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Because I’ve always been into emulation, I had the little dipstick sans amp as my first guitar unit.
I treated it gingerly but had to have it sent back to their shop in New York City for a repair that cost me about 70 or $80.
Once again, it doesn’t work and I barely use that thing. I have to say that I was not impressed with the longevity of mine. I have gear that still works perfectly from the 1990s
Yep, that was me. It was in my video here:
But to save you the trouble of searching through it for a screen cap, I put this together for you:
It's not necessary to use the reverb, but that's how I had it set up (basically) in the video.
2 instances of ThaFKnAR with 1st loaded with front and 2nd with rear OwnHammer files which are clearly labeled as such in the file name. Expensive on CPU spend.
But sounded massively AWESOME!
So many great tips on this thread.
Thanks @Daveypoo!
@McD, big CPU load is good to know. Wasn’t IMPUSAtion (or some other app) able to load multiple IRs in one instance?
And if so, how much would that possibly improve the CPU drag???
@SNystrom
Yes it happened to be the first folder I unpacked in Thafknar and after hearing those cabs I feel like that’s all I want to use. Excited to try the other cabs in the bundle as well. I like that so many of them are dual mic.
I could see it sounding too digital and without breathability back in the day, I feel like it works well in today’s emulation world. The high gain British sound is really tight, so it’s prickly and really in the slot, whereas a lot of these overdriven sounds today like in bias sound like trebly underwater farts.
It does a very good snarly Marshall high gain sound, it’s in the pocket and not flabby.
Just get the Taxi Drive already I’ll give you $5!!
@JoyceRoadStudios: “sounds today like in bias sound like trebly underwater farts.“
This is what makes you sooooo great: The ability to visualize and explain exactly what a specific tone sounds like!
For the record, whenever I would fart underwater, I always ensured my head was above the water in order to escape the deadly gas 💀💀💀💀😉
Both of those scenarios above would work fine. Looking at all the presets in Overloud, there are so many variations in the chains it’s quite a study. They put pedals in between the amp and cab all the time, or pedals only after the amp and cab. The manual claims it’s a left to right sequence but I find that hard to believe because many of the chains look circular. It’s not just with dual rigs or using the splitter and mixer. My guess is that every single amp and rig is equipped with an FX loop send and return, regardless if they are in real life. So this means you can do pretty much whatever you want. They definitely follow tradition with compressors and overdrives in the beginning of chain, but there are some truly mind boggling chains in there. Since none of the amps come with fx loop send and return parameters, I think they all have it. I see reverb on both sides, two delays in the same chain on each side, etc... Look at the rigs for example, the rig presets have pedals all over the place, but the rig’s cabinet is always attached to it right after. To change that you’d have to open one rig and disable the cab, and then open that same rig and enable only the cab, and then place it where you want it. So this all leads me to believe that no matter what’s set up in Overloud, Thafknar at the end of it all just enters the chain where it needs to. I think we have to trust our ears. It’s obvious what doesn’t sound good...
In AUM I begin with THU pedals like Compressor/Overdrive, then the THU amp or a Nembrini amp, then Thafknar. So this is why I wanted to see if I could insert another THU after Nemb or Thaf for delay and other modulation pedals. But it doesn’t sound good. I could try inserting more Nembrini fx before or after Thaf. The issue boils down to to two factors: if I stack all the THU pedals that I want to go before and after the amp, but what if there’s no amp, and it comes in the next app, what happens. And there’s no IR loader, if there was an IR loader then that could be placed before some modulation pedals inside the same app.... it all ends up coming out of the cabinet anyway, that’s the end point, so as you say gain staging the pedals is the important part, and Thafknar at the end can always work. I’m actually just trying to figure out where the amp should go depending on which amp from which app I’m using.
Anyway this just makes me want an app that can load IRs as well as foreign apps, would be lighter on cpu load. For now we have to get crafty and I’m determined to find the what and why...
OK well, that was enlightening. I busted out the old SansAmp GT2 ... and somewhat to my relief, found that I still can’t stand the thing.
This makes me happy. I was half afraid my taste was simply arbitrary and fickle all these years and I’d find that I didn’t still hate the GT2. Not even close.
I’ll happily stick to my minimal selection of Nembrini amps from here on out. (Sorry, I just don’t share the THU enthusiasm.)
👍🏻 @wim
I like alternatives, but so far Nembrini Is pretty awesome and love me some GE Labs and some AmpliTube offerings.
