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.
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Roland Zenbeats by Roland Corporation (Auv3)
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Best to contact them through in-app support. They will typically respond within 24-48 hours.
Definitely. Piano roll or step sequencer, basically the same thing, time code and midi message... hope they implement it soon. Funnily you can view a step sequence as a piano roll, switch back and forth, so it’s all there, really.
Trying out your “midi output” setting thing I did find something ineteresting. I was trying out ways to freeze the track (Ting). Midi out form the drum track can’t be recorded as midi on the Ting track, whereas the Midi Bus receiver plugin does enable you to record the midi (piano roll style obviously), so that you can then freeze the track. What a long road... and shabby, too. My midi recording is out of sync. Doing it “real time” like that does not produce good results, at least in my project (probably cpu lags). So yeah, it’s a pain.
Wishlist:
Easy peasy.
Thank you. I couldnt figure out the best way to contact them. Anyway, done. I love the look of Zenbeats. Looks way more fun and inspiring than Cubasis to me. Fingers crossed.
Hi @niktu
So sorry for the late reply here. For some reason, I stopped getting email notifications on this thread. I don't have an RME unit to test with my iOS device, but I'll investigate the sample rate issues with our current hardware. Most devices we do have are fixed at 44.1 but I should be able to get access to others soon.
@anickt and @tahiche . I like the thinking and the feature requests being discussed here and I agree this area of Zenbeats needs some attention. Feel free to hit me up via DM if you;d like to discuss specifics.
Talk soon!
Thanks Matthew. I've had a response from Ramon via official tech support and responded to him with a screen shot of what I'm getting. Should I just continue my correspondence with him? I'm not overly worried about 48kHz, now. I've come to realise that everything just gets too 'crashy' when working at 48kHz on an iPad, with an interface. But I'd still like the interface to be recognised so I can take advantage of RME's super low buffer settings.
I also have ADAT and SPDIF converters attached, to give me a full 18 anaologue inputs and outputs. However, I've tried unplugging these and get the same result. I also have a second UCX without add on converters, that gave the same results. So for me, this problem is repeatable on two UCX's and two different 2018 iPad Pros.
Great looking app btw. Sincere thanks for any assistance.
+1
Would be great to run other drum machines this easy old-school way!
+1
I guess I'm weird. To me a piano roll is hardly different than a step sequencer. With quantize on, they're both just a grid of notes in my eyes. And, you can zoom around and cut/copy/paste, quantize or not, nudge notes, in a piano roll in ways that are more difficult (IMO) in a sequencer.
But, more options are always good I guess.
Let me ask about storage and disk allocation.... If you have a “samples” folder somewhere in your drive and use those samples to make a drum preset... Are those Sample files copied to Zenbeats folder or just referenced?. I think they’re copied. I’m looking for a new iPad and storage is one of my concerns. Haven’t made much use of samples yet but I’d like to start.
I know I can use a external drive, but I’m pretty sure you can’t use samples from a external drive, those are copied to the local drive, but I’m not sure about sample files on the local drive that are used by various programs. Hope I’m being clear... cheers!
The answer isn't exactly simple. Yes, they are copied from their location into Zenbeats storage. But no, they may not take up extra space.
The iOS file system makes use of "symbolic links", which means a file may be physically stored in one place, but appear to be stored in more than one place. As long as the "copy" of a file isn't modified from the original, no extra storage is used. So, in most cases, actual physical storage use shouldn't go up in a case such as importing a file into an app.
From an external drive they will indeed be physically copied.
All I can say is if there is any one thing no one should ever compromise on with iOS devices, it is storage space. Better to hold off and save up for a device with more storage than to buy too little and always be fighting for space. An iPad can always be frozen at a certain OS level and remain useful virtually forever, but there isn't any way back from running out of storage space.
Thanks @wim. So in most cases the sounds are symlinked to the files, that makes sense.
