A smartphone is many things rolled into one glossy, expensive and most importantly, pocket-sized package: email client, web browser, entertainment unit, music player, camera and, far down the ranks of its numerous utilities, it also makes calls and sends messages. There is another use which can now be added to the ranks – a pocket remixer. 

Every person likes music in a different way; there are those people for whom music is their entire life and there are those for whom music is to be enjoyed as a pleasure-filled activity. For the latter group, remixing phone software is probably the last application that they would spring actual money on. However, those are not the people at whom remixing apps are aimed.

Remixing is a skill where someone takes an existing song and reworks the sound, producing a similar sound to the original sound yet feels new in comparison. Mostly remixing is done is in studios or nightclubs, spawning an entire new level of musical artistes: the DJs. There are of course the home-grown garden varieties that remix songs at home on their computers. These people are probably the target market for remixing phone apps. 

However that may be, there are a number of apps in the iPhone stable alone. Now with Android out as well, these numbers may extend to that operating system as well.

1. BeatMaker – BeatMaker is a pricey package that packs quite a bit of punch. At $20 there are going to be a number of questions, but the app is still worth it. It can rival a home edition of a remix software desktop application, and considering it’s a phone app, that’s saying quite a bit. There are a number of parameters that can be changed, and essentially it is aimed at creating music rather than twiddling around with an existing track. 

2. Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em Romplr – While the name may be a mouthful, the app certainly isn’t. The teenage hip hop artist that shot to stardom courtesy the Internet has harnessed mobile technology to his wagon. This iPhone application won’t break the bank. It is meant for people who love Soulja Boy songs and have a yen to rework their sounds. There is also the option of uploading the songs onto the Romplr website to share with other similarly-engaged fans. The speciality of this app is that Soulja Boy was the first artist to harness the iPhone as a vehicle. 

3. FLYP’T – This soon-to-be-released app is really daunting to those of us who are musically-challenged. The app promises to revolutionize the music scene for individuals, allowing them to take tracks they like and move around movements or lines of the song as they like, creating truly customized music. The idea is to confer to individuals the full rights of ownership of a song – except perhaps reproduction and distribution. 

4. Looptastic – Named after the musical loops it manipulates, Looptastic is a simple application with a fair few functions. Loops are arranged at the bottom of the screen, and the three channels on top are used as containers for them. The user drags loops there, dropping them in the channels and specifies the volumes at which they are played. 

While looking for remixing apps for the iPhone, we came across hundreds. Unfortunately, we can feature them all here, so if we’ve missed a favourite, tell us about it in the comments.