Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
Download on the App StoreLoopy Pro is your all-in-one musical toolkit. Try it for free today.
Comments
I actually gave up with studiomux and bought the Ica4+. It's a lot lower than the latency you get from the app. So while there is latency you genuinely cannot hear it. Even a real drummer will have his timing for drums vary by 7-8 Ms on ever hit. We aren't machines after all. So when you have 7-9 Ms latency it's not really percievable. The reason you hear it with studiomux is I could never get the latency there to go below 20-21ms. Some peole can tell when something is above 11ms but most cannot notice below 14. But everyone will notice 15+ being out of time.
A drummer will have some delay before and after beat. This is different that an app which adds delay after beat on whole audio flux. Because I play sax and hear sound in my body/head, I feel the difference easily between 64, 128, 256 buffers. I’ve been able to play at 256 a few months, then had to switch to 128, and now come to 64 as even 128 makes me uncomfortable with my rhythmic timing. Don’t want to use direct monitoring because of some effects I use in software monitoring. For studiomux delay is huge. I should try iConnectaudio4 but there is this ableton clips editing thing after recording, I fear it will be workflow killer. Any experience with that?
@Janosax But this don’t fix iOS/VST fx real time processing where this delay will still be there.
Yeah, this is exactly my worry. Bye Bye IConnect.
I’m still testing out the ica4+, noticed that latencies are ok for sending and returning audio bidirectionally in between devices. Works really well with to ipads eg running synths n fx in AUM (dividing cpu load!). But there’s something I still can’t figure out. There seems to be no way of changing the samplerate (clock) from within ios. It says in AUM that the hardware does not support the samplerate, even when I set the clock to USB device (instead of internally) in the iconfig software. Also, it seems that the iconfig audio for ios app was taken from the appstore, so no solution there... Maybe some of the experience users found an answer to this? I normally record at higher samplerates, but would need the 44,1khz samplerate for some (older) audio apps. It would be really annoying to be restricted to the desktop for this. Thanks for the help!
How it works with the Ica4+ is you need to set the samplerate via the iconfig app on desktop. Since it connects to 2 devices simultaneously l think if it let you change it the traditional way (eg AUM) it would just make the 2nd device crash. Personally I use it at 44,100 and 24bit but it does go all the way up to 96,000 as well. It even comes down to 16bit. You can save templates for different uses. It saves routings and settings in each file.
I'd suggest you not bother with 96000 since iOS devices are quite weak in comparison to PC and if you want to do a lot of instances of heavy apps like model15 they just cannot handle it.
How does the midi work? I'm looking to use Live & an iPad as a sound module (with AUM or AB) running multiple synths at the same time. Can you get the midi as separated ports into the iPad from Ableton?
From the manual it looks like there's only one midi port over USB (with the classic 16 channels).
Follow up: it looks like there's a difference between the 2+ or the 4+ in this area. In the manual of the 2+ they don't talk about the virtual midi ports.
Is this a 4+ exclusive feature? I can't find it in the specs...
Hey. You are correct about it being just 16 channels. But that's plenty. The iPad can't really handle more than 11-12 simultaneous sound apps. And the max separate audio streams you can send to the PC is 16 channels anyways. I have no clue about the 2+ since I do not own it.
Thanks for your info! I think I didn't make myself completely clear though.
In the 4+ manual there's talk about additional virtual midi pipes / interfaces (x 16 channels), whereas it looks like the 2+ only has the classic 2 x 16 (1 x 16 for each USB source).
Although I don't think I'll run 16 synth apps on the iPad simultaneously, I suspect the separate virtual 'interfaces' create a lot more routing flexibility (or might even be necessary in some cases with older and / or multi timbral apps?).
Thoughts?
I think you're mistaking that the 4+ accepts upto 7 more midi device ports using the host port and using a hub. Then again I haven't really dived too deep into the midi section cause the 16 channels works well enough for me. I just use AUM for doing all the channel assignments including doubling a synth.
(I pretty much only use AU now so I don't have to worry about legacy devices.)
I see. Thanks again!
an IOS app identifies midi data by source device + midi channel, so you have 16 * number of devices as separate midi streams.
I only use the DIN sockets of the iCA4+ to connect a Pro Tools system and 19" outboard gear and it works pretty well with the hardware visible to both IOS and MacOS.
PT also receives sequenced/controllers from IOS and vice versa.
One of the audio pairs serves as a bus to exchange audio between both systems, which makes the interface a really versatile tool.
I never fully understood the iCA2+ (iConnectivity beeing a bit vague about it's details).
Imho it's kind of a cash cow to lure people with a lower entry price, but for IOS you will need their special charging cable (expensive) and a PSU, which ends in a price tag not too far from the iCA4+. As mentioned the 2nd audio pair can be a feature that saves the day.
