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Bobby Travis

This is a post by Bobby Travis, who wrote with me at 40Tech from 2009 through 2012. Bobby has since moved on to bigger and better things, but I've left all of his great contributions up on the site. - Evan

Latest posts by Bobby Travis (see all)

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• Google Chrome Explodes On To iOS, Puts Desktop Experience In Your Pocket - June 30, 2012

Aviary, the folks who created the online image editing suite, has come back again with their newest creation, Roc, a fun and extremely easy to use tool that allows you to make beautiful (if, so far, short) music right from your web browser; and, of course, share it with all of your friends, make it discoverable, etc, etc. Roc is in alpha, according to the splash screen, and is, thus far, free – and about 10 tons of musical fun!

You can start playing with Roc right away, without signing up or anything, as long as you have a browser capable of flash (so no iPhone play here – maybe a future app, or some HTML5 goodness, Aviary?). All you need to do is load up whatever musical instruments you want, which includes everything from African Drums to 12-string guitar in Open G, and start clicking. You click the little bubbles to add notes, and play how you want, no musical know-how required.

Aviary’s Roc has several advanced features as well, that can be accessed by sending out five beta invitation emails. Still free, so no worries there. The advanced features include the ability to:

• Record your own voice
• Upload your own music
• Trim custom mp3s
• Solo and Mute individual tracks
• Control overall track speed (Beats per Measure)
• Control beat velocity (soft and sharp beats)
• Custom track controls, sound editing, and more

All sounds included in Aviary’s music creator are licensed under the Creative Commons (Attribution 3 Generic), which means the music you create in Roc can be distributed commercially or non-commercially, without you having to hire a lawyer to save you. You can download your tracks as an MP3, or send them out via social networks, embed codes, and other links. Here are a couple I made in less than five minutes each:

African Drums Test

What a Butterfly Sounds Like

Roc is a fun music creator, for certain, but there are a few things still wanting, like the ability to make longer tracks with bigger instrument sets, or to easily access your previous creations without having to open up your Aviary account in a different browser tab. The tool is still in alpha, though, as we mentioned, so who knows what goodness awaits us in the near future. The impending integration of Aviary’s online sound editor, Myna, will certainly help with the creation of longer music, as you will be able to merge your tracks and edit a full song if you want to… and still right from your browser. I highly recommend checking it out!

What do you think of the Aviary Online Music Creator, Roc? Let us know in the comments!