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
Drambo can be daunting at first but it’s so worth learning.
Trust me, once it clicks you’ll be so happy you got into it.
I learned BM3 back to front over the years and hate that app with a passion (weird & unintuitive) although the sampler section is glorious and worth the price of admission.
Great! Good to know it's a workflow that has 'form'
Understood!
I wonder if you've tried Loopy Pro, and whether (or not) you see it as a useful adjunct to such a workflow. I've seen comments from some about it being an AUM-killer, which suggests a similar friction-reduced modular environment.
Thanks!
I was actually starting to think that perhaps I could become proficient enough with BM3 that I might be able use it for pretty much everything (Save for using AUM for the experimental parts of the workflow), and that the workflow issues would just disappear. However, your comments confirm my fears that even knowing it so well and being so practices/experienced doesn't alleviate the frustrations.
From messing around with it, so far, it's clear that the sampler is excellent. And for the 'on-sale' price i paid I'm sure it could earn its keep. But how? How are you using it within an extended workflow? Even if I did use it to build my kits, how can I best use those prepared kits within other apps?
As for Drambo: I keep wanting to rule it out, but with every new comment I get more curious. I understand calling it a grrovebox, is selling it way short, and lots of different things can be linked to lots of other things. But when it comes to playing and recording, how open/loose is it in terms of patterns/loops. Can I have combinations of multiple lengths (Even up to a couple of minutes each) of non-quantised loops as in Loopy Pro?
I like to record everything live in AUM, I don’t even multitrack after the fact. Not sure it’s the best way tbh. It’s massive fun though.
Gotcha! Thanks!
I just guess I'd want to give myself the ability to leave some time/space between the recording and being able to try different arrangements of the recorded parts, refined automations and a better overall mix (Not entirely sure if these last parts of the equation would be better to do iniOS or desktop DAW). Having said all of that, who knows?...Maybe I will end up getting good enough that the live performances/recordings will just work out for me. Certainly would be good to go back to getting stuff finished, rather than waiting for those moments never to come
Although this can be kind of subjective. Even if there are things I find easier in BM2, and Cubasis... I much prefer BM3. Sampling other apps, gear and instruments, and then putting them to tracks is flowing pretty nice for me. (And I guess for others too. there's some activity going on in the discord server and instagram)
My 2 cents would be (for any app)... if you have it, try it for some time and see if it clicks. But if you feel dragged down, maybe it's time to try something else.
Bonus for 4 cents: Keeping it simple helps. The less apps involved and the less I have to mess with routing between apps and just commit to audio, the faster.
BM3 is pretty good. I find that the navigation is pretty clunky though with things like not being able to effect the global playhead from within a pattern and automation is a bit weak. To me everything ambitious on iOS though has its own set of gotchas but for timeline based multitrack audio chopping / manipulation I don’t think there is a better option.
Thanks!
I'm pretty sold on the idea of using BM3 as a sampler, even if I just use it to make banks and kits to be used in my desktop work. But even then i find just the sampling part of teh workflow unnecessarily convoluted.
I think the main problem is that I started off wanting it to do everything. And because I'm having such teething issues I'm not getting anything done. What I need to do is just start concentrating on AUM, and learning the various synths/samplers/ granular stuff that it will be hosting. If for no other reason, I'll at least be able to get real results happening, within minutes, rather than having to RTFM before getting anywhere in BM3
Cheers!
But I'm still curious as to what you're doing once you've chopped and manipulated. How are you using these hits, slices, one-shots and loops within the wider context of your workflow?
Also, about Drambo. Does it come with decent preset patches that can help get started, and is there community sharing of patches? I think the samplers look pretty powerful, but when I see people creating patches, and that long list of modules comes up, my eyes glaze over
BM3 is one of those apps that i think is only really rewarding if you use it the way it wants you to.
My mistake with it to start with was trying to use it like a traditional DAW; A task at which it is far from good at.
But if you use it like you'd use an MPC and stop worrying about what it's crap at it can be a lot of fun.
A good way to get started is to ignore the timeline completely. Use the pads view load the pads with a collection of loops and hits (which you can chop from drum loops easily) into one Bank. You can then just jam your arrangement by hitting pads and record them into a pattern. You can make different patterns for different sections of your arrangement and can expand into scenes too, which is pretty easy as there's a scenes button next to the pads.
I like to print the loops with fx baked in as well as a dry copy if i remember to make the process even more frictionless.
Doing all of this in one Bank makes life simple and helps get around BM3 somewhat baffling assortment of nested screens and pads within pads nonsense!
Having said all that, I tend to use BW not BM3 for the above. BW is far quicker and simpler, takes away all the friction and is on my iPhone
Wait! You've got Bitwig on your iPhone?
