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iOS groovebox app public beta - feedback welcome :)
Hi everyone,
I got a couple of recommendations to post here, since it's apparently the best forum for iOS music 
Happy to have looked around and seen some very interesting stuff going on! Hope this is ok for a first post also 
I've spent the past 9 or so months building out a groovebox-style app for iPhone/iPad. I got some very early feedback from modwiggler and elektronauts forumites over summer, and have finally got it to a point where I think it's ready for a public early beta.
I'm very happy to get any feedback, but also very happy to just get more people trying out my app, no strings attached
It's effectively a groovebox, inspired by the M8, the various Elektron boxes, and modular synths, however, I've also crammed in some more melodic-focused features. It's also currently standalone, but I'm considering how to integrate it into the wider iOS/AUv3 environment
A quick feature overview:
- It has 8 voices, each of which can play a different instrument on any step
- Classic wavetable synth (with chord and paraphonic modes), fm synth, drum synth, and a "modal synth" (a tweaked Mutable Plaits), plus a pitched sampler with slicing (and very very soon a granular sampler)
- Per-instrument fx chain with a bunch of the usual suspect effects (filter, saturation, chorus, "trance gate", etc.)
- 3 global send effects - reverb, delay and multi-tap, plus per-voice sidechain
- Transition effect macros, letting you freely assign one-touch sliders for combinations of e.g. reverb, phaser, dj-style-filter
- Up to 128-step patterns, each of which is chainable in song mode, or can be used in "performance mode" to jam out
- Per-step chance and ratchet
- Velocity per-step, LFO per-instrument, per-pattern automation, and a "group automation" lane that allows for song transitions or manual macro parameter control - each of these can be mapped to the majority of instrument parameters
- Pattern generation functions - classic and euclidian arpeggiators, dual euclidian patterns (great for percussion grooves!), and acid pattern generation (more to come
)
I'm hoping to cram in MIDI output over the holiday period too before release - getting sync to be stable on iOS is not easy... But I've had some fun jams with it connected to my modular already :party: I've got a few other improvements and additions in mind, depending on how much time I have over the coming month or so - if there's anything that the app's clearly missing I'd love to hear about it!
If anyone's interested, you can join the beta at https://testflight.apple.com/join/AgrYFn3Y
Comments
Sounds really intriguing. I'm in.
I'm enjoying the challenge of deciphering how all the different parts fit together.
The onboarding is a nice touch, but it doesn't prepare you for how to actually build multi-instrument and multi-part sequences.
...but I am really enjoying figuring it out for myself. It's like discovering a cool groovebox from an alien planet.
Haha, I dig the UI. Kinda reminds me of a modular pixel tracker. Thanks for the beta access. Looking forward to tweaking out on it.
Probably not a trivial task but maybe you should consider compatibility with previous iOS versions older than iOS 18.
One of my devices is stuck on 17.7 and I'm sure there are others in this situation.
Awesome
Hope you're having fun with it!
Yeah, I get that - it's a bit of a balance with the onboarding, I don't want to make it too long but I agree it's not really sufficient for learning the overall workflow. I'm planning to make a bit of an intro/walkthrough video next week, hopefully that will also help a bit.
I also assure you I'm from Earth
Thanks!
I put most of my design effort into the workflow over the looks, and it turned out that the performance benefits of a simple UI were pretty important to keeping the app responsive anyway 
I half considered adding an actual tracker mode at one point, but decided that would be a little too excessive...
Unfortunately I can't do that without some significant re-writes.
I used Apple's newer UI framework as it hugely cut down on development time, but unfortunately the proper multi-touch support was only added in iOS 18, so things like sample zooming and the complex touch interactions on the piano roll aren't possible on iOS 17 and lower without some significant shenanigans or concessions (I had very janky versions in my test app before 18 was released), and I have to focus my efforts as best I can. Honestly, I'm not sure how well devices that can't run iOS 18 would manage the CPU load anyway - the earliest device I have to test on is an iPhone 12
Looks very fun and creative. I got some nice grooves going with very little effort. I think the beauty of these types of apps is that it takes you to a different place, where you have to work outside the standard interface. Being in the captain’s chair in the deck of the Enterprise is great if you’re battling Romulans or traveling to the edge of known space but it’s not really conducive to playtime and experimentation, if you follow me.
