Vio Labs

VioSound

VioSound is a free music jam for iPhone and Android. Play with strangers online or with bots offline. No scores, and nobody wins. Made by Vio Labs.

Coming soon on iOS and Android. VioSound is not in the App Store or on Google Play yet.

A dark jam screen in a Lo-fi room playing Rainy Window, with 2/8 at the top. Coloured lights trail across the screen, labelled Rosy Marten, Velvet Deer bot, Plum Crow bot and Tine Keys. At the bottom are buttons for New room, Change instrument and Share.
A Lo-fi room playing the song Rainy Window. Two people are in the room, shown as 2/8, and bots play some of the other parts. Your own light is the orange one, playing Tine Keys. Rosy Marten is the other person.

What it is

VioSound is a music game you play with other people. Up to eight players share a room, and each one plays a different part of the band. Hold a finger anywhere on the screen to play, and slide it up or down to change the note. Everyone plays to the same beat and the same chords, so whatever you play fits with everyone else.

There are no high scores and nobody wins. It is made to be played with strangers.

VioSound is inspired by Plink, a music game made by DinahMoe in 2012. It is not connected with DinahMoe.

What is in it

  • Play online. Play online puts you in the busiest room that has space. iPhone and Android players are in the same rooms when their versions of the app are compatible.
  • Bots. When a room is short of people, bots run by the jam server play the empty parts. A bot steps aside when a person takes its part. A room closes when the last person leaves.
  • Play offline. You and the bots, with no network needed.
  • 12 styles. Glow, Lo-fi, Synthwave, Deep House, Funk, Bossa Nova, Reggae, Ambient, Chiptune, Cinematic, Gamelan and Blues, with 34 songs between them. Pick a style to join a room that is playing it, or press Surprise me. Public rooms can vote for the next style.
  • Private rooms. Make a room and share its four-letter code with friends. The person who made it can switch the style for everyone.
  • 52 instruments. Change instrument lets you pick a part of the band, then a sound for it. 20 instruments are free, enough for a full band in every style.
  • No typing. Players never type a name or a message. Each player is given a name such as Amber Fox, and there is no chat.
The VioSound home screen: the VioSound name and the line Make music with strangers. Below are the buttons Play online, with the line The jam server is ready, Pick a style, Private room, Enter code and Play offline.
The home screen.
The Change instrument sheet on an iPhone, open for the Keys part. Free sounds are listed first: Tine Keys, Marimba, Glass, Chip and Synth Pad. Below a padlock and the words Unlock with an advert are more sounds, among them Piano, Drawbar Organ, Clav, Nylon Guitar, Brass Section and Choir. A Done button is at the bottom.
Change instrument, open for the Keys part in a Lo-fi room. The free sounds come first. The rest are under Unlock with an advert.
The Pick a style screen: a Surprise me button above twelve tiles, each with a style name and a few words about its mood, from Glow to Blues. The Lo-fi tile says 1 playing.
Pick a style, with all 12 styles. One person is playing Lo-fi.

Price and adverts

VioSound is free. 20 of the 52 instruments are always free. Watching one optional advert unlocks the other 32 for 24 hours. A one-off purchase, Unlock everything forever, unlocks them for good and removes every advert offer. Its planned price is £1.99.

An advert only plays when you press Watch an advert. Nothing interrupts a jam, and you never have to watch one.

Privacy

VioSound has no accounts, no analytics, no crash reporting and no chat. Online jams go through our jam server at violabs.co.uk. The optional adverts come from Google AdMob. The VioSound privacy policy sets out what the app stores, what it sends and to whom.

Credits

VioSound makes many of its sounds with its own synthesiser. The others are recorded instruments from sample libraries released under CC0, by Versilian Studios, Karoryfer Lecolds, Austin McMahon, D. Smolken and FreePats. Its fonts are Figtree and Unbounded, released under the SIL Open Font Licence. It is built with the Godot Engine, released under the MIT licence.

Contact

VioSound is made by Vio Labs LTD. Email us at contact@violabs.co.uk.

Updated