Perhaps when (if) Overloud has their Black Friday sale, I’ll explore further...
A majority of guitar guys here say they’re awesome, so I’m open-minded enough to go all-in when the price is right...
That’s fair, I love Nembrini and have most of their products, it’s what got me obsessed with iOS guitar apps in the first place. But I don’t judge apps based on how close they sound to what they’re modeling, since in lots of cases I wouldn’t know, I judge them by whether they sound good and feel good. Nembrini is at the top of the list as single amp masterpieces, and most of their fx are great too. But Nembrini needs an IR loader and its own amusement park with midi to build rigs out of their products. It’s great that in AUM you can midi map every knob of every component loaded. But I just loaded one amp followed by 4 of their effects on my phone and my dsp was hovering just above 40%. Ok so now I can turn effects on and off and turn knobs or bring one amp in and another out, creeping cpu load and everything mapped in AUM. Now with just THU loaded with an amp and 8 of their random pedals I’m looking at around 20% dsp. Furthermore I can midi switch between entire giant rigs and planned out pedal board patches, just from 8 pedals of one, to two amps and 10 pedals of another, or simply control one pedal board etc... then I have to think about midi mapping Nembrini plus fx in a timeline DAW for recording vs just all ready to go THU. if you’re playing and recording with one amp that’s one thing, but having an entire guitar universe that’s also AUv3 and in house midi with lower cpu load is another thing. Once TH-U does add an IR loader then it’s simply in first place, even in AUM we won’t have to load it on the outside anymore, causing a bigger dsp spike.
To be fair I spent a lot of time with Amplitube, Bias Amp and FX2, Vstomp, and Ge Labs the past few days. They’re all good! There’s plenty of free demos in all. There’s no need to spend any money to get decent guitar tone. But I have found that THU sounds just a little bit better, especially their rigs and pedals, and licensed sims like Brunetti and Randall. THU is the only one that actually excels in clean, crunch, and high gain. And without a doubt Nembrini and Overloud are the only ones that have been 100% stable for me. Lastly, all these apps are so cheap, I don’t mind paying to get to know them. Keeps me away from 2k guitars and amps.
Yeh, I get what it means for y’all. But I’m good. Got what I need, and I don’t need much. I don’t mind stringing a couple of FX and an IR loader together, and have saved channel presets in the hosts that I use anyway. No CPU problems either ... and I’m on an Air 2.
I’ve downloaded and eventually removed Overloud three times now. It just doesn’t do it for me. I’m super glad it’s so great for others though.
I really only stopped by to relate about the SansAmp hardware pedal revisit, not to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for THU.
Ta ta. 😎 ✌️
Apologies for coming off cultish or seeming like I’m dictating what people should buy. I don’t know enough about the iOS products that came before to be certain of anything besides what I personally like. I really enjoy reading your tech tips or hearing about your revisit to SansAmp, and tying in hardware experiences to our current virtual market very much interests me. I keep reaching for the Cali Reverb as my #1 partly because I owned a trem-o-verb combo 20 years ago. Same with the Music Man and Bassman rigs from THU vintage collection. Even I didn’t want any of their amps, I think I’d still get the all FX bundle just to have all those pedals. So in that same vein if there’s gear I didn’t like back in the day why would I reach for it now. My curiosity about all these apps and sounds outweighs the financial burden, at least for now. Maybe 100 more apps later I’ll have to stop.😆
There are plenty of apps, guitar or otherwise, that just don’t speak to me tonally or visually or for any number of reasons. I will often not invest past the demo. So naturally everyone is entitled to prefer different things. I’ve actually liked Nembrini and TH-U so much that I’m spending more time with the “alternatives” to see how foggy my googles are. Now that I’ve discovered loading my own IRs, it’s clear that cabinet modeling vs capturing is the most important thing. And that will make large portions of all these apps sit unused. When you say you’re happy with a few Nembrini amps, that’s actually how it would be in the real world. We would own 1 amp or maybe 2, and cycle through buying and selling pedals for our board, maybe replace a cable once in a while...
I’m just so pleased that we have so many choices now and that it seems like anyone can find what works for them. ToneStack (and for a few amps, the others) brought tone I could get along with finally, but the expressiveness just wasn’t there. I finally have choices that respond to playing nuances. I can play for hours and hours now without constantly stopping to try to dial in that missing piece. Imma very happy camper now.
