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.
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I would definitely start with GarageBand. It is surprisingly powerful in many regards, has live loops (clip launching arrangement) and a ton of pretty good quality content.
It will take most newcomers to sequencers/DAWs a fair old while to hit any of its limitations.
It’s a good iOS DAW at any price. Learning with it creates a good foundation and it will inform your choices if/when you look for a more powerful DAW.
And there’s a ton of help online to show you how to do almost anything possible in GarageBand.
"Finger Spitzen Hammer Bogen" (Finger Pointed Hammer Bow)
There's a San Francisco area street musician named Michael Masley that invented a clever way to play the Hungarian Cimbalom using "Bow Hammers". He calls the method "Finger Spitzen Hammer Bogen".
Not even Logitech Crayon?
Nope. I've read that it has issues with StaffPad so they are clear that they can't support it as an input device. Just want to be sure everyone understands because you can see that this composing thing gets expensive and it's not the $5 at a time expensive. It's $20-100 a pop.
So, I didn't go here for 2 years and just spent $100's... $5 at a time.
Like I say... save up if this is your jam.
Stravinski invented a "staff" writing ink roller device called the "Stravigor", a wheeled instrument he attempted to patent around 1911. He used them extensively in his compositional sketchbooks.
He'd start with blank pages and roll out the number of staffs needed for the particular set instrumentation. Now the computer manages that little bit of
"page making" layout. StaffPad's page making and printing are excellent.
There's also a free app(StaffPad Reader) that can render the parts on local iPads so the composer can share the score with the musicians and everyone is paperless and changes to the score are immediately communicated to the players.
All this shit was labor intensive back in the day and many started out as copyists before becoming arrangers and eventually composers. John Williams has a small army of arrangers for his film music and the developer of StaffPad has extensive credits in IMDB as an arranger for film composers before he started to get his credits as the composer.
Thanks for the heads up...
They also can't support the "rubber-ended" stylus devices for input. Just the Apple Pencils.
I have some of those cheap stylus devices in drawer... so I might do a quick test of how bad it really is.
@McD can StaffPad import and export MIDI? I tried reading up on https://www.staffpad.net/ but it only mentions MIDI for the Reader
Yes, it can import MIDI to work with DAW apps and MusicXML to work with other scoring apps. I hope Cubasis would introduce export to MusicXML like Cubase that would capture most of the stuff in the exported file.
However, there are some crashes on MIDI import and a few other issues and I reported them to their team along with my below article. It finally got picked up by David, the founder who made the 3 hour score writing video. He asked for my MIDI files and I sent them to him. He said he would have the issues resolved.
https://www.mobilemusic.us/articles/ios/191-staffpad-review-and-issues
Man, this is outstanding! I've seen quite a number of hammer dulcimer players live but this guy tops them all with his sound. Lovely.
I was on the edge of that world back in the 80s. The guy who got the scoring credit for the movie would write a sketch on maybe four staves. He’d hand it off to orchestrators who would flesh out the sketches into full orchestral parts. Then it would go to the copyists to write out the parts for the musicians. It was indeed a small army. Then there were the raw material suppliers. Judy Green had a small shop on Cahuenga where she sold custom music paper and other necessary tools of the trade.
In most cases the composer had the chops to orchestrate himself, but not the time. He’d farm it out in order to get the work done more quickly. For some reason, people in the LA film industry nearly kil/l themselves with rushing and overwork. I found that workaholic culture unhealthy, which is one reason I didn’t stick.
I saw him on the street and just stopped and watched for a couple hours and bought all his CD's. He invented a technique and mastered it's execution. Really one in a million.
I know many have tuned out because they don't want to write out music with a pencil.
But I made this just by importing a "Piano Motifs" midi file into StaffPad and assigning the 2 parts to a lot of instruments. I could repeat that process for a B theme and so on and construct a symphonic poem in about an hour since Piano Motifs has scales I could tweak for variety and modulations. I can also transpose parts in StaffPad. Basically, this means I didn't write out a single note. Adding articulations would only improve the musicality but it's not required.
