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
I hadn’t thought about what an amazing idea this is. Especially when the desktop intro price on rigs is $19-$29. Really good thinking.
Did some more playing with the Tele Deluxe (humbuckers, probably the closest Fender will ever get to a Les Paul in sound [though still lacking that classic Gibson woodsy neck pickup tone]), and what is normally a pretty dark sounding guitar (I’ve only held on to it because it was a limited edition of 750 and it looks killer) really came to life with the Twin65 rigs.
Now I’m dying to get a couple more non-Fender rig packs, but where to begin. Any word on the Voxes or further recommendations? Apologies if I missed any coverage on them. I admit I only scanned a few pages back. Edit: saw you mentioned the Mesa Boogie, not too big a fan of that sound. I’ll check out the Fried one though. Still curious about the Voxes, the grail for super fragile sparkle. Then again, maybe I’ll just grab the Bassman...
Bassman is on opposite side of Fender spectrum. Highly recommended. Or Soldano
Too many to recommend! Kind of depends on which guitars you use and what you’re looking for. The BHS Soldano is an amazing rig, if that’s your thing. Big thick warm roudy ‘80s kind of tone, but much more than that. It’s actually 3 separate amps in one rig, The Slo100, Slo88, and SloHiwatt. Huge amount of profiles and presets, but it leans toward warm mid gain to high gain. Also Clapton, Lukather, Santana kind of tones, warm full overdrive but not distorted. Very pronounced mids.
I really love the Choptones Vox AC30 rig. I much prefer it to the Heritage 30 rig, because it’s Choptones. It is quite full and rich in the lower mids though, so turning down the bass a notch and the treble up a notch could sound better for you. I wouldn’t exactly call it fragile, but it’s a really stellar capture. The Heritage is good but being a native th-u rig, to me it’s a bit thinner and more boxy or compressed.
The Bassman is gold, it’s kind of like the Twin 65 with a bit more balls when needed and the overdrive profiles and presets are better. For me it can also do a pure rich clean. In comparison the Edge is considerably more scooped and compressed. Don’t forget about the Tremolux, vintage chime beauty.
Too many non-Fender rigs to recommend, Brit 1987, Tone Impera, Fried Betty. Suhr very good with single coils for higher gain. Are you looking for clean only?
Many people like the th-u native rigs and those collections, I like the Music Man rigs from those the most. Mine is not the only opinion, but I think the choptones and bhs rigs sound the best.
Don’t spend too much money, cut yourself off at 3-5 rigs instead of 35!
Ok I’ve been searching ariund a fair bit trying to resolve some stuff but have a few questions, sorry for any noobishness:
I play a casino and my dream sound is through The vibrato channel on a fender deluxe reverb 65. I’m hoping to get the best I can through iOS. I see there’s a blackface deluxe reverb in the vintage classics 1 in th-u, though I think this is a thu made rig and others have suggested the chop tones are better. I also see a chop tones twin 65 many people recommend. Are their any opinions about this, and if one is better quality given my preferences? Really appreciate any help.
also impulse responses confuse me. I’ve never used them. I’ve used loads of amp modelling etc but I was wondering if I should be looking into this to achieve the deluxe reverb tine I want. And if I did... are ir files just for the cabs? That’s all I could see online. If so I couldn’t just play with one of them through thaknar or whatever it’s called as no head. I dunno... I’m ignorant about them. If it would be worth loading one for a deluxe reverb cab into Thu - in short please help
Thanks
Oh also is there some cheaper way to get a load of rigs like with a desktop bundle that then allows cheap or free of 1 dollar iOS ones? Sorry I got really confused reading if anyone could clear that up would be great
@JoyceRoadStudios is this the pedal unit you are using and do you love it?
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FBVExp2--line-6-fbv-express-mkii
No not that one, I was told by @steve99 that the Express has limited functionality with iOS and non-Line 6 products in general, and since he’s the Midi guru I would say this is fact.