Pretty fun so far. I like the fun PixiTracker like vibe but with so much more meat. Good to know that an AUv3 plugin might be considered. I wouldn't use it in standalone, so it's not something I'd purchase if a plugin wasn't available.
I'm totally lost as to how to get farther than making one lane pattern. The song screen is a complete mystery, as is the instrument group stuff. I'm usually pretty good at figuring things out by trial and error, but this has me stumped. I think I'll leave it until the basics video next week, if it comes.
Thanks!
I think I understand your point.. 
Assuming I do, yes, I've specifically gone a bit "back to the drawing board" for some of the interactions, so it's done in a way that (hopefully) makes intuitive sense within the app's context, but might be quite different to what you are used to. The slicing sampler is a good example of this - tap the slice you want, then tap where you want it, no mapping slices to notes etc. as per most samplers. I find that chopping up a break that way is very very smooth 
Ha, I wasn't aware of PixiTracker but I absolutely can see the resemblance
Looks like their way of doing things is a bit more immediate, but maybe without some of the depth I'm going for.
Good feedback regarding the standalone, thanks - is there a particular reason why standalone puts you off?
Sorry to hear the app stumped you, though! The idea with the song mode is you setup your "banks" of patterns on the bottom half of the screen, then in the top half you can tap to put them in slots and so arrange the songs. I guess one issue is the top half has two modes, the overall song and the "Loop Group", and you can only actually arrange the patterns once you tap into a group - I can understand that's a bit confusing. I still hope I can put out at least one video this week, but the guy I'm borrowing the camera off is stuck in a different city for a few days, so let's see.
With no connectivity, one is limited to using the app as the sole sound source. As comprehensive as the app is, that is still a very big limitation. Rarely will I ever use a groove box simply on its own. Rarely will I not want to easily capture phrases, etc, for further arrangement. Yes, I assume you'll have export, but that's a hassle and precludes building parts in the context of the other apps that might be used. Also, an app that has a sampler should be able to ... sample ... from not just external input but from other apps.
In short, no app is so good that I'd want to use it in isolation. The bigger reason for me saying all that is I think your app will not be nearly as successful as a standalone app. I believe it'll die on the vine. At best I'm guessing at least 75% of potential customers will not be interested in a standalone app. That's ok I guess since it's more of a passion project for you, but it would be a pity to see it miss its greater potential. (Even though making an AUv3 plugin sucks. I know, I've tried.)
It's a hard reality that people expect plugin compatibility. Sure, this forum may not be a typical cross section of music app users, but it's not completely far off either. There are outstanding groove boxes already that work either as a plugin or can host plugins, or both. People love their plugins and want to use them. I don't think many people want to be locked into a completely standalone app.
Ahh ok, I was mis-interpreting the Loop Groups in that screen. They looked like output meters to me. It seems obvious now, but really had me stumped. I only ever tapped on the play button, which doesn't open the group.
Also, I was expecting a way in the pattern screen to add additional patterns. I went hunting with the + button, which just adds a page, and in the sounds thingy at the top-right. I thought maybe "group" there was "loop group" but that definitely wasn't it.
I think I get it now. I'm not sure what instrument groups do / are, but I'll probably figure the rest out now.
Thanks for dislodging my little brain blockage there. 👍🏼
btw, I do really like the app so far, though I'm sure it doesn't sound like it. It's a lot of fun. 😎
I’ll back Wim up on that, Ed. As cool as this app looks, most people doing iPad music even semi seriously want the tools they use to be plugins. There are just too many advantages in terms of flexibility. As he said, even something as simple as loading a plugin in an FX slot in a host like AUM and recording straight into it from another app is a huge workflow improvement over messing around with files and samples.
One small thing I noticed @EdJ is samples sometimes don't fully load the first time if from iCloud storage. It seems that if the sample needs to download from iCloud it lists the file name in the instrument, but the waveform doesn't load. Repeating the operation now that the sample has downloaded causes it to load as it should.
