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.
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I rekindled my almost dead interest in music making when I got Nanostudio 1 on my first iPhone. So much fun to have a studio in your pocket, which you could take anywhere. But I find working with a linear timeline horribly restrictive, and it too the gap between Nanostudio 1 stopping working on current iOS versions and NS2 coming it for me to delve into Audiobus and the joys of joining separate apps together. When NS2 came out I was ecstatic, but found I hardly used it, despite buying all the sound packs etc, as I’d moved away from wanting to work that way. Switching to AUM is where things really took off for me.
Why?
Because I can combine apps in interesting ways, and the amount of friction getting in the way of creativity is hugely reduced. Plus I discovered modular via MiRack, and things started to gel beautifully. AUM effectively turns your iPad into a modular system in itself, and makes integrating hardware easy too. It suits the way my brain works, in a way linear DAWs don’t.
Plus it fits my personal circumstances. I have a long distance relationship, and when I stay with my partner I just take the iPad. When I’m at home, I can just plug it into my hardware with almost no setup time (far less time than it takes my hardware synths to warm up and stabilise!). I love the touch screen, and the whole thing is fantastic for hybrid working without hassles (as long as you avoid iOS updates until it’s clear they haven’t broken anything vital…).
I’ll happily use a linear DAW if I need to - which is very rarely, and Multitrack DAW covers the bases I need covering. But nearly everything is done in AUM, and AUM is liberation and inspiration for me. As is the touch interface. I get why some people are really excited by the arrival of Logic, but I have zero interest in it myself. It just represents a way of working I find uninspiring.
So (nutshell version): inspiring environment, inspiring apps, portability, easy hardware integration.
I haven’t had a desktop or laptop in some years now so I’ve been iPad + hardware only and I don’t see that changing. I love making music, it’s my biggest passion, and the iPad facilitates that perfectly. The modular approach of apps like AUM and the sheer amount of experimentation it offers is exactly what I need. And knowing I can simply flip open the case to my iPad and have every kind of synth imaginable just a button press away is very inspiring.
Overall, it’s just clicked with me more than any other approach I’ve tried, and I’ve tried almost all of them. I’m mostly just doing it as a hobby and for fun so I don’t need a $15,000 studio.
So do you use the QWERTY keyboard as a midi controller? I haven’t done that in years and never thought to do that on the iPad.
Also any Bluetooth mouses you’d recommend? I’d like to have one eventually.
Overall I agree with you. I’m doing this as a hobby that I love dearly and want to enjoy it to the maximum and the iPad is the best way for me to do that.
In my opinion if you're more comfortable with Ableton on a Mac than, say, Logic Pro on iPad, that's valid. @mistercharlie uses Live on a desktop/laptop (which OS and computer type are you using these days Charlie?).
That said, the reasons I switched to iPad years ago are...
There was a time when FL Studio proper used to only run on Windows due to being coded in (if memory serves proper) Delphi. And the more I used Windows over the years, the more and more I grew to loathe the OS. The only reason I stuck with Windows so long was because I loved using FL Studio.
Carrying a laptop around is a chore. Carrying an iPad 2 around was a breeze. Carrying an iPad Air 2 was a breeze. Same for carrying an iPad Mini 5 and now a new iPad Mini 6. I use my 12.9" M1 Pro for more intensive tasks at home (since carrying that around is almost as much of a chore as carrying around a laptop, except the M1 Pro has better battery life lol), but my Mini 6 is perfect for starting projects and completing simpler projects.
Plugins for the iPad are considerably cheaper than their desktop counterparts, so I have access to more high-quality tools than I ever did on PC. On PC, I never used cracked software as I didn't want viruses and worms infecting said PC. 🤪 There was a time when plugins on iOS were sold dirt cheap ("Angry Bird prices"), but now they are becoming more "expensive", but even at more fair "expensive" prices they are cheaper than their desktop counterparts.
It's a lot more fun to knock something out on an iPad (no matter if regular iPad, an Air, a Mini, a Pro, whatever). AUM is one of a kind, and I can't imagine trying to create live Ambient in any other software environment! Kudos to @j_liljedahl ! I'm thankful to @sonosaurus for the hard work porting over PaulXStretch to iOS and releasing it for free. (It's an app I'd honestly pay $10 for given how absolutely useful it is to my Ambient workflow.) You get the idea mate.
