making music with an iPad

my own personal experience with them is limited, but the other one besides the two you mention to check out is Beatsurfing: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beatsurfing/id534527468?mt=8

most friends that have gotten serious with this avenue say that Lemur is far and away the best & worth the cost

cool. $50 is a lot for something limited and nothing for something really useful

yes, the pricing scheme for these apps can be utterly bizarre. after years of software being locked in at relatively moderate to high-end prices, suddenly we have this alt-universe where so much of it is so improbably cheap that $50 seems astronomically high, even for a particuarly well-crafted & brilliant one.

the pace of new app development has slowed a bit, but the range is still interesting. the big news last month was probably KORG Gadget, a remarkably well designed, easy to use encyclopedia of modern synthesizer presets at your fingertips, allowing you to sound like anyone you already like in less than three minutes. I'm more interested in the half-baked, bug-filled weirdies. I love the aesthetic design that simulates grimy, stained keys, but then just cut & pastes the same dirt for both tiers of the keyboard; it sounds as wrong as it looks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moon-beam-synth-sampler/id796575480?mt=8 -- and everyone's posting outraged about how five dollars is a TOTAL RIP-OFF for something Apple shouldn't have even let on the app store, and if these are the problems then we really are deep into a renaissance

got a itunes gift card, thinking of springing for the KORG Gadget. i have an ipad2, however, not sure if it matters much performance-wise. korg's site says you can only record up to 8 tracks w/ipad2.. ~20 tracks with the ipad air and ipad mini retina.

maybe i'll check out some of these homegrown things first. thanks for the links, Milton.

Korg Gadget looks fucking awesome. I'm hoping to get an ipad later this year and will buy the shit out of that.

I couldn't play guitar for most of last year due to a nerve injury and got into ios music making (on iphone, not ipad) as an outlet; have had a great time learning principles of synthesis on a bunch of different apps. The ability to fuck with synthesis while on the subway or walking down the street has been a happy revelation. I think I have about a dozen apps on my phone at this point. Most of them have their own onboard recording features but I have audiobus and garageband to make them work together.

It's hard to pick a single favorite but I love SunVox (super versatile primitive interface modular thing by a russian genius, presents itself as kind of chip-tune oriented but it can do just about anything and the way the modules get arranged is very intuitive to me), Synthecaster (controls mimic the layout of a guitar with ability to english individual notes on the fret, fun to make fripp-ish serpent guitar patches), DXi (a japanese guy's classic FM synth emulator), Sunrizer (ridiculously parameter heavy and the easiest one to take presets or blank templates and quickly come up with something deeply perverse), and Magellan for all-around usability and ability to do a little of everything.

I used to think I, as a listener, had an instinctive dislike of FM synth sounds (I start to get natively alienated by the chart pop palette right around 85 or 86, for example) but actually wading into the synthesis itself has made me realize I really really love their particular brand of falseness-- there's something fragile and poignant about it.

Note that the presets on all of the above apps tend to be pretty disgusting but that stops mattering pretty quickly.

Oh yeah I haven't fucked with that many drum machine apps-- I have MoDrum and am pretty happy with it.

xp

Gadget requires iOS7, and I would think carefully about updating an iPad2 to iOS7. many people report that apps & workflows that used to be fine now choke out, you can't run as many apps at once, you get sputtering audio & dropouts, which is basically a deal-breaker for live use.

I kept my iPad2 on iOS6. And I bought an iPad Air to run newer things. It's a total racket.

xp I love DXi. I also thought I had an 'instinctive' dislike of FM synth sounds, but I just had an instinctive dislike of presets & the DX programming interface. Throw on a multitouch interface to allow for instantaneous tweaking of all four oscillators and suddenly it's an amazing synthesizer. Not as many options as the FM7/FM8 but a lot of real time fun.

