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
See screenshot above. Barricade has integrated loudness, short-term loudness, momentary loudness, and loudness range, all in LUFS.
Thank you! I did not know that.
@BCKeys you made the right choice !
So many passionate opinions... I’ll reconsider my position next time they go on sale. Apple’s exchange rate on the App Store is a little tough to swallow.
i'm curious about the inclusion of reverbs in both the FF and TB suites, are these reverbs particularly designed for mixing purposes? What distinguishes them from say, Blackhole or Eos?
Interesting. I’m going to test the TB Compressor a little more closely then.
ProC2 is really great. You’ll love it.
In Barricade it’s labelled LKFS but it’s the same thing.
They offer fine control over the reverb trails, with full page visuals to help you out. It's not just EQ either - you can set different frequencies decay at different rates, which is great for sound design, for solving problems, and for making things fit together.
thanks @colonel_mustard , I thought that might be the case.
Of course now I want both
OT but have you tried the Mani compressor? (https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/mix-bus-compressor/id1467711076). It is different again. Worth watching a vid. I like it.
There’s a video where they tested it against other compressors and it was the cleanest. No artifacts.
But it is a video by the developers though.
Take my comments with a grain of salt. I am very new at learning compressor and my ears are still not that used to hear to fine difference in compression.
I created a audiobus session with Rozeta arp feeding 2 instance of Sunrizer default preset (minus reverb).
One instance got barricade th other TB comp. Set threshold, attack, ratio, release the same in both comp.
Right away I could hear a big difference.
By playing with the range and the knee I got both to sound the same (to my noob ears).
That Mani compressor is low key really great and super low on your cpu
I really like it but I do have a couple of niggles: I would like to know the actual knee numbers rather than just descriptions, I don’t think it shows threshold value, and I would like a faster release option - it starts at 50ms whereas ProC and TB Comp start at 10ms.
OK, you can tell I have the day off...
So I had a bit of fun trying to match up the 3 compressors we have just been discussing. The levels are not perfect but you get the idea.
Ratio 4:1
15db knee (I had to guess the Mani comp knee)
Attack 2ms
Release 50ms
No lookahead.
-10db of gain reduction. (I overdid it to try to hear the differences more clearly)
I think the FF and the Mani actually sound pretty similar when the FF is on the Classic compressor setting.
The TB Comp is much more aggressive and just spanks the drums. Also, low end punch is much bigger in the TB, especially when you engage the Complex algorithm. The FF in Classic mode and the Mani sound much cleaner as @BCKeys noted.
I like them all lol.
Make sure you are gain matching when testing any compressor.
Here’s a cool way to learn about compression for anyone interested:
1. Set attack and release to their fastest setting
2. Set threshold really low and ratio as high as it will go, so you are just crushing the signal.
3. Set makeup gain so you can actually hear something because the output should now be pretty low
4. Start by just playing with the attack control and listen to the beginning of your notes to get a feel for how different attacks affect the sound. Decide on what sound you want and then leave the attack at that setting.
5. Now play with just the release, with attack where it was, and get a feel for how different releases sound. You should be lumping compression a lot at first, and this exaggeration will let you hear the release. Once you have it grooving with the music in a way you like, move to the next step
6. Lower the makeup gain (important!!!) to 0 again
7. Move the ratio to something sensible, such as 2:1, 4:1, whatever, just not infinity:1 right now (you can set it to that when using as a limiter)
8. Increase the threshold until you’re getting only the gain reduction you want, but when doing this I usually shoot for 1-4db.
9. Increase the makeup gain to get the amp volume you have when you bypass the compressor.
That’s from the book “Mixing with your Mind,” which is a great book. Once you do that for a while you’ll get a good feel for how to use compression for different tasks and you won’t necessarily do this process every time, but it never hurts to do it. Once you get a feel for this, then you’ll also get a feel for the different types of compressors, which will help answer the “should I buy” question. You’ll also appreciate the tone that certain compressors will impart on the sound, which is sometimes desireable. Sometimes you want something very transparent. But you’ll know the difference.
Presets on compressors aren’t very useful because they are very source dependent. You’d have to be working on the same material as the preset creator to hear what they heard. But, trying them see what they do as you understand how the compressor part interacts can be interesting,
Hope that’s helpful.
I prefer FF but went with TB for my iOS tools.
MDE is my all time favourite comp plugin. Very much a turn the dials till it feels good thing which is how I use my hardware comps.
“Mixing with your mind” is awesome.
https://www.mixingwithyourmind.com/
Here’s my quick version of the author’s compressor sequence.
Compressor sequence:
1. Reset
* Release: Quickest
* Ratio: Highest
* Threshold: Sensitive
2. Attack
3. Release
4. Ratio
5. Threshold
6. Soft clip
7. Makeup gain
^ This.
And in addition: when you compare compressors, you need to be aware that the definition of the attack and release times can be vastly different from one compressor and another. So setting the same attack and release time won't be sufficient. You'll need to match the actual release curve steepness.
The ringing part of the snare drum is very interesting in this example. Both the FF compressor and the Mani compressor sound warbling, restless, distorted.... Another indication that attack and release times aren't matched.
Great info peeps.
Level matching is not easy either. You can't see it but I had an analyzer in the chain and had tried to level match via the LUFS reading. But when I listened back during the recording, the FF still sound a bit louder to me so I took it down a db.
Like I said, just a bit of fun. But I do find compression fascinating. Once you really start reading up on it you find out about things like Hibert detectors and other curiosities (https://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-product-alert/1314355-black-rooster-audio-launches-kh-comp1.html). Can you hear all these differences in a mix? Probably not. But it is a fascinating study none the less.
yea its fun af, and rewarding when you learn some tricks that works on OLD STUFF you did, like going back to remix bad sht ive made before i read up and learned abit more..heh..you know..”put barkfilter on everything” tracks
Listening with my laptop speakers I couldn't speak about the bass but the difference was marked on the snare sound. The Mani appeared to change the tone of the drums the least. The ToneBoosters hollowed the snare out a bit tending more towards sounding like a Tom. The FabFilter added a bit of grit to the snare, much noisier in the higher frequencies.
I can hear that all might have their uses but the Mani sounded most transparent in this instance. Will also happily concede that if I had some decent headphones to hand then the experience would be quite different.
Thank you! I will try this weekend because I really want to improve with compressors.
I was watching the magic death eye compressor video that everybody raves about and I can only hear the difference when he went to the extreme settings. I was wearing my senheiser headphones too. I have much to learn.
The FF has different compressor styles so the Mastering mode might be more transparent. I just used the Classic to pick one.
If I understand LUFS correctly it’s an average over time, so you have to give it time to come up with an average. At least that’s what I’ve observed when I’ve looked at LUFS readings in various plugins.
But, one thing you said absolutely correctly- use your ears, they’re still the judge and meters don’t tell you everything. Meters definitely are helpful, but no one sees your meters when they listen.