There are plenty of recording apps out there, but few are quite as sophisticated as NanoStudio. For the price you get four synthesisers, a drum machine, sampler and mixing desk, a collection of high-quality digital effects, as well as the ability to edit individual notes in the Song Editor. The quality of the instruments is excellent, and although NanoStudio is best suited for composing dance music you can create plenty of other styles too. Finished songs can be mixed as WAV or Ogg files, and then uploaded to a Mac or shared via SoundCloud.

Here we demonstrate how to set up and record a four-bar, five-track song, and then look at the editing window and the mixing desk. To find out more, open the main menu, tap Manage and then Help.

Vital Info

Device: iPhone/iPad/iPod touch
Difficulty: Beginner to expert
Time required: Depends on how long you want to spend using it

What you need

iOS 3.1.2 or later
NanoStudio app (£10.49)

Open NanoStudio, tap the menu button (top left) and then Manage. From here you can load, save, export tunes and share them via SoundCloud. Choose New, type in a name for the song and tap the green tick button.

To hear a drum sound, tap any pad (except those marked ). By default, NanoStudio is set to record four bars at 120bpm. Tap the Record button. There’s a one bar count in (four blips) and then you can start.

If you make a mistake, tap Stop, open the menu and choose Undo. Tap the menu button again, rewind to the beginning and start again. When you’re happy, open the menu and pick a second instrument – Eden 1.

The Eden polyphonic sampling synth gives you 128 different sounds in a single instrument. Use the ‘+’and ‘-‘ buttons to move up and down through these sounds. You can play the keyboard to try them out.

When you’ve finished adding effects, tap the menu, then Song, and you’ll see a GarageBand-style view of the four-bar song. Tap one of the tracks to see the editing tools.

Finally, tap the menu button again and pick Mixer. Rewind the track and then tap Play. Use the sliders to control the volume of the instruments, and the round knobs to move their sound left or right in the mix.