Rockmate is a pretty good idea on paper: multiple virtual instruments on the same iPad so you and some friends can have a digital jam. This kind of use is certainly the way the app’s developers are trying to position it, but it doesn’t seem to be its real strength. In fact, figuring out who this app is for and what they would want to do with it is a bit of a challenge no matter how it has been marketed.
If you have some friends who like strumming one of four guitar chords, hitting touchscreen drums, or playing across one octave of a keyboard, then I suppose you could use Rockmate for its advertised purpose. However, as you may already gather, each of the instruments available in this app is very limited.
I’ve never found touchscreen drums to be particularly satisfying to play, especially if the kit is as limited as the one found here. It’s a pretty basic kit that doesn’t allow for much expression in your playing. These drums don’t seem to be extraordinarily responsive (on a first-generation iPad), either. It doesn’t take very quick fingers to have the software start to lag behind what you’re doing.
The keyboard feels alright, but it only goes from C to B (12 keys), which doesn’t allow for much freedom. Considering how rarely someone will actually have four people together playing with this, having the option of removing the right guitar in favor of more keys would have been a big improvement.
The guitars themselves are quite simple like the other instruments, only giving you the ability to pluck or strum one of four chords that you determine ahead of time. You also have a small selection of effects to use, but ultimately the idea of only using one of these instruments at a time just isn’t all that appealing.
One use I can imagine for Rockmate, however, is doing some light solo improvisation with the guitars (which function more like harps) and keyboard. Whether it’d just be for immediate enjoyment or prototyping some musical ideas, it does seem like the app could handle this kind of use fairly well. Still, you run into the limits of the instruments pretty quickly and you’d probably be better off with some other solution.