I have the Shortboard Mkii and it’s absolutely fabulous, but it’s bigger than the express. Not sure what country you’re in but if you look every day on reverb.com and one pops up for $100 it’s usually gone in 5 minutes. They’re usually priced $150-$200 used. There’s a new mkiii that stores sell but I have no clue if it works on iOS. I snagged mine used for $115 total and couldn’t be happier. You have to make sure it’s says “Shortboard mkii” on the actual front of the unit. Often people sell the mki and list it as an mkii, but mki does not work. Great clicky buttons and pedal than can be resistance adjusted with a hex. It comes with an Ethernet looking chord for a line 6 amp that’s useless, but it also comes with the usb-b to usb a cable so you would connect the usb a to iOS via hub, or better yet, to a wireless midi dongle (more on that below). That’s how it gets its power, from the usb b connect or the line 6 connect, so it’s “bus powered” in a way. So you can use a powered hub as many do anyway with iOS, or if your interface has usb a midi in you can use that, or wireless midi dongle. I don’t think you can use a usb B to 5pin midi connect if that’s what your interface has, because that doesn’t supply power and for this reason usb b to 5 pin cables don’t even exist as far as I know.
Now the real reason I love the Shortboard mkii: many midi units don’t have a way to be programmed on iOS because they don’t have an app or are meant to be used with hardware or desktop software. So a lot of midi pedals are not class compliant and it can be really hit or miss. For the Shortboard and other Line 6 products, there’s a free software you download for your PC or Mac from their site, and it lets your program the shit out of it in terms of exactly what messages belong to which buttons. It gives a visual diagram of the pedal and you can program it anyway you like like on an excel sheet, there’s no limit to the options. You would then save the diagram and it will stay like that inside the unit for the rest of your life, unless you want to change something later. The reason you do this is because the used pedal will come pre-programmed to how the last person had it, so don’t expect it to just work with iOS plug-and-play, I had to completely reprogram mine. So I assigned CCs to each button and programmed the pedal to what I needed it, and it’s a one and done. Then when you open th-u it’s piece of cake midi-mapping just like a state of the art pedal. Click on a button, th-u automatically assigns the CCs command/message. The buttons can have dual commands, program change, continuous, momentary, latching, everything! You can even program how the lights behave on the pedal so as not to get confused with on/off actions. So 20 minutes on a desktop and that’s all you’d need, you’d have yourself a perfect pedal board that doesn’t skimp on anything. Make sure you download the right software from Line 6. There’s even a reset and update firmware you can do.
I connect my Shortboard mkii via Yamaha UD-BT01 wireless midi dongle.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UDBT01--yamaha-ud-bt01-wireless-bluetooth-usb-to-host-midi-adapter
It even comes with the proper cable! Often times the Shortboards are only sold with the amp cable and you need your own usb b to usb a, this solves the problem. I connect the Shortboard via cable to this dongle, and connect the dongle to an iPhone charger dongle which goes into the wall. So the pedal is wired to a dongle and a power source, but the signal is wireless. And you can use this dongle for a keyboard or any other device that you want to have Bluetooth midi, so the function isn’t tied to one device. Then I use the app midimittr on iOS so that the Bluetooth dongle is discoverable, but it’s a one time thing and then the device is always available in the background without opening the app again. Yamaha also has an app for the dongle where you can update firmware.
From there, you have a Bluetooth midi pedal board that works flawlessly, absolutely no latency with th-u. I’m sorry this is so long, but you know I’m all about details! Any questions?
https://reverb.com/p/line-6-fbv-shortboard-mkii
Here’s one. I would offer this dude like $90 right away and not look back. It doesn’t come with the usb cable, but also this price doesn’t come along. Cheers!
Edit: I told you it would get snagged in 5 minutes, was it you?? I only got mine because I saw it 3 minutes after it was posted.
Yeah I had to stop myself from going down this wormhole and go back to the Strymon for the heavy lifting. I definitely like what I bought, though, and will use them plenty.
@JoyceRoadStudios Any chance you have a recommendation for a hardware guitar compressor pedal? I have a Walrus Deep Six right now, but it's become a bit too squishy for me over time. Starting to feel the need for transparency.
