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.
Comments
I got Circles from this same dev recently and really dig it! I've also got RSVP, Astral, and this new one Shaper.
I am replying not to change your mind, but for any potential developers reading this.
The biggest reason is an app can be both! It can be AUv3 and standalone. Everything to everyone
That means more customers for the developer.
The other reasons are listed above (multi-instance, sequencer chaining, one click host saving and recall).
First off, I don’t get the impression that this dev cares whether he gets a bunch more users by appeasing those who insist on AUv3.
For some types of apps I might agree. I have 4 of this dev’s apps and love them all. Will likely buy another. It’s just the nature of these somewhat idiosyncratic apps of his, that the lack of AUv3 is not a dealbreaker. Not at all actually. I never use the apps of his that I have, and wish I could load them as AUv3. I set up the synths I want to midi control in either AUM or apeMatrix, then easily swipe over to these sqsl apps to have fun.
The RSVP sample app lets you record your jam session in-app.
Do I think he’d sell more apps if he made them AUv3? Sure he would! They are unique apps and an absolute creative joy to use. I just don’t think he cares about selling a bunch of units.
They way I use audio apps may not be the way many here use them. I don’t set up projects to recall, replay and store, etc. I open up a few and just play around. If I can’t store and recall the exact setup again, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s all very temporary and fun. If I happen on something cool, I might record it, but most of the time I don’t bother.
The only minor gripe I have would be that you can’t name your saved presets. It’d be nice f I could at least color code them or something. But, that isn’t a dealbreaker for me either.
All I can say is that I’ve been pleased with all 4 of his apps that I have. They are among my favorites. And them not being AUv3 is of no concern. If he made an IAP to buy AUv3 functionality, I don’t think I’d even buy it… because I have not needed it.
Those who must have AUv3 on every app… fine. Don’t buy this dev’s apps. You’re kinda missing out on some beautifully designed, creative apps though.
OK I bought this Shaper one to try to see it from your angle. I suspect it’s not the best of the bunch to test as it seems like a very basic keyboard app compared to Geoshred or TC-Data for example. I did get something out of it piping it through Rozeta Scaler as I couldn’t find a scale lock or anything. Thank god for chaining midi AUv3s lol.
Anyway, I’ll check out videos for the more expensive ones and see if they’re for me or not. Thanks for explaining your point of view.
Try experimenting with the rotating setting where it advances to the next midi channel with each touch of the keys. Not all combos sound good with this feature, but if you get the right combo, it can be magical
Also try putting Fractal Bits, Relic Wave, Relic Flow on isolated channels 1-3. Those all have sort of similar types of sound that go well together. I set them up in AUM with an additional effect app on each… then used the Shaper rotate setting with the fade out duration at the max 4.5secs. The results can be crazy 😜 good! I’m not sure how else you could do the rotating advance thing in another midi controller app.
The rotating thing, and more, could be done with other apps by routing them through Polythemus (only has up to 8 voices, but a lot of flexibility in the setup):
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/polythemus-au/id1439815017
If course that involves setup, it involves using another app, and the aesthetics of this app are not remotely as nice as the sqsl apps.
I also have the impression that the developer doesn't care about AUv3 nor requests about it. There are thousands of sequencers out there so if someone doesn't like these, nothing is lost.
I was looking for hardware sequencers, couldn't decide for one and then one day I got Latch and had the feeling it was a hardware sequencer. It is beautiful, perfect integration with the touch screen, intelligent combination of randomness and user interaction, suitable for various uses... and it is not tied to a beat nor tempo (actually, one of the things you can modulate is tempo).
Regarding presets: it has 8 (or is it 16?) times 64 preset slots - you do the math.
Since then I have purchased many other of his apps. Lottery for a more rhythmic style (although the swing parameter lets you get tempo-drunk if you wish); Astral for exploring notes in space; RVSP (or something like that), the sampling one, which I love but I'm too lazy to put together folders with samples; and Circle, which I'm still learning to use.
Presets aside, I love the interaction with the sequencers. Yes, you can program it at let it do its thing but you can also "play" it very much like it was an instrument. That's the invitation these apps present us with.
As I said before, they are the reason I kept my iPad.
This 👆🏼
Agreed. Plus, he's obviously a lone dev and an interface artist IMHO. It's worth $4 just to me to support that... but the fact that it's fun to use and gives your some sound dynamics that don't require much set up... is just a bonus.
What's really cool is getting a Circle session going with maybe 3 midi channels to synths... then set the Circles rotating slow, let that play in the background... then ALSO connect Astral or this new Shaper app to the same 3 midi channels to also play the synths while they're also being played by Circle.