In fact that's the thing that hits me again and again with the iPad. you can take softsynth code that is already 5-15 years old, built to emulate synths that are 30-50 years old, throw in the ability to change parameters with multitouch, and suddenly you get bafflingly new variations out of them. The DXi is one of the better examples of that -- you can bring up the tubular bells patch and go 'argh' and yet three seconds of dragging later, you're in new territory

master site that adds new apps / bumps old ones during app sales. The Korg Polysix is a lot of fun; haven't gone as deep into the iOS MS-20.

http://appshopper.com/music/

Sux (for me) that the only korg thing avail for iPhone is the kaossilator

oh electric sound touchOSC is way cheaper than the lemur and worth a shot to see if it'll do everything your friend wants it to do

the lemur app is great though, and if you're a maxmsp user MIRA is bloody amazing

yeah i need to look at touchosc too, i've had it on my own phone for ages but never did anything with it

(i'm the one using lemur, but the ipad is my gf's)

Making the rounds today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmQgLutCovo

out tomorrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfVarXMSh3g

http://www.thesynthi.de/data/Delia_dopesheets.pdf

http://www.thesynthi.de/index.php?/categories/1-Dopesheets

keep getting deeper into Virtual ANS. still kind of can't believe this app runs on a phone that's in my pocket at most given moments. like when I have five minutes to kill standing in a line, I don't need to bring up a browser or check facebook, I can just pull this out of my pocket and load a recording of an owl or a cricket into it and then spend three minutes photoshopping the image into a new sound. I mean for twenty years I would occasionally read articles about this impossible synthesizer from the 40's/50's of which only one was ever created, and listen to those Tarkovsky soundtracks wondering what in the world the interface for those sounds could possibly be, and now a little tiny mockup interface of that very synthesizer is sitting on my PHONE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aYQUsQYMg

http://warmplace.ru/soft/ans/

Oh, I've had a lot of fun with that on my laptop. I also like SunVox, although it takes some getting used to. Would be much better on an 1pad and an iph0ne.

I need to get that since sunvox is so great. Only gripe is I rly wish sunvox could take inputs from audiobus and not just be an input for others.

bought it, fucking with it, holy crap

listening to artemiev tarkovsky OSTs at work now for object lessons

http://discchord.com/blog/2014/4/18/virtual-ans-updated-with-phonopaper.html

...the Phonopaper youtube embed

Whoa i just accepted this update today but i hadn't read the what's new blurb. Dizzying.

On the imported jpg front i have a gnarled tree from a caspar david friedrich painting which is cooing and chirping nicely.

one of these is currently my favorite synth: http://discchord.com/blog/2014/5/23/app-sales-weekend-edition.html

the real enemy I've been trying to vanquish is how to get direct digital out into my Pro Tools rig, and say goodbye to tracking my iPad through a 15 cent 1/8th headphone jack.

bought an iConnectMIDI4+ -- digital audio pass-through as well as four 5-pin MIDI in/out ports, and shows up as an I/O in almost all DAWs -- save Pro Tools -- making me feel stupid as always for continuing that allegiance. It comes up in Live & Logic, so ostensibly I should be able to get the signal into Pro Tools through ReWire, but the workflow is not as it should be.

so I've also sprung for a Pure i20 -- a modest dock that gives you RCA phono outs, but also, magically -- a digital SPDIF out I can patch into my IO. last night was basically about four straight hours of just bringing up all my favorite softsynths' bass patches and hearing them for the first time. until I get a 30-pin dock with both SPDIF out and MIDI ports, I'll just start coming up with parts I can play on glass.

I can't believe this isn't the most popular thread on this entire board.

it's the most popular with me!!!

or at least I get really excited whenever it gets bumped.

I've been learning to use Looptical to see whether it might be preferable as my ios DAW instead of GB. So far I'm super digging it; its grammar, though simple, is very different from GB's so it took some getting used to. Great user manual which is not usually the case with these things.

The other thing has been Traktor DJ-- the ios version was free for one day sometime last year for the anniversary of the app store so I grabbed it but did not actually start fucking with it until a few weeks ago. I had been wanting for awhile to do a project that would pit snippets and loops from Le Marteau Sans Maitre against snippets and loops from Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un Faune and Traktor turned out to work really well for that. I've been making short Marteau vs Faune things in Traktor, exporting them as WAVs and then taking them into Looptical for further deployment as loops and trigger pads. This project is going to be really fun and large and I'm just doing it for my own listening enjoyment.

