Dronage

What it does

A standalone drone instrument for iPad. Three oscillators feed detune, crossfade, feedback, noise, a formant pad, filter, drive, distortion, delay and reverb, with seven LFOs that can be pointed at each other, a shimmer reverb and a key and scale quantizer. Nothing is labelled: every control carries a small picture, explained in a guide that disappears once you leave it. Patches save as a block of text you copy anywhere you like.

In the demo

Jade works the controls out live, having first collected the guide onto one sheet, pastes in patches she saved earlier, runs the randomiser repeatedly and uses sample and hold on transpose to turn a drone into a melody.

Worth knowing

There is no AUv3 and no inter-app audio, so capturing anything means the iPad screen recorder and a file conversion before it reaches a DAW. That isolation is the point of the app, and it is the thing to weigh before buying. The store now titles it Dronage (Legacy), though no replacement has appeared and it is still sold.