RYAN CARTER : composer

I kept iMonkeypants on the App Store from 2012 to 2024, but there's a support cost to maintaining software and my work for motion-controlled sound on mobile devices has moved to a web-based system I built, so the app is no longer available on the App Store. However, if you previously downloaded iMonkeypants, the app will continue to work on your device.

iMonkeypants is "algorithmically generated," meaning that it involves no pre-produced or pre-recorded sound files. Instead, all of the sounds are synthesized in real time from code written in a programming language called RTcmix. This allows me to incorporate data from the accelerometer of the device into the code, allowing the listener to control aspects of the sound as it is generated. Tipping the device from one position to another may, for example, raise the pitch of one musical layer while changing the volume of another and transforming the "color" of a third.

Because of how RTcmix works, the rate at which the music unfolds is determined immediately after the play button is pressed, so the music can't be accelerated or rewound. If there's enough demand, I may add the option to skip to the next section or loop the current section of a track. (Each track is actually split into several source files, and it would be possible to skip from one to another.)

One of the primary forms of interactivity is spatial (i.e., whether sounds are in the right ear, left ear, or somewhere between). Rotating the device can create the sense of sounds moving around the listener's head, but this effect is lost when listening to the music through the internal speakers of the device. The last track on the album, in particular, doesn't work well without headphones or external speakers.

The icon is a stylized "fermata" (a musical indication to hold a note). Because you're literally "holding" the music.