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 like it, seems to be a quality product. And the motorized knobs are certainly very useful, also for writing automation where rotary encoders or endless pots would not give you absolute control.
But the price, well, I'd wait too.
I would really like to know if it does work with the iPad.
It is acceptable that it requires a computer for configuration.
If it is class compliant it only should require MIDI feedback.
This will exclude AUM (no MIDI feedback) but Loopy Pro will be fine.
The question of rotary controllers was foremost on my mind when I first heard of this.
I've often wished for reasonably priced motorized faders... but honestly, more for the familiar form factor than any particular utility. And now this provides motorized knobs, which as a veteran knob twiddler seems like an obvious preference.
But I have a Midifighter, and use it a lot. And is its control any less "absolute", any less precise (for my purposes), than this? I rather doubt it. So while my initial reaction is "ooh, shiny", my immediate followup is "hmm... maybe not."
Well any incremental encoder, including the Midi Fighter Twister, won't have the same precision per angle as a classic potentiomete. You have the choice: Few increments and fine control or knob acceleration which kind of gives you both range and precision, but it won't give you the same experience like turning the knob to 3 o'clock and always get the same value. And the motorized knobs eliminate the infamous value jumps when starting to turn the knob.
But if your twister works for you then just keep it.
Yep, it's up to the app to support it.
Drambo has just received fairly deep MIDI controller support with value feedback and Sysex init support, so that's another great option.
I'm not convinced that an analog pot's intrinsic nature matters much when what's being encoded is Midi data.
And the jump doesn't have to happen. That's what relative mode is for. And you can push starting values to the encoder and ring, which is effectively the same thing as setting motorized rotors.
Yes, obviously it's going to a matter of preference.
I wish there will be be more controllers and synthesisers with parameter feedback, be it LED rings or motorised faders and knobs. Behringer made a good start early 2000 with their BCR2000/BCF2000. Now since some components and CPU boards have become cheaper, we may see some more products of this kind.
There’s another variant of controller, with a screen. Rather on the expensive side, but good to know that such development is there.
https://electra.one/
http://faderfox.de/ec4.html
https://mpmidi.com/
It works with the ipad. I've had one for over a week and if directly connected to a modern ipad with usb c, the ipad even provides enough power to roto-control that it doesnt need an additional power source.
Alternatively, WIDI Master dongle also seems to get enough power from roto-controls DIN ports, so a wireless connection between ipad and roto-control is also feasible.
Basic setup of each knob and button in MIDI mode on roto-control can be done straight from the device, but for more advanced config including naming, you do need to use the computer-based app. But since this info is then stored on the roto-control for future use, this doesnt stop roto-control being useful with ipad.
MIDI feedback is indeed the key to having this device work well with ipad apps. I have only tried it with standalone instance of Animoog-Z so far, because thats the first thing I tried that I knew MIDI feedback worked with for cc controls. There is something very satisfying about switching presets in Animoog and having the knobs jump around to match the loaded presets knob positions. I will spend more time with other possible options such as Loopy Pro and Drambo in the coming days.
By the way, some people who dont understand the full benefit of roto-control are missing how wonderful the haptic feedback is. They feel like pots, with a start and end point, and you can also configure them to behave like a stepped knob, with up to 16 steps (and you can also name each step). And then the click you get when moving to the next step is incredibly realistic, this is the best of all worlds and feels like magic! Even in non-stepped mode, there is an option to set up to 2 indent points where a gentler indent point click is felt. So if you ever get a chance to touch this device in real life, do it, you might be surprised and a lightbulb may go on in your brain!
Funnily enough, in current firmware there isnt actually a mode where you can get a knob to behave like an endless encoder instead. There is a factory demo mode where this sort of 'clickly continuous encoder' haptic behaviour is assigned to one of the demo knobs, but that mode isnt actually available for any of the knobs in real use at the moment. This doesnt actually bother me because making the knobs behave like pots is where the joy is for me, but I suppose there are some scenarios where it might be wanted.
I wish you had mentioned that this version of Drambo isnt actually out yet, its in beta isnt it? Now I bought Drambo today and spent time wondering why I couldnt get this side of things working, only to eventually find the relevant thread on their own forum. Never mind.
