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
Yeah I like Fiddle Finger, but it could do with a few little changes that might help allieviate my finger cramps lol
There are some nice orchestral sounds for iOS but not one really good and expressive solo instrument.
I like using ThumbJam, Sample Tank and iSymphonic on my iPhone but they are all a bit too synthy, without life and lacks definition.
I think iOS apps are usable for some nice hybrid cinematic stuff and crossover sounds from orchestral and synths.
But while some iOS synths are close to some desktop synths i think the acoustic side is lightyears away and at the same time not cheap on iOS if i look f.e. at all the IAP for Sample Tank and iSymphonic.
Of course it‘s hard to compete with much more expensive 200GB libraries but there are also tools which using „just“ 5-10GB and sounds stunning and expressive due to clever sample management and scripting engines.
I‘m sure things will evolve and the examples here posted are as good as it can be right now. If you won‘t look for really expressive and/or realistic orchestral stuff iOS is pretty good since years.
I think iSymphonic sounds the best right now for iOS but it‘s sadly too limited about editing and creating an own ensemble or divisi and stuff.
It sounds good in the lower registers and O.K. in the midrange but is terrible at the really higher range.
Otherwise GarageBand comes with good things as well.
Where iOS can shine is semi-acoustic things and interesting multi-touch apps like Finger Fiddle.
But here is the next problem. The app is abandoned, offer no midi options which would make it on par or better than a lot desktop plug-ins for physical modeled solo strings.
Oh the Roli Seaboard 5D app might be the most expressive thing on iOS, especially with 3D touch.
I sometimes prefer it for smooth polyphonic glides and slides more than my Seaboard Rise (but 3D touch sucks at velocity).
Combining these multi-touch tools with high quality sample libraries is of course even more awesome.
The thing most sorely lacking in iOS is key switching. Having to have a MIDI track for legato cello section and another MIDI track for detache cello section and another for pizz and another for tremelo is just horrible and stupid.
I haven't been able to find an app that can run it but the free "Virtual Playing Orchestra" SFZ claims to use the Mod Wheel for key switching which is a neat idea if so. I've tried to load it into Stagelight to no avail; people certainly use it on desktop. Matthias Westlund who made Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra now recommends it over his own creation.
Maybe apps like Lemur or Midi Designer etc. could offer templates for such things. I like to use also velocity for different articulations and a lot good sample libraries having clever algorithms as well and changing timbre/articulation etc. depending on how fast or slow you play.
There are just amazing things possible i could‘n dream about some years ago. IOS could be ready for it too in near future.
P.S.: I remember my most used strings was a preset from Alchemy iOS some years ago.
Yep, listened to those...that's why I was wondering if the reverb in the demos was adding by an external FX or if it was in the sample already.
Sometimes with baked in reverb, it's hard to make those samples, when mixed with other samples with different or no baked in reverb to sound nice together (like they are all in the same room, or to push them forward or backward in the mix with reverb settings).
@Jmcmillan, OK, I am going to give you the straight dope. If there is reverb, like on the Brass Ensembles you can remove it in the edit function. If there is no reverb you can add it. Isn’t that cool? It is definitely up there IMO.
Cool thanks! I don’t have Beathawk yet but after hearing the demos I was thinking about it.
May I ask, what is the edit function that removes the reverb?
@Jmcmillan ....
Ah I see. Thank you kind sir.
You are very welcome @Jmcmillan.
Auria Pro can host Sfz's. I've used Sonatina... in it
@LinearLineman : it is worth tracking down some videos that a Hollywood film score creator did demonstrating playing techniques for doing orchestral scores with sampled instruments. They are amazing and makes one realize that playing technique is critical. He shows a number of tricks for creating the articulations and variations critical to creating the illusion of a real orchestra.
It works well. My only hang up is when playing rapid staccato notes, the sounds start to stutter. Not sure if it’s a bug or not.
Hurrah, the fine Sir James MacMillan is now composing on iOS!!!
😉
I tried VPO is Lyra but there’s a bug. The SFZ opcode PAN=xxx make the sound cut of on the R or L side. The VPO creator put those in to balance the sound on some samples he found. So patches with SFZ code for pan adjustments don’t play correctly in Lyra.
You can go in and make SFZ code edit though.
Someone shared this one with me a while ago. It’s a good two parter. I hope iOS will get some of this kind of instrument control.
I find a lot of Spitfire Audio videos/tutorials useful and they also translate to iOS in general.