And now that Logic Pro is on iPad and I'm getting used to it, I find it to be the best DAW app I've ever used on iPad. Your mileage may vary. You just may prefer to stick to the desktop environment and use Ableton Live. Again that's perfectly legit.
Best of luck with whatever music-creation avenues you may wish to travel.
+1 although I never had any music software on any laptops ever, went past that stage right to the iPad.
/DMfan🇸🇪
It were either Elektrons or a Deluge or combo with ipad but an ipad swayed decision because of granular.
But Granular is my worst synthesis, although Silo is a fav effect.
Ended up buying a desktop computers worth of ipads and controllers
but now kinda finished mapping all things and ipad routing might be good.
But find a screen tweak synth, without system is usually better.
I don’t use the qwerty keyboard to play, no! Actually I did download one app for that, to give it a try, but found it pretty useless to be honest. But I do use the keyboard for typing - things like this message now, or when I do the writeups etc for my youtube vids, and using a keyboard for that is a VASTLY better experience than typing on the screen. I don’t actually have an official Magic Keyboard, I’ve got a Chinese keyboard that basically acts the same as the Magic Keyboard except that it is bluetooth and the usb C connector on it can’t charge the ipad but instead is used to charge the keyboard itself. I don’t mind - I have a little dongle that I can use to charge the ipad while listening if I need to anyway, and this only cost 100 bucks roughly, compared to the absolutely ridiculous price of a real Magic Keyboard.
The bluetooth mouse Igor was Phillips, can’t remember the model details, just a bog standard mouse, probably cost less than 10 bucks and has worked great. A mouse or trackpad are essential when making youtube vids if you want to be able to let people see where on the screen you are, but they can also sometimes be more comfortable to work with when the ipad is mounted - you can look ahead, instead of down, much better for your posture, and yet you don’t get arm or shoulder fatigue in the way that you can when trying to use a mounted touchscreen. Basically anything that gives you more options in terms of posture etc is good in my book, as I spend so much time using the ipad each day.
1/ in daily job i sit behind computer all day - i am coder - so computer for me naturally feels loke "it's work" . I need radical difference for free time (music). I doesn't want to sit behinf computer again in my free time to mke music.
2/ iPad feels to me like in between HW (which i use too) and SW. I can grab iPad (or iPhone) anytime i want, doesn't need wait to boot, i can just immediately run app and start make music. It's more tactile experience, interacting withnapp directly with my hands/fingers gives me feel that i work more like with HW than with SW.
3/ Limitations ! On desktop i had often "too much options" paralysis. Limitations on iOS makes me much more creative and imhave a LOT of fun. I fiňished on iPad MUCH more tracks tomthe stage where i am satisfied with resukt that i ever did on desktop.
I's great being able to take my whole "studio" with me on vacation, or even into bed 🤣
Yes, that’s like me too. I take my iPad to bed and mess around on it before going to sleep. It’s so nice to grab it and bring anywhere, like grabbing a book.
I had a MacBook with an old copy of logic and GarageBand and a couple of free plugins but this was many many years ago. I have no real urge to get another one though. I’ve never personally felt limited by what I can do on iOS.
My old Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard finally stopped charging a year ago and I haven’t bought I new one as I haven’t been writing much but I’d like to get another one soon. Definitely very useful.
Good call on the mouse too. I’ll probably pick one up sometime soon. I may have one somewhere tbh. Unless the old lady gave it away 😂 I need to ask and find out.
My iPad is also a better and cheaper MFX than a $2000 Axe FX.
It's also super easy to create a beat on the side to jam with your guitar. At first, I knew nothing about making electronic music, but I was looking for a quick way to add beat to the song I wrote with my guitar.
And then I discovered DM1, super easy to use, no knowledge needed and bouya, you have a beat to add to your guitar track. It was the beginning (at first I bought my iPad to play puzzle games like The Room on iOS so I already had the iPad).
The 2$ DM1 was cheaper than to buy a Circuit or something like that.
Yeah, I use the DM1 as well. It sounds really good IMOP.
Drumlab is often on sale and it's like DM3. Super nice app (but not Auv3).
I also spent a lot of time behind a computer screen so, the fact that I can bring my iPad to a park and make music, is a big plus. And there is so many incredible apps. I think people in general don't know how good are the iOS music apps.
Fell in love with mobile computing, find it fascinating and magic that I can do all this with something I keep in my pocket, I used to be all about mobile photography, but then I got a cheap iPad and wooh! Garage band sent me on a trip.
