Ever had a musical idea pop into your head, be it a bass line groove, sax riff or even a drum beat pattern? Well, this is the app for you.

SongCatcher is, in essence, a sketchpad for musicians and producers. The product has been designed around the concept of capturing musical creativity, and being able to work on it there and then, in the moment. So for some one who is always on the road, and not an amazing musical composer, it has been a godsend in getting those ideas out of my head and into MIDI! You document, build on it if you're feeling the vibes, then email it home and get back to your day. It's a great concept, and I've had a lot of fun with it fleshing out some ideas of my own over the past week.

I've been playing around with an advanced copy of the new update, which was just released publicly on iTunes on Wednesday, May 18, 2011. I'm happy to report that it's got a ton of improvements, it's a smoother experience, and has some great new features.

So, to the fine print... SongCatcher is a music sequencer for iDevices. It offers up five layers of Audio Recording, and five layers of MIDI recording, 10 layers in total. This is the most for any combined audio and MIDI sequencer on the market right now. It comes with 10 instruments, a MIDI editor, a resizable keyboard, and a really cool feature in Audio to MIDI conversion.

This nifty tool allows you to to sing in ideas and convert them into MIDI data, hence you can choose the instrument you want to hear playing back your parts. It takes a bit of practice, and I've found that you have to be very percussive in your delivery, but once you get used to it, it's very cool. There are of course the occasional bum notes, but I'm happy to report that the updated version now takes the user directly to the MIDI edit screen for playback, making modifications very fast.

The keyboard is nice and clean, a lovely screen tapping experience, and the MIDI editor gives you a lot of control over your performances.

The product has two interfaces, Project Mode and Simple Mode. I'm a Project Mode kinda guy, as it has more control. Visually Project Modge looks similar to a Pro Tools/Cubase style interface, so being a Pro Tools user this is dope for me. It's very easy to work your way around and pump out your ideas fast, which is what I like most about it. The mixer design is pretty smooth, with volume and panning faders displaying horizontally over the top of your tracks. For the inexperienced user, Simple Mode offers the features of SongCatcher in a Wizard format.

The big new feature in this update is MIDI exporting, and I love it! I was able to flesh out a five part idea in a couple of minutes and email the MIDI home. This alone is a very cool feature. Other new features include compatibility with iRig and similar devices for direct line-in recording, as well as some general smoothing out of the interface and functionality.

In summation, it's a very cool app with a lot of power for capturing musical concepts for up and coming and also very established producers and musicians. The speed at which you find yourself laying vocal/instrument harmonies in itself drives my desire for this product. It would be great to have looping functionality, and some more timeline functionality, but for it's price, it does offer a lot. I hear rumours these things are on the horizon anyway, and I'm looking forward to that! Bottom line, if you want a sketchpad for that moment of brilliance that flashes through your mind when you're on the bus in the morning, or under the desk at work, this is the app for you.

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

System Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad; requires iOS 3.0 or later.

Price: $0.99 in the App Store. (The Lite Version is Free.)