Elektron-Users

Interested in peoples experiences of iPads for music-making; how they have and haven't enhanced it; what you expected and what you found.

I don't own any iProduct but the Samplr app alone is tempting me to buy an iPad to use purely as an instrument and sketch pad for ideas to complete in a DAW.

I'm not wanting to provoke opinions I've heard (and agree with) about iPads being outdated in a years time while our grandkids will save up for A4s. Or my own fears about getting caught in the-next-app-trap. Rather it's people's experiences of the interface and its effect on creativity and workflow that I'm curious about.

hopefully Tarekith will chime in.

i'm still thinking about to answer your question. =)

imho the glass pad is nice for some types of interaction, and obviously it can display music interfaces in an attractive way. it will never replace proper knobs/faders/sliders though.
the CPUs are no slouch and the iOS Audio & Midi support is as decent as on OS X.
apple seem to be taking this tiny niche of music maker people somewhat seriously.

i'm also making an app for the Machinedrum, so if you have one, this might influence your decision in getting an ipad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSCrMi248uE

note that in the video it's an iPad 1 which is now 3 years old, it's still working okay.

Whilst I didn't buy an iPad primarily for music making, I have bought quite a few music apps for it. Personally, I've not found it to be a workflow that clicks with me. Creatively it's a distant third behind synth hardware and even mouse and keyboard. I find the touch screen too imprecise to make sound editing enjoyable or natural. I'd consider using it as live performance controller for hardware synths though.

I'm a bit in awe of folks who can create with it. They're clearly wired differently to me!

Over the time, I bought almost all of the "bigger" apps. Synths, samplers, sequencers, controllers. And I don't really use any of them, even though there are some terrific apps out there. The only thing I used once in a while were some controller functions for Ableton. But that stopped when I got Push.

I really love my iPad and use it every day. Just not for making music. I'm the kind of guy that has to really learn a device inside out to create muscle memory. And I can't seem to make that happen with a touch screen. I never could "jam" with it. But it is really great for storing all kinds of manuals, so I always keep it close to my gear.

Some of the synths sound really great, but I wish makers of these apps would take into accunt the interface of the thing and use it intuitively instead of spending time making it look like the real McCoy all the time.

I mean surely the touch interface lends itself to sliding gestures instead of turning a knob on a synth, yeah, It may look nice and just like a Moog knob, or an MS20 or whatever, but it can become overly fiddly to say the least which is a killer right away.

Some are overly cluttered from this approach as well (Magellan)

I like the interface of some though, like Figure, Samplr and Alchemy which employ a more sliderish based workflow which, for me at least, works better.

Although you can of course map midi controllers to the other apps in question.

But yeah, its just ok for me. More used as a sound designish type of thing on the train more than anything, all ends up as loops in the Octatrack or Live at the end of the day.

I mostly find it useful as a source of sounds more than anything, so create a loop in an iPad app (on train, sofa, anywhere), save it for later, then when at home you have a nice stash of your own loops to sample into the Octatrack for some loop mangling fun

I installed Propellerheads Thor on the iPad the other day, spent a good hour creating a my own patch and a nice sequence while on the sofa (apparently watching TV with my wife!), then later I just sampled it straight into the Octatrack to use in a track.

Here's a link to the Thor page on my website by the way
http://www.idesignsound.com/thor-polysonic-synthesizer-ipad/

Crikey, its impossible to watch VOID's clip without wanting MD too.

Thanks for the replies, interesting. I've no way of trying an iPad outside a store. I'm surprised there isn't more love for Samplr here given the concentration of OT fans, it seems insanely creative.

I am starting to really integrate the iPad into my OTB elektron setup and use Magellan and Nave really for analog sounding pads to add some instant polyphony to a couple of A4s and MD. eg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m7KcY3Lz_4 I also use it to enter sequences into the A4s - the cool thing is the footprint is small vs a 3-4 octave keyboard. Still trying to find a good way to switch sounds easily as as someone said above, and real time editing is pretty hard on all 'ott realism' interfaces...

I've been messing with iOS music making since the iPhone came out, and recently have been doing ALL of my music making just on the iPad for a change. For me the real change that led me to feeling comfortable doing full songs was getting Auria, and the release of Audiobus.

Auria is the first DAW style app that works as I'd expect, and is actually fun to use on the iPad. Moving and resizing clips just by dragging your finger is actually a very natural way to arrange songs I find. And Audiobus lets me just jam away on all these fun synth apps, knowing i'm recording in Auria and can edit out the best bits later to use in a song. Just like I was doing on my desktop DAWs.

Prior to this I was mainly coming up simple grooves on my iOS app. Things like Figure, iKaossilaotr, Beatmaker2, and NanoStudio. Fun for quick ideas, but too tedious for me to really get into for doing complete songs.

Also, just recently picked up the QuNexus controller (see my review in the "Other GEar" forum here), which makes playing iOS synths WAY more fun. No denying the power and sound of these, but I never did get on with playing a glass keyboard. Now i can play notes on the QuNexus and adjust parameters on the iPad, which makes for a much more natural workflow.

These two tracks were done 100% from start to mastered finish on just the iPad:

http://tarekith.com/mp3s/Tarekith-Veloant.m4a

http://tarekith.com/mp3s/Tarekith-TH1.m4a

I'll have a third going up later today or tomorrow. Also, here's a link to my blog, where I talk a lot about using iOS apps for making music, what I like and don't like, etc:

http://tarekith.com/category/ios/

Happy to answer any questions here too.