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.
Two gesture synth apps (Orphion and PhaseRings) always sound distorted at first
Hello
Using IOS 26 on iPad M3 Air. I recently downloaded two apps that have gesture sound control, Orphion and PhaseRings. But every time I open either one they have a distorted sound at first mixed in with their actual sound and both sound similar too. At least Orphion after few minutes the real sound will usually finally appear. Hasn’t happened with PhaseRings yet. It has been like this for couple weeks of owning Orphion then when I downloaded PhaseRings and it was the same problem, I started to be concerned it’s not just Orphion but maybe I can fix. The youtube demonstration videos about those apps do not sound like this. Any idea could cause this? Thank you. (Video link above)
Comments
Could they be using the microphone as input and creating feedback? You may be able to disable microphone access to stop this.
Thanks for the suggestion, it sounded like that could be it but I couldn’t find any setting in the apps or setting>apps or setting>privacy>microphone showing a control over microphone access.
Since the apps are from different makers, I suspect the problem is elsewhere on your iPad. A good start would be to force-quit all apps, then restart the iPad (Power Off). Sometimes unexpected apps can be running in the background.
Thank you yes something must be going on with the iPad as it relates to those two apps at least (others apps have been fine). I do swipe off on all open apps and turn off the iPad between every use and did it again.
Did you actually power off the iPad (Slide to power off), not just sleep?
Do those apps output MIDI? If so, that might be triggering an app in the background. Such apps may not appear in the App Chooser.
Hi. I extracted the audio from your video and used a high-pass filter at 2 kHz. The audible result is in the attached m4a file. The image shows the resulting spectrum. The noise is unpitched, doesn't vary at all with the notes played. And it is stereo; it moves across the stereo image. So it may be from a synth with an LFO on Pan.
Oh wow thanks for that detective work. Do you think that isolated sound indicates something triggered in the background that can't be found? The iPad does get completely powered off with the slider, and both apps have midi turned off within their internal app settings. Orphion as far as I can see doesn't have sound or synth settings but does have some audio mix and effects settings i have tried turning on and off in various combinations, and PhaseRings has different sounds and audio settings but they all have that buzzing and there are no synth settings. I actually updated the OS today to see if that changed anything, but it didn't. Orphion interestingly at times has stopped buzzing though i couldn't determine a pattern in anything i did to cause it.
Since you're actually powering off, there should not be any leftover apps hidden in the background.
Have you ever connected these apps as IAA to another app? I've had a situation where an app (Music Studio) became married to the DRC synth, and would not stop loading it and playing it. The fix was to load DRC in the foreground and force-quit it. The might be something like that going on.
Hm how tricky, I think both apps buzzed from my very first times opening them. PhaseRings I haven't connected to anything, and I think at later times I may have connected Orphion to Thumbjam to test some "acoustic" sounds" and I think I may have also sent midi to the desktop Logic Pro for synth sounds to test. But trying to open and close those things now didn't change anything.
Do either of the apps have a setting for sample rate? A sample rate issue seems unlikely since it "adjusts" after some time and sample rate doesn't do that, but I can't think of anything else to check. Sample rate issues can sound like that video.
Are you using Bluetooth headphones or speakers by any chance? Is there any audio interface connected? What version of iPadOS?
Hi hm interesting but no I don’t see any sampling rate settings, and not using anything else connected to the iPad. I downloaded the apps when iPad os 26.3 I think was currently installed and updated to 26.4 today and it didn’t have an effect.
I can't think of any way to get to the bottom of it unless there's someone else on the forum that has one or more of those apps.
Thank you for your suggestions anyway. It is a weird problem.
getting the noises too with Orphion. happened after updating my older ipdad pro 11'' to ipadOS 18. did not test it long enough to let the crackles disappear. will try now.
runs ok on my other older ipads ipadOS 17 and lower. i was happy to at least keep it there.
A while back, I deleted a few old apps because they all had distorted sound on newer iOS versions, but not on older ones.
Orphion and PhaseRings both received their last update 7 years ago, so I’ve deleted them now too, since it seems unlikely there will be any more updates after such a long time…
Not a very satisfying answer, I know 🫤
Aw darn that probably is the problem, and not fixable except having an older iPad for all these old apps. Which I was thinking of doing because my favorite app is Chordion and I am afraid it would stop working or become unavailable and then not be able to install it anymore even if I did get an older iPad.
If you have access to a PC or Mac, you can back up Chordion and can restore it to any compatible device, even if it disappears from the App Store with iMazing. Even the free version is adequate for this task. You can even keep multiple versions of the app in case an update breaks it. The important thing to keep in mind is the app is always backed up from the App Store, not your device, so whatever is in the App Store at the time is what gets backed up, and you can't back up something that has been completely removed from the App Store even if you have the app installed.
More info: https://forum.loopypro.com/discussion/comment/1363294/#Comment_1363294
@dbs08_8 - It just occurred to me that this could be caused by CPU throttling. iOS/iPadOS dynamically allocate processing resources based on what it detects is needed. It's likely that what you're seeing is "under runs" caused by the CPU not being able to keep up with the demand. As you use the apps more, the OS is probably bringing more processing online to adjust.
Most audio apps have a buffers setting to help avoid these DSP related crackles, the higher the buffer the less CPU needed, but the longer the latency between when you play a note and when you hear it. But you don't have that available in those apps. I think you're seeing these under runs initially because the OS hasn't caught up with allocating resources.
Ironically, you might have better luck if you stress the iPad a little bit when first starting out on the apps. For instance, maybe load both of them. Or load a host like AUM. Anything that will trigger the iPad to allocate more resources. If it did start with an iOS update, that could indicate the OS taking more resources for itself, or being more optimized toward battery / heat conservation.
This is just a guess, but I feel pretty strongly it's correct.
Thank you for that Imazing guide. Out of the fear of losing Chordion I had already backed up a Chordion IPA to my Mac with the free version of Imazing, though was still little worried since I don't have another older iPad to actually test out the process. But sounds like from your guide it should work out as long as I have this Imazing backup.
That worked! Thank you! For anyone else with this problem, I had to do a very specific process. Opening a bunch of apps and playing them did not help, unless AUM was also open with an app loaded. I have now tested just opening AUM a number times and loading any random app into AUM, THEN open Orphion or PhaseRings and then they will work. More apps don't need to be opened outside of AUM (other than the problematic apps), I guess that alone takes up the needed resources. Perhaps there are other apps that will take up the resources needed also but I didn't find them yet.
(It didn't start after a new IOS update for me, I just recently got the iPad and those apps never worked. However I never got the chance to compare it to older IOS and it sounds like for others updating the IOS to in recent years did start the problem)
Aha! The problem may just be related to the audio thread. Those older apps may not be setting it up correctly. AUM does it right, then the other apps can just share it.
Yes, it's probably not that AUM is taking up resources, but that it's setting the audio buffer size to a reasonable size. The first app to open sets the sample rate and buffer size, and other apps can't change it after that.
that's amazing! it also works for me that way. and since i am routing orphion via iaa to aum to work with effects that workaround even fits well to my workflow. very happy i got orphion back!
For those interested, the Phase Rings app has just been updated for the first time in 7 years and the distortion is gone and is auv3 now!