iPad Music Apps?

The Lounge General Discussion
#560

Thought I’d post a lil update on my recent experiences with iOS music making.

Yall might remember how I’ve felt quite disillusioned wrt iOS music making lately. I mean, there are all these apps, but I have been missing a workflow for bringing stuff together easily, being able to multitrack easily etc… which had left me using only Gadget fo sketching ideas, disregarding everything else pretty much. I am still holding out alot of hope that with iOS11 and the files app, beautiful stuff will start to happen… But cannot jump onboard iOS11 yet as the lovely YM251 app will die if I do! (Need to bounce everything to audio first?)

A few days ago, I noticed most of my fave apps had gotten ableton link feature as an update. So I thought I’d just mess with some apps for the lulz, see if I could come up with something…

Link seemed to work really well! So now with all the various apps and their sequencers finally syncing proper, and most importantly, staying in sync without drifting, we were finally getting onwards from where I had been for years. But I still wanted a way to multitrack it all without having to run everything into Auria pro for recording (and Auria still not supportin ableton link btw), as the thought of even assigning the track inputs sounded like a chore…

Soo I thought I’d give that AUM app a go. And man, am I glad I did! AUM is exactly the piece of the iOS musicmaking puzzle that I had been missing all these years. It makes all these discreet apps work together, gives you a proper mixer and multitrack recording capability, and is a breeze to use.

Now all that I want are some GREAT (as in, desktop-quality) AU plugins for bread & butter mixing, and I’ll be getting further with iOS than ever before. So any recommendations for the best AU plugins for:
• Subtractive parametric eq (preferably with unlinkable L/R ctrls bcuz M/S)
• Basic “transparent” compressor/expander
• reverb (must have predelay at least)
• delay (must have pingpong)
• Chorus/flanger (must have feedback, delay, rate, depth)

…would be appreciated. I have been eyeing the DDMF AU eq, comp and reverb, which seem like they’d be the best ones for these type of duties, but any insight would be appreciated.

That latest wolfgang palm instrument is also something I want to get at some point, anyone used it extensively?

PS: Yall checked this one right? Madness!

7 Likes
#561

I love ios and use aum a lot, mainly for setting updtum machines or synths with a sequencer and running them through various fx and saving to disk, which then gets bpm as a name and then i cut up stuff into loops to send elsewhere. If you don’t have audioshare get it, made bu same dude and any of these recordings show up there and it’s a great utility app.

Rough rider is a nice comp and i think still free
I have the ddmf reverb and don’t love it. Uses a lot of resources. Sounds good but not great. Here are the fx i have.

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#562

Thanks. Yeh, for sure I have audioshare! A shame Apple forced the disabling of audio file downloads from it though, it was a superb feature.

I think I grabbed the rough rider ccomp AU when it was free? Need to give it a spin.

Would you say that the AUFX: Space is a better reverb than the envelope? I was also contemplating on grabbing the AUFX bundle, but the features on them plugs seem basic at hest… And I have no idea how this dev’s DSP coding chops are…

If only the fabfilter plugins I already bought for my Auria Pro worked in AUM… That stuff is top notch and can easily go toe-to-toe with any desktop plugins (but then again, they are desktop plugins)

To be specific, I’d love ports of the following UAD plugins to iOS AU:
Echoplex 34
Precision delay modulator
AKG BX 20 spring reverb
Harrison 32C eq
EMT 140 plate
1176LN (legacy)
LA-2A (legacy)
Roland CE-1 / MXR flanger/doubler

A man can dream, right? I am well aware nothing of the sort is out there, but anything with a comparable sound to these would be a godsend.

1 Like
#563

not sure which reverb is better, don’t love either but aufx is better for weird spacey stuff.
i just don’t like that ddmf spikes my processing usage up like 50% at times. if i try to run say model 15 and that and like one more thing i get glitches. and i have a 12.9 pro. if you have auria pro and the fabfilter stuff use that more i would say. i have pro-r and that IS excellent. i don’t really use bread and butter fx in aum since i am just printing sequences with either no fx or wacky fx, then i export those to aura and use psp and fabfilter stuff.
speaking of wacky, audiodamage replicant 2 is awesome for glitching up drum loops. dahlia delay is an au delay which i have not used too much but when i need a delay in aum i usually use the one in the moog filtertron.

but auria is where it’s at. haven’t mixed in a computer since i got it since i could never afford (or rather allocate instrument spending cash towards) those fabfilter pluins and psp plugins. they sound phenomenal. hard to justify spending so much on the Heat when i hear what saturn can do.

