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.
Mainstage iOS alternative
I'm interested to find appropriate live audio and midi looping app with backing track, AUv3 tracks, and proper internal and external MIDI synchronization support.
I have:
· Camelot Pro - unfortunately backing track and midi synchronization is not supported
· AUM - supports only Ableton Link synchronization, which is not reliable when used with MIDI link converter, audio player doesn't work in sync with external midi, needs third party midi player/looper
I know:
· KeyStage - just have tied free version - lots of crashes when using with audio - so seems very unreliable + rather expensive with all in-app purchases, but if experience with free one were reliable I would't mind to pay
· Garage band - I don't know if it can be effectively used as Mainstage alternative, but it is too big in size to be used seriously
· Loopy Pro - Midi tracks not supported at all
Can you recommend some more to check out?
Comments
Umm…why not just use MainStage? Sounds like you already have a solid workflow with it.
iOS is like learning a new instrument. It does some things awesome, but you can combine apps and effects to do things even better than some setups.
Have you tried Zenbeats? I think it’s all the boxes you mentioned.
I don't have mac and unlikely will ever have it. I have Cantabile on Windows, but would love to have something similar for more mobile iPad
Looks interesting, but is it cloud and subscription based?
It can be but doesn't have to be.
I don’t think there are any credible competitors to MainStage. If you really want or need it, earn the money from playing live or do some work on the side and buy yourself a Macbook Air. There’s no such thing as impossible if you really put your mind to it.
Is this for performance purposes? If so then smooth transitions when loading songs is probably important. Zenbeats is great and does have the things you listed, but may not work for you in that respect. Also, I know it can follow midi clock, but I'm not sure how smooth that is. When I last tried was probably a year ago. Anyway, it's free to try it out to at least get a basic feel for it. It may have some advantage for you that it has a Windows version as well.
If I was thinking about a solution for performing live I would first try Loopy Pro. Running LK, Helium, Atom, or Drambo in it could work for midi looping until Loopy Pro gets it. Which is best would depend on your workflow needs and would require experimentation and testing. You can evaluate Loopy Pro for 7 days for free. But be sure to have plenty of time available in those 7 days because you will need it to discover and experiment a lot in that time.
There are plenty of people using Loopy for performance who are very active on the Loopy Pro Discord. You might want to dip in there for a look around if you're considering it.
Otherwise, Zenbeats is really, really good. If I wasn't currently so hooked on Loopy, I'd use Zenbeats all the time.
(Disclaimer: I have not and probably never will perform live with iPad.
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Loopy Pro is one of the few apps with audio playback that can be either sync master or sync slave.
Honestly, I’ve used gadget for live performances just because of the wealth of sounds. You can layer a bunch of sounds and midi learn the knobs.
@wim is right, for live performance Loopy is a better fit. If you need to change songs on the go I wouldn’t risk it with Zenbeats or a daw-oriented app. Loopy is a beast made for that.
Loopy doesn’t have midi tracks or clips but it has really good midi routing and commands. You can use Atom or LK for midi editing, recording. Then just map a Loopy control to play, rec… whatever. It’s really just an intermediate layer, a little bit more complicated than if Loopy implemented midi tracks, but not a dealbreaker. Plus Loopy is pretty much unbeatable in flexibility, if you want to map external hardware controllers, pedals, whatever, I don’t think there’s anything better.
Whoops - I meant to link to an invite to the Loopy Pro Discord: https://discord.gg/7AgUYkKmat
Agreed. I bought a 2012 Mac for $200 CAD and it runs MainStage.
Back to your original question, I personally use Gadget 2 with Korg Module, Pure Synth Platinum, and SynthMaster One, combined with Audiobus 3 and they fulfill what I need off MainStage. I’ve actually played for a TV show with this setup this year.
MainStage is great, don’t get me wrong. Part of the reason I was able to score some gigs was because all I had, and needed was a phone, and I could hook up to almost any keyboard they had.
Thanks, loopy pro with some midi plugin sound great idea to try!
Gadget iOS as far as I know doesn't support AUv3
No, but you can load Gadget alongside AUv3 apps in AudioBus.
Yup. And if I only used AUv3 apps, I’d miss out on some really incredible apps.
TONALY for example is one of my top 5 iOS Music apps and it’s neither AUv3 or IAA.
Perhaps this in Aum
https://apps.apple.com/il/app/midi-layers/id1640217767
Agree with this. AUM + MidiLayers + AUM Program Change Presets = the easiest mainstage alternative on iOS.
Don’t own midi layers yet.
Any patchstorage template might convince me to get it
Loopy pro may have better results with the same configuration as program change is faster and smoother with Loopy Pro.it has cross fade on project load.
^This. Loopy Pro has optimizations for smooth transitions between projects.
I'm not playing live anymore, but it's exactly what I was always looking for back when I was.
Another good thing - the ability to minimize risk by quickly committing to audio and idling plugins. Having the ability to modify midi and tweak sounds is great, but the more plugins involved, the higher the risk of something going wrong. With LP you can shuffle those things off to the side, while still retaining them to go back and make changes later. Best of both worlds, especially with older, underpowered devices.