Named for Curtis Roads, Curtis is an iPad and iPhone/iPod touch application that implements granular sound processing – a technique, imagined early on by the composer Xenakis, which divides sound into tiny granules, allowing more liquid modification of the audio. Roads brought this idea to digital synthesis, and the results can transform recorded samples in pitch and time.

Composer, producer, and sound designer Richard Devine has long made use of granular techniques in his own work, so it’s little surprise Richard is turning his sonic compositional efforts to the iPad app. The latest release includes a new sound set he designed, but he also writes CDM to point out a track he’s shared on SoundCloud, free to download and hear and for your remixing and re-compositional use.

The track is a composition of samples, and it shows just how much you can do with recorded audio:

This piece is a Acousmatic composition based on everyday found objects. I recorded various wine glasses, gears, metal, motors, Ratchets, chimes, croaking frog scraper, Indian bells, Tibetan Singing Bowls, Santoor, waterphone, piano, hematite magnets, processed voice, underwater ambiances, computer, and sprinkled bits of Buchla 200e/Doepfer Euro rack Modular.

All of the sounds originally captured at 24-bit 96khz with a Neumann RSM 191 A/S stereo shotgun mic, SMK4060 Stereo Matched 4060-BM Miniature Omnidirectional Microphones and Sound Devices 702 recorder.

Objects Of Granularity by RichardDevine

If you want to try out Curtis, you can do so on both iPad (pictured above) and iPhone:

Curtis for iPad
Curtis Heavy for iPhone

I love the geometric/vector-style twist on the wave display. New in the recent 1.1 release: pitch control, echo effect, volume control … and the all-important MP3 import. (Usually working with uncompressed files is more successful, however. With WAV or MP3 files, simply drag-and-drop files from iTunes.)

In other sound design experiments, Richard records an insect’s footsteps inside a box, recorded on a catch-and-release program, from earlier this summer.

Found a large Velvet Ant walking on my driveway today, and couldn’t help but notice the odd sounds this insect was making. The recording is of the insect crawling around inside a cardboard box, before I let it go back into my backyard. The Velvet Ant, also known as the “Cow Killer” is actually not an ant, but a wasp. I recorded this with 2 DPA 4060 Lav’s and Sound Devices 702 recorder at 24bit-96Khz.

Recording of a Velvet Ant. by RichardDevine

AP - iTunes' top 10 selling singles and albums of the week ending Aug. 30, 2010:

PC Magazine - While the app phenomenon is steadily on the rise, iTunes users still buy music more than anything else, according to a Tuesday study from the NPD Group.

Appolicious - From house and techno to ambient and trance, there's a wide variety of electronic music to be heard and streaming radio station Digitally Imported has now launched an app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to give you your electronic fix. Although users can currently access di.fm and stream tunes through Safari, the free app makes finding your favorite sound from more than 35 channels easier.

PC Magazine - There's only one day left for Apple rumors before Steve Jobs takes the stage at Wednesday's San Francisco press event, and the latest report is that Apple will double the amount of time users can listen to song samples on iTunes.

Digital Trends - The mobile music market might be focused on smartphones right now, but that doesn’t mean there’s no market for standalone portable media playershellip;and to that end SanDisk has announced its new SanDisk Fuse+ MP3 Player, sporting a large color LCD display, video playback capability, microSDHC removable storage, and swipe-based “filmstrip” interface for selecting music and navigating player functions. And the Fuse+ is available in 4, 8, and 16 GB capacities at suggested prices of $79, $89, and $119, respectively.

AP - Antoine Dodson's angry, head-shaking TV interview about an attempted rape against his younger sister in her bed has turned into a chart-topping iTunes song and YouTube hit and made the 24-year-old Alabama college student an Internet sensation.

Having made their own DS-10 instrument, Korg and DS developer AQ Interactive yesterday presented something new for the handheld Nintendo. This time, they’re revisiting one of the all-time greatest hits of digital synthesis, the Korg M1 workstation.

Markus Schroeder tips us off that the M1 will be the next release for the DS. An iOS (iPhone/iPad) version may follow, as with Korg’s recent mobile rendition of the ElecTribe.

Markus is also kind enough to translate the Japanese contents of the presentation:

Features are (subject to change / error):

• 300 original M1 PCM Sounds
• 8x multi timbral
• 8 track 16 step sequencer 1 sequence max 64 pattern, max polyphonic sound 12
• master reverb, delay effect
• track overview, sound browser, sequence edit, mixer, keyboard. Simple and functional display
• notes/chords,/drum input mode by touch control
• data exchange by wireless transmit
• drag & drop transpose
• sustained notes

Release Date is set to 31st 12. 2010 over at amazon.co.jp.

(With past experience as a guide, delivery outside Japan may happen later – and it’s a shame this won’t happen by the holidays, huh?)

GearJunkies has a couple of screen shots.

None other than Nobuyoshi Sano does the demonstration, the veteran Namco Bandai composer who contributed to legendary scores for Ridge Racer and the Tekken series, and was the producer of the KORG DS-10 application.

And so it continues: whereas once, only analog synths could be classics or inspire nostalgia, the digital instrument has clearly arrived. The digital follow-up to KORG’s own Legacy Collection tried a similar revival of the M1, but there’s something about having it in a $150 handheld, let alone one that can also swap over to Zelda. Hey, maybe a lap of kart racing will wind up giving you a musical idea.

Check out Markus’ YouTube account for more.

Mashable - Are you frustrated by the fact that song samples on iTunes are only 30 seconds in length, which is often hardly enough time to get a true taste of the song?