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.
Are we on the cusp of a new golden age of iOS music production?
Despite myself and a year of seemingly nothing but reverb and delay apps (j/k) I’m feeling quite optimistic for the future of our little platform.
I think the recent koala by @elf_audio and animoog by @MoogMusicInc updates have done quite a lot to get iOS into the spotlight again! I have seen articles about animoog z on Engadget and also loopop did a IG playing about with it, amongst others, whilst flying lotus has endorsed koala and even influenced its latest update a bit. I think we are just a koala album on Brainfeeder away from a new resurgence in iOS music making and music making apps.
I think that many people and particularly young people will realise that the phone or tablet they already have is a better music making tool than the hardware they have been lusting after. And a fraction of the price. Not to mention the supply chain issues and chip shortages influencing choices.
I think probably loopy pro will be the next indispensable app (no shit Sherlock) and 2022 we will see a myriad of sound packs for animoog and koala sampler being released, and finally a slew of big names releasing full fat versions and clones of their hardware synths and VSTs.
Or maybe I’m just bored and feeling uncharacteristically Optimistic for the next year!?
Comments
I predict an update to iMaschine and usb-c Mikro that works with the iPad…
I say this because a lot of heavy hitters are creating usb-c devices (Universal Audio, Arturia, IK Multimedia, Akai to name a few) and marketing them to work with the iPad.
It’s only a matter of time before Native Instruments comes back to iOS for global domination 😂
Heck, we might see Ableton too…
Well, Drambo is due for a truly epic update, SunVox 2.0 is around the corner and well, Koala is Koala
FabFilter just dropped their load of goodies and well...
...hopefully the existing DAWs will mature so we don't have to resort to extreme work-arounds for rather basic stuff.
What we have to remember is that most of the stuff really like are most likely 1 or 2 person sweatshops done on spare-time...
i'm totally pesimistic :-) .. don't think this market is any more interesting for big guys than it was in recent years,. What is worse, because of business/pricing model set in appstore (and accepted by most users) also many small guys are slowly leaving business..
yes, few few mohicans will stay in business, but... Like as i was giga ethusiast - optimist in first 10 years of iOS music evolution since i entered it (around 2010) , now i'm very much, how to say .. "not optimimist"
will be happy to be wrong, but excepting slow fade-out at least in next 2-3 years, with occasional random peaks of few interesting apps ..
Not sure that I'd describe it as a new era. I've found that as each year passes there's always standout developers that excel at pushing the possibilities of the platform forward. One major difference in recent years is that not all innovations are derived from the touch interface. The likes of Animoog Z are signature touch instruments but the raw processing power of modern iOS devices is bringing more desktop-class plugins to iOS, and I'm happy that this is happing alongside the 'mobile first' innovations.
That could be really interesting if it happens! Some kind of must-have controller could do a lot
well , yeah, you have a good point, what is great about ios music is also what can sometimes be frustrating, a lot hinges on the mad scientist geniuses like Bram bos and Igor vasiliev, and they have a lot of other commitments of course. maybe we will see some new blood on the scene.
For me the hardware workarounds of no headphone jack and general sad state of app store issues (OS updates etc) has cemented the ceiling rather low for the platform.
Not a big deal as within ten years tablet tech will be so cheap and universal that software/hardware developers will simply be able to put out their own focused tablet based beauties with yes, headphone jacks and their own kick ass software. Ableton will have their Live tablet, NI will have their Maschine tablet and I will have them both.
Oh that sounds awful, and totally plausible too, it would be a real shame, as it offers a lot o portability, and creativity options. Wonder why apple is focused on the more visual side of creativity?
I didn't really think of that, but yeah, we are swimming with laptops and desktops now!
Personally enjoy creating music on my iPad more than desktop.. looking forward to Drambo’s update..
you are totally right about the headphone thing which doesn't really indicate a willingness by apple to take iOS music making very seriously. I think maybe we will see more hybrid hardware that combines a touch screen with real knobs, a bit like the black-box by 1010. But I dunno, I'm still hopeful!
In the early years at their Apple shows they would throw in the token Garageband blurb or ‘hipster with headphones in a warehouse shot’ but now they don’t even show a picture of a music note in a motion graphics clip art tornado.