In case anyone is still experiencing defective crackle when loading GE Labs in AUM... it only happens at default setting of 48kHz or at 96kHz. With AUM at 44.1 or 88.2 it sounds great. So standalone it either works at iPad’s default 48 or downsamples to 44.1 which makes no difference really. I’m still finding as IAA it crashes going back and forth between AUM and the app, so I have to load Thafknar first, then Ge labs in front, then leave AUM for GE and disable the cab and not go back. Sounds great, but going back to AUM is a crash. Still willing to figure this out because GE sounds very good.
I just can’t seem to get on with the IAA apps. AUv3 has so many advantages, even just being able to open windows inside AUM. Some IAA apps have the little AUM button so you can go back to AUM, and some don’t. But often clicking on that button causes a crash. Bias Amp and FX2 keep crashing over and over, input and output levels keep spiking and fighting for dominance with AUM. Amplitube sounds better and hasn’t crashed yet, but it does not play well with others. For exAmple, I can’t put THU pedals before or after an amplitube amp, and I can’t put a THU cab after an amplitube amp, doesn’t sound good. None of these experiments sound good with Bias. Just Thafknar after any of them sounds good. With Vstomp however, I can put thu pedals before and Thaf after and it sounds great. This is all convoluted but it must have to do with the signal getting confused between IAA and AUv3, and how my interface interacts. Toggling between AUM and IAA spikes my input. Really it’s AUv3 for the win in so many ways...
Great tips an analysis, @JoyceRoadStudios!
Will certainly safe a ton of frustration for the rest of us as we explore the myriad available configurations via AUM.
Thank you!
Not TH-U related, but FYI GE Labs is 50% off for presets slots right now. I expect myself to learn how to use this app better without hiccups, and who knows maybe AUv3 will come. Along with TH-U and Nembrini, I love how Ge Labs sounds so I’m going in. I really tried to get into the Bias and Amplitube and I definitely see the appeal, but I can’t seem to get on with it at the moment, will try again. I’m actually preferring VStomp with a few $2 amp purchases and Thaf (Vstomp claims to offer IR loader in App Store description but it’s nowhere to be found). Something to note about VStomp is the iPad and iPhone apps are separate downloads, but purchases transfer between both which is nice. Now if only those TH-U rigs can go on sale...
Cool. I keep downloading from their cloud and overwriting my 2 presets... I could use at least 7.
Still, $8... hmm.
I think I finally figured out how to make GE Labs not crash, I just played for 30 min and it was stable. The key was turning on “Run in Background” in Ge Labs. And in AUM it can only run in 44.1 or 88.2, otherwise bad crackle. Also “high measurement” must be turned on before loading GE, not after. It works if I open AUM first and then load GE, then I can control input and output with AUM and leave GE untouched. But If I open GE first and then AUM, then AUM doesn’t control the input gain and GE is the master. So I prefer to open AUM first. So happy to figure this out, it kept crashing all the time before.
Thank you - this is good to know.
One addititional tidbit: since GE Labs allows you to capture cabinets (among other things), you can set the whole wiring for capturing your favorite cabinet up in AUM - e.g. Thafnar with your cabinet, input from guitar (you can use an audio file), mappings to L+R channels and into GE - and once captured, you can now just use the cabinet directly inside of GE. In other words: GE labs does allow you to load your own impulse responses, but only in a roundabout way.
Which currenly only seems promised but not realized in THU.
Are IR's "additive" like this. Can we add the results of Thafknar GE into again GE and keep inputing new IR's? I've seen absoltutely crazy rigs in TH-U and still no noticeable noise. Does GE pass the crazy overuse test and NOT add noise. GE LABS is NOT an AUv3 app. Never mind. Maybe someone can test layering IR's and clear this up. The idea of modeling an input seems worthy of research... do I have to buy slots to save anything I make? I could alternate saves between my 2 slots purchased... I should buy a couple more. Only if this is promising. Since, TH-U I don't bother with GE or even Nembrini to be honest.
high measurement mode - read thats only for built in Mics, If Im not mistaken.
Yes the lack of noise in Overloud is truly astounding, and the high fidelity of this app is obvious, it could always go at the very front of every AUM chain. The amp sims sound amazing with Ownhammer IRs, pedals are the real deal. This app almost has it all.
I haven’t tried capturing IRs into Ge Labs, but after finally making it stable for me tonight, I can safely say this app sounds really great, and currently for $25 you get unlimited slots for the whole collection, plus some really neat tech that the other apps don’t have. Sound wise it’s basically everything Bias wishes it was. It has that squishy flavor, but with great feel and quality. If this goes AUv3...
