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.
App to DAW Midi recording workflow question
Say you have MIDI output from an app (Thumbjam, Xynthesizr, Arpeggionome, Genome MIDI, etc.) that you want to record live into a DAW. What's the best method to do this so the MIDI starts recording at the right time? I've only tried recording MIDI into Loopy HD so far and it was a bit of a disaster for me cause I could never get the midi app started at the right time. Now I have MultitrackStudio and I want to be able to record MIDI I've created in other apps into it. Any tricks to ensure the midi clocks are synced up between the two? Are there special triggers to start playing/recording the MIDI file?
Comments
I'm a little confused by your post, Loopy only records audio not MIDI so it's not going to work the way you're describing unless I misunderstand what you're saying. Are you trying to record automation into Loopy? I'm not sure it will do that either. It will repond to midi messages and send and receive midi clock but it only records audio.
To try and answer your other questions, the DAW would need to be able to record MIDI obviously and be able to respond to midi start/stop messages (not all apps do). You'll probably have to enable one app to send the master clock and slave the others to that.
Please give more details about what you're trying to do.
I was using Loopy to sync the clock with the midi app, then record the audio from the midi app back to Loopy using AB. But Loopy would never start the midi app playing. I had to start Loopy recording (or counting in) and then switch to the midi app and hit the play button. The recording was never in time with the other Loopy tracks though, even with the midi clocks synced.
What I'm doing now is in a DAW, not Loopy. So you're saying that there may be a way for the DAW to send a start signal to the other midi app to start it playing automatically? Forgive my ignorance as I haven't had experience recording midi data live to a DAW before.
Could you export the midi track into a .mid file and import that file into the DAW? Or am I misunderstanding you?
I'll be able to help better if you can name the specific apps you're using and how they fit in to what you just described. MIDI implementation on iOS apps is not always great so if I know the specific apps you're using (if I have them too) and what exactly you're trying to do then I can tell you what I would try. It's hard to know what's going on when you say "DAW" and "midi app" which are kinda generic terms.
You might try letting the DAW be the master clock and send it to Loopy but then you'd have to make sure Loopy is set up to receive midi clock not send it.
If you can give more specifics I might be more helpful.
Ok, pretty sure I listed the apps I was talking about already but here's a few examples. I want to record some live midi from Arpeggionome into MultitrackStudio (record while I'm changing chords/parameters in Arpeggionome). Another example would be to record live midi from Xynthesizr into MultitrackStudio. A third one would be to output midi from some Genome compositions I wrote into Thumbjam (in order to alter the scale) and then record the resulting midi from Thumbjam to MultitrackStudio. In each case, the midi app has to be started at the right time such that it aligns with the bars in MultitrackStudio.
I don't own some of those but as a clue for where to start you'll be looking into the MIDI config of each app and setting whether it receives or sends MIDI clock. Likely, you'll want Multitrack Studio to send clock to Xnthesizer or Genome and set those to receive clock from MS. Then, crapshoot that is iOS MIDI sync aside, when you hit Record/Play in MS it should start your sequencing app.
Short of that, just record it at the correct tempo into MS and then manually line it up. Hitting 'play' in the source app at the right time isn't that hard either.
@Coloobar, I believe when you say you want to "record live midi" what you really mean is the midi-generated audio from the specific app. Is this correct? There are apps that can record midi data, so the phrasing that you use might be confusing.
Correct, @Sonicflux ..."midi-generated audio" from an app is recorded in real time to the DAW, as opposed to saving it to a .mid file and importing it to the DAW that way.
Sorry I don't have Multitrack studio so I don't have anything to tell you there. Does it send or receive midi start/stop messages?
You might be able to record the midi and once you have the midi clip in your DAW slide it around to get the clip lined up where you want it in the timeline. That way it doesn't matter if it starts recording where you want it to.
Sorry not much help!
Maybe I am confused by all this. But I use xynthesizr, Thumbjam, arpeggionome, soundprism and everything to record into my DAW with an irig midi. I use them with ezdrummer, uHe, IK Multimedia, Native, Madrona Labs... Everything. For my freelancing work. And I use them the same way I play guitar and synth... I start them at the correct time. When recording I make sure to initiate whatever midi at the specified tempo. And if I make a mistake... I adjust the midi in my Daw. Using midi with anything is like playing the bass or drums or guitar on time in a band. The only perk is if you mess up you can take the time to adjust everything.