IMO, it has to move beyond a cottage industry of one- or two- person shops, while still keeping the door open for those wonderful, innovative people to continue to push envelope.
At some point, the CPU and storage won't matter as much as a factor in mobile. And maybe that's already the case.
As I posted in another thread, the big players in desktop and hardware, like Moog, Kontackt, Korg, and yes, Eventide and Kemper, can I should branch out with some products in the iOS space.
In general, I don't value the penultimate sound or experience on the iPad. I value the portability, innovation, and workflow for creativity. Oh yeah, and fun.
P.S. The big boys don't always value profitability as a factor in a niche market to achieve ubiquity and mindshare. They want you to always have them in mind, and entice you to spend more with their bigger products. Happy to give some candy to get to the bigger ticket meal.
I think because it is simpler for masses to appreciate visual art than music art.. music is lot more subjective / personal thing (either you like or don't like some particular music style/band).. visual art has simple wider impact - videos, games, etc - and Apple is interested ONLY AND ONLY in things with huge impact, to increase amount of their potential customers - Apple is not about innovation anymore, or "punk" indie factor and things like that .. Cook's Apple has zero in common with Job's Apple, cook is businessman and pushes apple just in areas where is potential huge profit.
Sad, but uderstandable.
And honestly, I am telling fellow musicians how wonderfully the iOS platform has progressed since I left it a few years ago.
I think iOS music making is in sort of a lull and will remain that way for awhile until some new hardware advancement. We're seeing way less apps being released lately it feels like.
Here’s a few things I’m looking forward to this year: loopy pro will be huge.
Fingers crossed - pianoteq and swam string ensembles. More piano book instruments for decent sampler. Drambo updates.
The future is bright for tinkerers like me.
If apple changed their pricing model and released logic for the ipad pros, we’d see more big devs porting their apps. Right now it’s still the Wild West.
I’ve only been here for about 4 years. Lots of advancement since then. Honestly the headphone jack complaint is old by now…my thought is that if you are on iOS you are either using it just with the touch screen sometimes (and thus can plug in headphones with the adapter), and then others you have an interface that has audio out/ monitor. So no problems there really.
Desktop hardware and ports change all the time - that is not a reason it isn’t “flourishing.”
Word of mouth and reviews for the great apps - even old ones, will help the platform take off. A majority of the public, casual musicians, and professional musicians don’t know much about iOS music.
Sounds like some are disappointed in promised app development, particularly DAWs.
I also wouldn’t measure the health of the platform with the number of new apps that come out - that’s extremely myopic to think that way. Better updates all around will cement it of course, but we don’t need another sequencer, or another FM synth, or another delay etc…What we need is stable, supported software. And in some cases, the “apps that haven’t been updated in years 😩” work just fine because they are stable and finished, with maybe some minor maintenance updates.
No way will things be done in 2-3 years.
I needed to Google for the proper context of your question:
Then YES... people are producing all IOS music that is hard to detect from desktop or studio productions,
IMHO. We did it with the help of all the developers, large and small and the creativity of @echoopera,
@LinearLineman, @Daveypoo, @Paulieworld, @Frenq. @flo26, @richardyot, @reasOne, @GeoTony, @jwmmakerofmusic, @barabajagal, @Halftone, @DukeWonder, @Edward_Alexander, @FloRi89, @DavidEnglish, @Prappe... and last but not least... @You.
So, I announce Mobile Arrives at a Golden Age (MAGA)... should I make us some T-Shirts?
After years of accepting advice from the Internet
I have finally arrived at MAGA!
Coming at you soon.
I carrying a fully loaded iPad! MAGA!
He shoots... he scores! MAGA!
AUM... many iPads AUM. MAGA.
Many AUM's Give Aural! (MAGA2)
(What? Copyright issues? Never mind)
Last couple years is just treading water at this point, and hopefully the best devs’ legs don’t get too tired of it. That’s good enough for me.
Thanks @McD , honoured to be mentioned with the other great names on this forum.
Interestingly I am sitting in the dark at the moment with no electric or heating (other than fossil fuel) in the north of England as a result if a winter storm and one of the few things I can do is make music on my ipad (until the battery gives out).
