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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Curious to see how everyone learns their software/apps.
Right off the bat, I'mma declare I'm not an RTFM kinda guy. I aspire to be (Well, I've long aspired to be), but then when faced with hundreds of pages full of walls of text, I inevitably fall back to just intuiting my way through, then checking the manual for specific info when I hit a road-bump.
I guess I've got lucky for most of my music-making life, in that I tend to get the essence of what I need to get things done. But I know, even then, that I'm likely wasting a lot of time with missteps.
I guess i know what has to be done. I need to change my ways. But there's so much to learn at once, to 'catch up' on the world of iOS production, it's a little overwhelming.
This thread is inspired by a comment by @AudioGus I believe (Hope I'm not attributing to the wrong guy, or misrepresenting the idea). Anyway...They mentioned finding their way 'round a particular app by just practising different actions, without any music being made, to commit things to muscle memory (I assume). Kinda like squatting an empty bar to learn proper lifting form, before adding any weights.
So...just curious the approaches everyone uses. Not expecting a huge amount of diversity, but would be interested to see how the numbers stack up. To that end, I've added a poll. It won't cover all eventualities, and hopefully won't stop people elaboratin'
Cheers 
- To RTFM Or Not To RTFM?46 votes
- Heck, yeah! RTFM before anything!19.57%
- RTFM iz 4 LOOZAZ! and i ain't no LOOZA!0.00%
- I RTFM if I get stuck.78.26%
- I'd like to call my lawyer, please.2.17%
Comments
It doesn't happen very often but in those unfortunate cases I get stuck I usually end up reading the manual...
...for hardware I usually do research before purchase and in those cases it's RTFM so I know what I'm getting
Tis I, @AudioGus ! Yah I do that mainly just to see how things connect up and work, without the pressure to make something that sounds good. Trying to get musical gratification right away can be counter productive for me. As for true muscle memory though that comes from making the actual tunes and feeling in the zone/happy.
I’ll try it out blind and see what I can do and then RTFM if I’m just not getting it or if I feel like I’m not using the app to its full potential
Watch a tutorial on the phone while learning on the iPad is my usual approach. There’s some great youtubers that break it down
+1
I know enough about music apps to get my around them fairly quickly
and when I hit a ,"blind spot", that's when I go searching for the Frikkin M.
I always try to make something musical sounding
otherwise I just put it to one side and forget about it.
The exception was dRambo but I had the "time" then
to explore the nuclear physics of sound at the atomic level. 😏
I'm asking for my lawyer
Actually I tend to read a manual before getting an app or gear to get familiar.
Then I try do dive in and be productive. And end up consulting it whenever I get stuck.
That's why I keep goodreads on the ipad with all gear and software manuals
I'm a bit anal so i like to read the manual. Depends on the app of course. Some are very intuitive, but for others (ID700 would be a good example) there's no substitute for a read of the manual.
It was a lot more difficult when I first started using music apps as I did not have a good knowledge of many of the music software concepts. Now though I can learn most of what a new app has to offer within a pretty short period just by looking for the common functionality that most apps of a particular type almost always have. After this I then fairly methodically mess about with every menu option and function in the app to see what else it can or cannot do, making a mental note of anything that really should be there that is not, or anything that it does particularly well. It is during this phase where I also discover how well an app has been tested.
Normally clicking on buttons reveals what they do and if it is still not obvious then that is the trigger for me to dig in to the manual. I find that trying to use an app first makes reading the manual more efficient as you have some context and can skip over many of the sections that you are already familiar with.
It is rare that I'll try to be productive with an app immediately as I'm usually already being productive with other apps but at least I know what it is capable of the next time I come to want to try something new. The app then goes onto the app heap. A recent exception to this rule is my experience with "Tune Maker" which immediately ticked enough boxes for me to want to start using it in anger.
Some apps I can see will be useful at some point but I know are for sure going to be too complex to just dive into, e.g. Drambo. These I buy but are sent straight onto the app heap, waiting for a time some point in the future when I can give them the time they deserve.
I actually like reading manuals for the most part. Not fan of collecting things that I don’t know how to use, or what for. With time the amount of additional knowledge you can get out of a manual becomes less and less, but figuring out what sets one apart from the other is the key to use or misuse them... also it usually gives you an insight on developers, their approach to the given task or even beyond (I personally like to see when certain personalities cut through a dry text, and it’s often the case).
