How do you use your iDevice for music production?

[Locus M]

Hi iMusicians
This is just a "curiosity" thread. Since I bought my iPad 2, I haven't made music on anything else. It is my impression, however, that those of us who use it for full music production still are a minority. In different threads there seems to be mistrust in using iDevices for full productions, even among the owners (usually the non-owners just display their lack of knowledge by virtue of trivial "hype" arguments, so I count them out).

Well, if you are used to a big hardware or software studio, the mistrust might be understandable, but as far as I my needs goes, there are top notch gear enough to make a whole deal of music within different genres and in a decent quality:

We have sampler/synths studios like Nanostudio, BM 2 and Aurora,
rompler based music studios like Garageband, MusicStudio and FL Studio Mobile,
mini DAWS like Meteor and studio.HD.
Vocoders and vocal processing like iVoxel, Synhtronica and improVox
Grooveboxes like Rebirth, iMS-20, iElectribe, iSyn Poly and Xenon,
standalone high quality synths like Sunrizer, Addictive synth and NLog synth and we have several drummachines, audio editors, and a bunch of dedicated experimental apps to choose from too.

I can not see anything missing, but of course, the workflow can be lot slower than in PC DAWs for instance when you have to copy and paste audio files between different apps.

So now my question simply is: How do you mainly use your iPad with regard to music production? Please give me a hint in the poll and add some comments if you like.

All The Best

[Dewaine]

As you say, all the tools are there. And you hit it on the head with "workflow". The one big drawback at this point in the iOS music creation world, is the lack of a way to play iOS synths and beatboxes from within the studio app (NS, BM2...etc). In other words, something like VSTi's.

The copy/paste method works, but can be a creativity killer. BM2 is cool because it is truly multi-task. So if you have an iOS synth that also multi-tasks (Additive Synth, iSyn Poly, synthX...etc) then you can play and record (in the synth) the synth with your track in real time. But, at this point BM2 is the only true multi-task DAW, and the selection of multi-task synths is small....

When someone figures out a way to have a VSTi type standard in the iOS world, music creation will explode on the iPad.

[thebaggytrouseredone]

I have a desktop PC connected to an outboard desk and racks that I used to compose with, then I moved to a more portable set up with a laptop and zoom R24. I've now bought an iPad 2 which I use now as a sketch pad, I intend on getting an io dock to use it as a sound module, I already use my iPhone as a module through the synth station 25.

I like smaller simpler set ups now for writing and getting ideas, I'll export the midi files to my laptop DAW for fleshing out the ideas and adding audio, vst fx, etc.

Using the iOS apps for me is quite expressive and almost a hands on hardware experience. In a way when you incorporate it into your studio set up it's quite old school as you now have the iPad as an external module but its a module with lots of different sounds by different companies. It's different than looking at a pc screen and clicking with a mouse, same outcome but more interactive and in some ways quicker.

My iOS software has already replaced my Electribe R MK2, Electribe A MK2, Electribe S MK2, Kaossilator, and MicroKorg. It's even my main choice for Internet browsing.

simon

[oldlibmike]

I do a bit of both but there is usually some processing I do on the desktop - either with Logic 9 or sometimes Mixtikl Desktop version. I blog a bit about my amateur efforts (see sig below).

There is something cool about the touch interface that I prefer to desktop DAWs despite the limited performance.

[thebaggytrouseredone]

I would love to do everything within an iPad but I've been recording at 24 bit 96khz in my main DAW and the iPad is 16 bit 44.1khz as far as I know. I only started recording at a high sample and bit rate about 5 years ago but before that I was using 16bit 44.1khz for recording. I never had any problems at lower bit rates but most people seemed to be using the higher rates and depths so I changed as I was recording more acoustic instruments and found there to be more depth at the higher rates.

Is the iPad as high fidelity and quality as are main DAW's?

I don't think it matters much but I will be recording the output into my DAW and through some valve outboard to maintain the same quality with my other gear.

simon

[Locus M]

Is the iPad as high fidelity and quality as are main DAW's?

simon

Hi Simon. Thanks for your comments so far (and thanks to the rest of you too).

What I know of high fidelity is that blind tests have shown that people can not hear the difference between 16 bit 44,1 khz and 24 bit 96 khz. Here is an oldie but goodie, which also have been discussed (to death) at KVR:

http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/a ... _sampling/

I know for sure that I can't hear any difference and unless one have some really good objections to the test mentioned, it seems that only a few would hear a difference, if any at all.

However, the issue is contamined, so let's stay on track. What you and others write about your use of iPads are very informative.

All The Best

[michael2]

hey, just realized that we're both at MJ; how come we haven't run into each other here before?

anyways, I generally use it to remember ideas,compose or catch inspiration on the fly. always have to dump it in Logic to turn it into something though. What a cool thing though that we can do this sort of thing with our phones.