Art + Music + iPhone = Inkstrumental

Here at Neon Monster HQ, we like to use the word crossoversauce to describe art forms that span multiple genres. With much joy in my heart (and RSI in my thumbs), I present you with Inkstrumental™, an iPhone app that, like a frightened nun, crosses all over the place. I’ve been following Inkstrumental™ for exactly a year, and, wacky as it sounds, this doodley little app mightily factored into me purchasing an iPhone. Inkstrumental™ pairs the art of Jon Burgerman with the digital interface design of ustwo giving amateur beatmakers a way to make music that truly has character.

It’s that same concept of crossoversauce that’s had me delving into new terrain all week long. I made a sketch on Saturday. Inkstrumental™ launched that same day, and I’ve been making music ever since. Inkstrumental™ is a fun game where characters designed by Jon Burgerman each correspond to a sound. You assemble a ragtag band of 8 characters (out of a possible 30 + 1 wildcard where you can record your own vocal sample) and tap them to add their voices to one of 3 backing tracks. (Or you can just button mash.) When you’re satisfied with the result, save it and share it. Fun for the whole family! I recently took a break from playing Inkstrumental™ for a volley of virtual wordplay with Jon, the “professional doodler” and Mills, “the Willy Wonka of the app world”.

How did the idea to create Inkstrumental™ come about?

Jon: I’ve been friends with Sinx and Mills from ustwo from before there was an ustwo. They suggested we make an app together, and after a few meetings in their studio of dreams, the idea for Inkstrumental™ was born.

Mills: We wanted to make an app that was truly unique, truly insane, and truly wonderful yet truly ridiculous. It’s fair to say Inkstrumental™ is just that. Realizing that releasing a truly unique offering into an already congested app market place was going to be hard, we contacted our good friend, Jon Burgerman. Jon is an artist who has successfully engineered a career based on his doodling. Marrying ustwo’s notoriously contradictory approach to everything we do along with the insanity of Jon’s mind-bending imagination and creations was a match made in hell. Exactly the place we wanted to be.

What have been the challenges of creating this app?

Mills: Inkstrumental™ has been over a year in the making, a true mastercraft in ‘what you should never ever do when developing an app.’ Everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong. We started the marketing for the app over a year ago, with multiple ‘coming soon’ campaigns, various concept changes, numerous rebuilds, and to top the madness off, we had a big ‘Inkstrumental™ Pre-Launch Party… 8 months ago! It literally took until 1 week before submission for us to realize what the app was actually about… and that’s to ‘make and share’ Inkstrumental™ music video masterpieces. Jon’s characters have names and personalities; they’re not just design elements. The beauty of his characters is that they say so much without saying anything. The sounds had to come from the very depths. Not too wrong, but not too right. Simply just wrongight™.

Jon: It’s not unlike sending your art away to be turned into toys or printed on clothes, etc. You just try and work with cool people who you can trust to make great results. I had complete confidence working with ustwo. Their previous work is top drawer, and I think we have the same aspirations for the app. The app is a complete collaboration so I didn’t feel that I was giving up control, it was more about sharing. Also, their studio is stuffed full of nerds and geeks. If you can’t trust nerds and geeks, well, then who can you trust?

Tell us about the sharing/community aspect of Inkstrumental™.

Mills: We made MouthOff™ as a gimmick to help users have a little fun! Anyone who made a video could post it on YouTube and subsequently our MouthOff™ site. These videos formed a strong marketing channel for the app, meaning the app was receiving thousands of eyeballs each day. The only problem was that most of the users did not want to make a video of them looking stupid.

Inkstrumental™ turned the video creation on its head. Rather than asking users to film a video of themselves, we decided to reward them with their own Inkstrumental™ creation in the app. The end goal of each Inkstrumental™ user session is an upload of the freshly created music video direct to YouTube. We encode the sound and video on the iPhone pushing the boundaries of what the little device can do. Inkstrumental™ is a ‘make and share’ app. Nothing less, nothing more.

Jon, do you think you’ll use Inkstrumental with your band, Anxieteam?

Jon: Sure, once the app is all polished up and done, then the real fun of playing with it and pushing what it can do can commence. [Editor's note: The app is now available. Commence with the playing and the pushing!]

Mills, it seems from your projects that you’re interested in iPhone apps because of the challenge of the new technology more so than being motivated by money. Am I right?

Mills: We made Steppin™ to showcase the amazing touch screen capabilities of the iPhone, MouthOff™ to show that a simple but creative idea can go a long way and .™, ..™ and …™ were the world’s first 48hour apps, with concept, design, development and marketing all done within 48hours. PositionApp™ was made to surprise the industry and show them exactly what we’re about. We wanted to demonstrate that we could create an application that all developers would use each day: an app with longevity, an app with brains. Inkstrumental™ was made to counterbalance the intelligence demonstrated by creating PositionApp™. It was about bringing back that insanity. We want people to question ‘why anyone would have made this app’ in the first place’ (let alone spending a year developing it).

Money is not the driver with our apps. One thing we know how to do well is spend money though!! What’s important for ustwo  is to constantly evolve and change the perception of our brand. We want to contradict the last release with every new app that comes out of the Studio of Dreams™.

You are both clearly fans of wordplay. Jon gives his doodles and songs interesting titles, and Mills invents terms like “iPhelopers” and “cliend”. What should we call the new genre of iPhone music ushered in with Inkstrumental™? I vote for Apptronica™!

Mills: Appsolute™ genius.

Jon: Apptronica is good. I like anything with tronica tacked on at the end. Appalatic? Applay? Applecider?

Inkstrumental™ went live in the Apple Store on Saturday. You want to know what else is going to be live in the Apple Store? Jon Burgerman! Save the date: Monday, May 20th from 7-8PM for a special Inkstrumental™ event in London’s Apple Store on Regent Street.

Start making music! And send over links to your tracks.