Indeed. Art Kern's manuals do this. Unfortunately there is no manual on iOS that rivals the beauty of Madrona Labs manuals. They are a work of art, as are their plugins. Id700 stands out as one of the recent best iOS Synth manuals, but lacks the poetry of the Madrona Labs efforts. They've talked about porting to iOS but i don't know if it will happen. I hope it does, their apps would be AMAZING with a touch screen implementation.
I find it a bit of a waste of time to read a manual before diving in to the app. If I do I only retain a fraction of what I read. If I have tried to do a few basic things at least, then there's something to anchor the knowledge. The downside is, unless I get stuck on something, I often don't open the manual and then end up overlooking something. Honestly, though, that isn't usually an issue as many manuals these days only seem to cover the obvious stuff anyway.
When exploring a new app, the first stop is to go through all the menus and control, which gives a quick overview of what the app does and what kind of options it has. When I have a vague sense of things I'm ready to try doing things. When I find something that it seems like the app should do, then I start from the assumption that it does it and go hunting for it. If I can't find it then I check the manual. Still not found? I check here to see if I'm overlooking something. Many times I am.
I would rather reference a 1000 page manual, even a poorly written one, than sit through YouTube videos any day! I can usually sit through a video just to kill some time and get some inspiration, but if I'm looking for a specific piece of information it drives me nuts to wade through videos for it. Yep. I'm a dinosaur.
Mix: YouTube and manual when stuck
I find YouTube and Instagram inspiring.
I like to search for apps and gear in the wild!
With IOS apps being inexpensive as a rule I tend to buy and then learn it by experimenting whilst referring to the manual or doing a YouTube search for help. Hardware or more expensive software I usually RTFM cover to cover before I even buy it.
Diving in to a manual without having any time with an app doesn't really work for me, so I like to poke around in an app first. I don't try to work until I get stuck like a lot of folks have mentioned, I kind of go until I have enough of a feel for an app that I have specific questions that the manual will (hopefully) answer. Youtube videos can be helpful, but for some reason I always feel the seconds of my life ticking away when I'm watching YT videos. Sometimes I'll dive into a manual first if I'm trying to decide whether I want to spend money on an app.
I also prefer to try to understand the app on its own before diving into a manual or vids. For an app of any kind of complexity though, reading the manual is essential. Take Aparillo as an example, or ID700, or Stria. There's no way i would have got all the nuances of these beauties without reading the manual. Some other apps are a piece of cake to figure out, eg snakebud
Thanks everyone for commenting. Definitely interesting results, though I suspected more people would be outright RTFM'ers.
I'm guessing that a lot of this will dictated by how much of a knowledge-base one already has for each type of app. An app like Drambo would, for someone with no modular experience (That'd be me), likely be impossible to grok right from the start. But I'm confident that if i bought Cubasis I could write an entire album without a single glance. Where I think I have the most issues is somewhere in-between e.g BM3, which seems familiar enough to make it frustrating to have to RTFM from day-zero, but even more frustrating to not have done so.
I'm starting to think that I should just start with the manual, going forward...regardless.
P.S @Gavinski Your anal-ity (anal-ness?) is to be celebrated by the entire community. Without it, we'd not be able to benefit from your deep-dives
Same goes for everyone else who does the hard-work and then shares that knowledge within these forums. Thanks to all!
It’s a mix for me, but the key is that I learn by playing. Not as in playing an instrument, but as in what kids do, and adults should probably do more (gratuitous opinion, but a serious point).
Playing around with stuff takes me to my happy place, and my inner child has a lot of fun. That extends to watching YT videos, either to see what kind of results people can get out of apps/gear, or demos and tutorials. The nice thing is that what to some people would probably seem like aimless noodling actually ends up producing pleasing results a lot of the time. So I have a bizarre mix of not having a clue what I’m doing, and having a clue almost by accident.
Manuals and tutorials are invaluable, though, especially if you have a good idea that something is possible, but can’t quite find out how to do it.
Would be great to have a 'Like' function for these forums
I was thinking more about this, and I think my deal is that I don't really have the attention span to read a manual front-to-back, and spending a bit of time playing with an app (even a complex one like ID700 or Loopy Pro) allows me to kind of skim the manual and get as much benefit from it as a careful reading would do without prior exposure.