F.e.:
His channel is also great to learn about this stuff:
For anyone interested, The single swam instruments, violin, viola, cello, the woodwinds, flutes saxophones in the roli noise app are fantastic, and many people would prefer over any software desktop or mobile. We have world leading software on iOS there, even if its a simplified version, its like the best sounding preset they could come up with and sounds and plays fantastically. It’s strange how few people use them, as they are worlds, miles and universes ahead of all other orchestral apps. Equally strange to me how many people rate miroslav when it’s so thin and poor sounding.
I have a roli lightpad m - I prefer the layout over their rises and seaboards, and I find the seaboard rise material really horrible, and weirdly sticky compared to the light pad stuff, considering sliding over it is inherent to playing it.
You can play the instruments there without one and they sound great but I’d recommend one as it’s just fantastic. I regard all midi controllers as being miles and miles away from real instruments, I don’t really like to say toys as it sounds patronising, but they are in comparison to actually playing. The light pad with swam is like playing a real instrument. It’s more the woodwinds and saxes for me - anything stimulating air pressure is incredibleeeee, and so expressive.
The issue is connectivity, as roli/swam not sure which have gone back in previous promises they would eventually be audio units. Swam just don’t want people getting a good deal and want to force iOS musicians to buy the full thing on pc like its a teaser pack. That is not going to happen and 50 quid or so is an expensive teaser. 1000 for any kind of music software may be the fair market price but is laughable in real world terms just pumped up by production budgets at big studios, especially when you hear how poor big libraries sound played inexpertly.
Sooo.... this:
In my opinion is everything. Almost all music I hear composed with big expensive sample libraries is trash because of a reliance on the quality of the library and a coinciding failure to understand that a lack of touch in the player is what creates the authenticity. It’s playing, not sequencing and I don’t think the scoring apps help in this regard either - imo. The right notes and the right time - about 10 percent of a good piece.
Finger fiddle was great in terms of interface but sounds like it’s being played in a toilet, one of the worst sounding apps for classical stuff I’ve ever heard. It’s like they picked the most hideous frequencies and eqd out the rest. Or played on a violin made of hate.
isymphonic sounds like metallic trash until you strip out the horrible in app reverb, eq it, add the right reverb or ir, and then it can sound really good. In fact, played well, and treated well, better than a lot of expensive libraries in inexpert hands. It’s still the best on iOS for sections. I find it hard to really recommend except in those terms though as the stripped sounds aren’t great, and oriental strings is diabolical. I also can’t stand the piano app - everyone seemed to love it but it has the same strident tone as the others I think. I think it’s possible theres a culture of listening for clarity or some kind of particular value or idea of what is good rather than hearing the sound at times, like pc user who makes music, over music maker who uses pc.
Anyway just my opinions and experiences as a picky bastard.
Of course some legit opinions but sorry the swam things on iOS are for sure not what most people like to use for expressive solo instruments and would prefer over desktop tools. If you stay on iOS i think you are right and they are good. But nowhere near to decent other tools.
What would you say would be preferred over them? I’m definitely not claiming to be an expert in desktop choices but have heard many people preferring swam or sample modelling stuff over anything else - it’s what first led me to try them. I have heard some great individual instruments like una corda (piano) etc more reliant on sampling I think but Among MPE users who value and need expressivity better than articulation keyswitching etc I don’t know of anything better (possibly my ignorance). I don’t say most people, but certainly many I’ve spoken to so I’d really like to learn a bit more (genuinely). There was a desktop solo violin vst that made me jealous, I heard the other day - was someone’s name, German sounding I think.
It might work better for certain things and you are right it can sound awesome for live playing with the right controllers like Seaboards or even iPhones with 3D touch etc.
The swam engine for desktop seems much more advanced so yeah, it would be great to have the "full" versions on iOS since a multi-touch screen (especially with 3D touch) would fit perfect here.
I think for more realistic sounds and more expression (but with more work for editing etc. maybe) good Kontakt libraries are far better here.
I like this video about the iOS SWAM:
But f.e. i find most sampled solo instruments with clever scripting still miles ahead. Even the SWAM on desktop are to artificial for me and while you can do some awesome real time "morphs" they still lack articulations only a real good player can do. But it makes sense to mix and use both kind of these instruments.
But i agree that on iOS indeed the Roli stuff is the best but they limit it in such a crappy app. it could be so much more. And maybe one day we get a kind of Kontakt for iOS but i think we have to wait until RAM.
However...a good example how nice the SAWM can sound also for orchestral:
So why is Roli limit it here since you won´t need much RAM? I think the market is just not there here yet and especially for orchestral works an iOS device might not be the best choice (yet).
