The company behind BandLab (also called BandLab) is now pretty big and in recent years has snapped up a number of existing brands and intellectual property. It also runs a social media platform for sharing music.
The BandLab Music Recording Studio app allows users to create music on their device and then instantly upload it to share with others. The app is available on iOS and Android and is completely free. It enables you to record using the built-in mic, connect a guitar or bass, use some of the 200+ built-in instrument sounds, or assemble loops to create compositions.
Once you have signed in, you are greeted with a home screen that asks what sound source you'd like to start with. I began with a voice and quickly recorded myself singing a simple melody without headphones straight into my phone. There's a big friendly record button and the app gives you a short count-in.
The quality was surprisingly good and features basic pitch-correction for those wobbly cracked notes. It provides some basic effects to add ambience, or more extreme effects that are similar to those recording vocalists might use. They are all quite musical, though, rather than silly chipmunk-style effects, which is a relief.
Once I'd recorded my vocal, I quickly navigated to find a bass sound and recorded a simple bass line. This was quite tricky on my phone screen, but it was still achievable with the basic part I was playing. It would be easier on a tablet screen. Once captured, I went back to the main screen and tidied up the timing a bit and listened to the two parts together.
BandLab is a fully functioning DAW for iOS and Android
The final thing I tried was the loop machine. There seem to be loads of different styles, genres and instruments grouped together under a particular heading. This means that all the loops in one screen work together well. Find the loops that you want to use, hit record, trigger the loops at the appropriate bar and a track is made. When combined with the ability to record the vocals and instruments, this is a very powerful app.
You can at this point upload your tracks to the social platform so that other users can listen, offer advice and collaborate. I didn't choose to do this, but it could be useful for informal musicians.
This is a great app, and, for the price, it offers things that normally only fully-fledged DAWs can do; albeit with some cutdown functionality. However, as an entry point to the world of digital music creation, I cannot recommend this little app highly enough.
