iPads vs Desktop Loopers for DAWless music: Discuss

colourofsound

I’ve realised (decided?) that the laptop is the thing that’s getting in the way. Any moment of inspiration is lost once you have to integrate your creative process into a DAW.

So, I’ve been looking at the Boss RC-202 or 505. My mate has a 202, raves about it, loves no screens and the tactile experience.

But, I’ve also been considering an iPad mini for other reasons, and stumbled across Loopy Pro; amongst others. So thinking about two birds; one stone

So, has anyone tried both? Is an iPad going to cause me the same problems a laptop will, or can I plug and play? Or is there really nothing better than a tactile desktop looper, designed for that very purpose?

MIDI clock over USB to multiple devices is a must.

RichAC

I’m interested in this topic as well. I’ve only used computer-based DAWs. I have an iPad and I’m curious about its potential as a recording / producing device.

colourofsound

I've invested in a lightning to usb adapter to try the apps out with my iPhone. Loopy Pro has an iPhone version with a 7 day trial.

Depending on the iPad you have, if its got a USB-C connection instead of lightening you might be able to start straight away

monquixote

I thought an iPad might be a good way to do music on the go but I find I never use it. 

If I was going to sample guitar and make tracks I'd get an MPC or an SP-404 MKII

dindude

I love the iPad for music making.

Moving a mouse around a computer that’s puffing it’s way through an over complex DAW that I have to relearn how to use very 2 months is completely joyless experience to me.

I’ve tried the hardware groove box approach, in the Novation Circuit Tracks, with some success, enjoyed the screen-less experience but ultimately I still had to go to a DAW for audio recording and I found I was getting lost and a little bit restricted.

iPad is the perfect compromise for me, pair it with a decent audio interface (crucial for keeping latency under control) and it just works with no fuss. Something like Cubasis is very powerful for the full trad DAW experience, yet somehow much more intuitive for me at least, I haven’t tried the loop based ones. I’ve been using Korg Gadget recent.y and think it’s excellent. 

colourofsound

Cheers, thats some good insight. Loopy Pro looks great, 7 day free trial but other £30. Worth a shot if you have the gear.

The iPad really seems like it can do pretty much anything at this point. I've learnt this week it now supports plugins as well. Madness.

monquixote

dindude said:

I love the iPad for music making.

Moving a mouse around a computer that’s puffing it’s way through an over complex DAW that I have to relearn how to use very 2 months is completely joyless experience to me.

I’ve tried the hardware groove box approach, in the Novation Circuit Tracks, with some success, enjoyed the screen-less experience but ultimately I still had to go to a DAW for audio recording and I found I was getting lost and a little bit restricted.

iPad is the perfect compromise for me, pair it with a decent audio interface (crucial for keeping latency under control) and it just works with no fuss. Something like Cubasis is very powerful for the full trad DAW experience, yet somehow much more intuitive for me at least, I haven’t tried the loop based ones. I’ve been using Korg Gadget recent.y and think it’s excellent. 

I've been thinking about this a little bit. 

The key to getting a nice productive fast workflow on the laptop is:

Choosing a DAW that's a bit groovebox like in the first place like Ableton, or Bitwig (Akai Force and MC-707 for example have Ableton style interfaces anyway)

Creating templates that get you straight into a set up designed for getting on with music. 

Investing in some plugins which make coming up with ideas faster. 
I have Scaler 2 which suggests chord sequences and recently got Atlas which uses AI to manage your sample library and can generate random drum kits to spark rhythmic ideas.

allen

Different example, but I was recently dissatisfied with my traditional foot pedal based looping experience so tried an ipad version.

The ipad app quantiloop pro is what I settled on.

It is absolutely great, very configurable, can do 4 tracks and has a workflow that is very similar to a traditional foot based looper so it's easy to get into.

Unfortunately what I found in practice was that because I use my ipad for other stuff i couldn't leave it hooked up to everything and then if I was casually doing some playing the ipad wasn't there. So it ended up that I needed to plan a session in advance - plus I had to pre-configure it depending on the type of song. Setting it up with my midi controller wasn't completely easy either.

It really is a great app, but didn't suit me because of the immediacy of setup etc.

I've bought a hardware looper now (aeros) and it's much better!

Danny1969

I think the mistake people make is they try and use a device for multiple purposes and they try to keep it current in terms of OS. What I set people up with is music making laptops / iMacs  which are only designed for that and nothing more. My advice is get an old Macbook Pro unibody from around 2011 for around £100. Install something like High Sierra on it and get an older version of Logic that runs on High Sierra  (you can find it if you look hard enough). Virtually any USB 2 or firewire interface will work with it as long as it's from a similar age and not ancient like 20 odd years old.  

Then you just choose the song writer template and all the stuff you generally need like a drummer, guitar tracks with plugins, vocal track and keys etc is all set up waiting for you to hit record. 

Don't connect to the internet, don't use it for anything else. You will be amazed how capable a machine is of running audio tracks and processing plugins when it's not running 10 internet services in the background 

dindude

monquixote said:

dindude said:

I love the iPad for music making.

Moving a mouse around a computer that’s puffing it’s way through an over complex DAW that I have to relearn how to use very 2 months is completely joyless experience to me.

