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.
Heading to the bus stop: a Double Decker
Waiting for review at Apple... Should be out soon. Audiobus, Soundfonts, MIDI in and out, Apollo MIDI over Bluetooth built in, and a stupid amount of configurability for the individual keys. Plus, you can share keyboard configurations by email. I'm expecting most people to want to use the app on an iPhone (because of the keyboard, it has to run in the foreground), and then send MIDI over Bluetooth to an iPad.
Comments
Looks interesting! :-)
Yes, that looks interesting to me as well!
Might have to shop for a BT keyboard...
Does it mean it is going to work in the background apps like irig blueboard? If so could be interesting for me too. I was going to buy a small BT keyboard until I was told that it will only work with a foreground app. I also wonder if that would potentially conflict with blueboard using different BT protocol?
Ah, just read the description. So probably not what I was after.
The app can't work in the background (QWERTY keyboards are Bluetooth 2.0, and Apple has that API locked up tight -- probably to prevent key loggers, and stuff like that). I've actually got some ideas on a work-around, but that'll have to wait for an update….
Things work fine with Bluetooth 4.0 at the same time -- Apollo uses Bluetooth 4.0, and the set-up I've been doing a lot of testing with is with the QWERTY keyboard connected to an iPhone (Double Decker in the foreground), sending MIDI to an iPad (using Apollo). In particular, I'm using one group of keys to control Loopy, and a second to trigger MIDI notes on various synths; I'm working on a video to show this sort of work flow.
Bluetooth QWERTY keyboards are dirt cheap (I'm using this one -- about $12 -- http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-Bluetooth-Keyboard-for-iPad/dp/B004HCO4GI). The app will be $2 at launch.
well, thats the thing supadom, if you have a "spare" iphone in your pocket, just connect it to the keyboard and have the iPhone send the MIDI data over to your iPad. ... but it does require a spare iPhone or iPod Touch.
OT: so who remembers Double Deckers on the bus? #childhood UK memories
Sorry didn't realise it was that long ago...
Thanks @Trueyorky now I feel really old. 1972!
@Hmtx said:
Yep I know. I'm really after more physical controllers and minimize the screen time. I've decided to use ios for performance but somehow I feel it doesn't look great when a performer stares and pokes and a screen. Using an iphone as an instrument waving it around to alter the sound, that sounds better to me but in that case rather than using it as a controller I'd just use it as an instrument. I had to monetize all my spare gadgets to pay for my tuition fees anyway, unfortunately
And the app is now live. $2 (which, considering the name, seems like the right intro price!).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/double-decker/id842010101?mt=8
So, I'm definitely fascinated by this idea, and it seemed to work in the video by @SecretBaseDesign. But the question I'm not seeing anyone else asking here or on dischord: latency. Latency over 10, maybe 15 or 20 miliseconds becomes perceivable to most users. Some apps also have a slight lag while the input is processed, and AudioBus can add to that, depending on settings.
We also know that bluetooth speakers are often unusable or impractical as monitors because of latency (though that involves more data transfer than a key press)
Is there an rated latency that Double Decker works with, or is it pretty responsive. (I have a $30 bluetooth keyboard at home but no MIDI controllers, so for $1.99, I'm likely to try the app no matter what the response
)
Cool idea, guys. Cheers!
@SecretBaseDesign - Bought the app - REALLY cool, but first, I have a big question:
How do you stop notes from sustaining? Whether I'm using a SoundFont in the internal synth, or MIDI control of another app that allows for sustained notes, the note stays triggered and does not stop playing! I figure this must be a "hold" setting somewhere that I can turn off. It wrecks the ability to play notes.
Edit: I did find the instructions, which indicated that the spacebar is a "kill" button. That does work. But do I have to hit the spacebar after every note I don't want sustained? Can't I make it so that the notes sustain as long as I hold down the key, like would be the case with a real organ or keyboard?
One of the limitations of the iOS keyboard is that the app only gets a "key was pressed" notification, and not a "key was lifted up" -- so it's hard to make things work like a regular (music) keyboard.