It could depend on the guitars you’re using, whether the pickups are vintage spec or not. The Deep Six is a True Bypass, which implies transparency, but in some setups could lead to signal loss. You may want to look at compressors with Buffered Bypass, or switchable True or Buffered option. So many options really, like the Boss CP1-X, JHS Pulp Peel, Strymon OB-1 Opto comp, TC Electronic Hypergravity Multi. I love almost everything TC Electronic, their black and purple Stereo Chorus pitch mod flanger combo pedal from back in the day was my absolute favorite pedal of all time, those cost an arm and a leg now if you can find them. I sold mine for a profit and regret it. I also love Opto Comps because of the vintage character they bring, hence the Strymon OB-1. Strymon has other compressor pedals but they’re too expensive. As for me, I have an old BBE Opto Comp that I won at goodwill auction and love it, but it’s hard wired true bypass and pretty cheap. Surprised you don’t like the Deep Six but I’ve never heard it so I wouldn’t know.
There is so much variation with what compressor pedals do, I wonder if you can just buy and try and return until you find the one. Even the Boss-EQ 200 can be dialed in as a compressor!
You saw it snagged because I snagged it. Thanks for your help
Nice! They keep their resale value as you can see so you can always resell. And don’t thank me thank @steve99 it’s all his idea!
Do either of you guys have a configuration file? Or do I have to set it up from scratch etc.
Now you’ve got me dreaming I’ll get a call from Line 6 saying “we need you to come and help us design (and endlessly test) the ultimate Bluetooth iOS foot controller”... although perhaps that’ll just give us the ‘Homer Simpson’s car’ of midi
Ok, if I want 80s hair metal/80s Fleetwood Mac (Isn't it Midnight, etc) Prince (at his most distorted/drippiest, Purple Rain album). Ripping 80s guitar-pop distortion or fuzz at the touch of a finger. Any recs??
@JoyceRoadStudios sorry to tag you with yet another question, but you're too helpful for your own good. Thanks for the compressor recs. I see the Strymon OB-1 has been replaced with a new boost/optical compressor combo. $300 is pretty pricy for a compressor though, not like I'm recording for more than fun and a few people to hear these days. Might look into the JHS, I have his Colour Box v2 right after the Deep Six and eventually leading to the Iridium, and it's fantastic at any type of pristine clean/overdrive/distortion/fuzz, especially in combination with another OD pedal. Sorry I rambled.
One thing to consider is that as awesome as the Iridium is, your pedals in front are not driving tubes. It’s quite possible that some pedal fx could be perceived as too prominent, because there isn’t a real cabinet moving air and diffusing the effect in a space. I wonder if simply redialing the deep six could lead to a better result for you. Compressor pedals are so so different, like I would recommend the Boss CP1X but it also totally micromanages every aspect of your playing. A simple compressor with buffered bypass could be what you need, if you feel that true bypass is sucking some tone.
I love Purple Rain and his drippy overchorused guitar sound he achieved without a chorus. In terms of production value it’s one of my all time fave albums period. But you must consider that he was using a Mesa Boogie Mark ii, which helped with the quacky funk sound, and it was also his Boss pedals that got him that sound, the combination of the flanger and vibrato pedals to get that deep set chorused tone. One must consider pedals and fx in all this and even the hair metal stuff, because the dry rigs by the themselves won’t get you there except for the baked in distortion or overdrive in the profiles. The presets that are surrounded by thu pedals will definitely get you there, and luckily all the rig preset banks use pedals already available in Th-u free, for the most part. The presets that use the other pedals will say “For th-u full” but those are very few.
So in terms of metal stuff there are two schools, either super thick textured assault or really scooped and in your face metallic sounding. Or the middle ground (Marshall, Peavey). I actually think a good Marshall amp with fx can get you both 80s metal and Prince (Brit 1987 for example). I would very much recommend a few Rigs that can do both 80s metal and pop. Those would be the BHS Ace, BHS Sold, and BHS MetlX. The rigs by Big Hairy Sounds have a crazy amount of Rigs and really generous amount of presets.
MetlX is two different Metaltronix amps as well as a Marshall JCM800 and a Silver Jubilee. It sounds really good and is very much a thick textured hard rock metal amp, you would dial down the bass just a notch. But the reason to get this rig is that the Symphonic 90 rack ($14.99 value) is included for free. It’s based on a certain Yamaha rack from the 80s, and it’s unique chorusy flanger effect is literally perfect for Prince.
