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Do you play other synths along with iOS?
I was playing my Pro-One yesterday into my iPad rig. Loaded up a few synths in Aum to go along with it. The sonic difference was huge! I love iOS synths and have many to choose from. In iOS world, they all sound amazing. My Pro-One seemed out of place it was so fat and juicy sounding.
Are most of you guys iOS only, or do you mix it up with real synths?
Comments
Using iPad and Cubasis to control Korg ms2000, Novation Super Bass Station, Dreadbox Erebus, Korg Volca Key and Yamaha Reface CS.
I'm about to buy an Audio Interface to record them back into Cubasis.
Very early days for me only got my 1st iPad a couple of months ago and TBH I'm still learning Cubasis and loads of AUv3 synths and effects but great fun so far.
Hmmmmm a cheeky Behringer model d or pro one next?
I love some of the synths on iOS but it's true... there's nothing quite like hardware. I use some auv3 instruments in tandem with hardware, but I mainly run my Hardware through an fx buss in AUM. I'm no purist (most the hardware is digital) but I find that hardware is just more stable, and ultimately just more fun to use.
Very eager for audio tracks to arrive in NS2. Obsidian is hands down my favorite iOS synth, especially paired with my little hardware machines. Right now, NS2 through AUM, plus a bunch of fx pushes my aging ipad to its limits.
I used to melt over hardware but now VSTs give me the most wet in the pants / ache in the wallet.
Mostly real synths. I tend to use iOS synths for heavily effected sounds and use the hardware for bass & leads.
One thing I like to do though is run iOS synths through my hardware synths filters. The difference is quite drastic!
Funkbox 808 hats into the envelope follower of my SH-2
I use a combo and it isnt really an iOS synth quality versus hardware. More like, what is the cpu load for what I need it to do, what is the need and ease of tweakability.
So while the Moog apps sound still very epic next to my hardware Moogs, I use the hardware more because the apps take a lot of cpu. CPU I can instead use for low hitters that still fill an important role in a song.
For tweakability, while I could set up templates on my midi controller for any app, its just easier with the hardware synths for me knowing what every thing is going to do.
Eh I have incorporated a Novation Circuit into the setup. Many iOS synths sound better, but it is awesome in terms of tweakage with the macro knobs.
I use both... Well all 3 🤣
hardware, iOS, vst / au
Why not right!
Ableton is a great place to ultimately send EVERYTHING! But AUM, cubasis , ab all are a part of that path
That sounds great @BroCoast
I do as well. I use my iPad Pro as a module, in my larger system. That way, it doesn't have to be everything at the same time.
Yeah, the Circuit sounds okay but it’s not the most stellar synth. I do like using it on it’s own though. I need to make more sounds I made 8 sounds when I first got it and have been using them ever since. You can use it to control and motion sequence the iOS synths too if you want. It’s not a bad sequencer with only 8 patterns. The odd time stuff works well on it too. I originally got it to control the iPad, but found I like it just for fiddling about all on it’s own.
I mix it up with some real synths, but for the most part iOS stops me from buying real synths. I look at them and say oh that is neat, and then realize I can probably get something close enough from my iPad.
Right now my synth list is pretty small though. Bass Station 2, Novation Circuit, 3 original Volcas, and a Korg Kross 2 and Korg N1. That’s it. I don’t have a proper music space right now though, so iPad only is frequently what I do.
I do play hardware synths although some iOS synths can sound just as well if you know a bit about sound design. It's more about the knobs, the feel, the immediacy of programming presets on a hardware synth with enough knobs and buttons.
those guys are definitely not sleeping, they are brutally tweaked and sampled without mercy on daily basis :-) Obsidian multi-sampled patch banks are growing ...
I use hardware synths for quality, iOS for variety. The stability and hands on aspect of the hardware being more of a factor than sound quality. The real interest in synths is the plasticity and changeability of the sound, and that happens more easily with the dedicated hardware knobs. I don’t see much point in a hardware synth module with few knobs, with iOS sounding so good these days.
I love iOS for rounding out the synth collection with FM, wavetable, Phase modulation, physical modeling, and especially sampling.
