Recommendations for best iOS DAW?

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I'm finally getting into the whole making music on an iPad thing, and feel like a bit of a noob.

I bought one of the original iPads when they first came out, thinking I'd be using all the music apps available at the time. But my wife pretty much confiscated the iPad as soon as it came into the house, and I've barely touched it since then.

So now I finally bought another one for myself- a shiny new iPad Air! I have a bunch of the popular apps already- Electribe, MS-20, Thor, Samplr, Jasuto, Animoog, etc. It finally all came together for me when I bought Audiobus and Audiocopy, so that all these individual apps can actually work together and I can easily transfer the recordings to my PC without dealing with USB cables and iTunes. So far I've been playing around with routing the various instruments into Samplr, where they become sample fodder for my sequences. But I really want to find something more like a DAW, or at least a multitrack recorder.

What is the best DAW-type multitrack app that will work with other Audiobus apps? And is it possible to actually sync these apps together? Like if I have some tracks already recorded and now want to record in a pattern coming from the Electribe, will I have to manually adjust the timing of the recording after the fact? Or is there some kind of inter-app synchronization?
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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Okay, since there haven't been any suggestions yet, I did a bit of research. These seem like the most likely candidates:

Auria
Cubasis
n-Track
Multitrack DAW
FL Studio

So which of these do you like? Is there anything else I should be looking at?
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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IMO Cubasis is the one. General workflow is about the same as the desktop version, but with a touch interface. It works really well.

Peace,
Andy.
... space is the place ...

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ZenPunkHippy wrote:IMO Cubasis is the one. General workflow is about the same as the desktop version, but with a touch interface. It works really well.

Peace,
Andy.
I'll second that. Cubasis is great. Getting better with each update.

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Until a few days ago I'd have said Meteor as that has been my DAW of choice, but having just got Cubasis, it's an absolute joy to use and move around. Meteor still has a number of features missing from Cubasis unless I haven't found them yet (step record and effect side-chaining for starters). If you do get Meteor you'll also need to pay for some additional bits and pieces (MIDI support, effects, sounds) but it's worth having.

Auria is meant to be great but still lacks MIDI support I believe so may not suit.

Nanostudio is a staple that you should investigate. Great synth and good control interface (summarily nicked by a larger outfit...)

Depending on what you want for sounds, I can recommend Alchemy and Sunrizer as synths, Sampletank for a rompler (though Cubasis has a fairly broad palette) and DM1 for beats.

Jamey
My noise is here.

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Theres also beatmaker 2. Personally i went with cubasis and it feels pretty good. Its integration with external synths is very good compared to most offerings. The only thing I think beatmaker has over it is its drum creation and that it can do loop time stretching, if only cubasis had some sort of stretch it would be truly be king for me

For synths you could also check out the magellan synths and cassini. I just wish more devs would start updating to include IAP support since for me it really feels like a true integration of a synth at that point, audiobus usage still feels a bit hacky to me

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Beatmaker 2 and Auria. Synths: Alchemy Mobile, Sampletank
Rock On!

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Can you cubasis projects to a pc?
Will cubasis work with ipad mini?

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Yes and yes.
My noise is here.

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Thanks, will it work on the ipod touch?

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Don't believe so - large screen devices only.
My noise is here.

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Thanks an ipad mini is only $50 more

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If I get Cubasis, is there any point in also getting Loopy? It just seems like a cool looper, but probably redundant.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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Horses for courses really. Loopy is ideal for quick sketch work and getting some nice easy layering done, especially as it stretches samples to time match - I don't think Cubasis does this. But you'd be hard pressed to complete a fully produced epic with Loopy, unless it''s the rough sound you want. I find it more a composition tool.

Cubasis takes more effort to get loops all set up but is so much more powerful as an end-to-end production tool. You don't *need* Loopy, but it meets different needs.
My noise is here.

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Congrats on the new ipad air purchase and welcome to ios music making!

Loopy is the looper to get if you are into that. Combined with audiobus it's great. I've got my oxygen 25 plugged into the ipad air -> synth -> fx -> loopy through audiobus for some livejams.

Cubasis is great (no automation yet but it's in the next update apparantly). Auria is also great with a bunch of IAP like fabfilters/psp/fxpansion plugins, has dirac timestrech, No midi editor just yet. Both Daws have freeze functions and can also work with audiobus as a source or destination.

There's also a little gem of a soft called caustic 3 which is like reason for ios and at a ridiculous price of $10. (I don't work for them :) ) You can get the complete windows version for free if you wanna try it out. http://www.singlecellsoftware.com/caustic

You should check audioshare app also to manage samples or audio tracks. Really good!

Finally a good site for ios related music: http://discchord.com/
Stuck in Aperture Laboratories for a 2nd time!

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