Milton which of the synths on sale is the one you like?

I have had fun beatmatching the second movement of Marteau to various techno tracks, the transients are distinct enough for automatic beat-matching to get a hold of the BPM. in your case I hope the Faun beat the Hammer. I haven't gotten into using the iPad as a DAW, but it certainly would solve many of my IO+MIDI problems if I could.

I've had luck with all of those sale synths save Z3ta+, which seems powerful enough but always normal. Phawuo is all over an album I just finished which is not coming out until next Spring, it's got a very limited range but as a lead it always stands out.

here's a potentially dumb question:

so I have a 1st generation ipad that isn't upgradable to the latest ios (which reminds me why i stopped using apple computers) - and i discovered that i could "trick" the app store to let me download an older version of netflix by buying it on my laptop. Does this "one weird trick" work for synth apps too?

If you're buying apps via iTunes, it's smart enough not to update an app that is not compatible with a later iOS than what is installed, so in theory it shouldn't be trickable but I'd never be surprised. Try it & let us know

xpost as if android's better on that count? if it is, someone should prove it

Android is no good for music apps because of latency anyway iirc

xp well, apparently there wasn't an earlier version of your beloved phawuo available (I've only had this ipad since January or whenever it was i started this thread btw) - so I am out of luck in that regard, but the same guy has a noise generator app that is really cool.

Korg Gadget is $29 (down from $39) today.

Beepboop is free today, it's pretty simple but seems to make some interesting noises.

there is a fairly notable revolution going on and this thread should be hopping. the only conceivable reason for this thread being this dormant is that the relevant practitioners are hoarding their discoveries.

Making music in iOS has certainly revolutionized my life over the course of the last 2 years. My inner life anyway. I literally seize every spare moment to keep composing and designing patches. Full disclosure, I almost never use my iPad though, I pretty much do everything on my 6+ (app selection is more limited of course -- some of the iPad only synths and daws I would kill to be able to have on my phone.

Maniacally obsessed with iOS virtual modulatars lately as a means of forcing myself to a better understanding of nuts and bolts synthesis principles. Jasuto is amazingly deep in a sunvox kind of way.

Modulars not modulatars fuckin autocorrect

are there any music apps with autocorrect

please list key apps, I have not been paying attention. I've got Figure and Take and that's about it.

I would like to make the $200+ I'm about to spend on getting my ipad mini screen replaced feel like it'll be worth it

it depends what you want to do and how you want to do it. Are you a keyboard person? A draw patterns with your finger person? A type things into boxes person? Personally, I have some trouble with the apps that have keyboard interfaces because a lot of them feel too small/narrow -- though one of the korg ones has an option for larger sized keys (that for me still feel a bit narrow). I pretty much just use mine to make "cool sounds" that I then record and edit and put on a sampler. The size of the interface designs make it less appealing for me in live performance, though I know Milty P. is quite fond of using his in a live setting.

tom: there are now too many apps to safely recommend only a few without knowing what your musical tastes are, but Tera Synth is a good all-in-one, Patterning is a touchscreen drum machine GUI with very little precedent, and TC-11 has a steep learning curve but it's often the one I show people first -- under the hood it is a 40 year old FM synth engine but you control the patch with the XY positions, distances & angles between your one to ten fingers instead of moving individual knobs and faders

part of this was noticing just how widespread the response has been to Patterning and Fugue Machine; it's not just dev sites & message boards, sites that normally only cover new record releases & interviews are now covering app releases

http://www.factmag.com/2015/08/23/patterning-drum-machine-app-ipad/
https://www.xlr8r.com/features/2015/10/interview-fugue-machines-alexandernaut/

