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.
Loopback as a substitute for IAA
Because Apple has officially depreciated Inter-App Audio and I don't know when it will be gone...
And because I love Mono-Poly and many other apps that are not AU-v3...
And because I do want to use the upcoming iPadOS to store music files on external drives...
I'm thinking if a hardware Loopback might be a way to keep using IAA Apps, once IAA is gone.
I've heard that certain audio interfaces provide a loopback feature. I've also read that some people have simply plugged an audio patch cord from an interface output into the input on the same interface, to get iPad audio output to loopback into the same iPad as an audio input.
But that's a bulky solution. And now I'm wondering (hardware wise) what it would take to build "dongle" that plugs into a lightning port, or a USB-C port, and does nothing but function as a hardware loopback. Maybe it could also have a headphone jack for the iPads that don't have one.
The idea would be, that as long as background audio doesn't also get depreciated, or internal Midi routing. Any music App that can still run in the background and send audio out of the iPad, should hypothetically be available to use in most DAW's as an external audio input (via external loopback).
And, if DAW's like Cubasis would allow their on screen keyboards to send out external Midi with an audio track selected, then those old non-AU-v3 Apps might continue to be useful.
Side note...
I just discovered if I first create an IAA Audio track for Mono-Poly in Cubasis, then make a new MIDI track in Cubasis, and assign "no instrument" to it. I can route it's midi out to Korg Mono-Poly. Then make the "no instrument" Midi track active, open the Cubasis keyboard, and I can "then" use the Cubasis keyboard to play Mono-Poly from inside Cubasis. It will record a midi track in Cubasis that will play Mono-Poly. Then I made the Mono-Poly audio track active, hit record again, and the midi track will play Mono-Poly and record it's audio onto the audio track, all without ever leaving Cubasis! (It's new to me anyway).
Comments
Basically all IAA apps are supporting also Audiobus. Michael wrote that after Apple removed IAA he will found the way to preserve AB working. Which means all IAA apps will be still useable with AB for audio routing (eg. recording into your DAW of choice)
So, no drama here
The drama reaction to the 'IAA is deprecated...' really surprised me, even more as it was posted that such things are common in IT.
It's not doomsday for the respective item, but a hint to better start new works based on more current alternatives. From ages ago I remember the Oracle network driver released on MacOS 6 that survived all releases of the classic OS (unchanged !) and made it into OSX until Apple removed the PPC emulation, iirc it lasted a decade after being 'deprecated'. /ot
Routing through external channels (either software or hardware) comes at the expense of latency and (possibly) some degradation by the multi-conversion process, depending on gear.
Afaik there's no smart way to compensate such hardware induced latency atm and software can be puzzling.
Leaving out details here, but it doesn't work in the most current release of Pro Tools either, if 100% reliability is demanded. Most cases will be covered, but there are exceptions.
Automatic latency compensation was introduced in PT 6 or 7
Audio interfaces with a routing control panel and additional 'virtual channels work quite well in this context.
Latency in this context doesn't refer to timing problems, but to a different mix result if a channel is delayed for a few samples up to a couple of milliseconds.
Monitor result may be different from mixdown and monitor location/routing does matter.
Otherwise it's fine.
I hope the basis for how Michael's solution (however it might work) will be based in functionalities that will remain intrinsic within future iPadOs updates.
I think the reason I panic (personally), is because I'm relatively new to iOS music, have invested money in quite a few IAA Apps, I enjoy them, and it would just plain suck to loose use of certain Apps. Especially now that I've bought most of the Korg Apps, and none are yet AU-v3 at this time.
Perhaps for me there's an element Déjà vu here. I had invested thousands of dollars in desktop publishing software for OS-9 in the 90's. I made sure I bought the last G4 Mac that could continue to run my OS-9 software, and that gave me about an extra 5 years of of continued use with my old software. Today I sometimes I miss my old familiar software. Sure there are better tools available today, but I no longer do pro photography, and have no real need to invest in "modern" applications. Yet there are times that family members ask me to restore and old photo, and I at least have an old copy of Adobe photoshop elements, that is basically Photoshop 5.5 for OS X. And I can boot into an older version of OS X and work on an image in a way that I am very accustiomed to.
I think I may be reacting to the depreciation of IAA, the same way I reacted to the depreciation of OS9. However Apple will not allow me to boot into older versions of iOS like I can do with Mac OS.
you don't need to be afraid.. in fact IAA will be most probably there at least one more year if not more - deprecates doesn't mean dropped in next big os release for 100% ...
AB will work also without IAA (Michael wrote it somewhere, he will siply change some par of AB code which now relies on IAA and it will work again)
And if somewhere in future Apple announces that from next big version of iOS IAA will be removed, then you simply stay on your device with lates version where it works and ventually you buy other device for new iOS (that is what i did before 32bit apps drop, i still have old Ipad mini 2 for iOS9 and apps like Nanostudio 1)
I don't think this is a very good solution. I want everything on one device.
I just don't want to loose the ability to use the non AU-v3 App's that I already have. I live on a budget, and when I got into iOS music, it provided me with a relaxing, stress reducing activity, that I enjoy very much.
