Of the few commercial recording studios left standing after home-studio technology’s big bang, many still rely on a flashing light to let you know the phone is ringing. The reason for this is obvious: A ringing phone is a buzzkill to the artist and engineer (there is little chance it would get recorded unless you’re recording something in the control room). This practice started back when phones had an actual bell in them. I imagine it’s much more of a nuisance when you’re tracking vocals and all of a sudden you hear the Jonas Brothers singing about… well, whatever it is they sing about.

Now, more than 15 years after affordable, high quality digital recording technology began landing deathblows to such noble haunts as the Record Plant and the Hit Factory, a new threat is emerging. The latest front in the war pitting commercial studio against musician’s bedrooms is… the telephone. This time it’s not the ringing, it’s the apps.

My neighbor has an iPhone. I want one, but he’s a good friend so I won’t steal his. The reason I want his iPhone is not because it’s a phone, and definitely not because it’s a prestigious piece of pocket puffery. I want his phone for the apps—specifically, the music apps. According to iTunes, there are over 300 music apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. That includes radio and other listening-only types of applications. But spread liberally throughout this aisle of Apple’s App Store is fun and entirely useful music creation apps. Some are free, most are around a buck. I only found one above $15.

My first four-track recorder was tape-based and had fidelity nowhere near what digital delivers to even the most casual hobbyist. It cost around $500, plus tape, and all it did was record and playback. Now, for the cost of an iPhone (plus a couple fins for the app), I get a high quality four-track digital recorder (the FourTrack from Sonoma Wire Works) that comes with it’s own phone, video, radio, and games. And, for a few bucks more, I can get several bitchin’ sequencers, a set of drum machines, a suite of chord and scale libraries, a bass guitar, a distortion pedal, digital effects like reverb and delay, and well, the list goes on, doesn’t it? 

Yes, it’s true, I can only use one of the above-mentioned tools at a time. That’s not unusual for most home studio types, and is an appropriate way to work (just ask Moby). If you want simultaneous, high quality recording functionality with all the yells and whispers, your best bet is a commercial studio. (Act now while they still exist! I have a feeling we may soon be left with fakirs who have the right gear but the wrong ears and principles.)

It is also true that transferring your precious recording from your pocket to a more malleable environment like a DAW is not locked down, mostly because the iPhone is so tightly locked down by Apple. For the apps I checked out and got to play with, import/export is done over wifi and managed by a desktop app married to the iPhone one. I would not be surprised if this was the case for all the applications of this ilk.

In addition to music creation apps, there are also some useful apps to help you with your musicianship. One intriguing find is the Solo Finder by Flaming Granny. Solo Finder lets you enter the chords behind a solo part of a song and then shows scales you can play over it. For self-taught guitar players like myself, who hate practicing but love playing, that is a useful tool, especially at the 99-cent price point. It definitely lowers the amount of clams at rehearsal if you write solos on the fly. But these tools also create blind spots and sometimes the wrong note on paper is the right note for the song. Guitar4you is another 99-cent chord app with potential, as it calculates chords instead of just retrieving them from a database—that’s a great way to come up with new inversions and changes to keep the rocking fresh.

I also got to play with Intua’s BeatMaker, a performance tool that could prove quite powerful, assuming playing an iPhone on stage doesn’t cause problems with your audience. At $19.95, BeatMaker is one of the more expensive apps. It is a sampler and groove station/beat machine rolled into one. Its UI is robust and seems oriented towards   performance, though it has production features, too. BeatMaker also lets you import your own samples over wifi and has beat synchronizing capabilities—so, is that a rave in your pocket or are just glad to see everybody…

Blurring the line between toy and genuine music app is PaklSound1, a step sequencer with a good mix of sounds and super simple, fun UI. Touch any of the dots in the 16 x 9 grid (16 = beats, 9 = musical parts), to write your sequence. Chain an A and B part together, and you got yourself a fine-sounding techno opus (Technopus—I think that’s what Eminem calls Moby). You can also have your sequences emailed to you as XML.

This is just a smattering of what I found and played with. It is by no means a “best of” list of iPhone music apps. The point is, the iPhone’s vast app developer network supports a diverse cross-section of creation and support apps for popular and not-so-popular music—all of which beat talking on the phone!

Read more from Riot Gear!:

I Get the Music

The Bridge to Somewhere

Interview with Rush’s Alex Lifeson