The new iPad is here, and as usual there’s plenty of new stuff to load onto it

Before we get into the app news, a quick word on Apple’s new iPad. Its name might not feature a suffix, but this is actually the replacement for the ageing iPad Air 2, and at £339 for the entry-level 32GB version, is now the cheapest Apple tablet. We like the look of it, and we suspect that many musicians will feel the same. www.apple.com You might think that you know what a sequencer looks like, but Seaquence will surely convince you otherwise. This new iPhone, iPad and iPod touch app enables you to make music using not a grid or row of buttons, but a collection of sea creatures, which change their behaviour as you adjust parameters. It sounds like a gimmick, but there’s a polyphonic synthesis module working away behind the scenes, and you can add more features with a one-off in-app purchase.

There’s no need to pay anything to try Seaquence, though, as the standard version is free. Dive in… seaquence.org While many synth apps make a virtue of being lean and simple, Living Memory Software’s LayR is a big multitimbral instrument from the old school.

You start with Layers, each of which contains a dual oscillator, two statevariable filters and a mixer, and combine these into instruments. Up to 100 instruments can be corralled into a Performance, and each of these can be assigned to its own MIDI channel, giving you the opportunity to create some massive, complex sounds for playing live or using in the studio.

Effects, an arpeggiator and an event sequencer are also part of the deal, as is support for Audiobus and Inter-App Audio. www.livingmemorysoftware.com