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.
What is most complex most CPU heavy synth on iOS
What is most complex most CPU heavy synth on iOS ?
Comments
maybe Moog Mariana with a lot of modulation?
I feel like Blofeld has to be a strong contender.
that's it, thanks .. shame on me i did not remember this one .. thanks !
good one too, thanks
Maybe Tera Pro? I’ve shied away from getting it cause I’ve read a bunch that it’s heavy and my device is older
Not really no. In my Loopy template with about a dozen synth channels I tend to shy away from any synths that are really heavy on the processor because of the accumulation, even when supposedly idle, which Loopy is great for, when synth channels are not muted even when not being played you see which ones are processor hogs, and most of the time Tera Pro is amongst the efficient ones (usage will vary depending which modules and how many), whereas the Moog synths are heavy. I love them, but they're horrible on the processor, all of them. I have had Tera Pro spike once every now and then, which I seem to have mitigated with reducing polyphony to 16 (it can be 128). This is a pretty significant difference. Playing chords and solos with Tera Pro, at medium speed, M1 ipad, it raises the processor indicator in Loopy from 10 or so percent when not being played, to between 20 and 35 fluctuating which is about the same as all the not heavy ones.
That's interesting, isn't it? Isn't the iOS Blofeld synth a recreation of a digital synth that was packaged in some very low cpu-power hardware, compared to iPhones/iPads?
Don’t make mistake to compare two uncomparable things.. Huge difference to run synth engine exclusively on DSP chip optimalised for DSP jobs and run same engine to all-purpose universal chip (which may have also few dsp based optimised instructions but in general it is far from being forged for this one special job) - especially when there runs entire operating system and lot of background jobs fighting for their CPU time
Also 99% of plugins runs single threaded do one instance doesn’t leveeage multicore cpus (that’s host app job to distribute multiple channels between cores)
Many people are also making mistake - they tun single instance, they see 30% load and they think that is what plugin needs, so two of them will be 60% .. but that’s not the case with apple devices, processor does sleeps and it starts wake with demand so 1 instance may show 30% but then teo instances may show just 35% - or efen less, like 20% - cause CPU woke up and started to deliver computing power :-)
On iOS most developers are trying to optimise their plugins for CPU efficiency, doing lot of compromises in audio quality - that’s why we still don’t have on iOS monsters like Serum2, Vital, SynthPlant or Diva league. Lot of compromises under the hood, like no oversampling, no sub-buffer modulation updates, means no audio rate LFOs and milisecond precise envelopes, aproximations on math, filters which fall apart on high resonance, oscillators which alias on higher tones, etc etc - to keep CPU light as much as possible
Cool good to know! That being the case, I’d say the most intensive one that I own, if it would be considered a “synth”, is FRMS for sure
+1 for Mariana. I don’t use it because it always takes up 1/3 of my processing power.
The bloody price for hardcore quality
Everybody dreams about havign Serum2 on iOS, nobody want’s tompay the price 🤣
Btw that’s one instance .. ever tried to run 6 of rhen in some multicore supporting host ? Maybe you will be surprised
I think with 6 instances my iPad would be in the trenches
No apologies for my bad pun.
Yeah I get the same with FRMS yet other granulars like wavecloud are perfectly fine and gentle, but then I guess FRMS isn't only granular going on with those 4 layers.
Same, and even more. Mariana is by far the heaviest. And in the end then it becomes not needed because there's perfectly decent bass patches easily achievable in many other synths so I just leave it alone.
(Not sure @dendy that the comparison with Serum is particularly relevant? A duophonic virtual analog thats a processor hog vs a 3 OSC ultra modern digital wavetable (and a few other types)? I think Oscidia is our Serum equivalent)
After that then FRMS and also surprisingly to me ID700 is not very nice to my processor either.
I was also surprised to note that the likes of Phosphor and Morphwiz are pleasantly low CPU.
FM Zone is a real CPU killer. Sounds amazing though! Mariana pretty hefty.
Many others e.g. FRMS can be depending on how many oscillators/grains/notes are playing.> @Squishy said:
Tera Pro can be light or heavy depending on usage, but it's probably my most used synth and I'd say overall its CPU demand is pretty average. Seems quite efficiently coded overall. Also, if the max polyphony is set too high it will guzzle CPU due to reserved polyphony, so best set it as low as you can work with.
FRMS with all bells and whistles on (Max 6 voices!). They improved it since the release but it's still a heavy add.
VirSyn (Now Harry Gohs) AddStation also, try some of my inexperienced presets I did (built in) where I just add way too much.
My CPU starts to gurgle when I use Pure Synth Platinum. Donno why/if. I’d be curious if anybody have experiences with her.
Some cool presets there
SynthMaster 3 is on the way, be on the lookout!
I feel like I’ve gotten Pianoteq running hot when morphing 3 or 4 instruments together in one instance. Especially the new synth model. I’d have to double check.
Fugue Rubato + Tera Pro ended up causing a lot of CPU usage. Not sure which was the culprit, I’d need to also double check that.
I can understand why an app like FRMS would be a hog.
Does a synth like Mariana gobble CPU because it is calculating waveforms at a higher resolution? I notice that lesser synth apps fall to pieces when asked to do precision synthesis tasks like creating a beating effect between two slightly detuned sine oscillators. (Oscillator quality matters.) IMO it's worthwhile having tools that can deliver exceptional resolution when it's needed.
sub-buffer audio rate modulation ? i am looking at 1khz LFOs :-)
Looking forward to it @kv331audio_bulent SM3 Player is full of wonderful sounds! 8000 of them! It and iM1 cover the majority of my synth needs. I wish I could sell the synths I don’t use! 😆💸 😎✌🏼
well ok that's different area . I was thinking more about Blofeld.. But wait, Oscidia - this one was completely under my radar, thanks, will check it !
ah gotcha! it referring to blofeld makes a lot more sense, ignore me then
Id700 with 16x oversampling, 6 voice polyphony and very long envelopes(high quality setting enabled) can max out the cpu very quickly.
After quick check of Ocsidia . Well this has low CPU footprint and it's for reason
This is not even remotely in Serum level of quality, with all respect to creator which is incredibly modest and hard-working guy ..
Like it's not bad - but just after few minutes i see it suffers exactly by same compromises like most of iOS synths - weak filters, clicks on fast wavetable repositioning, lfo only to 32hz .. this is it .. small details which are making entire image when they are put together.
Lightweigt on CPU ? Yes. Delivering the "big guys" level of quality ? Not even remotely.
it has 16x OS ?? OOoo.. that's insane
To say "not even remotely is Serum level of quality", is going way too far, never mind that calling the filters "weak" doesn't even make actual factual sense. They are perfectly great filters. Unless you mean you want more extreme / more multiples of 6dB. I use Serum, as well as Pigments, Phase Plant, Vital, Massive, and, I'm going to say Oscidia, as an engine is very good. The real talk would be in first, the double blind test, using same wavetables and if that was consistent, then the measurements would show the engineering to back that. To be clear I don't have a horse in the race, I don't really care either way, but these kinds of comments are stupid.
Some of the apps mentioned in this thread (FRMS and Mariana in particular) are just so awesome sounding but generally I just noodle about in them, maybe record a little sample and move that to Logic or Koala, but I certainly don’t load them into a daw…
I don’t have Blofeld, but I’ve noticed Waldorf Microwave seems resource intensive sometimes.
Also, the new Super J8 (in 8-voice Unison mode) was glitching in NS2 until I bumped the buffer up to high.
.