Music Ally

Underworld is the latest artist to get a remixable iPhone app. They’re working with iDrum on the application, which lets fans get slippy with 13 tracks, including all the hits but also an exclusive track called VoxJam.

Meanwhile, Underworld/Tomato creative director John Warwicker has created the artwork, meaning this isn’t just another reskinned iPhone app. This is pretty important, especially for an artist like Underworld who are known for being heavily involved in the stuff around their music.

Fancy monkeying about with Born Slippy and the rest? The app costs £2.99 and can be found here.

We’ve written a fair bit about promotional music apps on iPhone for artists like Pink, Snow Patrol, Lady GaGa and Soulja Boy. But what about iPhone apps that let you create music of your own? There are hundreds available, and as yesterday’s viral video from UK band The Mentalists showed, they can be put to innovative use.

We’ve put together ten of our favourites, based on our last few months of messing about on iPhone. They’re not all serious (Bebot – Robot Synth is marvellously silly), but they do hint at the potential for Apple’s handset as a music-making device. Each one comes with a YouTube video demo so you can see what we’re on about. Well, nearly each one.

1. technoBox (£5.99). It’s a 303 bass machine plus 808 and 909 drum machines in one app, with a tactile touch interface. As a technical achievement it’s hugely impressive, although if we’re honest, the appeal for us is simply blasting out squiggly acid bloops. Get it

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And still the musical iPhone applications keep coming. The latest is iDrum: Ministry of Sound Anthems, which is being released to tie in with the latest compilation album from the dance brand.

The app has been produced by iZotope, and lets you remix a bunch of classic club tracks, with more than 300 samples to play with, tapping the screen to build up layers of bleeps and beats. The idea is that music fans can have fun with it – you don’t have to be a pro knob-twiddler to use it. So to speak.

The app costs £3.49 in the UK App Store (link), meaning it could be a decent revenue stream for Ministry of Sound if it picks up an audience. It’s just the latest example of a high-profile iPhone music app – check our list of 12 other cool apps by clicking here.