Play the Piano, Drums & Flute on Windows Mobile

Omniano has come a long way since we last covered it, even adding “The band” to its name. Now that it features multiple instruments and an improved Piano, a revisit is in order. The first change you’ll notice is the new menu screen, giving you the option to choose between the piano, drums and flute.

The enhanced piano, the most developed of the 3, offers more keys and the ability to stack two segments of the key bed onto one screen. I’m musically challenged, but it doesn’t take a gifted musician to know: the more keys available, the wider variety of songs that can be played. The ability to play chords has also been introduced. Sadly, that feature isn’t accessed with multi-touch (for obvious reasons), so it sort of stalls play. However, the keys are quite responsive and allow you to play fluid music. Read on to learn about the added instruments and features.

The drums aren’t visually stunning, but output a variety of sounds. To be precise, there are 14 buttons to activate familiar drum sounds and you’re able to switch between different genres of music like pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop and techno.

The flute is an instrument I haven’t seen previously on a Windows Mobile device. Some devices will have the capability to play sounds via the built-in microphone, but most cannot use this feature and will have to turn on automatic “wind.” On the plus side, you’re able to adjust sounds like the other instruments, but this time by switching between high, mid and low options.

Omniano ‘The band is the perfect app for any time where you’re left waiting. If you have kids, you’ll definitely earn parental points with this app. The instruments may not be perfect clones of their real life counterparts, but even the most advanced musician probably wouldn’t mind having this on their device. To download, head over to XDA-developers and be sure to read the "How To" section to get the latest version. I also recommend installing the app to your storage card, for memory reasons.

I’m always amazed to see what people can do with virtual instruments on their mobile devices. If any of you are talented enough to put together a song using Omniano, please share it with us (check out what the developer was able to do with it on his site).

Note: The developer has told me that he has an even newer version of his app that's yet to be published, called "Piano Concert." He said it will be available on Microsoft Marketplace by October.