Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
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Comments
Touchscreens bring different things....
For expressiveness then definitely Animoog or Model 15 - Model 15 not only has regular and animoog keys but also has the ribbon controller...this demonstrates how you can use a touchscreen based synth to allow different input methods, although all of these input methods could be made as physical controllers that are not touch based.
For flexibility then Garageband.....Hit the drums, pluck/strum and slide on the strings , Keyboard for piano and synths, the input adapts to the instrument being played, the closest attempt by a physical controller to do this is the Joue with its silicon overlays.
AC Sabre
Parat+
AC Sabre
Thumb-jam
Different Drummer
FluxPad
Add my vote for ThumbJam. It’s the one iOS music app which has given me the most enjoyment, over the years, and its interaction model is very definitely based on the devices’ affordances. The addition of 3D Touch, last Summer (?) was such a natural progression and it made the app even more expressive. Played a fair deal with different scales and, as an ethnomusicologist, that has been a real treat and stimulating experience. It’s also one of these apps which support most standards and protocols, including Audiobus (duh!). Wish its sound engine afforded more control, including synthesized sounds as opposed to samples. But, then, it’s easy enough to output to another app through Virtual MIDI.
Glad @AndyPlankton mentioned GarageBand. We may take it for granted and, obviously, GB for macOS is the main version. But it does showcase a number of iOS features, including in 3D Touch for polyphonic aftertouch and in the use of the accelerometer to control Alchemy presets. Getting someone into digital musicking through GarageBand for iOS is probably easier than teaching them a desktop DAW, including GarageBand for macOS.
Recently discovered Oval Synth and it’s a fairly neat example of what can be done on an iOS device. Playing it on a desktop would probably not work as well, especially since so much of the model is based on the disposition of the pads. Those pads which allow for XY glide also show off the touchscreen’s affordances. Though it was built to support a hardware interface, the touchscreen is a rather good fit for it.
Speaking of the touchscreen equivalent to dedicated hardware, Blocs x Novation Launchpad is rather interesting. Wish it actually worked like the hardware Launchpad in terms of controlling Ableton Live, but not holding my breath for that. Still, it works fairly well as an interaction model loosely based on the Ableton one. Especially on iPad. Integration with Blocs Wave is also interesting. And the whole “free-to-play with added content through IAP” business model is very likely to succeed, at least in the short run. (Similar reactions to Mixvibes Remixlive.)
Another one in this sub-list of “free-to-play” apps is Auxy. But its touchscreen affordances are less obvious. In other words, it’d be rather easy to imagine a desktop version of Auxy than desktop versions of Wave, Remixlive, or Launchpad. The main difference is fairly simple, actually. Multitouch doesn’t benefit Auxy that much, since it’s not meant for live performance. With the other apps, multitouch is a true gamechanger as you can play with diverse parameters or samples at the same time.
Speaking of loops, haven’t played that much with Loopy but, to me, it’s actually a fairly good example of what iOS-specific apps can do. Would make for a pretty difficult desktop app to use, but it works as well as a dedicated (hardware) device, IMHO.
Noodled a bit with SoundPrism and Chordion. In both cases, the touchscreen makes it much easier than a keyboard or mouse.
As for Animoog, can understand why people would mention it but have yet to really make use of it. In a list like this, there should be a special category for those apps with XY grids, in part because the desktop equivalent can be rather cumbersome.
Same thing with the joystick in iWavesation. (Only discovered Korg’s wave sequencing synth through that app and, for some reason, it really fits my approach to digital musicking. But, obviously, the synth itself isn’t iOS-specific and, apart from the joystick, it makes little use of the touchscreen. In fact, finding a specific preset through the iPhone version is pretty annoying and some touch targets are too small.)
Though Korg Gadget will soon have a macOS version and it may not really be so iOS-specific, it does make sense to mention it, as @eustressor did. In fact, it deserves a very special mention in my list of favourite iOS music apps because of its inclusion of a free license to Ableton Live Lite. In the OP, @Love3quency asked about touchscreen affordances and Gadget is almost a counterexample. But as an example of an iOS-first app going to the desktop, it does merit consideration.
Tried AirCraft Sabre a couple of times. It shows promise, especially if you take the time to prepare a patch in a synthesizer app (like Model 15, which the YouTube video on the DiscChord frontpage shows off). To me, it’s almost like an updated version of GyroSynth (but without the “synth” part).
Half-surprised that more people aren’t talking about OSC apps like TouchOSC, Lemur, and Control. Have yet to buy Lemur but it sounds really powerful and it’s yet another example of the touchscreen’s flexibility comparing nicely to a dedicated device. Control hasn’t been updated in a while but it has a pretty neat Monome Emulation. My experiments with TouchOSC have mostly been about sending accelerometer XYZ coordinates to Processing, PureData, or ChucK’s MiniAudicle running on a desktop (like the Raspberry Pi). In fact, a big part of my wishlist for Sonic Pi is based on these experiments. Been able to use TouchOSC’s ՝accxyz՝ to control SPi scripts through Processing. Pretty neat already, and something which can inspire further experiments. Including hardware ones. In the spirit of prototyping and Digital Making, TouchOSC is kind of like a software simulation for a piece of dedicated hardware built with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi. As long as people have devices which support it, it’s a low-cost/-effort version of a physical computing project.