And in the case of external drives they’re copied to the main drive. This is where it gets messy. If I recall correctly Zenbeats will copy those files to the Zenbeats folder... now if I use that same sample from the external drive in say, BM3 or a sampler... will it copied yet again to that apps folder?. That’s a mess.
Any good tips on how to manage sample folders and such to optimize storage?.
You're right about that. If you copy from the external drive twice, you'll have two copies. Your only option is to copy them once to a neutral folder on device, then from there into separate apps. In short, external storage isn't very helpful really for anything that you do want to use on device.
Audioshare has always been my master storage location for all audio file originals. However, it's never been completely clear whether AudioShare files are "separate storage" and result in a physical copy or not, so a separate folder within "On My Device" might be the best place for a central repository.
@wim now that you mention it... I never got the “save in AudioShare “ concept either!.
So external storage is only useful as a momentary “transfer to my drive” device. Ok, I understand although it’s kind of weird. Must be speed read access limitation or something.
Now that apps are interconnected, AUV3 and the new workflow, I feel like this file management is a bit “obscure”. Like it hasn’t been updated to reflect the new situation. It seems it’s a bit stuck in the “one app, one folder” ages that doesn’t really make sense anymore.
It makes sense if you realize a few things:
Although device power has grown hugely, iOS is still just a glorified phone operating system at its heart. Evolution takes time, especially when God Apple's heart isn't all that into it, and His their minions (developers) are working almost for free.
I'm a big fan of Zenbeats at the moment. Just so easy to get something started that I actually want to keep.
+1
Yeh, I keep farting around with other stuff because it's fun, but when I walk away and think that what I did might be worth taking farther, I realize I really shoulda just started it in Zenbeats. I can't say I have as much fun in Zenbeats as with just jamming around in AB and AUM, but it sure is the best way to get anything real up and going for me.
It’s definitely great for quickly building structure, though I either need to be patient enough to eliminate crackling plugins or export stems to Auria as the collaboration I did with @noob still has a few pops in it towards the end...
I’m fairly sure AudioShare is not “modern” Files and so files stored in AS will be duplicated when copied into other apps.
I agree ☝️ and suscribe. I even read point 2 and 3, although 1 was spot on and needed no further support. I just ordered a new iPad, 256GB, hope it’s enough, those GB are damn expensive.
Regarding security, sandboxing and coding impact... I might be wrong but I don’t think it’s such an issue, really.
Speed?. Sure, but ssd’s are fast and 10000% cheaper and more replaceable than a new iPad. Which brings us back to number 1. Always number 1.
“If the devil is 6, then God Apple is 7...”
It is actually quite a bit different on iOS. I know enough about iOS app programming to be confident in saying that. Making the transition to direct use of external storage directly is far from a trivial change.
My point was: developers can't assume or even know the speed of accessing files on external storage. An app doesn't know if you're on a crap USB2 stick or a fast SSD. Audio Units have to do all audio processing on the main thread and it has to all happen within the render cycle. It gets complicated fast when you have to accommodate unknown file access times. Can it be done, yes. Is it simple, and just a switch you flip in an app to use external storage? No. So my point was in reference to why developers don't just all flip that nice handy little compile flag. There isn't one.
But yes, it all comes down to #1. If Apple cared to, they could make life hugely easier on the storage front. The motivation isn't there. However, the slow wheels of competition are turning. As more apps like Zenbeats and Cubasis 3 become available on Android, and if Microsoft ever gets their mobile act together sufficiently, Apple will be dragged forward.
Ugh. Enough of me acting as if I know what more than I do. I just make this shit up as I go. Time to stop.
P.S. Good move on the 256GB iPad. That should last you a good while.
Hi again!
Is there a way to concatenate or group loop variations inside a clip in the clip launcher?. Let me explain... in clip view I have loopA in a track, but I’d like to, say, add a fill after every 3 measures so the clip would play “loopA, loopA, loopA, loopFill”. I’m no talking a new clip/scene/lane, I’m talking about making a new longer loop to play... since track clips only allow a single audio file I can think of 2 approaches but I don’t know how it’d go...