Thanks for you input! I was also thinking about the 4+ for the reasons you mentioned.
The first part of your post is what I thought is different between the two. The way I understand it is you'll get additional virtual source devices with the 4+. Each one able to host the normal 16 midi channels...
For future reference: this works indeed. You can use the 8 additional host interfaces (x 16 channels) as virtual pipes for patching. This way you can separate your midi streams further and increase the number of usable channels.
Sadly apps like the Korg iM1 that listen to a specific midi channel without the option to select the source interface won't play nice, but as long as you keep that in mind the device gives you plenty of additional routing options.
One more note, since this is something that I never saw anywhere in reviews, forums or even the manual...
The ICA4+ has support for up to 20 channels of audio in or out on both main ports (@ 44.1K) customized to your personal needs.
So both my iPad & Mac can for example send and receive 10 channels from and to each other at the same time (when configured as 10 in / 10 out for both ports). Or you could configure the iPad with 18(!) outputs going straight into Live & 2 inputs for effects from the Mac into the iPad and back again. Or the other way around. Or anything in between. Usually you would use at least 2 channels for your speakers / headphones, but the rest is up to you.
How's that for an external sound module...
How are users finding using the iconnect Audio 4 nowdays with the latest MBP/ ipads does the interface still work. I heard good and bad stories about them. Was considering getting one to use with my MBP 2013 model along with my iPad Pro 9.7 but was wondering how the interface works with the latest Apple gear as far as future proofing concerned ?
Hey @Jumpercollins - I have an iconnect audio 4+ and it works really well with my air3 and windows machine. It works really well and allows me to send audio and midi really easily between both pc and iPad. I was nervous about it all being too good to be true but honestly it’s really good. I’m actually not sure if I’m missing any functionality at all.
Cheers @Outtram that's good to know.
I also use an iCA4+ daily to connect an iPad Pro, a Windows laptop, and my external gear. Device itself works great, and it still provides a feature set that other interfaces can't match (from my perspective). Other threads have noted that the iConfig app is not awesome -- note you only need it to reconfigure internal routing, so you may only rarely need to touch it if you have a relatively static setup -- but it gets the job done. I'd buy another one today.
@JohnInBoston That’s good I love using iDAM however your forced in to go from direct lightning port to usb to use it so can not even use Apples CCK which is a bugger as I lose my Audiohub connection doing it that way.
I assume ICA4 gets around that problem?
My ICA4+ gets pretty warm with even the simplest setup. Any other owners find that?
Yes, it doesn‘t need the CCK on the USB port marked for iDevices and charges directly with it‘s special cable.
The (virtual) software ports are 20, which you can split arbitrarily between input and output as long as the sum doesn‘t exceed 20. (10 in, 10 out or 4 in, 16 out etc)
Yeah, had one in Hawaii and it locked-up a few times. Edit: It was likely the humidity that caused the lock-ups, not the heat. We had lots of network gear go bad over there.
Too bad they're discontinued, due to the parts-shortage.
Looking to get another used, does the cable that it comes with work in iOS 14? Thanks.
I'm running my iCA4+ daily with a mid-2015 MacBook Pro Retina (Catalina 10.15.7) and an iPad Pro 10.5" (iOS 14.1). It's very solid though it has a few weird issues that only rear their head occasionally. Usually, a restart is enough to sort it out when things go south. So, in short, it's still good -- including the iConnectivity lightning cable.
Hiya,
Only got mine recently, but it's enabled me to do some things I'd been scratching my head over for a while, & i'm looking forward to getting more out of it with Windows machine alongside iPad Air it's mainly connected to.
Pitfalls:
- yes, does get a bit warm
- if I start using it live, i'm going to have to shell out £40 on a spare cable, cause without that, would be pretty screwed!
- the iConfig software, on either Windows or iPad, often won't load if I've been using the interface, so personally I'd never create a setup where I relied on being able to edit the Config (ie the mapping) regularly.
An impressive bit of kit though!
Thank you @Vaultnaemsae
@stalkpiece The Apple CCK and a regular USB-A-to-B cable should work in most cases if you lose the custom £40 iConnectivity cable. In iConfig, you may need to select PC/Mac for that port, not iOS, though I'm not 100% sure. I did leave the custom cable at home several times, and the CCK plus a regular printer cable worked, iirc.
Here's the FAQ.
One thing I've never heard anyone mention. If the unit is off and your area has a power out, when the power comes back on, the unit also comes on. I've had mine running several days unaware.
Thanks, hadn't seen that, or tried a printer cable. Good to know!
Another daily user (sadly most often for Zoom). Rock solid.
the CCK plus a regular printer cable worked, iirc.
Indeed it does.