So, that’s pretty much my list of apps to be used to show off iOS touchscreen affordances to digital musickers. Presented ThumbJam at a workshop or two and it works well in terms of getting people interested in iPhone-based musicking. In fact, the very concept of “musicking” (taken from both Christopher Small and Gilbert Rouget) makes a lot more sense with these iOS apps than with most desktop ones. Instead of “playing music”, it’s about “playing with music”. And this is where iOS truly shines.
Hope Apple realizes this. And gives a big sponsorship to Audiobus developers.
I just hope Apple recognizes the efforts of developers like Michael and Sebastian for Audiobus, Kymatica, Bram Bos, Sonosaurus, and the Secret Base Design developer among many others so Apple does more to support them rather than undercutting their efforts with poor communication or by how they develop iOS as it impacts music creation app developers.
Apple consistently features music creation in their marketing of their products and both Logic and GarageBand are heavily subsidized. Many of the most creative and useful iOS music apps are by small independent developers who would benefit from better support, documentation, App Store policies, and communication from Apple which in turn benefits us in the form of more functional and stable apps.
While music app creators may be a drop in the bucket in terms of total Apple revenue, I think collectively the niche markets are significant and represent a demographic which has invested heavily into iOS relative to the more causal users who primarily use iOS for media consumption and social networking. Their needs can often more easily be met by less expensive competing products and are more of a commodity market of users who won't benefit as much from Apple's proprietary hardware/software approach.
I hope Apple puts their money where their mouth is in terms of offering better file management and facilitating group project work at a pro or prosumer level rather than simply creating a larger more powerful iPad Pro yet failing to address issues at the iOS level to meet their workflow needs in an iOS that's squarely focused on the casual user whose needs are significantly different.
From your lips to Cook’s ears!
Dunno if other AB forum peeps spend much time listening to Apple-focused podcasts but there’s an audible grumbling about Pro users. The iPad/Mac(Book) Pro line is often discussed, with people complaining that the company is too focused on iOS. But your point is really well taken. Our iOS-based workflows could improve tremendously if Apple listened to just a few of our needs. As you say, we may represent a niche. But scratching our itches could have a positive impact on the rest of the ecosystem.
Also agreed that much of the best apps come from small developers. At the same time, my attitude towards those heavily-subsidized Apple apps (GarageBand, MainStage, and Logic Pro X) is slightly different. To me, they represent Apple’s best work, at this point, addressing something of a niche market. Haven’t heard anything about the teams behind them, apart from the acquisitions which led to Logic and some of its best features. But these people are, to my mind, doing very valuable work.
Now, in terms of small developers, it’s possible that GarageBand’s low cost has had a negative impact, overall. Hard to tell, though. It’s also possible that GB has led more iOS users to other music apps than the sales it has taken away through unfair competition. (In some ways, macOS is a different issue. As many people have said here, part of the reason Korg’s Gadget sounds like it’s too expensive is because we compare it to LPX. At the same time, it doesn’t sound like the music app ecosystem is lacking, on desktop platforms.)
Someone mentioned it elsewhere but 3D Touch would be a really neat feature for the iPad Pro. Been dreaming about this. Can’t currently afford such a device but it’d be “drool-worthy”, especially if music apps really supported it. (Apart from ThumbJam and GarageBand, have yet to notice another app which supports 3D Touch on the iPhone.)
Come to think of it, maybe Apple needs more competition from Android, in the music sphere. It used to be that high latency prevented Android apps from being that compelling but, one would assume, this has probably been solved with recent high-end devices like the Pixel. Can’t really imagine Google putting much effort into supporting Mixvibes or Algoriddim. But there could be more pressure from their side of the mobile world.
@Enkerli I think music app development on Android is still going to be limited due to software piracy, the variety of Android OS versions installed, and the wide variety of phones, and tablets which make it more difficult to develop for versus the relatively few versions of iOS and iOS devices as music app are very tightly linked to OS software and the form factor of the device.
I think both GarageBand and Logic are undervalued by people who take them for granted due to their low cost. It's largely the DAW developers on iOS who can't afford to compete against a subsidized software on Mac OS who are effected the most.
In addition my own experience with friends who've had Android phones that have lost everything on their phones doing what the general public do with phones doesn't give me great confidence about investing or researching into it versus staying with the relatively stable iOS environment. If anything, should Android start to really give Apple stiff competition, I think Apple will move onto greener pastures.
thanks for the Audulus shoutout @RedSkyLullaby