I wish he would hurry up and release the iPhone version of fugue machine. His previous sequencer, Arpeggionome, is a favorite. I have an exciting WIP where Arpeggionome is midi controlling a melody line while Xynthesizr midi controls a battery of orchestral percussion samples with differing pattern lengths

I'm working on a list of recommendations but it's hard to keep it concise

Patterning looks amazing. Also iPad only, gah.

how do you guys generally get sounds from a phone/tablet to a computer DAW? record out of the headphone jack, or...?

depends on if the app I'm using has its own recording capabilities or not. If it does (like Magellan does, for instance) I record my bit and export it to iTunes file sharing, then pull it out of there by docking my phone to my macbook

If it doesn't, I record it through Audiobus into Audioshare, then export the clip from audioshare into itunes file sharing (audioshare can also send the clip to any of the other apps on my phone that can open wavs, or send it to gmail to be attached to an email). (Audioshare and Audiobus both utterly obligatory if you are doing anything with sounds on an ios device)

Or you can record your app into ios garageband (which is quite fine if you use it as a simple multitrack recorder of other apps) and export it as an aiff to your desktop daw or a garageband project file to desktop GB.

word, thanks. in my case i would use Audioshare > Dropbox > download on my PC that's connected to the internet > put it on a usb stick > transfer it to my music PC that's not online. :)

i don't know any Apple products besides my iPod Classic, but i'm really tempted by the possibilities of some of these apps.

could you countenance having itunes on your not-online music PC? Then you could just dock to that and transfer shit directly?

Hopefully Android will catch up, I understand that some of the inbuilt latency challenges are starting to be overcome on certain phones? Sunvox and Caustic both exist for Android already but obv one would have to focus on tracker-based or piano-roll-based composing rather than live writing bc of the latency...

Android made a big deal recently of reducing their latency, all the way down to... 40ms. still basically unusable for music. I also have heard from some developers that in practice they still can't get anywhere close to 40ms. this explains why it's still mostly an iOS game.

sorry for the rookie questions but does it matter what version iOS/iPad you theoretically have, or can i be ok with a cheap used one that's not the newest generation?

thats a tough one

i think that ios 8.x or higher (maybe 7.x or higher?) is fine and a lot of ppl definitely haven't upgraded to 9 yet (myself included)

My understanding is with phones the 5 can p much handle whatever app you throw at it. IDK with ipads though. Mine is only one generation old. Audiobus forum should have some good threads on this subject.

Whatever generation you buy invest in as much storage as you can afford. My prior phone was 32gb and that was constantly stressful in terms of music making. You want to be able to throw whole sample libraries on there without giving a fuck. Also, when it comes to samples/wav files etc the various apps DO NOT share with each other. E.g. I have the same 330MB orchestral soundfont in the itunes sharing folders of four different apps. So that redundancy eats up memory fast. It's also nice to be able to do tons of Save As variations on projects without worrying about size.

Gadget is pretty frickin' amazing. And now they have released their high-end piano (with sympathetic resonance and everything) as a virtual instrument.

iMini is also neat, and pretty powerful.

the iphones that just came out are the first ones with '3D touch' which can be taken advantage of by apps for aftertouch sensing. BS-16i already updated with this feature. I guess it's not as good for velocity sensing, but there are already apps that use the accelerometer and/or finger contact area to interpret velocity with reasonable success (BS-16i, Magellan, iFretless Guitar, and Garageband are the apps I have that include velocity, and you can program Jasuto to run the accelerometer to whatever parameter you want).

xpost--

speaking of sympathetic resonance one thing i haven't explored is the physical modelling apps like Laplace and ZedSynth, but their reviews are super enticing to me

i think i might not be apollonian enough to thrive in physical modelling synths though

sorry for the rookie questions but does it matter what version iOS/iPad you theoretically have, or can i be ok with a cheap used one that's not the newest generation?

― lil urbane (Jordan), Thursday, October 15, 2015 1:00 PM (13 minutes ago)

depends what you do with it. mine is a first generation hand-me-down (none of my other computers are Apple either) and I am limited as to what apps work with it, unless I am a big dummy and there is a way to get older versions that I don't know about.

