With Keezy, making music doesn’t require a lot of work, know-how, or talent. This dead-simple drum machine app lets you hold down one of its eight buttons to record a sound with your device’s microphone, and tap that button again to play it. “Beatbox with your fingers” on the free new iOS Keezy app to create fun little jingles, harmonize with yourself, or add effects over a DJ set.
Keezy comes from the artsy and irreverent development house Elepath. It was founded by Jake Lodwick, who was the co-founder of Vimeo and BustedTees, as well as the CTO for College Humor. Elepath’s goal is to make “tools and toys for the modern mind”. That includes building apps that are fun and thought-provoking, even if they can’t become full-fledged businesses. Other projects from Elepath include the “ThingList” to-do list app, an idiot-proof way to remember movies you want to see, restaurants to visit, or your latest super villain plot.
Elepath’s forward-thinking design style means Keezy has no menu, and a minimal on-boarding flow. Hold to record, tap to play, drag the black dot to delete samples or undo your last action. That’s it. It’s a refreshing 180° from most music apps that keep getting more and more complicated. And it’s nothing like hardware drum machines with their laborious process of finding samples and assigning them to buttons.
You can check out the video below to see and hear sound magician Reggie Watts build a song on Keezy.
Keezy’s bright colors and responsive feel make it a joy to play with. Record a friend saying a few words and mix them up into new sentences. Sample an octave on a real-instrument and play your own melodies. Elepath even suggests you could make a fart machine or insult generator, just in case you thought the company took itself seriously.
There are plenty of other drum machine apps out there, but most are either semi-professional tools that cost a few bucks (DM1), are too complex for novices (Molten), or focus on pre-made instrument sounds (iDrum) rather than letting you make your own. Keezy won’t let you record and refine a masterpiece, but instead you can shove it in the hands of a friend and they’ll be having fun in seconds.
Keezy is available for free on iOS