New Ukulele Music-Making App Combines Your iPad and iPhone Into A “Futulele”

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Futulele

The future of the ukulele is here with Futulele! I’ve been playing around with this app from Amidio this afternoon and it’s great. It’s the first app as far as I know that lets you play with both your iPad and iPhone simultaneously! Here’s a video demonstration….

The new Futulele app ($4.99) from Amidio ingeniously syncs your iPad and iPhone (or iPod Touch) together as a virtual stringed instrument. Using the optional Futulele Remote app (free download), your iPad forms the uke’s body while your iPhone is the fingerboard, connected by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

There is also an iPad-only version of the app, which lets you play the chords on the iPad alone, dispensing with the iPhone.

The way to play the Futulele is you tap to change chords (you don’t need to finger real chord shapes on the strings) and strum your iPad screen as you would a real uke.

The app features a really genuine-sounding ukele synthesizer with built-in three-band equalizer, delay and chorus effects, metronome and even a recording function.

The only problem I have with this excellent app is, as usual for stringed-instrument music apps, left-handers are once again ostracized. As a left-hander myself, my on-screen strings were pointing the wrong way (not towards the neck) so that I had to lock the screen upside down to play the Futulele. Even so, my strumming was sounding up-strokes not down-strokes. Future app developers please include an option for lefties!

This is a really brilliant app which allows you to caress your two favorite mobile devices connected together as a “futu-lele.”

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