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OT: IOS music production lacking in......?
I want to ask this question just out of curiosity, but I totally feel “to each their own” so absolutely no pun intended:
Apart from workflow mouse/finger what are in reality the main differences today between a track professionally recorded on IOS vs a laptop? What is it that some people find is not possible on iOS? Does the lack of “it” somehow make the track differ in sound quality to the extent that everyone can hear it? For the record I have never heard anyone screaming out suddenly on a dance floor “OMG this sounds like crap, it must be made on iOS!”.
Is there some major technical stuff/effects/other that I am totally unaware of on a laptop that makes a huge difference? Or is it that some people just “like” doing their production in a specific way, which of course is absolutely fine? Or is it a long-lived thought with no substance nowadays that one “needs” a laptop and that a simple tablet somehow is not “good” enough?
Just wondering as I sit here totally overwhelmed with possibilities on my iPad to the extent that I am seriously thinking that I am going to buy a used piano instead....😊.
Have a great weekend everyone!
/DMfan
Comments
I love this question. Especially the part of "For the record I have never heard anyone screaming out suddenly on a dance floor “OMG this sounds like crap, it must be made on iOS!”."🤣😂😁
I think it's more of a perception. Most people are here because they see (in their own unique ways) the power of iOS in their art.
Personally, I think iOS is the modern day computer. A few years back, Analog gears were used and Steinberg (who made Cubase) worked on VSTs. VSTs were seen as inferior to Analog but now in modern day, they are the most critical tools used in apps like Ableton (e.g. Serum)
I say work with whatever works for you. I'm using iOS because of the ability to make a song from ANYWHERE. I can't take a laptop on the bus and make music easily as I do with an iPad or an iPhone. The ability to touch and interact with the instruments reduces my need for external gears, and the apps on it follow the same spirit as the developers who made the most popular VSTs on PC and Mac Os.
Receive Midi Clock Lacking in most IOS music apps. Many apps can SEND clock, but not receive. The big difference for me is the EXPERIENCE of playing and recording. I love to be able to press the play button on my midi keyboard and have DAW, Groovebox, drum machine .... play along in sync.
Groove rider is the glowing example of awesomeness when it comes to receiving midi clock and the way it is implemented. All others should take note.
Audiobus also does a decent job of receiving midi clock and passing sync along to IAA Ableton Link.
Processing power is the big thing missing. Trying to mix and master in a DAW has proved to be troublesome for me due to resource issues. So I’ve taken to doing most of that in AUM because it’s lighter. This obviously presents some workflow inefficiencies that could be solved with more processing power.
Also, overall development is somewhat slow and limited. Most developers are individuals and the market makes it impossible for them to live solely off their software, meaning they can dedicate less time to it.
Don't get me started on the impact of dancing on music as an art form. Good music can make me want to dance too but there's plenty of good music that isn't about dancing.
Anyway, you can make great music with IOS on an iPhone. It's just harder to get all the details right. But with effort you can do amazing work. Now the Apple watch is still shit
for making music but who knows what will be possible in 10 years for wearable tech.
Feel free to replace dance with any kind of music of your liking, it was just an example.
😊
At some point in time, I stopped considering IOS as a stand-alone platform. Right now I use my tablet as an instrument, controller and groovebox. But I do the final part of the work on the desktop. IMHO, ultimately it's a matter of a personal work process.
Most IOS Music Production software is targeted for making dance tracks: Beat making is the #1 category of Music Production apps. It's also where most hobbiest's focus their attention.
You can make excellent dance music with IOS with apps like Korg Gadget, Beathawk or BeatMaker.
Overtime additional musical categories will narrow the gap between desktop, laptop and tablet results. But they will always show differences due to the features people will tolerate like device heat, cost of basic configurations, ability to expand capacities (storage, RAM, cores, buses, I/O ports). There's a lot to be said for mobility as a core value for an artist: a complete music production environment in a small folder format.
What im missing the most is an easy way to draw automation, as well as an intuitive and easy way to arrange songs. I come from years on Ableton, and it has both of these things locked in.