Lots of EQ wisdom in here. i love this place for threads like this. Wiser heads drip’n essential sauce for free. Don’t mind this fly on the wall.🙏🏾
I also mostly hate not real recorded vibrato. While it´s better to control an artificial vibrato i yet have to hear a really good one. An example i like. A demo for the Emotional Violin instrument which is sampled but also not bad for "just" about 6GB which should be possible to handle for modern iOS devices. But who would pay over 100 for such an app even if pro musicians in endless session were sampled, years of development for scripting, cutting and paying a lot people working on this and so on.
What i like about the Emotional Cello is that i can play it very expressive even just on my macbook computer keyboard as midi inout with a few key and velocity-switches.
I like the plug n´play thingies much more without the use of tons of controllers but i´m also not a very good player
Thanks that’s really interesting to hear. I’m not sure if I agree entirely or not haha. I have been educating myself a bit more as to the sample libraries outside the big ones, (spitfire east west) which was why I mentioned una circa despite it being piano. I do take what you’re saying re synthetic sounds and it reminds me of extensive (!!!) piano vst searching I did. Impreferred pianoteq but I could also hear why some people didn’t.
I think perhaps it’s a very complex area where some people hear synthetic more in the sample timbre and quality and some in the playing and dynamics and trying to balance this. The east west and spitfire libraries almost always sound synthetic to me as do all the big expensive piano vsts. It’s not the samples themselves but hw they are played, and even articulation keyswitches sound very unnatural to me except in the hands of really great players/composers.
It’s a lot easier with sections imo as they sink into a mix, amd their constituent voices, and are much much easier to replicate than single instruments. I’m equally unimpressed with many big sample library sections as I am impressed with other patches in the same libraries, and eq reverb and mic distance are really what starts elevating things for me here,
Some of the more unusual libraries like una cords and the violin one I mentioned sound fantastic though. Perhaps for me there’s a lack f delicacy in big sample libraries just trundling through very generic sampling processes and churning out a massive library with the same sounds, I then hear some runs people compose and they sound extremely synthetic to me.
Does swam have natural articulation switching to some degree based on hit velocity, presssure etc? It’s obviosly a superior interface as articulation key switching is a very unnatural process, and although classical approach to music does stratify things into traditional techniques, in reality articulations are not so discrete and simplified. It would be nice to have something organic as it’s impossibke to mirror real playing techniques and the results depend so much on that interaction between player and instrument which is for me lost in midi controllers.
I think if I get really fussed, Composer cloud for a month for orchestral midi sections might be the way to go. But in truth, I should just keep perspective as I’m not composing classical peieces but arrangements, and it’s easy to go down rabbit holes
I also think the biggest problem is the good spacing on iOS. Many people f.e. prefer just as dry as possible (close mics) and then put their own reverb and spatalization on it or they might use instruments sampled in the same hall from the same developers. This glues mostly (not always) much better together.
So on iOS i also think using just iSymphonic or Sample Tank or ThumbJam etc. works better as trying to mix them all up.
You might like to hear this btw just out of interest, as I’d not seen anyone do it before:
Wow, I started a really great thread! Great thanks to all who are contributing! I have been doing a lot of thinking and feeling as a result. I like this discussion because it is really looking at the positives, negative and possibilities. Very encouraging, actually,
I am interested in the SWAM instruments, but don't think I can use them in Cubasis ( my DAW savior) am I wrong? @wingwizard, really nice to hear from you. I valued what you had to say! @Cib, as always, you are one of the forum's treasures, both musically and knowledgewise.. Thanks for taking part.
@espiegel123, your post made me feel a lot better. I have a lot more confidence in my playing than my engineering! I think you have heard this stretch( I posted it under Creations a week ago) and liked it, but for others it is an acoustic thingy, following my new less is more approach. I am sure I could have EQd better, but frankly, My ears are satisfied with a lot less than many others here. I just am not hearing a lot of subtle differences when I experiment with frequencies. I used iS strings, BH brass and Choir ( @Jmcmillan, you may want to listen to this) and the piano and bass is not iOS, but from the MP11se onboard Kawai EX studio grand. As you said, it is the playing that counts, but still the added instruments, once engaging suspension of disbelief add to the mix IMO.
The only way you can get iOS noise swam stuff into anything (I think) is if you have a second iOS device and use it like an instrument through the line in of your audio interface. One of roli or swam promised audio units were coming but that was a lie/untenable promise. I tested it the other day and it worked well. What a gaggle of bastards these companies are making us tip toe through the interstices and skip the overlapping roots of their policies to do what we want.
Like with this and things like Finger Fiddle it´s a shame that these awesome instruments get handicaped in such a bad way while they could be awesome.
https://www.samplemodeling.com/en/teaser_strings.php
However, it seems to add some modeling stuff as well..
Indeed it seems Sample Modeling is up to something new...G.A.S. incoming
Edit: I confused Sample Modeling with Audio Modeling