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.
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So how did you generate the piano piece? With each new iteration you might try orchestrating, building as you go, with the last being just piano again.That would be strong, I think.
All notation… Staffpad doesn’t have any realtime input options… neither MIDI controller input nor audio rendered to notes.
But they did demo audio to notation at the Appple event that showcased M1 iPads… so they have something but haven’t been able to release it. Probably because the installed base is on older hardware or Windows Surface devices and don’t have the CPU to manage the task.
I’m probably going to play with some poly rhythms applied to 2 pianos to simply the notation: 2 against 3 which I used in Piano Frenzy between bass and treble and it’s like those pictures that have 2 images mixed (a head and a rabbit). I can focus and hear the 2 note line or re-focus and hear the 3 note line. With 2 pianos I have keep the notes closer and play with intervals to find the gold.
But I’ll stay with piano experiments and let the orchestra take the day off.
I added bass and drums for a piano trio sound:
I got into some Time Signature Hacking with the Piano Frenzy Trio score. Staffpad will allow yo to “select” and cut bars of music and then paste them into open bars in a completely different time signature and just play the notes that fit and disregard any overflow notes or add extra silence if the notes do NOT fill the bar.
Piano Frenzy Trio was notated in 9/8 so 4/4 accepts the first 8 notes, 2/4 the first 4, 7/8 the first 7 and 5/8 the first 5.
In the 2/4 section the notes flowed over the bar line of the second bar so the rhythms seem to get completely out of sync and it’s hard to find a “ONE”… I like that.
If your not trained in reading music or playing rhythms in various “meters” like 3, 4, 5, etc then this might just be a fun video to watch I hope. Can you match the sounds to the images in anyway? Watch for tall notes that might high pitch for example.
This is a virtual performance of the amazing Milkwood Twins who would close their performances with a Dueling Quoting Pianos number that was a mix of improvisation and prepared set pieces. Enjoy and see how many tunes you can name:
When I was a teenager we’d see the Big Movies at the Cinerama in L.A.
Some of the Big Movies has Overtures that played before the movie and showcased all the themes of the score.
This sketch was made with that in mind… 4, 8 or 16 bars and transition to a new theme… this is also practice in inventing transitions:
The new Notion has a lot of input methods but this one uses the Step Input with 16th notes, 8th notes, etc. Then the Notion score is exported into Staffpad using the usual techniques to assign parts and add extra detailing:
Something to play on a loop for Trick or Treat Night to set the mood::
Ike Waltz 2 after @MadeofWax suggested it was too short:
Thank you for extending it. It was so good before and what you’ve added makes it even better. This really deserves its own thread.
It's a stale thread from Oct 15th... I edited the title and added the 2nd version too:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/52405/ike-waltz-1-and-ike-waltz-2-now-with-more-length-staffpad-creations#latest
Something has unleashed a fantastic period of creativity and productivity in you… long may it continue!
All great, really enjoyed Mad Dash.
I really love this piece.
The composition is great. An orchestration on this track could be very interesting!
That's great!
That's really interesting technique, thanks for sharing, very inspiring !
Great. It reminds me of a low of pieces heard in old animation movies and the flight of the bumblebee as well. You'be been really creative lately !
Thanks. That should give me a goal for tomorrow. I have jumped into a Staffpad Discord group and it started with a mission statement:
Upload your work for advice on how to improve your compositions.
5-6 people jumped in but no one offered a project for advice. Maybe there are 3-4 people just ready to provide assistance making people better. Anyway I uploaded a couple projects:
one to establish methods of file sharing... iCloud is my fav but I tried them all.
So, eventually a composer uploaded a truly epic project created to sell a board game in a video. Really solid craftsmanship with Staffpad. Not much feedback.
So, it helps me realize that just a few well meaning commenters is enough. We are our toughest critics after all. We know where we just accept "good enough" for free.
At this point, I think you should listen to your own critics more then others'.
By starting this thread you made something unvaluable for yourself to check on your own evolution. I recently listened to most of your staffpad sketches in this thread almost in one go, and your progress are real and audible.
We all more or less need to feel some kind of recognition from the people we would like to consider as our peers. But this is a double edged sword.
Maybe you would like to get some specific advices for each pieces. I also do. But it seems people rarely have the will or that amount of time to give to others.
The only thing I can tell you is that you're doing great. Your recently pushed yourself to finish your sketches or a sense of accomplishment. Among your recent pieces, I really like piano frenzy, as I am myself really interested in awkward time signature. If you don't come up with some arrangement with this one, I would be more than happy to give it a try as I find it very inspiring and challenging and to be honest, I feel a bit dry lately 😉
Among your recent pieces, I really like piano frenzy, as I am myself really interested in awkward time signature.
