It's a handheld music studio on your iPhone.

BeatMaker takes songwriters from start to finish, crafting sample-based music on an iPhone or iPod touch. Record and then edit patterns using drum hits and loops, then arrange, mix, and export songs. BeatMaker can even load your own audio samples through a Mac or PC utility. This is the app beat-lovers have been waiting for, but even beginners can find their way through this powerful tool.

After loading one of the 20 included audio-sample kits into the 16-pad interface, you can edit the volume, pitch, and other attributes of specific sounds and loops. Tap the pads to play the sounds, recording patterns at any tempo by playing the pads in real-time, or fill in a 16-step grid (one measure of 4/4 time per pattern) in the Sequencer screen. The Sequencer then arranges patterns into longer songs, and you can layer even more audio effects on top. BeatMaker saves work as a project file or even export as a WAV.

For complete control over your BeatMaker creations, Intua’s free BeatPack utility, available from its website, plays a crucial role. This utility transfers your audio samples to the iPhone app. We successfully created custom sample kits in BeatPack with sounds stored on a Mac and built them into songs on the iPhone. This feature, along with BeatMaker’s audio export, are vital links that establish BeatMaker as a potentially professional tool; create beats exactly how you want and use them outside of your handheld.