BHS Ace is dedicated to Dann Huff who is a famous session musician. That rig has every 80s pop or hair metal or any tone under the sun. It comes with a Mesa and Kasha preamps, a Peavey, and a modded Marshall. This thing is so 80s but also so versatile.
BHS Soldano is a great rig, it’s also 3 amps worth. Slo100, Slo88, SloHiWatt. Very pronounced mids and thick texture so keep that in mind, but pretty perfect for almost any genre, especially anything 80s.
All of the above rigs can be 80s shredders, but without that thin metallic sound of the era. Personally I feel like it’s a really thin line between the sound of GnR ballads and Purple Rain. It’s just different genres.
There’s a whole subset of crispy metal amp rigs and chugga chugga amps, the modern metal amps, I don’t dig those, especially because I can achieve that with a Marshall anyway. But I do like that Randall Satan rig, maybe the best for palm muting.
The Serenity rig is amazing, it’s a MezzaBarba amp which is kind of a newcomer. It has a really nice clean channel, kind of tweedy but more Italianate. And it has literally 1 billion types of high gain. It’s amazing how many different variations of gain they achieved here. It will suit hard rock very well, as well as metal, and you can add fx to it to make it more 80s.
The Revv Rig is also very versatile and kind of modern. Perhaps it doesn’t have the most personality, but a lot of versatility. 4 unique channels.
The Yamaha T100 rig has a very good and punchy high gain section, leaner in the mids, but the clean channel is rather thin. This Yamaha model was designed with the help of Mike Soldano. I really like the distorted profiles on this.
Let’s not forget the Bogner Ecstacy rig, it’s really a Swiss army kind of amp. There are also a few other Marshalls like a 900 modern and an 800ZW which I’m sure can do hard rock and metal. I’m sure the new Friedman BE100 rig can get there, if you like thick hairy mids. The fried Betty on the other hand is a one channel amp that gradually goes from American clean to Brit dirt, also mids prominent. The Suhr rig is fantastic with single coils.
MarkV is actually all five Mesa amps in one. So it has the tweedy Bassman Mark1, the scoops Prince Mark iic+, the rectifier channels, etc... you may find that you love the the first two channels and hate the rest. Keep in mind the rig profiles are in reverse order there.
Is it like Pringles? Once you pop you can’t stop?
Once you open the line 6 software you will see how easy it is. TH-U is a CC (continuous change) app, which is why devices that can only send Program Change may not work. For th-u I literally just assigned random CC numbers to buttons and the pedal to “volume” which can also act as Wah,
inside the line 6 software Then once in th-u it just automatically programs the buttons you press on. Apps vary, some have fixed cc numbers, and midi devices can also vary and have fixed cc numbers, this is a big reason why some things just don’t work together. But in the case of Shortboard and th-u it’s all freestyle. One thing to keep in mind in th-u, when programming the individual switches don’t choose “footswitch” in th-u but rather the “127” or “0” options. Have a play with all the options and experiment, both inside line 6 software and th-u. You can set up the pedal to work with any other app, you can have a top row of looper or daw operator, middle row for pedals both toggle and momentary, etc... if you have any problems just ask!
PS don’t be confused by the lights on the pedal. They can turn on and off as you press them, but then you could switch to a different preset in th-u where a pedal is on but the light happens to be off. The pedal is smart and corrects itself after one press. You can also reprogram those lights in the software (read the manual).
One amazing thing about TH-U is that you could assign one specific pedal to one button, but actually th-u organizes pedals into groups (overdrive, reverb, delay, distortion, chorus, etc...) so you can assign just one button to an entire family of pedals. Meaning if one of your patches has the Brunetti Vanilla but another patch has the Mercury pedal, they will be assigned to the same button depending on what preset you’re on! So however many buttons your pedal has, the options are exponential. And you can assign it freestyle too. It’s amazing!