I will provide the score because you will really come up with something I'd never stumble upon and I want to hear what that could be and hear myself in that...
very very interesting topic.
As @McD advised, I'm waiting to see if there is any discount for staffpad in the next Days. Tried notion and didn't like it.
The samples libraries don't really do anything to me, and the quantization is horrible, but I always plays the tracks I write anyways.
So I have a few more questions about Staffpad:
How does it handle dynamic and accents? Triplets? and transposing instruments?
Dynamics are excellent. Some libraries have excessive accent recordings. Anything you can write it will render.
The attack in the recordings can sometimes be slow and make tight, fast rhythms pretty loose. Using staccato tends
To be the best way to tighten things up.
Rather than getting frustrated with how something sounds I tend to remove notation that isn’t working for me and keep trying
Alternative ideas until I’m happy. In this thread I can hear in my earliest work that I was trying for ideas that just sound bad.
Lately, with the ability to add audio stems I’m considering using my huge arsenal of apps to add extra parts and I bet your do a lot of that if you jump and render orchestral or percussion section stuff that is tricky in AUM with so many parts. You’re getting really good results with NanoStudio and the PianoBook samples.
The default Staffpad libraries are really quite good so if they do a 1/2 off sale it’s a real bargain for everything it can do. The jump to extra libraries for me started with adding more instruments or smaller groupings of strings with Chamber and then down to the soloist level. Multiple soloists can also provide a chamber type of sound so soloist first might make sense.
I haven’t had a score yet where the app craps out due to too many parts or notes per second.
You’re comment about Notion quantization makes me think you might be frustrated but sometimes I’ll layer a staccato part with a legato part and that can help. It’s a puzzle to be solved to get out music that works for the ear. It doesn’t do much good to curse at the tool but many, many do. It’s the best IOS app for what it does and many desktop composers use it for the speed of use to get something done and rendered. There’s a serious composer name Conrado Del Rosario that creates amazing orchestral simulations. I like his Pastiches since they sound like film music:
https://m.youtube.com/user/cdr3musika
From what I heard from the great tracks you posted here, it seems you already have long experience in scoring which is far from being my case but I believe that for now, staffpad is the best scoring app you can find on iOS both in terms of functionality and sound. As McD mentioned take a listen at Conrado Del Rosario. I tend to prefer his serious work over his pastiche.
Staffpad handles dynamics and accent just like on a real score. You just write the dynamic you want but there is also an option to control dynamic as an automation line for each instrument. Triplets are also supported and you just write them just like on a real score. I still find these a bit tricky with handwriting recognition, but I might only need some practice.
I cannot answer your question about transposing instruments, but I am sure these are handled according to the current standards.
I assume there will be some sales for black Friday, on sale, it is a no brainer IMO.
Staffpad is 50% and Libraries are 30% off until Dec 1 (or so).
I had a block and kept starting projects and abandoning them in disgust. I found some inspiration in 2 LoopMix exports:
Just bought it.
Gonna look into it once I sober up
I'm so glad you joined the small staffpad creators crew. We have a Discord group that's just getting started and it would be great to see you share your work ask questions as you dig into this complex and amazing piece of software. Don't sweat the 3rd party libaries until you see if this approach resonates with you.
Also, get Notion because it's free with an optional $15 upgrade (that adds handwriting input support that you might never need). It supports a lot of typical MIDI input methods (realtime and step input) and exports MIDI and even better Music XML into staffpad for a superior rendering experience. That's a path that takes the pencil out of the critical path.
despite a crippling hangover I put my pencil on staffpad.
At first it looks very polished. But the note recognition is very weird. You have to adapt to the way it thinks you should be writing music on paper, not the opposite. I'm not good at adapting, so I hope it's just me right now not being clear headed enough.
Now, the base sounds, I couldn't care less for them, which is not really an issue.
The export is not bad, but very VERY mechanical. I imported an xml into cakewalk in an empty orchestral project, and it sounds just plain bad. I might have missed something. Don't know.
So, at first glance, maybe my idea to write music this way and export the midi wasn't a very good idea: I'd have to record it anyways. But I have to admit, the sheets, when it recognizes my handwriting properly are absolutely gorgeous, and with the ability to play in sync with the staffpad reader, it opens a world of possibilities with sharing music with instruments players, or an orchestra is that was feasible.
I don't know, I will have to dig deeper.
Like your latest @McD. I appreciate when you venture into modernism. Happy Thanksgiving, bro.
Change is always a good solution for stagnation, procrastination and self-loathing.
The music serves as an outlet as most here know.
damn it! I've been listening some GREAT music made in staffpad with the orchestra libraries, they show very minimal "mechanical effect" -> therefore I must be doing something very wrong.
Will have to sit down with that thing and focus on understanding the intricacies of the software. Shouldn't be that complicated.
Please share your insight as you figure it out.