Vinyl Tap is a music playing app that gives the visual of playing your music on your iPad on a turntable, or record player.
As of this writing, it was on sale at half off in the U.S. App Store for $1.99.
I can say that after trying this app out for about a half hour, $2 is the right price, as anything higher would seem too expensive for what this app does.
Though for the price, it is kind of fun to play with. It does give you a sense of how people listened to music back before CD's and Internet streaming.
The app comes with 7 turntables. However, 5 of those turntables are the same model but with different colored backgrounds. The other 2 are completely different models and seemed to be named after the 2 different models of terminators found in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day", the T-800 and the T-1000.
Though they all have different looks, they all play the same. The turntables will play your music stored on your iPad as if they were tracks on a record.
If you have albums from iTunes or ones you made yourself, it will create a record with all the songs and split them into A-side and B-Side accordingly. The visuals on the virtual records look authentic too with the music being shown as the rough part and spaces between each song shown too, just like a real vinyl record does.
You have the ability to play the records at 33.5 rpms or 45 rpms, so you can speed up or slow down the record, depending on what the app chooses based on the music I am guessing.
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You do get to control the needle of the turntable, placing it anywhere on the record. It will give the little popping sounds like most records give when you place the needle at the outer edge of the record, therefore playing the first song. It will give a small scratching sound when you pull the needle off the record in the middle of a song. You cannot use this app to do scratching as you cannot spin the record back and forth or drag the needle across the record like you can with the real version.
You cannot play random songs like you can on the iPod. Its focus is to give the idea that this is a record of albums, like they used to be played way back when. The app will list all the music that is on your iPad, but it cannot play DRM music. If your albums have cover art, the app will take that image, cut off the corners to apply it to the virtual record that you can watch spin around.
As I said you cannot make a random mix out of multiple albums or artists. You could create an album with the same title or same artist, like changing Madonna's name to Twisted Sister for the song "Crazy for You", but that is too much work and then you have to change it back to play it correctly on your Music app. You can change songs to different albums and artists, but it will make a whole new record.
The song selection is kind of limited and over-whelming. You are given the option to sort by album names in order of A-Z or by artist from A-Z. There is no method to jump to a specific letter, so if you wanted to find something in the T's, you have to scroll all the way down. There is no search function. If your albums or artists do not have cover art, a generic punch tape with the name of the album and artist will be made.
Once you have picked what you want to listen to, you go to another screen that will show the songs from that album or artist and splits them into the A-Side and B-side of the record. You are also given a choice of 6 colors that you want to have the record as. Once you pick your color, the record is loaded onto the turntable of your choice. You pick up the needle and place it on the record and hit the play button. The T-800 and T-1000 models have the ability to move the needle automatically.
What more can I say about this app? It's a virtual record player. It would have been nice to be able to do scratching on the player like the real thing. The menu to pick albums needs to be greatly improved and there needs to be more different models of turntables. All-in-all it is a fun novelty app. It will not replace the built in Music app by a long shot, but it is something that can be of great discussion with your parents or grandparents or if you want to get a feeling of nostalgia when you used to listen to music on a turntable.
Just realize that real vinyl records are not completely extinct. I have actually seen modern albums being sold on vinyl. I would not be surprised if a vinyl album of "
Gangnam Style" by Psy exists.
If you want to experience the awesomeness of Vinyl Tap it is currently on sale for only $1.99 in the iOS App Store. Vinyl Grab this terrific iPad application today:
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INFO: If you are using iTunes Match you must download the music you want to play onto your iPad first. Vinyl Tap can not play music stored in iTunes Match. Vinyl Tap 1.5 requires iOS 6.0 or greater. [/box]
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