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Why do we pursue this IOS music ideal...?
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Was just wondering why when we have such an established musical production environment as the desk top and laptop studio's.
Why then do we shun this power and wealth of content for the fledgling IOS production domain ?
Would like to hear your thoughts.......what is it that draws you in ?
Comments
The immediacy and portability of the interface allows me to get new ideas down and work on existing projects as inspiration hits no matter where I am. The touch screen and wealth of different types of apps allows for a workflow to experiment, arrange, rearrange and try new ideas that is fairly cumbersome in comparison on a traditional DAW.
In short, it enables, promotes, expands, reinforces and rewards the creative impulse far better (for me at least) than a traditional DAW setup does.
@peanut_gallery ha, looks like we are on the same page
I think most of us watched too many MacGyver episodes
It's the ideal of having everything you'd ever need in your back pocket 
Also: No copy protection to hassle with
I don't think the affordability aspect can be overemphasized enough... it's basically a revolution in music making accessibility to the average person.
For most people who are beyond the fantasy of making it in the music world, and who now have jobs, a family, etc. a home production studio is just a pipe dream. Buying a few apps for a device you already own can be a really liberating gateway back into the world of music creation, and the quality of these apps mean that with patience you can get some really pleasing results.
Touch, portability and oh, yes, affordability.
Apps such as Thumbjam and the iFretless series and many others allow for a lot of expression by touch. There are many apps that experiment with other means of sound generation and expression by using the movement sensors as well.
One can carry an entire studio with you, just sit down in a corner and experiment. I could carry my iPad, a few cables and a small keyboard along in my guitar's gigbag and have an almost complete studio environment with me. Somehow it just feels much more compact than a laptop even if that can achieve almost the same thing.
Finally, with even the most expensive apps costing only a fraction of their desktop counterparts, advanced instruments and effects and recording techniques have come within reach of simple beginners and hobbyists like me. There are also a lot of theory apps, practice tools and other resources out there...all crammed into one extremely small package like a tablet or phone.
Of course, a more powerful desktop system with a full-sized keyboard and hardware interfaces and studio monitors an'all is still the way to go for full-on professional production and dedicated studios have not been made obsolete yet...but the mobile platform really offers a lot of convenience and accessibility, it can go anywhere.
Edit:
Oh and the variety of instruments! Anything from a sampled fart to a full orchestra at your fingertips!
Ah yes, I forgot to mention affordability. Getting all the types of synth sounds I've dreamed of (and many I didn't even know existed) at a fraction of the cost of a hardware synth (or softsynth) has been a game changer for me.
One more important reason that shouldn't be overlooked: The community.
The helpfulness, general lack of trolling and just all-around pleasantness of the people here is really notable.
The fact that this is the "fledgling IOS production domain" is actually really beneficial in this case. Most 'serious' audio engineers view the iOS music platform as a joke, so they don't even bother coming around to places like this... hence a marked absence of ego and snobbery in these forums.
Also, the fact that we haven't had to remortgage our houses to put together our "production studios" means that we aren't blindly devoted to the products we use, and don't feel the need to constantly attack others for their choice in alternative products. People here are generally honest (including the devs!) about the shortcomings of the apps we use, and no one is married to anything. If something doesn't work well for you, oh well, the next great thing is probably right around the corner for $10, so no big deal.
It's also very easy to ask for help without fearing you'll be treated to a barrage of sarcastic passive-agressiveness by 'experts' who are sick of 'newbies'.
I don't think they really foresaw what would happen when they opened this forum, but thanks to Michael and Sebastian for hosting a great place for us all to hangout
I agree with what everyone else has said. I had a project recording studio that took up my entire basement and cost nearly $20000 back in the 90s-early 2000s. I got married and started needing space and having less time. I moved to a desktop, then to a laptop, and then to an iPad. I have continued to sell off pieces of my equipment all along the way. The immediacy and portability (and the software!!!) were what drew me to it to begin with, and all of the other things mentioned above (community, etc) have been wonderful bonuses that I discovered along the way. :-)
Portability - Immediacy - Simplicity - Efficiency - Financially - Cutting Edge / Level Playing Field
For me, I have never been and will never be someone who is too serious about producing music. I used to have Cubase on my PC and the PC died. But I never used it to its potential. I didn't know how. I didn't care to find out because I didn't need to.
I had my iPad before I realised how powerful it was for making music. Now it's affordable, portable, and it does everything I ever did on my PC, plus it's exposed me to the world of synthesizers which has had a massively positive impact on my music. Not only that, it's far more intuitive. I find no need for anything more for the way I write and record music. It would be completely superfluous.
For me, it was new types of virtual instrument interfaces that made the performances sound as expressive as real instruments. That made the end results so much more natural sounding. I'm not that into production and mixing. With my desktop DAW I could never be bothered to spend the time and effort required to get a professional sounding result, for me it has always been about the composition and the performance. On the iPad, I find that it is much easier to get decent sounding results, perhaps due to the fact that although the instruments are already in the digital domain, with the sound quality that implies, it is still possible to perform a part, rather than just play it.
I just got into for this forum, since I have no other friends ;-),
@Audiojunkie - I guess your next move will be to the iWatch?
In all seriousness, the fun, affordability, and ability for me to sound somewhat musical are my biggest reasons.
It's the Desktop Publishing revolution, this time for Music. All those people who already had an iPad and then discover the world of synths and DAWs and Effects Apps. Like I did. And then, like @Audiojunkie, had $10K's of gear in the '80's, then moved, married, slowly sold off gear and moved down from 3 rooms to one pocket. Seriously rekindled my love of the art.