Within each region -- the start of a new note silences a sounding note, or pressing the space bar silences everything. There's no easy way to play a chord, which is why I added the ability to assign a chord to a single key press. During development, I found myself triggering backing chords using the ZXCV row, and then playing melody lines along the two middle rows; it seemed to be the most effective approach for me.
If you tap the "1" in the top right part of the display, it'll toggle to "1/0", and then each key press will toggle on or off a note. You could play chords this way, but I find it less convenient.
I'm planning on adding timed automatic release in the next update -- so you could set things to play for a quarter note, for example -- press the keys you need, and the notes stay on only for the duration you specify. I may also put in an arpeggiator.
I wish Apple gave more access to the keyboard, but they're keeping it locked up. There were some work-arounds in iOS 6 (that might have brought the ban hammer), and they seem to be gone with iOS 7.
Also -- I should mention that you can also touch the screen to trigger notes. Currently, it acts exactly like touching a key on the keyboard, but add the ability to have the touch/release on the screen behave like I think everyone would actually want….
Sorry for the 3rd consecutive post, but I wanted to share my initial review thoughts on this for other people who may be looking at it. Let me say overall that this is a VERY promising app, and certainly worth the intro price of $1.99, so any negativity is meant constructively, as this is a version 1.0 (and as SBD is watching)
I know I appreciate when other share information on new apps I am looking at.
PROS:
Virtually NO latency -> Answering my own question from above, this thing is incredibly responsive through a bluetooth keyboard. Any lag had to be less than 10ms, or beyond any perceivable period of time
It's a SoundFont player -> Basically, this app is "Nice to Be Your Friend Synth" (NTBYF) and a new controller app rolled into one. It's actually better than that because it also includes a pretty huge library of basses and about a dozen drum kits (from rock to 808/909). And you can import your own with .sf2 files, and they are free (see the many great threads we have on that)
It's a Virtual MIDI controller -> I got it hooked up quickly to Galileo Organ, and so long as you understand that you have to have Double Decker maximized for the control to work, it seemed to function well as a MIDI controller.
Allows multiple instruments played simultaneously on one keyboard -> When you load it up, the number keys are the drum set and the QWERTY section is mapped to musical notes. So you can have part of it driving the melody, part of it doing drums, and go back and forth all on one controller (and in one app)
AudioBus compatability -> Critical for two reasons: (1) To use the internal SF player for recording; and (2) To allow you to stop and start recordings through AB using mini controls, since you can't leave the Double Decker screen and still play the keyboard
CONS:
It seems to be monophonic -> Unless I'm wrong, you can't play multiple notes at the same time (chords) with the keyboard control. This is a bit confusing because the app itself does seem capable of polyphony (there is a touch keyboard at the bottom of the screen that allow it). The issue may be related to my next comment, though...
Note "holding" is either confusing, or needs tweaking -> The most annoying thing you'll notice is that the default is to hold every note. You have to kill it with the spacebar, or it will not shut off. Waiting to hear from the dev (above) if this can be turned off. Note holding is definitely a desirable feature, but normally I play keyboards where you sustain the note by holding the key down
Keyboard limits octave range -> At first I thought you could only play one octave from the A through L keys in the middle of the board. Turns out the Z through / row (shift on) can be set as its own sector, plus holding the shift key (or using Caps Lock) maske the main keyboard row an octave higher. So, it's a little less intuitive than sliding up a keyboard on a touch screen, but actually makes it decently easy to change octaves once you get used to it.
As I said above, some of my comments may be things I simply misunderstood, but what I see here is a very promising app with core functionality that works a heck of a lot better than I expected. It has a few (expected) issues that may hinder it, but nothing that can't be corrected. Great work by @SecretBaseDesign - they make NTBYF Synth free for a few days when it released, which was a great gesture, so I was happy to support them with this app.
(Note: The dev addressed some of these points in the post above while I was still typing
)
@SecretBaseDesign said:
Thanks for the response! I figured there was some technical reason why that was. It really depends on the sound being used - some synths/SF's don't sustain anyway so it doesn't matter (bass and drums feel great too). The time-out idea isn't a bad one for the future, and at least the spacebar is there to kill the sustain.