@audiobussy standing by with my preset if you need help, but I think @JoyceRoadStudios has you covered there. Should just be a case of midi learning in Th-u. I’ll take a screen shot tomorrow, it might be more useful to see how the pedals are configured rather than needing to have the same CC’s. I think you’ll get the factory default in the software download (in case the previous owner went custom crazy).
One thing I used to do was have the 2 rows of buttons on different midi channels for different apps (guitar top, looper bottom), but I’m not using it that way right now.
@steve99 thanks would love to see the photo
@JoyceRoadStudios Thanks for your encouragement and explanation
@steve99 @audiobussy there was something I thought th-u midi couldn’t do, until I just found it! In the “Global” midi menu you can keep pressing the + button to add more cc options, and in there you can actually control every single aspect of every knob of every pedal and amp. So what you see in global is only a fraction of what you can do. For example you can turn on or mute the tuner, with a footswitch, how amazing.
Then I thought you could change presets up and down or preset banks up and down, but you can’t switch between the dry rig profiles when inside the rig player. False. If you go to the “Current Preset” midi menu and press + you can actually assign every single button on the rig player too, including switching the rig profiles. So you can audition rig profiles with a button, or you could use an expression pedal to control “power sag” or “compression” knobs or turn the gain in the rig on/of whatever your heart desire, dry/wet... very satisfactory....
@JoyceRoadStudios I’m excited but don’t understand most of this
@JoyceRoadStudios Can you get a launch pad pro Mark III with LK app and please explain to me how to use it as well :-)
lol no, it’s just a lot of reading, research, and trial and error for me, I don’t actually know anything...
@audiobussy if you’re a guitarist who is new to midi (just like me) my advice is just to not overcomplicate things at first. Visualize a hardware amp and your desired pedalboard and the pedals you want and where, and simply try to recreate something realistic at first. If you have the plan for how you want it, will be much easier.
apps are so advanced because they can be midi mapped just by you pressing the pedal and arranging it how you want (rather than having to cross reference apps and devices that used to have fixed command numbers). In theory CC numbers can be quite arbitrary if you want them to be. Don’t even worry about the idea of midi channels, at first anyway. Then when you get used to it you go crazy with with cross app buttons and dual and triple functions, or holding vs tapping vs toggling vs double tap etc etc... just recreate your dream hardware “rig” at first. One thing I love about midi pedals beyond guitar fx is the ability to control the DAW. Record, stop, playback, rewind, etc... all with your feet. Sending you a pm with some helpful docs for the Shortboard...
Thanks! And when things get less crazy and cold, let's me up in the city for a beer!
Several!
Here's my current FBV preset and the default for comparison (which doesn't look that suitable now I look at it).
Momentary vs toggle is significant depending on the app you want to control (though you can often alter things at the iOS end. I use toggle for stomps (and then 'footswitch' in Th-u) and then momentary for looper controls (Quantiloop / Loopy and others).
The Bank up and Bank down PC messages work as set here for stepping between presets (not banks) in Th-U, you don't need to map anything for the PC messages to function.
Otherwise your CC numbers are fairly arbitrary. My current numbers are set to match the Bias FX preset on my Meloaudio MP100 (so I can move from one device to the other with no extra fiddling). Previously I always had the wah on CC11 as that's the most common software implementation, but I've gone to CC4 as it's fixed at that on the MP100.
The pedal on/off toggle on the FBV requires a fair amount of pressing, best done standing up. If you get a second pedal you need one with a TS plug (mono jack) like Line 6's own expression pedal, not TRS as many other devices require and many other pedals have (e.g the Moog and Bespeco expression pedals).
These shares are incredibly generous and extremely helpful. Thank you
The level of detail is helpful Because I’ve never had a complex stomp box config.
And yes I am hoping to use it to control a DAW or looper... Maybe even lights, etc
I got mine for 90 bucks!
Thanks man! I made the mistake of springing for the a la carte Symphonic 90 after it wasn’t in the FX bundle, because I just had to have it. I’m happy with it, but d’oh! Surprised they included it in a package to be honest.
Yeah, not a good move for them, it should have been available in the full or the all fx, just like all the other components. In that case I would say MetlX is overpriced and you should consider another rig...