The iMono/Poly is terrific. Are all the Korg soft synths this good?

The only one I've tried is iWavestation and it's one of my favorite synths: Others I rate highly would be Model 15, Mitosynth, Phasemaker, and Nanostudio's Eden. I'm also pretty sure I like SynthScaper, but I still suck at it. I haven't tried iMono/Poly yet. Recently bought Zeeon and like that one a lot so far.

What's everybody's favorite DAW app (or environment)? I've tried Nanostudio, Beatmaker 2, SunVox, KRFT, Modstep, Garageband, Infinite Looper, and various combinations of those + AUM and/or Audiobus 3. I can't seem to hit the sweet spot. If Nanostudio was more open, allowed AU/IAA inserts and audiotracks, it would be hands down my favorite. Looking forward to Nanostudio 2. Haven't tried Beatmaker 3 yet. I gravitate toward long linear tracks and realize that my desired workflow is pretty similar to (the PC version of) FL Studio.

I feel like most iOS apps push me toward a pattern-based ultra repetitious techno style. The most fun I've had is with probably just doing long meandering ambient style tracks with a midi sequencer or two using AUM as a host + mixer.

Have you tried the Cubase one? That's what I would use if I was still messing around with apps, it seems the most like a traditional DAW.

NanoStudio 2 is going to be just what the doctor ordered for both of us, I think. I’m totally with you on needing iOS DAWs where I can just start a linear soliloquy and go as far as I want. I never get anywhere with the pattern based ones. Just a great weird 8 or 16 bar groove that I never do anything with. As it is, NanoStudio 1 is the one I’ve gotten the most “me” tracks completed in.

The revamped version of FL Mobile (FLM3) is pretty great for linear, actually, at least once you buy the IAP polysynth. I’ve only made stuff with the (very nice sounding) onboard synths and not audio or IAA, though.

On iPad, MultiTrack Studio (geert bremmers) is really great. Supports AU, lets you fluctuate tempo, gives you the choice of standard keys or a fretboard layout for the onscreen keyboard, and also supports soundfonts.

I bought Gadget to entertain myself while travelling and it's hugely impressive. The sequencing is a bit fiddly but the range of sounds is good.

I would love gadget to death if I could only have a linear ‘record as long as I want’ mode.

I love the Phoenix and Dublin gadgets a lot; of the extra purchase ones, the bass guitar and odyssey ones are crucial (the bass guitar one has a more expressive, easier to play onscreen keyboard than the rest and the odyssey one has by far the best sheer sound quality

Is that the ARP Odyssey you’re referring to?

Yes if you buy Korg’s arp odyssey app you get to also use it in Gadget (its gadget name is Lexington iirc)

Aha

Idk why they give them alternate names inside gadget - the wavestation in gadget becomes Milpitas- I guess just so everything fits the city-name scheme.

Does Gadget let you have odd time signatures

or you know I could use a search engine

https://support.korguser.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/202885814-3-4-time-signature-

That is one strength of gadget - you can change time signature per scene in your song sequence. On one project, I just needed an odd pause between sections so I inserted an empty 1-bar scene in 1/4

The only one I've tried is iWavestation and it's one of my favorite synths

Picked this up yesterday and could see myself happily tinkering with it for months to come.

New track from my kid: https://soundcloud.com/djisbister/magmatic-domain-by-benjamin-isbister

(made with KRFT)

I totally deleted KRFT because your kid is better at it than I will ever be, btw

😃

IOptigan. When you change sample banks, it displays all the original jacket art for the original optical discs, If for any reason any of you would like to be happy.

I saw that -- it looks pretty awesome. Prior to that app description I had not understood exactly how bonkers the optigan's operating principle was.

I just wanted to hop in here and say that moog model 15 is on sale for 9.99 (from 29.99) AND has just been updated as an IOS AU. Track it up next to an instance of Ripplemaker and an instance of iVCS3 and enjoy the unearned feeling of being king of all synths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm8NnyfHAFQ

Just bought this, very well designed and easy to use

I made a quick little Steve Reich-y thing this morning and concur, Esion is fun and really easy to pick up. Thanks for the tip. Now just get it to plug into AudioBus!!

