Billed as the "Ukulele of the Future," the cleverly named Futulele does indeed deliver on its high-tech premise. This easy-to-use ukulele simulator lets you rock out Hawaiian-style, whether you're keen on busting out your best Tiny Tim impression or strumming more serious four-string grooves.
As a virtual instrument, Futulele does a good job of emulating the real deal -- right down to the way you hold your iPad on its side like an actual ukulele to play. It feels comfortably guitar-like, and strumming the four on-screen strings yields an impressive range of sound that adjusts to your strum intensity. The strings respond individually too, giving your playing a more natural sound that's more realistic than mere canned chord samples.
A grid with room for 12 programmable slots lets you customize your musical palette using the full range of actual chord choices. Once set, all you do is tap a chord on the grid and the strings change to those notes automatically as you strum them. For greater realism, you can link an iPod Touch or iPhone to your iPad and use the smaller extra screen as a virtual guitar neck for changing chords. It's clever, though not necessarily that practical unless you've got multiple iOS devices on-hand.
Futulele sounds realistic enough when you play it, but fiddling around with a handful of optional FX settings broaden the musical range of this app slightly. Reverb, a 3-band EQ, Chorus, and Delay all have adjustable switches that can be toggled and tweaked to fine-tune your sound. They're not as expansive as what you might find in a rock guitar simulator; this is a ukulele after all, yet the extras are indeed welcome.
The bottom line. Futulele works well, especially if you've always wanted to pick up a ukulele but don't feel like shelling out the cash for the real thing. Even so, it comes off as more a novelty than anything else, but it's a rad musical toy if you feel so inclined to dabble.
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