Thanks for the detailed response. You might've made a very compelling case as to why BM3 might not be much use for me, at all.
When coming back to the iOS world, my initial intention was to use the various apps to design sounds that I could then throw into Logic, to leverage the various samplers, granulisers etc. that I own. It's not that I can't do that in my 'studio', it's that I wanted the freedom to be able to do it while out-and-about. i thought BM3 would be perfect to do that. But the more stuff I watch about AUM, Loopy Pro etc. the more interested I am in using the iPad for much more. So those same loops can also be used within Samplr, Borderlands, Spacecraft, Tardigrain etc. as well as my desktop apps.
But, with this project, the whole sound-design aspect extends to fully-realised loops. By that, I mean, writing sections of a few bars, using various drums, percussion and other instrument sounds, processing, then bouncing that into BM3 to chop up and further process. But for this to work, it all starts in the timeline or looper. I'm thinking timeline is better as I have more editing ability and better automation tools.
But starting with trying to record various tracks to the timeline, in BM3, as you've noted, is frustrating.
And your reference to MPC is something that adds further doubt. I do intend to do some Hip-Hop stuff, but much of the rest is going to be a little less, erm...'straight' and something I might not be able to easily shoehorn into BM3's patterns and scenes workflow.
I guess the only way it makes sense is if BM3 can easily be played and recorded into other software. It's just starting to sound like a nightmare workflow, and nowhere near the friction-reducing experience I was after.
Haha. Yeah.
BlocsWave is my go to on iPhone. I use it to assemble loops I make all over the place; on my phone, Logic and hardware.
BlocsWave is as frictionless as it gets for me. And when I have an idea going, I can export the whole thing already time stretched and pitch shifted to suit the tempo/key in one go.
My main DAW is Logic. I want iOS to be everything except for Logic. I already have logic once, I don't need it on iOS and don't want it either. I like iOS for all the things that are cool about it, like you've been saying.
The key to it all for me is to have fun making music with no ulterior motives. Not worrying about songs until they just have to be made after inspirations strikes. Feeding BW with loops makes it easy for me to have a jam when I have 5 minutes free. It loads so quickly, works perfectly with AirPods and is simple and distraction free.
It has a voracious appetite for home made loops and a total lack of tools to organise those loops. I tend to just hit buttons until magic happens :-)
Yeah dude... for me, that's the spirit. If it's confortable for you, it'll work
Yeah of course. BlocsWave works best for me in this role as it's so simple and quick.
LoopyPro is far more capable but with that comes a bit more complexity and the number one reason I like BW so much is that it is so simple and distraction free. Plus it makes it really easy to check out random loops together quickly and easily.
I don't recommend anybody copy my workflow. It suits me and my lifestyle. Everybody should make their own choices :-) But it's easier to make your own choices when you see what other people use and do, I think...
If I still had a permanent studio space and the time to use it I'd probably hardly use iOS at all for making music.
We'll see
Cheers!
Given this and your previous answer, I think we're definitely looking to iOS for different things. Not that I'm against something really instant like BW, but I'm far more likely to choose something likely to choose Koala Sampler instead.
Thanks, again, for all your help.
This goes to everybody who's chimed-in. I think I just need to get on with trying different things, and accept that there will be missteps along the way
NP, that's the whole point; Find something that fits for you :-)
It is most fun to just do it on the fly. I am not really into pre-making material.
Here is a workflow / ramble video I made three years ago that only clocks in at around half cringe….
I found it easier to get into BM3 by ignoring the Scenes view and only use the timeline Song view and Pattern view. I never use Scenes view.
Blimey! That's kinda blown my mind. You've definitely convinced me that i will be able to use BM3 to construct loops. I just didn't realise how seamless it could be. As you say in the video, it's very close to a looper workflow. Enough that I don't need to worry about LP for the moment.
There were a few things that I didn't really understand. But I'll give it another watch (Over the weekend, probably), and if I still can't work out the what and the why of some of the things you do, perhaps I could throw a few questions your way
For sure, throw me questions anytime.
yah exporting drum midi was certainly not neat and tidy
I haven’t tried it yet but it does seem quite awesome. I’m a huge fan of the devs other apps (Audiobus, Loopy HD), but for me, it’s not an AUM killer simply because AUM can still host IAA. There are still a handful of all time favorites of mine that are IAA only (like Nave) so I can’t go “all in” on something that can’t host those. I do plan on buying it within the next couple weeks and doing a deep dive though.
I understand that. Most of my stuff seems to be IAA. I might have to see if I can start being less-dependant on that stuff, however, as IAA's constant screen-switching gets old very quickly.