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.
iOS Music Frustration
I've always tried to maintain a positive attitude about making music on my iPad. I've had OK results in general. But today I tried to emulate a simple hardware setup and it just doesn't work. And I think it should.
- Set up modstep as a sequencer sending MIDI to 9 different synths
- All synths loaded in AUM
- All MIDI channels etc. sorted out (more of a chore than it should be) and everything appears to be working.
However I find:
- Some synths not playing back
- Some synths not sending audio through AUM
- Closing everything down and re-opening is a disaster
Synths used were Arctic Pro, DRC, FM4, iM1, Laplace, Mersenne, Lorentz, Phase84
I tried other synths along the way as well. I tried loading the synths into modstep. I tried different configurations.
I'd like to see this work like hardware i.e.:
Computer sequencer MIDI channel 1-16 controlling synth 1-16 each on its own MIDI channel with the audio out from each synth going to channel 1-16 of a mixer which feeds an amp out to speakers. Why is this so hard to replicate? I had a hardware setup like this and it "just worked".
It seems to me the only reliable way to get this is with an all-in-one app like Caustic, Gadget, Beathawk etc. I may just dump everything I have loaded now and just use those apps.
What are your experiences?
Comments
What iPad model are we talking about?
That's quite a load of apps running at the same time so the silence could be explained by not enough RAM or CPU hitting the roof...
What iPad do you use? I would assume that using so many synths at the same time would require an iPad Pro, and probably the big one with 4GB of RAM
Air 1 9.3.2
At one point or another everything was working fine. I'm not really looking at performance but more the overall workflow. I'm also playing back a total of about 36 notes with no effects or modulation going on. There is no issue with sound, no crackling etc.
iPad - instantaneous combustion!
My experience with Modstep (latest version) was that it had issues running separate midi channels to apps. It was OK with core (hardware) midi.
At least that was my takeaway from it and I didn't take it very far.
that's probably too much going at once for your Air - a Pro would probably just be able to handle that.
I'm probably off somehow in my thinking - But aren't there RAM limitations on iOs of 500MB max at one time an app can use? So if you had 9 synths - and say each one was taking up, on average say 50% of their max RAM - that would be 9x250MB = approx 2.25 GB of RAM, plus the extra RAM used to run Modstep and AUM and you could easily be up near 3GB of RAM. More than your Air has...
I would say that's way too much for the Air 1.I wouldn't go that far even on my Air 2...that said,it's well known that iOS is still a mess if you try to combine a lot of apps.Most of the time there will be flaws coming with it.I gave up on setups like this a long while ago.iOS is still just no there.It's not compareable to desktop cause you are NOT running 9 synth plugins in one AUM/DAW environment,it's 9 Applications at once,which makes a big difference.Depending on the apps i assume this could lead to problems on Desktops/Macbooks as well.I always try to use as few apps as possible at once and record/bounce early.Also concentrating on closed environments like Auria Pro,Cubasis,Gadget.if you accept that iOS and iDevices are still not"there"...you will have a much more enjoyable time with it
I have to agree. But even beyond that, the tedious workflow is probably more of what bothers me.
Do you realize that this is something even a decent desktop will be pushed hard to do? Like having half a score of different instruments in Logic. Ofc the DAW does it, but give a look at the CPU use.
I fear that we are losing sight of the very first motivation to use mobile for producing: immediacy.
Too much complexity shall take one afar from the physical contact with the touchscreen, that is to say the capital feature of iPad/iPhone.
In my experience there are far less than a score of apps that work like a charm. I stick to them and use the other ones I own only for occasional tasks.
You're definitely asking too much of an iPad loading all that at once. iOS is going to shut down apps in unpredictable ways to keep itself running. You're trying to take this in directions that the platform isn't powerful enough for (yet). If you want to work that way you need a Mac or PC based setup. The iPad's strength is portability and availability when inspiration strikes, not full blown production.
