amateur musician here - i dabble around with a bunch of gear and only do it for myself, for fun and to explore the possibilities in all things audio and visuals
i have been doing this for a couple of years now and currently use a bunch of elektron gear, some small gimmicky gadgets and veeery seldomly i actually use a DAW
in general i feel a bit stuck in loop-purgatory but iām fine with that most of the time
ironically i have always been drawn to looping and have been eyeing a loopstation such as the Boss RC 505 mkII for a while now
now the thing is: i use a windows pc for my daw and everything, i have an android phone and 1 year ago purchased an android tablet (Galaxy Tab S8+)
iām fine with these BUT
iāve noticed plenty of times that iOS devices or rather iPads seem to be used as musical tools quite often (more so than android it seems)
and iām wondering if i should purchase an iPad that can do a lot (not only music, but also visuals etc) instead of yet another piece of hardware that is specialized to do only 1 thing
for example an iPad with Loopy Pro seems to be very powerful and i could do even more than that as opposed to using an Boss RC 505
so i wonder: would anybody here recommend buying an iPad for musical purposes?
or could i just use my android tablet?
if an ipad: do i need one of the very powerful (and expensive) ones or would an older device suffice?
The short answer is no. There is only a handful music apps for Android that are really good (Koala, DRC, FLSM, Cubasis etc), overall they wonāt be sufficient for most. Plus the system implementation of sound stuff is lacking. I had to buy a custom USB driver app just to record my OP-Z over USB without pops and cracks on latest Android, and some synths like Digitron manage to put my 2023 flagship phone on its knees.
Iād never get an iOS device as a daily driver, but as a musical slab the iPad is absolutely amazing. Drambo is the best music software Iāve ever used, and the only one comparable to hardware in terms of fun and inspiration.
TL;DR:
Android has horrible roundtrip latency that makes it rather unusable for music making purposes.
this is a known problem that has not been addressed for decades.
even best of the best Android devices have tens of milliseconds.
significant time gap between you press something and the sound reacts somehow is extremely annoying, and you donāt want it, especially dealing with it constantly.
There are some really amazing iPad music apps that are incredibly cheap (like $10 or less on sale) considering what they do. But you would need to be comfortable with using them, and with the whole ecosystem. If you can try one out before buying, that would help, I think. You donāt need the absolute latest models or the most tricked-out ones. The problem is not so much processing power (unless you plan to have multiple versions of CPU-intensive synths or effects all running at once) but inability to keep up with OS upgrades. The Audiobus forum is a good source of advice (including more on buying used than I can provide) and tips on app sales.
Iāve never used an Android tablet, but from what Iāve read, you shouldnāt count on that.
I got my first music app 15 years ago. I canāt remember a music making session in the past decade I havenāt used an iPad or multiple for my musical purposes. And Iām not talking just some synth app or fancy pants Euclidian sequencer either.
How many times have I pulled up chords on it so I can play my guitar badly?
Have I ever even attempted to understand my SP404mk2 without the manual and videos pulled up? Iām not that brave. A second one was definitely connected to it via the usb-c.
I wonāt turn on my Digitakt without one hooked up. Iāve spent some fun sessions with one connected to my DigiKeys, using LoopyPro to making some jams.
Iāve found an awesome clip on YouTube with my phone, screen recorded it, air dropped it later to my iPad, opened it in Koala, chopped it up, sequenced it, resampled it, saved it to an SD card, transferred that to my MPCkeys to add a beat and fluff it up, recorded that, loaded that demo beat back onto my iPad, and then emailed it to myself so I could listen to my new beat on my phone the next day.
Iāve hooked it up to hardware and used some of the powerful arp and midi apps to run it while I tweak sliders and plug/unplug cables.
Obligatory āI hate touchscreensā
Except I donāt. I like knobs, I like sliders, I like touchscreens, I like mice and keyboards, I like DAWs, anything that help me make music is cool and a lot of fun.
By the way, I think the most frequented forum on the web regarding music production on iOS is this here. Just in case you want to take a look, what is possible on iOS:
I suggest that you get an apple laptop instead of an ipad, while these apps may be fun, the M1 |M2| M3 plattform is very good for audio production purpose. I switched from windows to apple, and have been so much more productive with it. It runs any sort of plugin, you may already have, does not need extra adapter stuff, and there is no problem with your daw to integrate any midi controllers you may already have.
Older devices are enough IMO, you can get a 9th Gen for Ā£369 64GB in the UK. Of course you can spend more if you like and are able to which will allow you to run more apps at the same time for multitracking/daw like experience.
I asked myself the same question. Heavy Elektron user for 6 years, and always super happy with the physical interface. Couldnāt have easily imagined a iPad to work for me.
But yes it does. Iāve been using Drambo from day one, and researched tons of virtual synthesizers, drum machines, etc.
Iāll add some new music I made entirely this way, so you can judge for yourself. I think youāll be happy with this experiment.
PS: Iām a Windows and Android guy, so an Apple device meant quite a change. I wouldnāt have gotten a desktop device for this purpose! Yet the iPad is so cool, even for taking along with a Keystep and the Yamaha Bluetooth dongle ā I have more sounds and options than I would ever have thought possible. Itās awesome.
Yep. iPad Pro is probably my single best standalone music production gear not named MacBook Pro.
Beatmaker 3 and Koala are about as good or better than most of the āstandaloneā hardware samplers. I use Launchpad Pro midi controller when I need physical pads. Custom scene mapped like Maschine MK3 for super quick workflow.
Drambo accomplishes what most people pay Elektron for and then some.
Korg, Roland, Fab Filter, Moog, Eventide and my other fav brands are pretty much all on App Store for Starbucks drink money.
Finally, Logic for iPad alone is exponentially more powerful than any other single piece of pro audio hardware you can buy no named MacBook Pro.
Iāve used ipads as my everyday home computer for years, owned at least 3 one after the other ā¦ and IMO they are great but they donāt last. The battery life will fade after a while (charging habits donāt seem to prevent that) and the unit is not set up so you can replace the battery yourselfāyouāre supposed to take that in for a tech to do.
Most recently, the main board on my 5th gen ipad quit, and the Apple tech said it was too old to be repaired. 5th gens were made from March 2017 to 2018āso this ipad was less than 6 years old, and no parts.
I donāt usually take the ipads outside the apartment or throw them against the walls. They just arenāt made to last. Apple wants to sell you something new.
Iāve accepted this life cycle as the cost of doing business, but if you are a musician who is used to gear that lasts decades, dealing with ipads may feel a little different.
ymmvāsomeone else will probably say theyāve had the same ipad since prehistoric times.
Think the drambo workflow is nice, but the performance is really bad when using auv3 plugins. Get full cpu meter really fast with a 2021 ipad pro and crackling so can never do full songs on it
Iāve created and released entire tracks on iPad. Thatās created, mixed and mastered and created cover art and even music videos with it. All in the one device. Ranging from granular ambient to hip hop to electro.
Never been able to do that with one bit of hardware
which will allow you to run more apps at the same time for multitracking/daw like experience.