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.
A survey of iOS audio technologies
The goal here is to create a cheat sheet of the various technologies an app might be compatible with to ease understanding what combinations of use can be achieved.
Ableton Link
Audiobus & Remote
- Input/Effect/Output
- State Saving
- Remote
- Link
AudioCopy
AudioShare
- import/export/record
AU
- host
- plugin
IAA (Inter-App Audio)
- host [send sync]
- node Instrument/Generator/Effect/Music Effect [transport controls, background load]
MIDI
Any major technologies or respective features missing from this? I'll post summaries of the tech as understood so far. Then update and refine as people contribute missing pieces and/or understand of such.
Comments
Ableton Link
Shared metronome with a beat counter.
Works locally (same device, multiple apps) and remotely (over WiFi between devices).
First app to join sets the BPM and starts the metronome counting, subsequent peers keep the count and can adjust the BPM. This allows an app to have a beat number to come in on. Say a 4 beat loop, the app would come in on 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21 or 25 etc. An 8 beat app would come in on 1, 9, 17 or 25 etc. So apps using the same number of beats in a bar play in time, and apps with different beat counts align to the closest multiple that makes sense.
The common case seems to be for apps with Link support to start playing the beginning of a loop on the next beat for its beat count. However, it's also possible for an app to start playing right away from the part of the loop that makes sense given the current count, thus the next iteration of the loop would be aligned correctly with the beat count. Anyone know of any apps that use the later? Or have it as an option?
Sources:
http://ableton.github.io/linkkit/
(WIST but I guess that's dead now, since Korg uses link now)
MIDI over Bluetooth
Audio over Bluetooth
Audio over lightning usb cable to Mac
Audio and midi over wifi
AirPlay
OSC
Accelerometer to modulate stuff
3D Touch
Camera connection kit (usb)
iTunes file sharing
iTunes home sharing
Cloud services (iCloud, Dropbox, ...)
(There is a little camera tracking stuff, but doesn't really work, works only in perfect light conditions and is to laggy - what I have seen)
Audiobus & Remote
Patch cords for apps.
First off you'll need the Audiobus app, for Remote features you'll need to get the Audiobus Remote app as well.
The Audiobus app allows other iOS audio apps that support Audiobus to be connected together and for that combination of connections to be saved for use later. Only one combination can be loaded at a time (iOS doesn't allow multiple copies of the same app to run at the same time). An app can be an Input an Effect an Output, or even all three! (iDensity seems to be an example of that). An app can additionally support State Saving, which means that Audiobus can save the settings that were changed in the app as part of the connection combination saved in Audiobus. Each app added to an Audiobus connection will display a connection panel within the app that can be hidden/displayed for easy navigation to, and control of the connected apps. With the Audiobus Remote app these controls are available from a second device. One device runs Audiobus with some apps connected up. The second device runs Audiobus Remote and can control the first. Apps that add support for Audiobus Remote will have additional (app specific) controls available on the Remote, plain Audiobus supporting apps will have the basic controls. Audiobus Remote can also be used locally as a master control panel on the same device. Apps that support Ableton Link are recognized by Audiobus and the Link setting will be enabled when the app is used in a connection. The icon within the connection setup will indicate that with the word Link overlaid on the icon.
Questions:
When I get to the IAA summary I'll be noting that transport controls don't always display. Is this ever a problem with Audiobus apps?
Can Audiobus Remote be used to control Audiobus locally and a second device?
a) if it doesn't work someone messed up
b) yes
AudioCopy
Multiclip Pasteboard for Audio
There seems to be a storied history here. The AudioCopy app itself is optional. Apps that were built using the AudioCopy SDK will default to placing audio on the general pasteboard when the app isn't installed. Otherwise they will place the audio in the AudioCopy app's store. When pasting, apps that use AudioCopy SDK will allow picking from the AudioCopy app which clip to paste. Apps that were NOT built with the AudioCopy SDK but do support copy/paste will just use the general pasteboard. A problem arrises when the AudioCopy app is installed and trying to interoperate between an AudioCopy SDK app and a plain pasteboard app. So ironically AudioCopy works better when the app isn't installed.
Notes:
If you want to work with multiple audio clips between apps you probably want AudioShare instead. However the AudioCopy app does have better support for editing samples.
Also it has a store for sound packs, so if you want those, you'll need the app.
Sources:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/7494/audiocopy-file-folder-import-sortation
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/7574/audiocopy-by-retronyms-get-rid-of-annoying-opening-and-app-switching
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/12159/audio-share-delete-function
I use both General pasteboard and Audio copy/paste on a regular basis and have never had any issues. When I export from an app I simply choose either pasteboard or ACP.