1) use a sampler or clip launcher in a midi track programmed to launch loop files in the order needed. So the midi clip would trigger the sampler to launch loopA x3 and then loopFill. Is this feasible?. Would ZB sampler work or what clip launcher/sampler would do the job?
2) make a longer audio file by pasting loopA 3 times and loopFill at the end. Then load that longer file in the clip session track. Is there a way to merge audio files this way in ZB?.
I love working on the clip scene mode while composing. It lets me work on song parts without having to commit to a song structure I haven’t decided yet. It’s easy to do with a midi part that you can edit, make longer, etc, but I’d like to be able to that with audio segments.
Cheers!
Trying out ZB SampleVerse for my previous post... I can’t find a way to add a second file to a sample bank.
Is the sampler limited to a single file when using custom samples?. Doesn’t make sense.
It is limited to a single sample. And yes, it doesn't make sense.
If you record you can get multi samples.
I don't think there's a way to concatenate audio in the clip launcher. It's easy to do in the timeline though. I was hoping you could do a multi-select in the timeline, then past to the clip launcher, but it only pastes one of the selected clips.
When using the clip launcher, I just add the "fill" to a scene next to the main one and trigger it when I want it. Or, I duplicate the scene and replace the clip with the "fill". With scene follow, you can easily have scene A loop three times then move to scene B.
The only clip launcher that I think might work for what you want is MultiTrack Recorder. But that seems like it would be a really convoluted way to go about it.
I own multitrack recorder, I see what you mean, I could arrange the clips one after another there and (supposedly) it would loop. It’d make sense to be able to do that in the clip within ZB itself.
@anickt i had seen your video. But this is about looping files, not recording. SampleVerse presets have multi samples, you can record multi samples, but you can’t use multi samples files.., it’s a huge problem and there’s no technical impediment. Just treat it like a recorded file...
What sampler would work to play loops on a midi clip?. I think that’d debe the more flexible approach. I tried NuRack, the new audio clip launcher is straight forward, but it doesn’t have a “choke” option which I need so that loops don’t overlap. Would you recommend any reliable sampler ?. Chamelleon maybe?. Just something simple to try and find a comprehensible way to trigger loops.
Wait... what if I try to do it with the drum instrument in ZB?. If I could make a really long sequence, I could assign the different instruments (bd, sn...) each to a loop, then make all into a choke group... I could then program the loop sequence there. Even apply different effects per loop. Gonna try that. I’m gonna need a really long sequence, though, and if I recall correctly ZB doesn’t have the option to slow down the step rate.
EG Pulse could work for this. Load looped or one-shot samples on pads, set up choke groups, then trigger pads from midi notes in the clip. DigiStix would probably work too.
I tried with Zb drum instrument, seems to work. But I I don’t like how you have to import the loops and they end up in the file browser mangled up with the rest of the drum sounds.
I believe Digistix and Chameleon work with their own audio pool which seems tidier for the purpose. Btw, do you think chameleon would work?.
I don’t know about eg pulse. Reading the description it says it’s got sample drag and drop. That seems handy.
Probably any one of them would do, it’s pretty basic functionality. Now it’s about which one has the most comprehensive and hassle free file management. EG Pulse is twice the price, but it does look a lot nicer that Digistix. Do you replace ZB Drum instrument with any of the above?.
@wim which one would you get?. I trust your judgement!. Cheers!
I can't comment on Chameleon since I don't have it. I have both Pulse and DigiStix but will need to try them out to compare for this purpose. I think what you would do is add EG Pulse to an Instrument, not drum, track. That would let you create tracks as long as you need, whereas the drum tracks are limited length. Then you'd just drop notes in to the clip to trigger pads in Pulse or 'Stix.
I tend to like DigiStix slightly better than Pulse as a drum machine, but they're both really good and have different strengths, and for this use case, how they are as a drum machine is irrelevant. I won't be able to do any testing for a couple of hours, but will try them out and get back to you.