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.
spectwhirl by Alexey Nadzharov (Released)
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spectwhirl/id6471030896
introduction price for first versions
"bells and whistles, literally"
spectwhirl is a hybrid spectral audio effect.
It can extract and rearrange sinewave components from input signal to make new sound textures and bell-like sounds.
- input sound is converted to sinewave components that are divided into 4 groups: harmonic, inharmonic, 12-edo and other
- each component is fed into a delay line with feedback
- there is a group of frequency shifter and sample-and-hold effects before and after delay lines
- each set of sinewave components can be filtered
- all the parameters can be instantly automated with gesture recording
- !!! Please note that this effect consumes much
CPU and requires a modern device.
Quick Start:
Top row of controls enables different parts of user interface: scenes editor ("scene"), controls switch ("edit") and "zoom" controls
When "edit" is switch on, you can show or hide various controls (marked as "ctr|") and switch gesture recording automation for some of them (marked with ">")
Main control surface displays sonogram with tracked elements. Colors are set accordingly to the group they are assigned (red-orange-green-blue are for harmonic, inharmonic, 12-edo and others).
Each "lane" contains delay time controls.
- Triangle facing left is for the start locator, it determines initial delay time
- Square moves both start and end locators together
- When left locator is first moved vou can see the right locator with the same triangle. It shows the end of the selected region, the secondary delay time is determined by the difference between left and right locators
- if you drag over the area of the region in a lane, the four-dotted/one circle indicator will change its appearance; this changes the arpeggio mode of the region. If set to leftmost position (one circle) the components go in-sync; if set to maximum value (shown as diagonal line with circles) - components are played sequentially
- all settings can be stored as "scene" and multiple scenes can be switched sequentially; there is a set of button to move, add and delete scenes. All scenes will be stored as machine state; it can be exported / imported as a single file or as separate file with current scene in the "setup" view
- The standalone version always starts with output level set to -70 dB to avoid feedback
Comments
Any samples to listen to?
Also keen for some audio/video.
Really cool and with loads of built in parameter automation. Partnering with Mononoke was a great idea. This one will be used, for sure.
Edit: Very CPU hungry when pushing. Tried two copies but it went to red direct (AUM) and wouldn't go away either. Now I have issues just to get it running without issues. This (image) should be nothing. 😠
Just some random notes in. There's potential but if an iPad Pro M1 get into trouble as easy as mine did, makes me worry.
This is a very strange and bizarre app. Yes, it’s currently CPU hungry at the moment, but of this developer’s collection of weird and fun apps, this one is the most interesting IMO.
Quirky interface for sure, but the experimental possibilities are abundant.
I just tried 2 instances on an iPhone 11pro and I’m hitting 90% dsp… however, this app is so dense and potentially complex, that I doubt I’d ever use more than one instance at a time anyway.
It’s super fun 🤩 especially if you dig experimentation
The last beta wasn't as heavy on the CPU as the official release - I was running 3 instances on an ipad pro 11" M1 without problems but the same AUM session with the release version maxes out the DSP.
I took the plunge! It sounds utterly amazing, but even a very simple set-up in AUM of just ZOA feeding notes to Cobberhead into one instance of the app maxes the CPU out (98%!) on my new 10th gen iPad. A little fiddling could get things down to 88% (and make it stop crackling) but I really hope some optimization will come, so it can be actually usable in practice. (But the sound is gorgeous - no question of that!)
Wonder what happened…it’s been CPU hungry from the start but as @enkaytee mentioned, the last beta wasn’t all that bad. I was able to run a couple instances. I’m sure the dev will work on it, he’s generally very responsive.
Finger’s crossed! :-) I really like the concept of the app!
I've contacted Alex - I'll post any updates here....
Same here! It’s pretty fun to mangle a sound and then sample that into koala/gauss/enso. But definitely can’t use more than one instance 😂
So, Alex has confirmed that there is no difference between the last beta and the final release, but he's intending to carry out more optimisations in later releases. I found that removing the beta and installing the release version 'clean' rather than overwriting the beta, then restarting the iPad brought the DSP down to manageable levels again. If all else fails you can try selecting 'mono' and / or 'low fps' in the setup page.