I have a powerful laptop with Logic Pro and I had for year IPads but I didn’t use during many years my IPads for music only emails, surfing .
I went to iOS music because of my health problems as it was more and more difficult to use a mouse and tra ball for me to enjoy doing music on the Laptop.
Now I love doing music anywhere on my iPads ( mainly in my sofa ) . With LP iOS now It fill the gap between laptop and IPad.
I do music only as a hobby but for a Pro producer I think that they can’t rely only on IPad to deliver their work. It is not how powerful is an iPad , with a M3 iPad Pro (up to 2 TB and 64 GB memory ) on the pipe in 1 or 2 years coming But about the physical setting of their studio.
I can take the iPad to work for AUM sessions.
Back home everything is fed into Ableton on Laptop.
I like the interface. I can touch it. It's an easy thing to use and quick to set things up and get going. I really don't have to think quite as much which then lets the creativity flow. I grew up using 4 track tape machines and samplers so the iPad just removes all the physical distance between things and makes it easy to save it all when I've finished for the day. I hope the environment just gets better because the quality of apps are really inspiring.
I started writing songs & recording in 1992. Unless you had the dough to buy a reel to reel multitrack recorder and a mixer you really only had cassette multitracker's like Tascam's PortaStudio's. I began on a 424 four track and upgraded in '97 to the 488mkII eight track machine. I loved the hands on experience and learning recording on analog equipment really helped me down the road. As I was going through a recording technology program I of course moved on to desktop DAW's and continued to do so throught the early 2010's.
My wife gifted me a new iPad Air 2 in 2015 and I soon discovered the music production apps available. I had only used Android phones where music apps are scarce; seeing what was available even then totally sold me on iOS music production apps as a legitimate option, especially since it was for writing & experimenting in my home studio.
Since then I've continued to use iOS music apps exclusively in my setup. I seriously haven't opened a session on my desktop in years. Auria & Cubasis could pull off what I wanted to do and the touch interface really reminded me of those hands on PortaStudio days. The Apple Pencil is there if there's ever too tight a squeeze but 90% I'm just using my fingers.
I've been bummed at how Auria Pro seems to have reached abandonware status but the introduction of Logic Pro totally blew me away with how much of a perfect mix of touch interface & standard DAW it is. I'll still use Cubasis if I want to use IAA apps but right now I've just been slack jawed at how elegant the developer's made Logic for iPad.
One thing to note, Madlib, one of the best producers ever, has stated he has been iOS only since around 2017-2018. So there’s at least one person doing it. And I know lots of artists use them a good bit, but not many are iOS only right now. I could see that happened in the next 1-3 years though.
For gigs, ipad is close to perfect, particularly now that the processors are on a level that outperform macbooks of a few years ago.
The synths are as good as anything else, desktop or hardware.
And yes cheap.
The form factor works brilliantly. Some of the interfaces are remarkable. (Fluss, Borderlands, Spacecraft, Animoog etc), multi-touch screen mixing controls are far better than mouse operation.
Its small, light,
you can have 2 or 3 ipads for redundancy in case one bursts in to flames mid gig and the cloud aids in mirroring configs and files for that.
I would need a Waldorf Iridium, ASM Hydrasynth, and some more synths alongside to have the same synth power as I have on that one nicely sized rectangle of touchability.
Loopy Pro is even better than Ableton for live performing, as bold as that might sound, it really is - follow actions built directly in to Loopy Pro is the Clyphx-like batch actioning ableton should have implemented years ago but didnt, added with Touchosc-like build your own UI for it, it is the closest thing to a perfect live-focused DAW.
Therefore a "rig" for live synthesizing/looping/fingerdrumming/controllerism etc, be it solo or as part of an ensemble, can now be midi controller, ipad and apps, and audio interface (x 2 for redundancy).
Laptops dont fit as well on stages and dj booths.
If weight and size didnt matter to me at all I would probably go hardware with a synthstrom deluge, iridium, hydrasynth, and some other tasty modern digital synth things because hardware doesn't tend to have the same short term obsolescence built in. I do not for one second trust apple any more than any other tech company, in fact definitely less, and I have found synth makers are a lot more reliable for the longest term, and the hardware units will keep their value. But, as a trade off, for now, with cost, convenience, form factor, creativity, ipad works incredibly well.