And yeah, in the (rare) case where I can figure everything out without docs, that's gratifying too. Makes me feel smart
Fwiw, i come from the software school of, “if you have to read a manual to use it it isn’t worth using and you’ve failed for your customers.”🤔🤪
I tend to need to have a need for an app to really learn it beyond the cursory checking out. This especially applies to DAW’s. I need to know what I want to do or what I need to do, then I try to figure out how to do it. I keep a notebook in Goodnotes on the different DAW’s I use with keyboard shortcuts that are in the app as well as those I make. That’s mostly on desktop by the way, obviously not many keyboard shortcuts on iPad….
Apps like drambo, which I bought without knowing why I’d need it, are still a mystery to me. At some point I hope I will have a reason to learn it. I got it up be a continuation of Impaktor, but haven’t really had time to set it up to do that. I haven’t used Impaktor for anything “real” yet either, although I keep thinking I want to use it to add percussion to projects when appropriate. I think what @supadom does with apps like this is very cool. It’s not at all what I do though, so I just enjoy his videos instead!
Try to figure it out myself, but if I can’t I’ll read the manual. If all else fails I’ll ask here.
I’ve been playing synths (hardware and software) for 15 years or so, so I can generally navigate them pretty well. The more advanced stuff (like Beatcutter, ID700 etc) I will explore and read the manual as I need to. I usually watch a few demo videos before I buy anything so I generally have a decent understanding going into it.
I feel like there’s a honeymoon phase between all apps and myself, and after it’s over, if I really want to take it seriously and incorporate it into the workflow, I’ll take the plunge and RTFM. It was that way with Ableton, Reason, Cubase, Logic, and now the iOS world. It almost feels like acquiring a new app, after I’ve discovered true capabilities via the manual. And also empowering, realizing the actual capability at one’s disposal. And, if that knowledge can be digested and regurgitated concisely, there’s potential income/ad revenue too 🤷🏽♂️
I dive into the app immediately so I have a visual understanding of what things can do. That way, when I do read the manual, it makes a ton more sense.
I like the challenge of trying something new and trying to make something out of it. It allows me to think of unique ways to do things. It's partly the reason I've been going through different workflows this year.
The manual is usually a fun read when I get to it. Sometimes, it's a few days after using the application, then I realize " Oh, sick...I can actually do this". Special shoutout to Nanostudio 2 and Beatmaker 3's manual. Learned a ton of new tricks. I skim through it, as opposed to absorb information, since by that point I'd already know a lot of the basic functions of the application.
I also watch videos at 2x speed. Especially longer videos/livestreams like thesoundtestroom, and on apps I'm not completely familiar with. Special mention to his Drambo tutorial. I was able to watch it 2-3 times because it would speed through concepts I already knew, and I could specially focus on things I never tried. It was how I did the timestamp on that video.
Agreed.
The beauty of virtual modular is that you can't blow up the gear when experimenting.
My only advice is use an ADSR or turn down the volume of
the Track before instantiating an oscillator.
You need to be able to hear what you're doing or
you could go all Beethoven and imagine the sound in your mind.
I try to make music with the app from the start, flying by the seat of my pants. When I hit a roadblock then I will check the manual and then decide if I want to continue using the app or if it's something that just doesn't vibe with me.
Drambo was a weird one for me in that a lot of what I considered "basic" was kind of hidden away and not that intuitive but I am glad I persevered with the help of Ben Richards.
Often I find ways of using apps that the developer never intended and end up breaking things. 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for the further contributions. Seems pretty clear that most are following a similar path of just diving in, and only referencing when stuck or for expert status.
I’ve been doing this a long, long time - waaay before software synths became a thing, so can find my way around iOS sound creation devices and sequencers/daws fairly easily UNLESS the dev has decided to go down some weird or obscure route in an attempt to be “different” or “inspired/inspiring”.
Usually, in those cases, if something has what I consider to be a weird workflow or just isn’t intuitive or doesn’t click pretty quickly & I need to resort to the manual then that app quickly ends up being ignored & then after a while usually canned off my device not long after. The relative cost of iOS apps (compared to the devices they run on, or desktop apps, or hardware) lend themselves to be pretty throwaway in that respect.
I like to keep things fast & thus simple in all aspects of the writing/sound-designing/recording/producing/mixing process so I can just concentrate on getting things done & finished. Anything that slows down the process is no good to me and my end goals, no matter how intricate or “unique” that thing may sound.