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.
iPad or MacBook?
Greetings all,
I’ve recently gotten into loopy pro. I feel like I’ve completely missed the boat as far as iOS stuff goes. I’m blown away by how good this stuff is.
I’ve got a 9th gen iPad, minimal specs and an m4 MacBook. With the iPad, I’ve had a great time learning to use LP, AUv3 plugins for keyboard, trying the Primo amp for guitar, midi programming, etc… I really can believe how much cool stuff I’ve been missing!
My goal is to put together enough material and chops to play out at musical wallpaper type gigs. I can play/loop guitar, keys (covering bass too), and vocals. I’ve played in bands for the past 45 years and I’m over it, this is the direction I’m going.
I’m kind of wondering if I’m going to hit a wall with the processing power of my iPad? I’m running the buffer at 128 and have noticed a few glitches when doing key changes with clips in LP. This is running Primo, King of FM, groove step, and some effects as well as clips going.
Also, I use a Tonex pedal for my guitar tones, but I’m thinking software modeling may be a way to whittle down the amount of gear I’m dealing with. I’m considering getting tonestack pro, although I’m finding Primo to be very usable.
So anyway, here’s what I’m wondering; do I upgrade the iPad, or, find some similar macOS software to run on my MacBook? Size wise the MacBook is essentially an iPad with an attached keyboard.
Comments
For clarification, by "similar macOS software", do you include Loopy Pro in that?
Do you really need the small 128s buffer?
I have yet to hit a limit on my 9th gen iPad.
Yes, absolutely.
Is there an equivalent? I see there is supposed to be a Mac version of LP at some point, but don’t see a solid release date.
I don’t know?
I know from using Tonex (software on my PC, not MacBook) that anything over 256 starts getting a bit of latency.
I have the feeling that most people use Ableton Live. It's not anything like the same thing, but is proven effective. It's pretty easy to get ahold of a Live Lite license to try it out for free.
Drambo can be a good alternative too. That's what I would probably use if I had a more recent Mac that could run it.
btw, you can get a huge amount of mileage out of a 9th gen iPad if you leverage Loopy's ability to commit to audio loops and idle plugins as you go. I can go all day adding tracks, just quickly committing instruments and FX to an audio loop, then idling them as soon as CPU starts to climb. The plugins are still parked there waiting if I need to come back to them later. I'm also on a 9th gen iPad.
I think unless you require a very large number of FX and heavy synths at a time, there are just fine ways around the limited processing power of the iPad. I'd so much rather go to the relatively small bother (for my use case) to manage resource usage, than the laborious process of finding analogs to my iPad apps on MacOS. YMMV of course.
Same boat here. But with 5th gen iPad. Still kicks though!
I'm saving for an older M1 iPad. Almost there. But until then, I'm going to really spend more effort in learning LP pro and the apps I love the most. I realized I'm not a laptop musician. The iPad and touchscreen make music pakimg so much more enjoyable and learning the apps are good for my aging brain lol.
I go creatively dead the minute I try on a desktop computer. Until the iPad came along I had given up. Desktop is fine for me for mixing and fleshing things out in a full fledged DAW, but I can't be creative on it to save my life. Probably the result of decades of working 50+ hour weeks supporting the dang things for a living.
It'll be interesting to see if that changes at all or not when Loopy Pro runs on Mac.
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Ah, ok, that makes sense! Thanks for that, I’ll try to pay more attention to resources management when I have a go at it tomorrow.
Amazon has a 256gb m3 iPad Air for $600 right now. If I had the money right now, that’s what I’d get.
I too am spending every spare minute learning LP. I’m just blown away at the depth of it and how good it is. I also agree with what you said about the tactile nature of using an iPad vs laptop. That said, my MacBook has so much more horsepower, it’s hard to ignore it.
No touch screen tho. That's a big part of it for me. Not so much for people that go to great lengths to control using hardware though.
An iPad into a Mac using USB and iDAM is a pretty good combo. The iPad becomes a badass control, sound and midi module. The Mac a processing powerhouse.
Thanks for the info!
but I'm saving up little by little. Was looking at a used refurbished 12.9 M1 iPad for about $519, almost there. My eyes are not as strong as before. But the one you mentioned sounds amazing. Thanks though. 
Being on fixed income now makes upgrading a lot more difficult
M4 MacBook for sure. Better for gigging (and “serious” production, for the most part), IMO.
Totally understand. Looks like I spoke too soon, the price of that iPad jumped $90 overnight. I have noticed that Apple prices tend to fluctuate quite a bit. I got my m4 MacBook for $750 from the online exchange for military (good for veterans too). The price dropped to $699 a couple months after I bought it, but then went back up to “normal”.
Anyway, I took the advice above about disabling and unloading things and my 9th gen iPad is chugging along happily again. Loopy pro has been a worthwhile learning experience.
Two things:
1. Thank you for your service.
2. Use your tonex for guitar, and your iPad for loopy if that is what you want to use. You can also do looping into logic on your Mac if you want. I have found that every task should have its own device for live work, switching between multiple things on a device usually winds up being more of a hassle than it’s worth.
3. Older devices are absolutely useful on gigs! I still use my 2012 mbp, 2017 mba, 2 iPad mini 2’s that belonged to my daughters back then, an iPad 7th gen that I bought used last year, my iPad 9th gen, and even an old iPad 3 if I just need to use for score on it or something. I don’t use all of that on every gig (doing sound, not performing anymore) but when I do theater sound there have been times when all of that was in use! And, one of my former students now uses my 2011 11” MacBook Air to run QLab for backing tracks with a vocal group. Still runs great!
@Tones4Christ M1 iPad Pro with 256GB storage is working fine here. I’ve used it live many times. The only thing that’s made me want to upgrade is more storage. With the hundreds of apps and all the samples I’ve accumulated in the past 5+ years and all the music I’ve made on it, the 256 GB storage is getting hard to live with. I’d recommend 1 TB or more if you decide to get an iPad.
Thanks, @mrufino1
I guess another question I have is screen size for the iPad. I believe my 9th Gen screen is 10.9”, which has been usable. The 13” models seem to be mapping at $200 more than their equivalent 11” model. Just thinking out loud, I think I’d rather spend the money storage than screen size. Although a 13” screen might be a nice stage luxury.
It tends to be related to sales certain stores are having and others matching the price. I look at this page frequently. The price from Apple themselves never seems to be discounted but the other stores jump up and down quite a bit...
https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/best-apple-deals/
Thanks for that info.
The exchange I mentioned above has an iPad Air 11” M3 256gb for $549 right now. Oh yeah, tax free. I may cave, soon.
I own both, this is what I choose if I can only pick one and how I own both
Picking only1, iPad for sure, cheaper for good enough hardware, cheaper apps and iPad itself serves as an input/instrument.
Owning both, iPad + headless Macmini, the best of both world at least cost(assuming you can reach for a monitor or TV for initial setup)
I guess the only reason to own a Mac is you really outgrow the most power iPad and/or you own some headwares/controller that can only be setup/modified with Mac.
the criminal energy apple has when it comes to more than 256gb is stunning.
and worth a boycott.
Boycotts only work when you have an alternative.
Thank you for the information
Keep in mind, you have the free GarageBand available to you on both iPad and Mac, which could help expand your options.
And despite it being free to you, it is surprisingly sophisticated for one-person setups.
I have iPad (9th gen., 256 gb hdd) and Mac mini m4 (Basic, Need some hdd in the Future) combo. Works really fine. iCloud for swapping samples and stuff. Excellent!