^ that looks fun!

I had swung back to PC for music making and was kind of starting to regret the money I'd dropped on gadget, module, etc, but last night I finally dug into getting audio sources from the ipad integrated with Ableton via Studiomux, and once it's set up it works really well! midi going from the PC to the ipad (so I can use controllers that don't rely on a bluetooth connection) and audio going from the ipad to the PC--it's neat, like an outboard VST.

I can't yet get patterns from Gadget into Live easily--I know you can save a gadget project as a Live set, but I'd like to be able to just play the patterns in gadget and "record" them into a midi clip as they arrive in Live.

i'm basically just killing time until Nanostudio 2 gets its iPhone version

So if I wanted to record an iPad (mini) directly into my DAW/interface, is a dock the only way to go?

Even then...I'm looking at the Focusrite iTrack dock, and it seems like everything is designed to record into the iPad, not out? Could I use the stereo monitor outs to record the output?

I know I can just send audio files to Dropbox, but that's super laborious with my setup (bad internet, and an offline studio computer).

Nope, the solution I described above using Studiomux only requires a USB cord. With macs it's even easier, no third party software required I think (but I don't use a mac for music stuff so I'm not sure)

Oh amazing, thanks! I had assumed that was just for midi. I'll definitely give it a shot.

And of course you could just run the 3.5mm jack from the ipad into one of your interface's audio inputs, but (and I'm no expert, but I'm given to understand that) you'll probably lose some audio quality compared to staying in the digital realm

Revive!

Apple was selling refurb 2019-model iPad Pros at a cost effective enough price so I bought one. There is no way I'm going to make it through quarantine with the wounded iPad Mini 3 I've had forever. Anyway, this has completely revolutionized my recording process to some degree but enough about iVCS 3. Anyway, what's the cool stuff now?

people are going crazy about Drambo

The Moog Minimoog app was and might still be free for the pandemic - it sounds great for a vintage emulation with some bonus features (polyphony, looper)

Drambo is a lot of fun, and based on what I'm seeing people do on youtube and other forums, seems to have limitless potential, but... aside from some ok-sounding generic synths sounds that I could have made just as easily in Zeeon, I'm feeling a little bit clueless about how to do anything awesome in it.

I made most of this in Beatmaker 3 on an iPad (not the live bass though). I recorded Nord into it for the Rhodes, and used Sunrizer and another AU synth for the other bits.

Eventually dropped all the stems into Ableton to finish, though, and got a couple of analog synth tracks and Ultranova stuff for the coda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIVoQG1bg1w

got a couple of analog synth tracks and Ultranova stuff for the coda

from a friend.

got the ikaossilator app on my phone and it’s super fun

buying this today based on this article. The dev’s other apps are great especially Tardigrain.

Damn, that makes me want to try incorporating an iPad into my DAW workflow again, even though I know it will never happen

i bought a hi-spec iPad Pro last night and i think it's gonna be a game changer for my music making. holy shit, so fun to jam on this thing.

so far i've got Novation's Blocs Wave & Groovebox, Propellerheads' Figure, Patterning 2, Sugar Bytes Drum Computer, and AUM to mix them all up.

Tardigrain looks very cool.

btw, speaking of incorporating iPads into the DAW workflow, I bought TouchOSC as well, and set it up to communicate with Ableton... Seems like it could be very useful, but I couldn't find any readymade Ableton templates around the web, so I'll probably have to make my own

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnVbx-3U7zU

I bought all five of them too. They’re a steal.

Logic Pro for iPad announced. There are some cases (like EQ curves), where a stylus/touch interface would be really helpful.
https://www.apple.com/logic-pro-for-ipad/

Right now you can get the entire Moogerfooger effects suite as one big bundle for $40. Kinda worth it

https://apps.apple.com/us/app-bundle/moogerfooger-effects-bundle/id1701612243