Can it do other sounds? I just ask because every time I buy the experimental apps and I need to step back and just hear what it actually is… because that sounds rubbish to me lol. I mean we all have preferences but I get blinded by the idea of experimenting and the interesting mechanisms to the simple fact that I think that’s an ugly sound I would never want to use, if it reduces everything to that sonic signature, which I find a lot of these apps do, I could get that sound by wiping my finger down a piece of wet glass with reverb
Just to be clear, the problem is mine, in terms of using my brain rather than my ears.
Updated video, less cpu going berzerk noises (Although, someone needs to create an app simulating these noises, I grew a costume to that harsh sound).
This sounds amazing, but DSP is crazy. I’m on a new M2 Pro 1TB, and one instance (with ZOA, House MK1 and the Amazing Noises Limiter just hit 100% and crackles once I got loads of stuff going.
The built-in modulation is interesting, and I haven’t even dived into the manual yet.
So, I love it, but if it can be optimised so a single instance isn’t going to max out after a few minutes on a nearly top of the range iPad with one instance it’d be great.
We are well acquainted with lo-bit effects; now with spectwhirl we venture into the world of lo-CPU effects?
Ad copy: Explore a new dimension of distortion
Seems to matter how dense and complex your source is AND how much “smoothing” you apply.
I tried again with less complex source and backed off smoothing a little to bring 2 instances on iPhone 11pro iOS 17.2.1 down to a manageable 48% dsp
Totally manageable on my iPads. I’m only testing on the iPhone as the most legacy and least powerful device I have.
All I get so far is a mostly maxed out cpu and a crackling noise on my ipad Air5. Dang I should have waited on this one.
Try splitting up those little dots within each slider range by clicking on dot ant dragging it over so that you see 4 dots spread out.
I won’t deny that it’s a quirky interface, but once you find a few combos that work, it can be quite rewarding
Thanks for the help. Will leave it for a while see if it gets some changes later. Out of the first 10 sources I tried, only Mood let me get anything out and took my CPU load low enough. Its also the only app that has made my opad Air 5 hot while runn8ng it!
I’d keep your eye on it. I agree that it needs to get DSP in better control - but this dev seems to update frequently after launch 🚀
Here it is in the soon to be released Nodes… showing those dots spread out within widened range sections that I was describing. This is on an iPad mini 5 iPadOS 17.2. - I wouldn’t run more than one instance in its current state though
Yeah will wait and see.
I have an Air5 with the M1 chip and was on the beta. It was definitely cpu hungry but I was able to still use it. Just no more than 1-2 instances.
I've only managed to get one instance working and that's with only certain low power sources. As it is, its a no go for me unless an update helps it lower the resource requirements. As for multiple instances with this release, definitely not. Even with very low resource sources and trying lots of combi actions of settings, I've never got it below 70% and it often goes to max.
Yeah it’s a really great effect and can do some wild stuff but the amount of CPU it’s eating up is gonna end up being a huge detriment. I know the dev is actively working on it but I hope they’re able to making something work beyond small adjustments. As it stands, once I load this up, I can’t load up anything else so it’s impossible to do a jam in AUM (or any other host) with.
updated! and some tips after the list...
1.0.131 Jan 2024
added FFT synthesis mode for more balanced CPU load and different sound options
improved file handling and compatibility for iOS17:
this build changes presets file names to .spectwhirlproject and .spectwhirlscene
the "Shared files" folder in app's documents folder is now used to share presets between standalone app and auv3. This folder syncronizes each time standalone is started
fixed gesture recording in scenes
"duplicate scene" now changes current scene number to a new one
fixed timings gesture recording
some more optimizations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
tips to keep the CPU low(er):
-use (from Settings) mono (on) and fft (on)
-in default mode (non-fft) use low ranges
-use small Smooth values (close to bottom)
enjoy!
While using the tips above it still very heavy and one would at least hope that M1 and 16Gb ram should take you a bit further. No luck I guess(?)
M2 iPad Pro 12.9 99% cpu even with suggested settings. Anyone was able to use it? I have a Mac m2 pro portable and it is a great machine but this IPad for really a joke lately. Thought the processor power would mean something but it is very irrelevant in music apps…
If the app isn't optimised for your gear it does matter very little what you have.
Same experience here. Have an M2 pro too, and the app is basically unusable for me. Which is a shame, as I’ve managed to briefly get some lovely sounds out of it (for 20 seconds or so, before the crackling begins…)