Overloud will get an IR loader, they already have the cab for it. Nembrini will too. This will reflect what they already offer on desktop, even if the iOS loaders will be less feature rich.
I was too quick to praise VStomp. Yes it’s good but the amps can get harsh and signal distorts too easily. Sounds better with IRs. I got a couple $1 amps and put the brakes on.
Amplitube keeps favoring my right headphone for some reason. Could this be because I haven’t purchased the “dual” mic option yet? Also this app is expensive! But it sounds good!
After a long session in AUM with all the “guitar” apps, my ears are throbbing in pain but I’m ready to make a proclamation. The best sounding “guitar amp” apps are...
1) It’s a three-way-tie between Overloud TH-U,
GE Labs, and Nembrini. For iOS guitarists 2020 is a home run. Otherwise 2020 is a lasagna made of dirty diapers.
2) GS Vintage Clean. Not the exact same category but belongs on the list because it’s amazing.
3) Amplitube... an oldie but definitely a goodie.
4) Tonestack. Outdated but there’s some good tone to be found.
5) Bias. For such a huge and feature rich app, why does an E chord in Bias FX2 sound like a loud shart. Terrible low-mid response with no pitch center. Bias Amp sounds marginally better.
6) VStomp. A couple of great sounds, affordable.
7) GarageBand. Serviceable in a guitar pinch.
Honorable mention: Midi Guitar 2. Just because duh...
For my apogee jam + which disables the iPad speakers and has its own headphone jack, turning on “high measurement mode” seems to considerably improve the sound quality of my guitar input and audio output.
Have we beat this horse to death yet? No.
I shudder to think what I have spent on Amp Sims... is I'll just guess:
Overloud TH-U I'm at $84 but will need to spend another $100 more to get all the Amps, FX'es.
And then I'll spend $18-30 month for Rigs. Best money spent so far, tho'.
GE Labs $2 and I have it ALL and 2 slots purchased on sale.
Nembrini ~$90 for all the amps, FX'es and everything bought on sale - never full price.
GS Vintage Clean $8 rarely used but only because there isn't enough to tweak. Beautiful and boring. Like me.
Amplitube - this goes way back and it's well over $100. I don't like it. The Brian May is just not good.
Tonestack - I have it all and that's somewhere close to $100. Used a lot before this AUv3 era. Still like it but IAA... no thanks.
Bias - never went past the free stuff. Didn't compare to ToneStack for me.
VStomp - have played with the free stuff.
GarageBand - not going there... just on principle. It's purposely dumbed down and hobbled. It can't import MIDI for fucks sake. M-I-D-I... like it's hard for Apple? It's intended to sell iPads but not compete with the 3PVASV's (3rd Party Value Added Software Vendors). Apple loves it's 3PVASV's... doncha know. Customers too. So it's free. Not gonna use it.
Midi Guitar 2 - did you even want a Roland Guitar Synth? This is WAY better and cost me about $70 for everything. It makes my Guitar a cool MIDI controller and the mix of real, AUv3, Amp Sim, FX, Looper,
MIDI control to anything else I own. Every gigging guitar player without a band should own and USE THIS.
It's a fraction of the cost of a Boss Looper after you get a free iPad.
That's $464 dollars on guitar stuff over 10 years. Oh yeah, I paid a couple bucks for Amp One back in the day. $466. If I could do it all again I'd definitely get TH-U, MIDI Guitar 2 and Gain Stage Clean so they will
actually make Gain Stage Crunch... right?
@JoyceRoadStudios has paid about 1/2 of that just for TH-U stuff.
Why would you get noise in the digital domain? Where would it come from?
In a circuit it’s from random electrons moving in resistors and the like. That doesn’t apply in the digital domain.
What about my guitar that’s plugged in, the noise of the pickups, the cable, the guitar amps with obvious background frequency noise, the pedals with their own hissing noise, and then chaining several apps like that in series that have their own input gains and outputs. Lots of guitar apps are noisy. Nembrinis set at high gains are really noisy. But Overloud somehow gets the best signal to noise ratio, no matter how crazy the amps and pedal chains get. Noise in this context is frequency noise of tone shaping guitar gear and signal boosts, just like in real life. Combining guitar apps together in something like AUM cascades noise into more noise, unlike a keyboard synth which is silent when not played.
When do you sleep?