Touch experience, plus anywhere anytime world class studio
Since getting my iPad, I have found that making music using notation is how my brain works best and most productively. The iPad screen/pencil combination is perfect for this and we are blessed with a good number of notation apps. Of these, MTS is by far my favourite for use with the pencil, though each app has its own selling point. I have tried using various apps with notation support on the desktop (including desktop MTS), and they just are not as fun or efficient as using the iPad.
I just bought Drambo ..now I know why
I’m amazed !
For me, the iPad still works best as an ideas platform, an instrument in its own right. Hosting my apps in AUM and jamming about is 100% more fun, and more inspiring than starting tracks in a desktop DAW.
Where it still doesn’t work for me, is as an editor/arrangement tool, despite the much-hyped arrival of Logic. It’s just so much easier doing this on a big monitor, with a powerful CPU, mouse, straightforward file management, loads of storage etc., though I can create a fair few chunks of content for desktop use via DAW-lite apps such as Koala, Gadget and the like.
Not a problem, tools for the job and all that.
If I should be forced to choose between my Macbook Pro 16” M1 and my iPad Pro 12.9” M1 I would choose my iPad!
I love my iPad and this community…
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Much the same reasons as @Bruques
As a former guitarist/bassist/Stick player, I just grew sick of lugging a ton of heavy equipment around. With Linnstrument+iPad+apps, I can cover pretty much every sounds I can imagine, and carry it all in a backpack. At 60 years old, that portability (and lack of chiropractic demand) is a huge benefit.
I also work on laptops every day, so anything involving a laptop feels a lot like work. The iPad's touch interface is way more fun and inviting to work with. Tools like Borderlands just wouldn't be possible without that touch interface.
Between AUM, Loopy Pro and now Logic Pro, that's all my music making scenarios covered. For spontaneity & hands-on fun, it's AUM. For a totally improvised show, Loopy Pro is better than anything else I can imagine. As a song creating tool with a colossal load of features, Logic Pro is now my new standard.
Cost? Forget about it. I can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for each hardware synth, or $5-$20 for Moog's finest, a bit more for Synthmaster 2's thousand of great sounds, then there's great stuff like Drambo, Nambu, ButterSynth, SWAM and few dozen others. For the price of a single hardware synth, I can have a colossal array of incredible sounds to work with. I've got about 12 drum machines to choose from!
I love the fact that there's so many apps that fill different niches, and do it so well. MIDI Tape Recorder, Drambo, miRack, SWAM, SteelGuitarPro, Geoshred, FAC Alteza, Synclavier Go, ID700, Mononoke, Teraverse, Quanta, SampleWiz, Brusfri, Pure Acid, Wotja, Layers, Hilda, ZOA, ... - they're all fantastic apps and AUv3 makes them all play together nicely.
I'd far rather spend the money I save using an iPad for a top notch MIDI/MPE controller - the Linnstrument - that will serve my live playing desires for essentially the rest of my life. I've spent way more on guitars, basses and 2 Sticks than the Linnstrument, and outgrown them all in terms of they're being suitable for the music I want to play.
There's a few downsides of music on iPad vs a laptop:
I’ve been dipping in and out of iOS music since the original iPad. Sometimes I’m super enthusiastic about it, sometimes I’ll ignore it completely for a while.
For me one of the biggest draws is that the startup friction is so low. The device is already on. Just plug in some headphones, launch an app, and I’m doing something creative in seconds - nothing else needed. There are so many awesome apps available.
In contrast though, I’ve always found the finishing friction on iOS to be quite high. Once you get beyond a few tracks and a few apps, it seems like there’s always something to be worked around, the workflow starts feeling tedious, and it starts bogging me down and becoming an inspiration killer.
This has gotten better and better over the years as the platform matures. Maybe Logic will be the final piece of the puzzle that pulls the whole workflow together? We shall see. I think it shows promise for that!
Interesting how close this is to my experience.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that thing of locking your rented software to specific iOS. 100% cosign on this. it sort of makes real the supposed low cost. it's all fun, fine and cheap, until the day it's all gone. I will almost certainly end up with a hardware equivalent in the next 18 months, which of course if you purchase carefully on the used market doesn't lose any value at all, so there's that. admittedly there'll be a few repairs here and there, and it's back to lugging around weightier stuff, but it just provides a rock solid option while still using the ipad rig as a likely daily driver.