I then moved on to testing roto-control with Loopy Pro instead. The bi-directional stuff works very well with roto-control, so long as you only expect the knobs to move on roto-control when you manipulate Loopy Pros own controls. By this I mean that if , for example, you setup a virtual knob on a page in Loopy Pro to control a parameter of an auv3 instrument or effect, and then you fiddle with that knob inside loopy pro, the roto-control knobs that you have mapped to it will move accordingly, great. But if you go into the effect or plugin and move its own GUI knob, or load a different effect/instrument preset inside the plugin that has that knob at a different value, these changes are not reflected on the roto-control (presumably because they arent reflected in Loopy Pros own virtual controls either, which is sort of logical because one Loopy control can be mapped to more than one destination parameter, so its not really shocking that this part of the system isnt a bi-directional thing).
Dont get me wrong, for many aspects of controlling Loopy Pro, the roto-control already seems like a great option. What I dont think we have yet, is a auv3 host app for ipad that is really the ultimate brilliant central app for an ipad setup that makes heavy use of roto-control. ie I dont think we have the ipad equivalent of what roto-control can do with Ableton when it comes to seeing values update on roto-control when loading new presets inside a synth etc.
@SteveElbows Sorry for the confusion. But it shouldn't take too long until the new MIDI mapping features are available to the public.
I've replied to your message on the beepstreet forum.
Ordered mine week ago, still need to wait for another two or even 3,for Europe at least
I mostly work in Live, with Digitakt and Deluge, so this will be perfect paring from what i see online
thank you very much @SteveElbows for the tests with parameter feedback, and the indeed revolutionary responsiveness with haptic feedback.
Thanks.
Currently my thinking is that as well as requiring the host app to handle MIDI feedback to the controller, many hosts also seem to be lacking when it comes to the parameters of auv3s that they host. By this I mean that in my testing so far, apps arent tending to update their own plugin parameter controls values when those values are changed within the plugins themselves. eg if I map a cutoff knob inside a auv3 to a virtual knob control in the UI of a host, and then move that knob inside the auv3, the knob inside the host app doesnt update. Likewise if I load a different preset inside the auv3, the knob in the host app doesnt change position to reflect the changed value for that parameter. Hope my explanation makes sense - I am used to how this stuff works properly with parameters inside desktop DAWs, and I've yet to see the same behaviour with the ipad apps I've tried. Without this, the full utility of having motorized knobs with an ipad cannot be realised - it will work fine when controlling a suitable (ie bi-directional MIDI) hosts own internal parameters, and it will work ok in contexts where you are only ever changing the auv3 plugins parameters via controls you've exposed in the host app, but as soon as some of those parameters are being set by a different means, eg by loading a preset in a auv3, everything is no longer in sync. During my limited testing this also seemed to be the case with Drambo, if I create knobs for auv3 parameters inside Drambo, they arent updated when values are changed by the auv3. Please let me know if Im wrong about that.
Or to put it another way: its one thing to solve bi-directional communication between host app and roto-control. But we also need proper bi-directionality between the auv3 hosting app and auv3 plugin parameters, seems like only a one way street at the moment with the couple of hosts I've tried. I understood the rationale for this limitation when it came to the virtual controls you can create inside Loopy Pro, because those are more like macro knobs that can be mapped to more than one parameter at the same time, and there isnt an obvious way for those one-to-many relationships to be properly bidirectional. But I dont really understand the limitation when it comes to hosts that are letting you expose individual auv3 parameters and giving you a knob thats connected to those individually, a one-to-one mapping. In that scenario I would have though it should really work in both directions, like it does for example in Ableton (when exposing a plugins parameters in Ableton and having them show up as sliders, and those Ableton sliders update their values whenever a plugin UI or plugin preset-induced change happens inside the plugin).
@SteveElbows I agree, and we'll test these scenarios as well.
Loopy Pro does this perfectly.
I can move the controls of an AUv3 and it will be reflected in my encoders.
It will also update all learned controls when i change a preset in an AUv3.
Loopy Pro is the one shining light in the MIDI feedback darkness.
I hope Drambo will follow soon ... and brings 14-bit MIDI support too, which Loopy is still missing 🫣