Some other apps have had this issue too, and there was some sort of way that the developers were able to verify the full load when delayed by this download step.
I like it. Bit confusing sometimes. I like that it’s made for a phone.
Oh man - you found it! I've been trying to figure out the "sometimes samples won't load the first time" issue that a few people have reported for ages, and looks like it's when it's iCloud files. Thank you so much!!! I've checked it out, and looks like there's a way to check the download status, so I'll add that one to my list
That iCloud issue with samples to be honest is my number one workflow killer when it comes to samples handling wish Apple and or devs would fix it with their system and apps drives me crazy! You can see the sample there yet you can’t load it. Yet drag and drop works all so confusing if samples are on the device or half on the device or in the cloud!
Thanks
Yeah, it's definitely a bit confusing at first - was there anything in particular that you found tough to understand?
Glad you like the phone mode - I've put a lot of time into the user interface for the small screens
This is an extremely fair point.
@wim said:
This is very valid feedback. The reality is, I'm not sure how realistic it is to run the entire app as an au3, I'm already pushing the CPU on older devices very very hard with the amount of stuff that's crammed in (of course, there's optimization opportunities available, but even small things like the sheer number of filters running each frame add up). Then there's the UI puzzle - it's already been hard enough making a workflow that works on both iPad and iPhone... I think there's a good chance I'm going to package up part of the app into a simpler "single screen" groovebox view for AU3, but let me look more at that
I'd also like to add au loading into the main app, but that requires some thought (I have a bit of a roadmap on that, it's realistic to do, definitely for effects at least). All in all, I get that the ecosystem is just that, and that many people will avoid apps that can't interact with others - but I do wonder how much of that is confirmation bias compared to the wider music ecosystem being more about interaction between devices. I hope I can find enough time to make both options viable 
Thanks for confirming
I wasn't taking the critique badly don't worry, I figured you're actually posting so you can't hate it that much 
You're welcome
it's definitely a learning that the main song screen is not intuitive to people, I'm getting this feedback fairly often. Obviously I've used it myself so often now that it's second nature, so I've got a blind spot there. I'm processing how best to improve this, whether that's via the onboarding or just improving the signposting on the screen. TBC 
I get that - it's not well documented from Apple's side on how to manage this, and honestly their file browser is a god-awful sample browser (unless I've missed something
). Part of the reason I didn't discover this issue myself is because I just put all my samples inside the app's local filesystem for ease of use, but I get that it's not realistic to do that across a bunch of apps.
I think I've got a fix sorted (that requires some absolutely terribly documented shenanigans with security scoping), but it would be great to get a confirmation that I correctly understood the problem. @Jumpercollins @wim maybe one of you could make a brief screen recording of the issue?
I downloaded it while on public transport so I didn't have much time to explore.
What I noticed, though, is that if you block the screen or change apps during the onboarding tutorial, when you come back it won't play anymore and the Back and Next buttons will be grayed out, so you have to close the app and start again the onboarding.
Since iOS/iPadOS 18, you can now mark files and folders to always stay downloaded. That makes things way more manageable.
@wim Not to derail this thread but can you screenshot the mark option as not seeing it under folder options anywhere? Is it the keep downloaded option ? As I actually had problems with folders under “ on my iPad” showing samples but not allowing me to load them.
I wonder, any screenshots? Not sure I wish to download a beta just to see what it looks like, lol.
Welcome @EdJ you came to the right place
You won't see that option for files in "on my iPad" because they're already always on your iPad. It's for iCloud files and it shows as "Keep Downloaded" when you long-press a file or folder.
In this app, or in some other app(s)? Is it possible they were an audio file, but of an incompatible type?
Thanks
seems like it!
Thanks for the feedback, sorry you found this issue
I've had a few people reach out about this one, and I'm making sure it's fixed (there are more root causes than I expected) and also adding a skip and play/pause button during the onboarding, hopefully that'll be enough that no-one else sees it 
Hope you managed to get through another time after your commute!!