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Hands-on Review: Krafty Kuts Against the Grain DJ Tools app for iPhone/iPod Touch

Categories: Announcements, Reviews
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 12:03 PM

atg-kk-1

Yesterday I posted up news about a new DJ sampler tool that has been released by Against the Grain Media, along with the help of DJ Krafty Kuts! It’s got a rather long name, but essentially it’s a bank of samples that you can trigger if you have your iPhone/iPod Touch connected to your mixer whilst doing a DJ set.

The idea is simple yet elegant – rather than having expensive hardware doing this (like a professional sampler), why not use the iPhone? Well, I think this is a reasonable idea, and given the high-quality sound that comes out of the iPhone, should be suitable for anyone but the most picky DJ! I was sent a copy of the app for review, and have been giving it a try – now of course it’s slightly out of context, since I’m not doing a DJ set right now – but in my mind I could be :-)

Using the app is simplicity itself. You go to the start screen, where it advises you to put your iPhone in to flight mode – after all, don’t want any unexpected message alerts or calls coming out the iPhones audio pipe now, do we! Once that is done you press start, after which you are provided with a series of screens, each containing a bank of buttons:

atg-kk-2

Each button can be triggered repeatedly, and also in parallel with other buttons (ahh, the wonders of multi-touch!). And that’s about it! You’d stab these buttons in at appropriate points during your DJ set, and maybe the only thing missing I can see is a simple loop feature that you can then pitch up and down, to beat-match with the music. I guess with that you’d also need a master tempo control to stop a voice turning into high- and low-pitch distorted voices :-)

Anyway, I digress – it’s a simple app that does what it says on the tin, and for those reasons I’d say it’s good value – £2.99 seems fair to me.

Verdict: yo, yo, yo, DJ that’s hot!

Against the Grain Kraftys Kuts DJ Tool / £2.99 [iTunes link]

About The Author

Ben Robinson

Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.