You’re determined to get me to drop $100, eh? That is too cool. Mix it in with @Gavinski ’s midi tricks and you’d have enough material for a whole piece.
Thanks! I skimmed over your review but will devote full attention to it soon.
I worked with Notion a little but struggled with the method of entering notes, which is not as intuitive as StaffPad appears to be.
I just saw the post reporting success with importing MIDI from Piano Motifs, which is one of the scenarios I have in mind.
Just to be fair. You can also do this trick in AUM and point the 2 MIDI channels at a bunch of apps and using the Transpose capability in AUM to make a massive orchestral sound. Then mix the channels and apply the (secret) Bark Filter trick. Record the results and ship it to Audioshare... normalize and upload to SoundCloud.
StaffPad is NOT required. So, you get the same results with the apps you own and don't write a single note. It's pure workflow... like Fugue Machine or any of the generators.
It imports 1 or 2 tracks in the MIDI file. I found crashes with anything more than 2 tracks in the MIDI file.
The 2 files I sent to David had 27 tracks and 4 tracks from my Dance Monkey song both of which failed until I reduced the tracks in the files down to 2 as I was testing it to find out the max tracks it can take without crashes. He is aware of the issue.
Thanks for the clarification. I'll probably buy after the next update.
By then I should have gotten my first new paycheck in months.
Ah thanks. I bought v1 of Piano Motifs thinking it was a cute toy app that would get abandoned. Was I wrong about that. I have yet to go back and update it but this may provide the inspiration. And I didn’t know AUM would transpose. Wow.
You have to scroll down to see it but you can move the midi up or down in 1/2 steps for a few octaves. You can also route midi through Rozeta Scalar and transpose that way and use Moziac scripts to humanize or randomize notes and still stay in the scale.
The Chordulator Script can also beef up medodies into chords and strum. There are probably arp scripts to so "Piano Motifs" can really be tweaked once you get the Midi out.
Any ideas on how to diminish or augment melodic rhythms on PM midi output? Or how to invert?
Good to know, thanks @klownshed I have so much to take in here!
Insane! So ambidextrous and original!
Don't you ever look down on the Glock!
If you know the key you can mirror a melody around some midpoint and invert it using the same scale. It's a type of negative harmony. Original goes up 3rd and the inverse goes down a 3rd but in the same scale. Chord progressions are also inverted which to our ears makes no sense.
Rather than diminishing or augmenting melodies, I probably just drop notes or add randomized echos of notes. Or take two notes in a sequence and fill between them with a scale-based connecting line.
All possible in Moziac or in Swift code. There's a thread to ask for Moziac script requests and another for help if you try it yourself. Both methods have led to effective useful scripts.
I know the theory; I’m just wondering how to implement it with an app. How can I take a midi melody and invert it using an app? How can I take a two-bar melody and elongate it so it lasts four bars, using an app? But you’re suggesting a new script would be needed even for these basic moves?
Depends on the app.
Can't think of any apps with this feature... anyone got a clue?
You can multiply or divide MIDI time events by using a MIDI file and adjusting the players BPM settings. Shift output players BPM from 100 to 50 or 200 BPM and re-record into a DAW with the BPM at 100. That would time shift the notes up 2x or down 1/2.
Scripts allow use mortals to make apps. Otherwise, they have to be made for the feature needed.
Moziac and Drambo are apps that empower us to make new functionality adding "basic moves" we want.
Goodness no, never! In Glock we trust! @Artj
Ah tnx, will try that. Inversion and clocking is so easy in modular. I always get frustrated trying to sequence in midi.
Hey @McD - this is fascinating... Did you have a lot of prior experience writing music on paper or Sibelius? I can read music decently, but have always gravitated to playing by ear and improvisation. For that reason, I've always written with a DAW. I'd love to try StaffPad...too bad there's no trial. How difficult is it to adapt to composing on it, compared to a typical DAW workflow?
Pete
Unless we can code we only get what they write for us. Mozaic is a way to make modules for me. Modular hardware (or these software instances) were all coded to work together.
Most of the IOS apps are coded to work alone with the exception of the AUv3, IAA, AudioBus and MIDI interconnections we can plumb together.
But making "behavior" requires coding.