And then, hands down, what keeps me at it is this community. You guys and gals. I'm nowhere near as productive of finished pieces, but I get to look over your shoulders, learn the performance and production techniques (again, in many cases), and still have my own area of expertise (MIDI) to also be a contributor in some way. And for some reason I have nobody in/near Bainbridge Island WA to be an ambient co-jammer (unless somebody out there reading this wants to?) so here is where I get all my people contact.
And I get to annoy the other passengers on the ferry.
Thanks, everyone!
@Funjunkie LOL! Nah, I think I'm about as portable as I want to be now. :-) I toyed with the idea of an iPad Mini, but I think that would be getting too small for me. :-) I'll probably stick with the standard sized iPad.
As for immediacy of a tablet, modern DAWS beat the heck out of fiddling for an hour with patch cables like I used to have to do. That's probably why I'm not interested in Modular (the new synth). I bought Audulus when it first came out, and was again reminded why I hate patch cables. :-) I'd rather just make music.......then again, I haven't finished anything in years, so who am I to say anymore? Don't misunderstand--I wouldn't trade my kids wife for anything, and I truly am happy to be a family man, but I still keep my toe in the pool so to speak with my iPad, and once in a while get nostalgic for my college days when we were one of the big local bands. :-) Hehehe, now I sound as pathetic as Napoleon Dynamite's Uncle Rico! Anyone know where I could buy a time machine? LOL!!! :-)
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What Dwarman said. I had a lifelong fascination for synthesizers,but i'm an a-technical guy,couldn't play piano so diving into synths was too big a risk at the prices they sell for. Let alone all the other stuff you need (speakers,cables,etc.). Then i got an Ipad. Then I bought Figure late last year. That made me dig into the possibilities on an Ipad. Now i have spend over €500 on hardware (keyboard,new speakers,stand,ipadholder) and have an app addiction.
Because creating music on an idevice is fun.... on a desktop i would call it "work"
Ever tryed to impress the vibratio and tremolo via live play on ThumbJam by shaking your phone. Try this with a desktop! Thevworkflow is so much better (for me). Only thing it lacks is the horsepower.... but if you compare unmastered tracks today the different is not as big now! Hope some developers will jump on that 64bit train (if there is a advantage also for audio) soon. The only thing which still limits me is my hunger for ram. But nothing could bring me back to a desktop now. (Only creating Alchemy presets on the desktop version for importing them to my mobile device etc..... but i still hope here for a full blown sample manipulation synth on my mobile device.... perhaps NanoStudio 2 could jump in here in the future...)
Every thing that is said above and it's the future, ios music production reminds me of the early days of Protools, engineers in studios didn't take to it at first, there was to much faffing about to get a session going and the audio quality was not as good as a 24trk tape machine but over time it has become the only way to record, I still know a lot of there uk pro engineers and a lot of them have started to use ios music apps. When I've spoke to them about it they just say it's another tool, like using a space echo or wem copycat, it just another tool.
For me, yes all those things... But additionally, and most importantly, it is the quality of the iOS workflow and results that keep me glued to this rather than the PC. The home studio setup is a mess of wires, audio inputs, guitars everywhere, temperamental mixing desk, fuzzy connections, and the PC I've been using for almost 10 years. The iPad is a beautifully sleek, simple solution, and once I've fashioned the core of a song I can bounce the wavs to finish off on PC, adding all those live performance elements that round the sound off. The sound quality from these iPad native synths to my ears beats the VSTs I spent years accumulating. I haven't used a VST since I loaded NanoStudio up for the first time. My last album was 90% produced on iPad. In a way it's an act similar to mastering. I get the song to sound amazing on the pad and then when I transfer it to the PC I add the compressors, reverbs and delays, get the dynamics just right, and tweak the panning. If I was the sort of bloke who swears, I'd say it's fucking awesome. And it is. Tits.
Fuzzy connections! Seemed like every time I powered up my hardware studio I had to hunt something down, a jack or knob somewhere needed twisting before it would work. Almost everything run through patch bays which just doubled the opportunities for failure. That and MIDI routing (although after nearly a decade of that fight we solved that problem with our MidiTap).
That don't happen in the Virtual World of iOS.
Now I have three large moving boxes full of cables, all sorts. And gallon ziplock bags of RCA-Phone adapters. And Furman patchbays. Any takers?
Though I agree with pretty much everything said above, to me, iOS is just the starting point. iDevices with the outstanding non traditional apps are a great way to get ideas down, especially on the go.
The GUI's on my iPod Touch are however, extremely hard to see and use. Reading glasses are a necessity for my old eyes. The iPad is way better but still too imprecise for detailed editing. A mouse, a 27" screen, and a PC DAW makes my life so much easier once the sketches have been uploaded from my iDevice.
One day I may be able to start and finish work on an iDevice but that day is just not here for me yet.
That being said, I still have no regrets with my iOS purchases. Looking forward to what may be around the corner.
I ride a train every day to/from work. An iPad is much more convenient to take on the train than my laptop, and the multi-touch screen of the iPad is more pleasant to work with than a typewriter style keyboard and mouse/trackpad.
When I'm at home, I work with my hardware devices rather than softsynths. I use my laptop as a glorified multitrack recorder.
Touch screens offer a new way of interacting with music apps, and we are on the ground floor of a minor technological revolution. Very exciting times!