My other main hobby is woodworking and I think there are similarities in as much as it really doesn’t matter how many tools you have (which is what I thing @mjcouche is more or less saying) it is what you so with them. New apps will come and go and I have nothing but awe and appreciation for the developers that build them but ultimately it is the creative spark that wins out. Just use what you have and don’t think the next new app / version will make any difference!
Love from the frozen north😊
It’s not real iOS music if it doesn’t test your patience, question your sanity, and force you to compromise.
I vote to keep iOS music elusive, cryptic, and undesirable to the masses.
Desktop tools can be maddening with the multi-level licensing and update issues and "touch" is a great way to communicate MIDI events while on the beach without power.
The masses are already making shit with IOS and will eventually show up to "ask a quick question"... the questions are quick but a good answer takes a lot of time and effort.
Yeah. My Live updates always involved emails with support because my license number never worked in the default upgrade field.
And my Cubase license dongle; it’s the reason I had to buy a USB hub to accommodate my controllers.
I guess I needed a stroll down memory lane for some perspective, thanks!
True, and a good answer usually involves questions too.
But not every app developer is a small “sweatshop “ operation. We have Steinberg, Apple (GB is overdue for a huge upadare ) Eventide, UVI (Can wait to see if there’s ever a Beathawk 2) and Image Line . Of course we owe a lot to the indies like Beepstreet , Elliot’s Garage and Four Pockets too. Just sayin’ though..
I feel you: I personally felt inclined to buy an MPC ONE so I could do music without a “computer” or tablet. I’m not giving up on iOS but I noticed I have more fun just playing than looking a screen, even though ONE has a screen 😂
I love the MPC workflow and sampling my iPad apps.
Personally speaking (nothing to do with overall flourishing) it would be perfect if they just put the usb-c port in the same place as the headphone jack. Not being able to walk and hold the iPad nicely is a bummer. I loved using it this way while walking to work. But for now the bright side is a pandemic and I don’t have to commute.
Wonder how people would react if Maschine+ (Or OP-Z or Circuit or whatever) only had one port that needed you to buy a dongle or third party hub etc. and deal with power issues and crap short cables and power drain from being unable to charge. Just from an optics/image point of view, not having the jack just pushes ipads further into the afterthought/novelty category to me. Having the Pencil support clearly says ‘artist friendly’, having no jack says music just isn’t a priority so who knows if even AUv3 gets deprecated in ten years.
As long as the devs are alive / in the game new people will be able to get in on the old stable classics but once they kick off or close shop you won’t be able to buy them as these are tiny operations.
Not to be contrarian or anything ... but for most (if not all) of those that you mention the actual iOS development team is very small relative to the companies behind them. The Cubasis team is just a few individuals, as is the ImageLine (FL Studio) team. Probably the others as well. Size of the company behind something isn't a direct correlation to how much development effort is behind it.
Larger companies generally only invest in development for three reasons: 1) profitability, 2) brand recognition, 3) as an enticement to sell something else. They're only going to invest as much as is justified by one or a combination of those three.
Makes sense .. But in a recent @MobileMusicPro roundtable there was some discussion about on interest on the part of app developers for coming out with new apps .
Thanks for the recognition @McD!
I think it could be argued that this is the beginning of the golden age. The time of the “bedroom producer” is now, and iOS is the epitome of that concept.
We have some solid developers like 4Pockets and ToneBoosters who have been around for a while coming up with new and innovative apps. We have BLEASS who is relatively new but making waves quick, fast, and in a hurry.
As McD stated, we have a solid number of artists on the platform producing quality work. We have multiple vloggers dedicated to the platform. We have multiple forums dedicated to the platform.
Sure there’s room to grow, there always will be. But part of what defines a golden age is peace and lack of conflict. The iOS music production works is extremely calm and non-combative. We’ve seen that time and time again on this forum. Sure we have squabbles but nothing serious. This is the single most polite and well meaning internet community I’ve ever seen. There are tv show based meme groups on Facebook that get more nasty than anyone ever has on here. Any significant amount of growth on the platform would certainly start to interfere with that peace. And growth is inevitable, so it reasons that disharmony is somewhere on the horizon.
So yes, I would say this could certainly be considered the golden age. And I’m happy to be a part of it.
Edit: Also, McD, kuddos on the MAGA jokes. I am both entertained and deeply saddened.