Thanks. Do all apps built with the AudioCopy SDK support copying to the general pasteboard directly? Or is it up to the app to provide a separate menu for that?
Yes it would be down to the developer to provide both. I have some apps that do ACP only or GP only and some that do both. Some apps even label a button as AudioCopy when in fact it copies to the general pasteboard.. Just to make things a little more confusing for us !
Looking forward to the IAA sections.
MIDI could be further broken down:
Also:
Thanks, this is the sort of fiddly thing I was looking to document here. I think half the battle of getting devs to provide the best possible experience for users is educating everyone what all the pieces are, and then showing some examples of great implementations to serve as a model. Any great examples of apps that support both in a slick way?
Seems to me general pasteboard support needs to be a top level item in this list. I know I came into this with the impression that AudioCopy was the standard. When it's really an add-on standard that can be useful for some people. Curious now how the Audiobus (Loopy, Soundprism) folks chose to deal with this. In Loopy HD in the Share menu I only see one Copy option. Is that AudioCopy or general pasteboard? Having never downloaded AudioCopy.app, not sure if there's any way I can tell. The App Store listing for Loopy HD says "with audio copy and paste", not using the AudioCopy TM, so I'd guess general pasteboard. However I just assumed AudioCopy before. Thus is the marketing success of that tool.
@syrupcore Thank you!
Honestly I was going to punt about MIDI being a topic unto itself. I just don't know that much about it... yet
All solid additions to the list
I feel a little silly about forgetting universal app, since that one is near and dear to me, having a new iPhone and old iPad. Plus (heh) I think it needs special mention to look out for apps that don't really support the newer screen sizes for the iPhones (I suspect this is a similar problem with the iPad Pro, but I can only dream for now). It's typical of apps (not just music apps) having a layout that otherwise scales well, but then when you need to type something in the app, up pops this awkwardly large blown up keyboard, instead of the proper size keyboard for 6 series screens. Figure and Loopy HD both have this problem for example. I really think Apple needs to do more on this front. Both of those apps have been updated multiple times since the original 6/6 Plus shipped. And here we are on the S iteration with no general solution in sight. The fix for an individual app is probably simple enough. But Apple is not making it automatic in their SDKs and not even bothering to flag it during update reviews. Which makes their platform look bad.
AudioShare will import and export via General pasteboard and Audio copy/paste.
I only have an old version of Loopy as I don't use it much.. But this version exports via General pasteboard. You can paste it into AudioShare using the GP button.
If Audio copy/paste opens when you hit copy then it's an ACP copy and can be found in that app by most other apps. If it doesn't open after you've hit copy then it's probably copied into the General pasteboard.
@lala Thanks, lots of great items!
My understanding is that bluetooth and AirPlay both introduce a delay that makes any live playing of an app a non-starter. Aware of any apps that overcome that? Seems like it would be ok if an app is "played" by making changes to sequences that are already keeping their own time. But if a tap is going to initiate sound directly, there's going to be an awkward delay. Could even be a problem with sequenced stuff in a scenario where two or more devices using Ableton Link aware apps were connected to different wireless speakers (especially one being bluetooth, one being AirPlay) each with their own delay.
Are people using audio over bluetooth or AirPlay much?
Send per e-mail:
Export an audio- or midi-file the postal way.
Address to yourself, doesn't need necessarily a connection, open drafts in mail, delete, open trash, pick and 'open in' another app.
u r welcome,
bluetooth audio/airplay always has much to much latency for me, for playback - press play don't care if it happens 2 sec later its ok, so it has its use cases
Bluetooth midi latency is ok!
uh I didn't realize this works without net!
thx!
@lala
Cool, I've heard and learned (this) from the forum (:
General Pasteboard is one that is missing.
Nothing so far on supported iOS versions. Some features like AU and Bluetooth MIDI are iOS version dependent. Some apps like ModStep will still run on iOS 4, but with MIDI only and no audio.
Touch recording. As seen in Figure, ikaossilator. I love it, if that wasn't already obvious.
This is a very cool tip. Thanks
Oldschool. Thanks, @supadom.
When using two (or more) devices, wifi and bluetooth on, and audiobus active on both, ab remote has to be launched before opening ab on at least one device, otherwise ab remote only connects to ab on the same machine.
Plus, when utilizing 'apollo midi over bluetooth', this has to be launched even before ab remote (HM @dwarman). Tricky territory from here, (duplicate) midi ports to be taken care of, either link or midi clock etc.
Sorry, a little correction:
If you do the e-mail, don't actually address to yourself and send, but press 'cancel', and then 'save'.