Baby Audio’s remake of the Yamaha CS01 is a perfect fit for iOS, since the original was cheap, cheery, portable, and full of personality. It’s an ideal instrument for mucking about on your iPad or iPhone, and now it’s running natively on those devices.
The iOS version runs both as standalone and AUv3, so yes, it runs in Logic now – plus a lot of other stuff.
The formula here is simple – start with an analog-modeled signal path inspired by the Yamaha CS01, then add some models of budget 80s effects, plus a simulation of what happens as the battery suffers and then… dies. I’ve said what there is to say about that already – see below – but suffice to say this is a natural for a synth to run on your phone, plus a good match for the step sequencers and other tools on iPad (including Cubasis and now Logic).
There’s also just something cognitively about a fun synth about this on the road, in the sun, in summer. It’s the synth equivalent of a beach book. I’m sure in the dead of winter I’ll be ready to do esoteric things with modulation again, but a fuzzy feel-good synth does go nicely at the lakeside.
I got briefly excited by a screenshot of the FX section, as I’d love to be able to drop the BA-1 effects section into AUM and run other stuff through it. That’s not there yet, though; I hope it’s inbound.
Here’s my full review of the desktop version, though I just installed iOS and – yeah, it’s the same:
Plus, there is actually more to this than meets the eye, so here are two really nice tutorials on sound design.
Side note, since we’re revisiting the thing revisiting the CS01: a couple of people got snitty with me about the BA-1. Some folks just didn’t like that it’s another retro synth. I say try it – I’ve used it in a number of tracks for something very unlike what’s associated with a CS01, especially with that effects section. And someone got mad that I used the word “acid.” Yes, true acid technically involves a TB-303, but there are already plenty of tracks that people think of as acid that don’t (like Prodigy on a JD-800), plus “acid” has come to mean any repeated, angular bass pattern with a squelchy filter, which seems like it fits to me.
To bastardize the MST theme song, “just repeat to yourself it’s just a synth, I should really just relax.”
Sunshine. BA-1. Absolutely. (Sorry, Android users, but then I wholeheartedly endorse FL Studio and SunVox, the latter even having sun in the name.)
$29.99 with a $19.99 intro sale running until July 15th.