Also... for others who take a chance on the Shaper app for $4, if you find that it doesn't bother you as much as you thought it would that it's not AUv3... AND you are like me and dig this dev's interface aesthetic, but don't want to pony up $20 just yet on one of his other apps.... try out Astral too. I think it's the second least expensive of his apps at $10
i am interested but i don’t have any experience using standalone apps as a midi controller. i am curious about how i would set this up to control my synths, particularly using aum (but any other setup advice is appreciated also).
me too!
It coudn’t be easier! :-) You just start the app up outside of AUM, and then in AUM you can choose it as a midi-source for a synth - just like you can choose the AUM-keyboard or a midi-app inside AUM as a source.
Like this:
thanks! it is a lot simpler than i thought it would be.
I’m so torn about SQSL apps. I’ve got Lottery, and it is hands-down the most interesting sequencer I’ve used on iOS. It’s deep and feels super creative.
I understand that the developer doesn’t want to support AUv3. That’s been argued to death, and I’m not going to beat a dead horse. I have Loopy Pro and can record the output anyway, so I don’t necessarily need to save the state to reload later.
Unfortunately the integration problems are much worse than just the lack of AUv3. It doesn’t seem to accept MIDI clock, so I can’t sync it to Loopy Pro. Even more bizarrely, it doesn’t seem to send MIDI clock, so I can’t even sync Loopy Pro to it.
Fine, just set the BPM in Loopy Pro to match the BPM in Lottery and try to hit the play button at the right time, right? Well you can’t. Lottery only shows the BPM as a slider; it doesn’t show the number anywhere.
I understand that integrating with AUv3 probably isn’t a walk in the park, and even MIDI clock probably comes with some headaches. But showing the BPM as a number should be extremely easy, and feels like the absolute bare minimum that could be done to integrate this with other tools. It’s an incredibly strange omission that ruins an otherwise incredible app. I literally can’t do anything useful with this beautiful sequencer and it’s so frustrating.
Contact the dev maybe?
OK, so in my efforts to wrangle this developer’s obtuse sequencer (I mean that in the nicest possible way
) into something usable in my production workflow, I have come across a method that works for me. I record the midi into Midi Tape Recorder to keep that master file of midi. Then I import that into Atom Piano Roll 2 where I can manipulate it into something sync-able, loopable, scale locked etc. Quite fun. I might try another of this developer’s apps now I know I can get some sort of workable output into a DAW.
This is what I love about these apps. There are so many iOS sequencers capable of syncing, AUv3, etc and they do an excellent job. The magic of the SQSL apps is that they do not sync. What's better yet now is that you can actually control a whole bunch of synths with only one instance and so you are much more focused on one sequencer and still have an orchestra in your hands. You don't know what bpm? It's all right, go by ear, let it do its thing.
To me it just feels liberating.
Then if you want more control, you can take @gusgranite advice.
So best of worlds is still to provide both, ideally. An app that can be standalone for the liberating no-sync focused workflow, that also comes in AUv3 format to save others lots of extra steps who want to use it in their DAW based production workflow. I don’t understand the either/or philosophy.
Nice dev by the way. Very responsive on email to questions.
I’ve actually taken this as the kick in the pants I needed to finally learn how to build AUv3 plugins with Juce. I’m making my own personal version of Lottery that will sync correctly. I’ll make my own Lottery with blackjack and MIDI sync!
Out of respect for the developer I won’t share the app with anyone else since my app is a clone. But I have so many ideas for sequencers, and while it’s been a lot of fun cobbling things together in Drambo and MiRack, I think it’s well past time that I used something with the ability to build anything I want.
I’ve got an incredibly basic plugin running on my iPad now. It’s basically the left-most stack of notes in Lottery, and it plays a note from that at random once per quarter note. I’m working on the 12x12 grid of note destinations now. I’ve got some ideas on how I think the phase works, though I doubt mine will work exactly the same as the original. Then I’ll have to build out the other stuff (octaves, timing, MIDI channel, velocity) and I may add some extras (ratchets, MIDI CCs, note length as part of the grid instead of being static per playhead, etc.) But it’s already syncing correctly to the clock in AUM and playing notes, so that’s a start.
But really, this is just an excuse to learn Juce so I can build some of the original ideas I’ve wanted to do for ages. And those are things I’d like to distribute so other people can have them, too.
Sounds well intriguing, and there’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other works, I hope you develop it enough both technically and creatively to feel confident sharing at some point…