes by the user. Plus, per popular request, he’ll be adding ‘Start/Stop’ functionality to two of DonkPads loop buttons, bringing true looping functionality to DonkPad.

Overall
A fun little app. It’s pretty well thought out, sure to have you Djing in no time! – Hopefully, not like me. Using the various beats and loops, you can mix and match them to suit your needs! Heck, why not even plug it into that stereo system you never use? or the car?

Things we’d like to see:

- Recording: I think It’ll be pretty cool if we could record what we play, for replay in the future.

Current Status: It’s Worth a Look

Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2.1
Download size: 1.1MB
Released on: 9th February 2009
Retails for: £1.19

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1& 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G