iZotope iDrum: Ministry of Sound Anthems Edition

A third version of iZotope's popular iDrum virtual instrument application has been released for the iPhone, in the form of a Ministry of Sound Anthems edition. Little has changed at the core of the application, but the addition of new samples, loops and material from Ministry of Sound makes iDrum even more fun than before.

iDrum is GarageBand for your pocket. A virtual instrument suite available in both desktop and iPhone form, iDrum is a comprehensive music-making application that uses a drum-pad interface to create and modify tracks.

The interface is key to iDrum's simplicity and ease of use. Once a pre-recorded track is selected, users get a bird's eye view of the song's different parts and individual tracks, separated into bars. Picking an individual bar zooms into a closer view of each track's properties, and zooming in again allows users to modify each individual track. Adding a beat, sound or loop is then simple: click on one of 16 possible positions, each representing a 16th beat of a bar.

Volume can be adjusted for each instrument or for an instrument's individual beats, harnessing the iPhone's touch screen to drag and modify volume settings. You can also pan track audio to the left or right channel and adjusting tempo.

Although users must start with a pre-recorded track, each instrument and its properties can be modified to suit individual tastes, with up to 660 different samples to choose from. iDrum won't automatically make you the best music producer overnight, but the application has an extremely low learning curve thanks to its simple interface. Though the more musically inept may have a hard time grasping the concept of timing and tone variation, the application does make it easier to understand these ideas.

There is little to dislike about iDrum, though there are some limitations. While the ability to make ring tones from tracks is certainly commendable, there is no way to add the ring tones to the iPhone without using a PC or Mac.

iDrum: Ministry of Sound Anthems Edition suffers a slight price hike over its two older counterparts, the Hip Hop and Club editions, probably as a result of licensing agreements with Ministry of Sound. Nevertheless, $7.99 is still a reasonable asking price for the app, and it is certainly well worth the money even if you aren't the next Timbaland.