I love the iPad so much that I bought a second one on sale, and I bought a second Lightning Camera Adaptor when Apple announced they were deprecating the Lightning port. I can't afford to participate in Apple's game of planned obsolescence. So I think of ways to work around "potential problems".
If a time comes where I have to get an audio interface and use one of my iPads as a sound module, and the second as a DAW. It provides with comfort to think I may be able to find ways to find work arounds is the case Apple does something in the future that makes certain great Apps that I like "obsolete".
I don't "want to" have to freeze one of my iPads to the last iOS version that lets me continue to use my Apps. Doing that would cause me to purchase a third iPad during the coming Christmas sales. Because I use my iPad to for than just music. I need to be able to have an iPad that I can keep up to date.
I apologize if I'm coming across as "overly dramatic" over the deprecation of IAA. But I am genuinely concerned, because I don't know if the next iOS update will be the one that "wreaks" my iPad, and Apple then makes it impossible to down-grade back to a previous OS.
Some people have "Therapy dogs", I have a "Therapy iPad"....
Two basic questions from me: does a loopback interface always allow you to sample from Spotify, Youtube etc.? What is the cheapest interface with this loopback option?
sorry, that drama attribute was in no way related to your post - it's about the general way this announcement is discussed (at least in this forum).
There's no need to remove the interface/lib from the OS. IAA is small and doesn't interfere with anything if not in use.
At some point in time it will be expected (by customers) that developers release only AU stuff, but that compatibility luggage is tiny in comparison to other OS parts that won't get used either.
2nd hand iPads are rather expensive (in relation to other platforms), but the more tricky part is to find one that hasn't been updated to the latest IOS version.
I get where your coming from having been through an "update from Hell" with Apple.
The OS 9 to OS X "upgrade" was a historic event for a tech products company.
Marketing tried to treat is as a big update but the two operating systems, OS 9 and OS X, were completely different code bases and deserved more transparency for the users but marketing "spins" and customers just get dizzy (or nauseous).
When Apple terminated Steve Jobs for John Sculley he started a competing computer
company and made a new operating system that was largely based on the Mach "Unix" variant. In this process he saw that the multitasking features and the available code
for Unix enabled many state of the art features at very low development costs. Google did the same thing a decade later to make Andriod which is a mix of linux and Sun's Java "Virtual Machine".
So, OS X required every developer in the considerable Apple "Independent Software Vendor" space (IVS's) to port their apps at great expense and hope customers would follow. The big dogs did and a lot of smaller dev's just moved to Windows ports and waited to see if Job's "big move" would play out and customers would follow him off the cliff.
Sun Microsystems did something similar by leaving Berkeley Unix for the AT&T System V variant in SunOS 2 (later branded as Solaris). It worked and Unix variants completed killing off all in house OS'es.
What Apple is doing with IAA is just alerting developers that Apple will (at some future OS release) tell developers that they can't submit bugs against these code interfaces. Smart developers will find work arounds where possible but most will painfully re-code to AU interfaces.
@Micheal will code solutions for legacy problems where possible and keep selling and supporting AudioBus which helps today solve a million little Inter-App issues like sync'ing and such.
Finding a stable OS/Hardware platform worth investing in is what the market does. For portable devices IOS is still the best option. Android runs on a lot more (cheaper) hardware devices and will get closer but for "low latency" applications you need to have solutions that
constantly seek to trim excess fat and improve throughput, attach to new external interfaces, offer a price competitive array of best in class solutions and have a great developer program to keep new innovations coming.
IOS 13 will bring me a lot of features I want so I'm willing to keep my seat on the apple software train. I did buy a ChromeBook for more secure email/web browsing that set me back $150... thanks Android.
Following the human drama of tech is a mix of science fact and Game of Clones.
Here is a way to do loopback digitally with iconnectaudio4, and AUM.
In iconfig>audio patch bay, you can route your usb (iPad) source to any audio input, including the same device. On here I sent the iPad (usb1) main out/ 1+2 to an auxiliary input, 5+6. Then in AUM, set the input of a channel to input 5+6, and the output to a bus, going nowhere. I could record that channel, and capture the main output of the iPad. Note, you need to send the channel you are recording to somewhere other than the main out, or it will feedback!
I’m not sure how you would record one instrument while listening to another (or a daw), if both insist on outputting their audio to the main outputs, and don’t have a choice where you route the audio output.
Pretty clunky but it does work, if you are desperate. The fidelity is ideal. You could rip Y0utube or N3tflix audio in this fashion, and it is pretty future proof.
Yes you can sample from ANY app if your interface has loopback. Cheapest currently that I'm aware of are the PreSonus Revelator io44 and the Zoom AMS-22. Stay away from the iRig junk.
I don’t think Apple will remove IAA anytime soon, to me it looks like it is somehow interconmected deeper to their entire audio API ecosystem, much more than they are willing to admit .. Even when you compile app in Xcode, to have full support of AUv3 APIs, you literally need to enable “inter app audio” :-)))
I may be completely wrong, but inthink IAA is here to stay for a quite some time :-)))
I wonder if someone could write a Auv3 to IAA wrapper?
Sorry, I don't understand what this would do and what it would be used for.