Another winning aspect of iOS with hardware is midi step sequencing, apps like steppolyarp are amazing with external gear.
I love the effects on iOS too, some of them really outdo pedals, like altispace, emo chorus, effectrix, grainproc, the amp sims.
Yes I do, I have Circuit, BassStation II, Mininova and Electribe Sampler.
I don't use them as much as I'd like, I don't have space to have them permanently set-up so a lot of the time I just use iOS, but I'd really like a more adaptable way of working.
Like others have said, I find playing hardware more satisfying...there are some downsides though, needing cables and interfaces and the associated background noise this can create. The other main one is that projects become even more fragmented as patches are on the synths themselves and not within a project....the lack of program change in most apps makes this a worse 'thing' than it need be.
Thanks mate.
Absolutely man, I think where iOS is in its current state we have to accept that it can't be everything, to most people but it certainly can be a huge part of it!
I can, have and will make full tracks with just iOS with the things I have on my iPad's and iPhone and it is a great time.. With all its great synths, midi effects, audio effects, sequencers etc it deff can do work! But there still isn't enough of the kinda synths that you can find on desktop or hardware that are just down right massive... Hopefully that changes! But if not that's ok it's always gonna get my love for what it is, a small thin tablet with power we couldn't even dream of for most of my music career 😁
I overlooked it for a long time. Without tempo change automation, it wont work as a sequencer for me. Some Youtube algos kept suggesting demos to me and it finally clicked it was a nice compact little 2 synth module with a few samples. Not much that size with its own keyboard...or pad board. Though, I struggle a bit playing those pads, I am so used to playing a chromatic keyboard, or guitar, the whole setting stuff into a key is odd. I don't even own a capo lol. It has also impressed on me that I have way too many subtle key changes in songs. Not sure they really matter that much in hindsight.
iPad for me:
Recorder
Looper
Fx
and "iOS" specific touch apps that are not available in hardware form like GeoShred, Samplr, Ribbons, etc..
I generally use Alchemy or Synthmaster in Ableton for virtual synths .....
Mainly IOS synths because I’m mobile a lot but when I’m home I’ll definitely use my Microbrute alongside IOS synths. I wish my MB was battery powered too.
I just put the pads in chromatic mode and it has a strange kind of keyboard layout, but it’s chromatic. Hold Shift and press Note and you get 2 octaves chromatic, but loose the sequencer. It works for me for fiddling around, but there is no way I’d play them live like that. The auto scales I have a very hard time with. You can also manually adjust tempo. The Circuit is really great for live fiddling. Obviously manual tempo adjust for live is not very practical.
The most annoying thing about Circuit is you have to always put it in Chromatic every time you make a new session. I usually connect my 4 octave keyboard. You can definitely program some reasonable sound on it if you fiddle with the editor a lot. I need to get back into it, but I was doing sloppy live Circuit jams on YouTube a while back.
I now prefer to use with my hardware synths with my iPad more than Ableton. Faster setup for jams, no worrying about routing. Start AUM and ready to go.
A big part of this has been the surplus of midi and audio FX that have come out in the last year.
It's my DAW-less setup, heh.
I was able to connect my JD-Xi to Air 2 in the past but it was mostly as iPad as a module without an audio interface.
Haven't connected the JD-Xi to the new Pro 2018 yet with only USB-C. Got the HyperDrive and need to figure out early next month. There is a firmware update for HyperDrive and need to update that first so it can charge the iPad with its default charger (old version does not charge until we buy the heavy charger).
For the weekly jams I’ve used a Fantom X6 as a controller for the iPad Air 3 the past few times out, also used a Prophet 08. This week I’ll use a Radias. I am currently looking for a Crumar Mojo 61 to take to the jams. Demo’d it a Hammond Sk1, a couple of Nord Electros and a Roland VR730. Hoping to find a Viscount Legend Solo to play but I preferred the Mojo 61 over the others. Yesterday I sent a msg to the Swan dev. asking when an IOS version is going to be available - haven’t received a reply yet.