I’ve tried the hardware groove box approach, in the Novation Circuit Tracks, with some success, enjoyed the screen-less experience but ultimately I still had to go to a DAW for audio recording and I found I was getting lost and a little bit restricted.

iPad is the perfect compromise for me, pair it with a decent audio interface (crucial for keeping latency under control) and it just works with no fuss. Something like Cubasis is very powerful for the full trad DAW experience, yet somehow much more intuitive for me at least, I haven’t tried the loop based ones. I’ve been using Korg Gadget recent.y and think it’s excellent. 

I've been thinking about this a little bit. 

The key to getting a nice productive fast workflow on the laptop is:

Choosing a DAW that's a bit groovebox like in the first place like Ableton, or Bitwig (Akai Force and MC-707 for example have Ableton style interfaces anyway)

Creating templates that get you straight into a set up designed for getting on with music. 

Investing in some plugins which make coming up with ideas faster. 
I have Scaler 2 which suggests chord sequences and recently got Atlas which uses AI to manage your sample library and can generate random drum kits to spark rhythmic ideas.

Interesting thoughts. My thoughts are more around workflow making it easy to get stuff down from scratch but I don’t want any help in the making music but and don’t want samples. For me it’s about having a great sequencer flow with virtual instruments (which then naturally organises itself as they have a “character” types) with audio tracks that can run on top. Then on mix, easy and intuitive fx and automation.

colourofsound

monquixote said:

The key to getting a nice productive fast workflow on the laptop is:

Choosing a DAW that's a bit groovebox like in the first place like Ableton, or Bitwig (Akai Force and MC-707 for example have Ableton style interfaces anyway)

Creating templates that get you straight into a set up designed for getting on with music. 

Investing in some plugins which make coming up with ideas faster. 
I have Scaler 2 which suggests chord sequences and recently got Atlas which uses AI to manage your sample library and can generate random drum kits to spark rhythmic ideas.

Tried all this and it just didnt work for me. I work in Logic mainly and trying to get the live loops to work and sync with all your stuff its just a nightmare.

Equally tried Ableton (after having a go with the Ableton Note app) and just found it completely impenetrable - and I work in IT for a living.

I don't doubt that I could learn it and set it all up, but honestly what a ballache.

Danny1969 said:

I think the mistake people make is they try and use a device for multiple purposes and they try to keep it current in terms of OS. What I set people up with is music making laptops / iMacs  which are only designed for that and nothing more. My advice is get an old Macbook Pro unibody from around 2011 for around £100. Install something like High Sierra on it and get an older version of Logic that runs on High Sierra  (you can find it if you look hard enough). Virtually any USB 2 or firewire interface will work with it as long as it's from a similar age and not ancient like 20 odd years old.  

Then you just choose the song writer template and all the stuff you generally need like a drummer, guitar tracks with plugins, vocal track and keys etc is all set up waiting for you to hit record. 

Don't connect to the internet, don't use it for anything else. You will be amazed how capable a machine is of running audio tracks and processing plugins when it's not running 10 internet services in the background 

I can see where your head is at with this, but distraction/power isn't the problem, at least for me. And I've tried all the template workflows and the issue is, by the time you've been playing about for 10 minutes, come up with an idea, and then you load your DAW, add a track, load the template, arm the track and so on and so forth, the inspiration is gone.

DAWs are not designed to create, they're designed to record. I know that people have a lot of success, especially in Ableton and Bitwig; and some of the stuff you see on Youtube is great; but for me its just not a workable solution.

I've ordered a lightning->USB2 camera connector so I can try some apps with my phone. If it works, then the iPad will be it. If not, then I will likely get a desktop looper.

RichAC

For years, my DAW of choice has been Reason. It might be a good halfway house - it does all the usual DAW stuff (including plugin, these days) but it has a bunch of more "right-brained" tools - loopers, chord tracks, MIDI machines that generate stuff, drum machines that you program by moving a cursor around a map (!) 

People mostly use it for dance music and other electronica, so it might fire off the old neurons in a different way.

monquixote

RichAC said:

For years, my DAW of choice has been Reason. It might be a good halfway house - it does all the usual DAW stuff (including plugin, these days) but it has a bunch of more "right-brained" tools - loopers, chord tracks, MIDI machines that generate stuff, drum machines that you program by moving a cursor around a map (!) 

People mostly use it for dance music and other electronica, so it might fire off the old neurons in a different way.

I use Bitwig for much the same reason.

colourofsound

I've had a bit of a play with Loopy Pro with my iPhone and a camera adapter.

Its pretty damn good. It sends MIDI sync over to my other boxes without an issue. 

It picks up my Audient ID14 immediately and I can monitor through it as well

The app is immediately useable but if you dig into the settings theres lots of flexibility.

I think its a really viable solution for plug-and-play looping. The only issue I've found is when plugging more than one interface in, it gets confused - I wanted to send MIDI sync to my HX Stomp, but it kept seeing it as an interface. Will likely take a bit of faff but nothing too difficult I'd have thought.

hollywoodrox

I bought an iPad initially for music but found I didn’t really gel with it for creating , I generally use it for everyday stuff or learning songs , it was a pain having pigtails out of it connected to stuff , & I didn’t really like the positive grid , & IRig stuff I had on there . Like Danny69 I have an iMac set up specifically for music & can just turn it on fire up Logic and get creating in Logic with minimal fuss .