#564

au fx pros: when booting up settings remain as they were, multiple instances
cons: you can’t run at higher than 512 buffer, which i mostly need when mixing in auria with all the other stuff.

#565

Been using Turquoise DS to design sounds on the iPad to feed into my machines.

#566

i’m happy with that AUFX bundle. I use them on busses within AUM and it’s pretty nifty

1 Like
#567

Most the Audio Damage plugins have been ported to iOS as AUs now. I’ve got Eos, Dubstation and Rough Rider which are all great. Eos was actually written by the Valhalla guy and is one of my fav desktop plugins so v happy that one made it to iOS.

2 Likes
#568

Huh, Sean Costello’s DSP on the iOS platform? The man is a god - Bought!

big thanks, will check the rest of their plugs out too :ecstatic:

2 Likes
#569

MidiFire by Audeonic Apps

New midi app that takes care of MIDI, by Audeonic Apps and there is a good tutorial video by Tim Web…seems to solve lots of connecting with iPad.

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#570

Eos sounds really great

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#571

Ableton Link added to the latest MPC Live/X update, it’s heaps of fun!

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#572

Would you all say it’s best to get the new pros with 4 gig ram to run auria or would it run fine on the 2 gig standard 2017 9.7 iPad ??

Obviously depends what you want to do but an average setup with couple of external midi tracks, audio tracks, internal synths and fx. Basically enough to create a track and sequence some external instruments

Thanks

#573

Not sure about the RAM benefits (although I bet they will be beneficial in the long run), but getting the fastest possible CPU for Auria pro use is a good idea, assuming you want to be able to pull off full mixes with it. I can bring my 2016 iPad Pro to its knees with just a few instances of fabfilter saturn, and if I turn on highest quality, one or two instances is enough to kill my pad…

Been testing the EOS2 AU a bit, not in love yet… Maybe I’m expecting too much dunno, but so far the only reverb that I really like on iOS is the fabfilter-R in Auria Pro. Guess I’ve been spoiled by UAD reverbs, they do have a stellar reputation in ITB land…? But I’ll give the EOS2 some time, maybe I’m just not dialing it in properly yet.

There’s a dimensionality to a good reverb algo that I’m struggling to find in iOS land. Maybe I need to try that virsyn reverb? I like what I’m hearing from the internal reverb on Tera synth app, the reverb and tape saturation in Tera are pretty good sounding to my ears…

Last night I was AUMing again, and I have to admit the CPU runs out pretty fast on iOS… I got crackling audio with just a few instruments in… iM1, Gadget, Tera, iSpark, iMaschine and two aux FX plugs was enough to get subpar performance… Why all these apps? because of instrument separation. I wish all iOS music devs made their multitrack apps IAA multiport compatible, would save heaps of CPU.

1 Like
#574

This is why i stopped using the multi app setups. Either ram craps out or switching between apps i get pops etc. I use gadget mostly for ios production and export to auria for mixing. Aum for recording individual apps.

Bram bos apps (ruismaker, troublemaker, etc) are light on resources and sound great.

4 Likes
#575

My priorities to go for the iPad Pro have been:

  1. faster CPU, like @tsutek advices
  2. enough SDD space for samples and sample-instruments
  3. and the nice big screen (everybody gets older and our eyes getting no better, alas…)

Considering to “plug-in” virtual instruments to Auria, you should not save on CPU power.

1 Like
#576

Just decided to grab the audio damage chorus/modulator and the dubstation delay AU. Will let you know if they do the trick, if not I’ll be trying the AU:FX bundle next. If those will not scratch my itch, I’ll need to get the RV-500 & MD-500 pedals and mult out via my 12MTK :evil:

#577

Yeah, the clicks and pops are annoying, but I’ll just try to keep things simple and record a bunch of loops. Even if all I manage to scrape together are a bunch of loops, its all good food for my hw sample manglers & MPC :diddly:

#578

I like them, I use them with Audiobus 3 for additional processing of the Live, the reverb is quite big and spacious, delay sounds good, so does the EQ. Compressor is the star of the show because you can sidechain

1 Like
#579

Messed with the Audio damage FX for about an hour just now. Dunno man, maybe I’ve just been spoiled by hardware and UAD plugins, but I can’t get these audio damage plugs to do what I want… If I add hipass filtering and flip the phase, I get a bit closer to where I wanna be but I just can’t seem to get the space/dimensionality I’m looking for.

Next stop, AU:FX

EDIT: Seems these AU:FX plugs do not come as AU plugins? Only IAA & Audiobus? Not ideal. ie. only one instace of each plug per session?