One thing I managed not to mention in my 5,000 word essay above were the chords. These are customizable so you can pick like a Dsus4 or whatever and set that as one of your keys. Really an amazing amount of feature depth in this app, elements of it remind me of Bismarck bs-16i, Chordion, ChordPolyPad, and Synthecaster. Not saying it does any particular thing as well as those apps do it, but impressive that it's all in one package!
@StormJH1 -- thanks for the comments and feedback. Dealing with the QWERTY keyboard on iOS adds a lot of weird constraints, and I've tried to work around them as best I can. The inclusion of "single key chords" was driven by the lack of any reasonable way to hold down multiple keys; it's a bit of a hack, and I wish Apple would open up more functionality.
It's probably obvious, but there's also the on-screen keyboard, which behaves in a normal manner.
There are a number of ways to set things up that I think will be useful -- you can use some of the key regions to control apps like Loopy and Genome, for example -- letting you control those in the background, while you fiddle with different instruments in the foreground. The Apollo integration is there so that it's easy to link an iPhone+QWERTY to an iPad.
And you're absolutely right about this being an expansion on NTBYF -- I had been working on this for a long time, and it was just dragging on and on… NTBYF happened as a "gosh, I've got a bunch of parts that would make a perfectly reasonable app," so I pushed that out quickly while continuing to work on Double Decker.
One more thing to mention--NTBYF is updating, and now has the same Soundfont import/export functionality as Double Decker. The apps have a lot of the same back-end code.
iphone 4
7.0.6
jailbroken
this app will not open, just crashes. rebooted. hard reset.
NOT WORKING !!
will be looking for refund.............
but really want this app, to work
will try later on ipad mini, and ipad mini retina
only other thing i can think of is i downloaded this over 3G as at work. will try a fresh install later over wifi
Really hope this solves the problem as Apollo and NTBYF are super apps.......
@Gdub said:
Guessing here, but could "jailbroken" have something to do with it? DD is an app heavily dependent on iOS functionality like BT connection and key inputs. I wonder if messing around with the OS could cause problems for apps that expect the OS to behave in a specific way.
@Gdub -- is NTBYF working on the iPhone 4 (and in particular, does the update that happened yesterday work)? It that's working, then there's something weird going on with the Bluetooth keyboard. If not, then there's something else going on (and common to both apps, which share a lot of common code).
I know that Apple fixed some Bluetooth keyboard stuff with iOS 7.1; I don't think it should cause a crash, but it's hard to know for sure.
Yeah....... all good now after a fresh install. Good work and thanks for actually replying in the first place. Thumbs up to you guys
On sale now. If you don't have it, buy it. Seriously, grab this great app and support a brilliant developer!
Updating now for iOS 8 and AB 2.1.3....
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/double-decker/id842010101?mt=8
The next version will have much more flexible keyboard assignments. I was hoping to get that done for this version, but there's just so much on the plate right now. With luck, there will be good support for international keyboards, and the ion iCade (yeah, seriously) by the end of the year.
.
Ha that looks amazing! I'd love to see a video of the iCade in action with Double Decker!
Thanks for all of your work @SBD I really appreciate it. I do have a request for DD though. It'd be really cool if we have an option for this scenario; Can you make the Internal Synthesizer default OFF when an eligible app is already running upon opening DD, and naturally keep it ON if DD is the only app launched?
Thanks in advance!
Hmmm -- I could change the internal synths so that there's on, off, and off-if-there's-an-active-midi-destination. Good idea, I'll see about hacking that together.
@SecretBaseDesign
Hello. I'm trying to map double decker to loopy. I was having a hard time but I just now read that it only works in the foreground which makes it impossible without a second device. I knew this already but I had forgotten. In the start of this thread you say an update would bring a solution to this. Has this happened?
Thanks
@Macao95 -- no way at present to have DD run in the background, and still catch keyboard presses. There were some hacks (and maybe some jailbreaks) that could make this possible, but Apple seems to have been closing all the holes (and I understand why they'd like them closed).
Ok, thank you. It is a shame.