Jus to it like this.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/233872/#Comment_233872
At times I ask myself what the hell am I doing trying to hook up different synths and drum boxes to modstep when I have Gadget with completely stress free operation and super quick results.
It feels like most of folk here are doing this because they like tweaking which I admit I occasionally enjoy too but other than that Gadget fulfills about 75% of my needs. The moment Korg introduces multiple outs I'll find it hard to justify most of the synths I own. Other than maybe ISem, Thor, Animoog and Model 15.
My 2¢ is that I use Modstep to sequence x# of instruments, and record stems, without recourse to AUM or AB. It's very much like Gadget except it accesses all the IAA and AU synths on the device (including the Gadget ones if need be), as well as all IAA and AU fx. I don't understand putting AUM or AB in play, they seem redundant given the workflow and recording inside Modstep...
And the stems you record live where? As audio files in Cubasis, for example? And yet you can keep the midi for second-guessing in ModStep? Can you send into Cubasis directly from ModStop?
I just played a great mad jam using a selection of apps via aum , recording the mix into Audiishare . This is how I work , and I've recorded hundreds if sessions this way . When I went to play back the recording I discovered it was 8 seconds long rather than the 8 minutes I'd expected , and had stopped after this for some ynknown reason .
It's done it before , and it'll do it again . Same with Audiobus , same recording into Auria when it decides to lose a recording .
90% if the time my iPad is the best thing on earth - allowing me to make and record music in a way I never dreamt possible . The other 10% I'd happily take a clawhammer to the useless fuck
>
^ pretty much sums it up.
But when I'm holed in a hotel on a grinding work trip and can work on some musical ideas... or stuck in an airport cuz flight delayed... gold.
Stems record live inside Modstep then ship as audio (via Audioshare) to Cubasis, MTS or Auria pro.
This way of working has been frustration free in Air 2, and aside from allowing access to all my favorite iOS synths, is a clip launch compositional tool that works in a way that makes sense
If I was as successful with ModStep as an IAA / AU host as you seem to be, I'd possibly go that route too. Every time I try I get buggy, inconsistent, and frustrating results. I've never had any issues with ModStep as a MIDI sequencer, just as an instrument host.
Glad it works for you though!
+1. as much as i love modstep it will forever remain just a midi sequencer in my workflow.
I sure hope Gadget gets a 'Midi Out Gadget'. I would pipe it straight to my laptop and be happy as a clam, best of both worlds.
I record stems into Auria Pro if I'm doing iPad music. I do a lot of modulation and "playing" of the synth parameters while I record, so it just makes sense for my workflow to record one instrument at a time. I'll usually get maybe two or three going at once, just to get the notes/chords down, but then I actually record one at a time. Once I've got the audio for one, I move on to the next - gives me something to play off of as I move down the line through the different instruments.
Just you guys wait for Audiobus 3. We're going to address so many of these issues.
For the time being, I've abandoned any hope of making music solely on my Air 2. Which is not to say it's not possible, or that anyone else is wasting their time trying to do so! It's just that I have a great music laptop here with a good interface and Cubase 8.5/Reason 8.3 (soon to be 9). Why struggle when I don't have to?
That said - and I've mentioned this in another thread - the iPad is still very much a part of my music making process. I have it plugged into an iTrack Dock, which is connected to the line inputs and outputs of my audio interface. So I regularly sample things from Cubase/Reason into Borderlands and record the results back to an audio track, or sample/chop beats from DM1/2, or glitch loops from Sector. Basically I use the iPad to do what my laptop can't. And the result is more music, less fiddling.
I very much look forward to AB3 though. Any rumours/hints as to what's new?
Well said
Do tell! Or don't. Come to think of it, I hate spoilers
You are suggesting a course of action to us that we have no choice but to accede to. I'm just grateful that you're a (mostly) benign dictator
Woah! I finaly got Modstep working with Studiomux sending to my laptop. OK, that'll do. 8)