I posed a similar question in another forum and got flamed a bit for being late to the party so to speak. I’m pretty new to iOS and music production in general, but most interactions on the AB forum have been nothing but generous and helpful so my hope was to open a dialogue similar to this. Chose the wrong forum I guess.
As @seonnthaproducer said, there was a time in hip hop at least where producers got absolutely roasted for using software over MP’s and SP’s, despite the fire they were putting out. Now software/vst’s (phone keeps autocorrecting vst’s to cats which is another discussion: “the limitations of cats in music production”) are the standard. I come from an era where dual tape decks, 4 tracks, old console record players and such were being used to make music with so much heart and soul that the crudeness of the implements used to make it was not an issue at all. In fact the limitations and flaws were a good part of the charm. Once saw a video of a dude playing a song on a one string guitar that was better than most music made in million dollar studios. Madlib, one of my favorite producers in hip hop, produces exclusively on iPad....and mushrooms but that’s neither here nor there. My point is that most times it’s the hand and not the tool and iOS to me at least is a very powerful tool in the right hands. Far easier and more powerful than the equipment used to make most of my favorite music. Great topic @DMfan, fun to explore.
I think it really depends on what your workflow is and what you expect. While I know I don't have access to all my DAW VSTs and editing programs, I'm not really "missing" anything. I know making music on the ipad/iphone is going to be different but I don't mind it all that much as it forces me to work differently than I normally would.
For instance, I jam way more on my ipad than I do on my desktop. The workflow just feels way more fun for performance and I can run the ipad through my sampler and tape machine much easier. I think I just enjoy the ipad experience as a whole vs. a laptop.
It all depends on the genre. Pro tracks are possible on iOS for sure.
But where iOS lacks for me personally are some FX and especially good sample libraries...AND LOGIC
So while i did tons of tracks on iOS only i could not do the things i want now only with iOS tools simple because they do not exist there (yet).
Its also about workflow and not only the end result.
Xequence!
I think these are the two big things. But I also think those 2 things will gradually increase over time.
For sure. At least I certainly hope so. I did definitely notice a dramatic difference between mixing and mastering on my iPad 7th Gen and my new iPad Pro.
@Zerozerozero i do use xequence, but its still just not the same to me. In ableton you can just click on whatever parameter or knob you want to automate, and then boom, and automation lane opens up for that parameter. So easy. Having to route everything around in xequence, remember which cc is what etc, is just so much extra work.
I also seem to have weird timing issues with xequence + AUM. I just got audiobus though, and have noticed better timing stability, so perhaps ill try again.
ableton is missing!
i know there are apps that let you launch clips and do some similar things but still...i miss ableton. i love all my ios synths/midi effects/ aum etc but i just wish ableton would drop a lite processer friendly version and maybe down the road have M4L options.
other than that processing power and just a few things that require too many work arounds that can disrupt the workflow i do em cuz i love ios but song arrangement can be a daunting task
I think arranging is the main difficulty. It's definitely not sound. The concept of the platform influencing the sound quality went out with analog hardware, but the myth continues.
It's just harder to deal with large numbers of tracks and longer pieces on a small device, with the interface limited to touch gestures, the performance limitations, and with no DAWs really with the large development teams that desktop DAWs can support.
That said, my creativity is NIL on a desktop. I just freeze up and cannot create anything. I also simply can't afford anywhere near the breadth of creativity inspiring apps on desktop. iOS frees me up in every way. It is the jam room / studio. Desktop is the engineering booth where all the good bits get put together ... in the rare event that there is enough worth keeping.
Can you finish things that are just as good as desktop on iOS? Definitely. Is it easier on desktop? Usually.
When Propellerheads Reason first came out, everyone I knew dissed it.
They said, the sound was crap, the samples were
nowhere near the quality of a standalone sampler.
The audio engine was s!!!te.
The inbuilt synths and stuff were not acceptable for a track.
I disagreed.
