He made an album using his iPhone

Attention to those still wrestling with the mysteries of texting, Tom Freeman is about to blow your mind.

The sound engineer, who works at Universal Audio in Scotts Valley, Calif., is also a part-time musician and, as such, he has made a new album -- entirely on his iPhone.

OK, so it's not going to remind anyone of Sinatra, but it's a complete musical work with percussion, bass, synthesizer and various sound samples, combined for 25 continuous mix tracks of cool-to-the-touch electronica appropriate for any chillin' party.

"I was pleased by how it turned out," said Freeman, a bass player and producer who goes by the moniker Freematik. "The sound is like something you'd get from a legit recording studio."

Freeman said it took him several months to finish the product, but he found it was something he could do anywhere.

"I'd do it at motels, on the beach, waiting for tables at restaurants," he said. "That would be just enough time to make a beat."

Using such apps as Beatmaker, iDrum and Flare, Freeman meticulously created first a percussive beat, then a bass line, some synthesizer swells and melody lines and even some DJ scratches. Scratching is a popular technique in which a DJ creates rhythmic sounds by scratching a needle in the grooves of a vinyl record on a turntable. An application called Flare Scratch allowed him to simulate the act of scratching, on the tiny screen of his iPhone.

From there, he added any number of sample sounds, downloaded from his computer. The biggest problem with the project, which is dubbed "iMatik," was that Freeman could not overdub his various tracks. The iPhone allows for only one open application at a time, so he did the overdubbing on another workstation.

"For production, it's great," he said. "The app on the iPhone opens immediately, and in 10 seconds you're ready to get to work. And the sound, it's pretty close if not equal to anything in a big studio."

The "iMatik" album is available as streaming audio on Freeman's website (www.freematik.com). A download costs $5.

Freeman said he is familiar with artists who have created sounds, beats and textures on the iPhone -- the project could theoretically also be done on the iPod Touch -- but he has heard of no one who has ever gone to the trouble to create a whole album.

If Freeman is the first to make an album on his iPhone, he might be the last, too. Certainly, more music is bound to be created using these new technological tools. But soon there will be an easier way. Apple's impending release of the iPad -- the new units ship next Saturday -- gives would-be music producers much more screen space to work with compared with the tiny iPhone screen. There is little incentive, then, for anyone to repeat Freeman's feat.