I made it one of my mainstays as a creative tool for a number of years.
I had no complaints from my former clients.
Head nods everywhere.
That was then.
Now we have iOS.
I've been playing some of my tracks to quite a few of the
creatives that I know and not one has complained about
the fact that I made the tracks on an iPad.
Not one.
In actual fact a couple I know took their child's
iPad and turned it into a portable studio after
hearing what I had done.
The most serious criticism so far has been,
'volume is a little low. I had to max the sound on the iPad just to hear the beginning. ✌🏽'
I think in some respects we are fixated on the ,'iOS platform', part.
We love the fact that these tools, that people see as toys, can create such
amazing sounds and we are the few amongst the many.
The one thing that iOS lacks?
Stable consistent midi.
I personally am happy with the quality, the variation and
it's a pleasure to create using the apps from the iOS community.
For instance I recently mastered a track for a client using AudioMastering.
No complaints.
I may not get another desktop again.
All good points. Desktop is really now just my final assembling at the very tail of the end. It is not conducive of a creative vibe for me anymore either.
I do still have this fantasy of some touch based timeline audio arranger that would let me arrange loops and long wav files. Every now and then I nerd up and sketch out the UI and tap on it like it exists. I am thinking I would approach it in a way that there is no midi or external instruments, only internal and AU fx, the BPM is already established (no tempo change needed for me) and approach it like a palette of exported stems that could just be quickly ‘finger painted’ onto a timeline. Select the range of the clip from the palette then smear it on the timeline, adjust pitch, pan, eq, reverse, stretch etc after the smear (or specify before) etc etc It certainly wouldn’t be a ‘please all people’ attempt at all but just a distillation of what I mostly end up doing at that final desktop phase, but leveraging touch to actually make it quicker and more fun. A boy can dream.
I really can't think of anything on desktop that is impossible on iOS today.
There's quite a number of workflows that are much easier and faster to do on Win or MacOS but almost everything is covered on iOS, sometimes requiring workarounds.
Some notable exceptions like Melodyne exist but no question, high quality mixes and even masters can be produced using just iOS apps and the appropriate knowledge.
Pretty much exactly this.
I’ve been married to Logic so long that it’s my hardwired baseline for manipulating audio. That speed and precision of mouse with keyboard shortcuts helps dissolve the process into invisible muscle memory.
I have to remind myself of how clunky Logic felt for the first months(!) of use. The difference with dedicating to iOS is I have Logic as opposed to when dedicating to Logic I had nothing (audio file editing wise).
“...and the appropriate knowledge” - @rs2000
Have you checked out Zenbeats? It seems to me what a stripped-down Ableton might look like.
This might be interesting on the topic:
Not precisely a iOS production problem, but I would love if atleast iPadOS had some depth to it in terms of settings. After the most recent OS update my LaunchKey was being recognized as a hardware keyboard and the popup keyboard would not appear. On a Mac this would be a benign and easy fix, but on iPad my option according to Apple Support is to reset all content and settings on the iPad. I would certainly like to not have to do that if my iPad is going to be my main tool for making electronic music....
same on ipad/desktop , any platform.. just a set of tools, you still need to paint
Agreed.
I strongly agree with this regarding arranging. It’s so much easier in any desktop DAW because of mouse, keyboard, UI, etc. working with a lot of tracks can be done, but it’s definitely quicker and less error prone with M/K then your fingers. Everything is less precise and that slows down the workflow for me.
BUT, in the end, those things might not matter to you. If you need speed and precision then maybe you should just go desktop. If you don’t care or you don’t mind the tedium, maybe do iOS or both. If you like to do sound design and arrange later, both seems great. Personally, I like doing iOS just to say i did this on my iPhone or my ipad and it’s pretty satisfying. That’s enough for me, it’s just a hobby. I’m also perfectly content in Ableton.
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i do love zenbeats , its where i go when i need to daw something... it’s def the most abletony thing i just still wish ableton would! i’ve been using them since ableton 4 and just really feel comfy there but i’m getting better at zening!