Advice for an Apple pre-noob, please -- do I really want an iPad 2 for music under ios 7?

[lingyai]

Sorry, this is a bit long.

I'd appreciate some candid advice. I was just given an iPad2, 16 GB, which my girlfriend got through Amazon. She'd gotten the idea as we watched some videos this spring about all the cool instruments and other apps available at the time (i.e. under ios 6 ) and we were both under the impression that Apple products "just work".

It arrived last week as a surprise gift, bless her heart.

The thing is, I'd read in the meantime that basically ios 7 screws up a lot of what was good in ios 6. There are loads of posts on various forums ending with "I sure hope Apple fixes this in the future" (these even after the latest ios 7 patch) or, from the True Believers, "Maybe I'll just upgrade to an Ipad Air."

As she got it through Amazon, and I have not even opened the box, I still have a couple weeks to return it. I am now wondering if maybe that's what I should do.

If I describe what I had in mind for the iPad, maybe you folks could advise me.
(Please pardon my naïveté on many things; I come from Windows and in fact have never used an Apple product. )

(And also, please let's not let this become a tribal Windows vs ios thing; I have no particular loyalties either way, and rather am just trying to figure out if the iPad will work for me. I think of these things as a pragmatic choice of tools, not something integral to my identity, and certainly not something to fight about.)

So…

I do **not** expect the iPad to replace my current Windows 7 setup ( a very bulky but powerful laptop with an i7 cpu, 16 gb ram, novation impulse keyboard, focusrite audio interface, Alesis monitors, good condenser mics), which is what I intend to keep using for recording audio and midi, using Kontakt and other VSTis, and mixing / mastering final products with my array of VST fx.

But here's where I could see an Ipad being great to have, if it works. I spend a lot of time travelling. It would be great to be able to use that time

1) sketching out ideas in midi, using some instruments which are good enough to give me a basic idea of how the final song might sound (i.e., using, say, Sampletank ios or something; as well as the GarageBand Touch instruments) within some kind of reasonably spec'd DAW (i.e., GarageBand, Auria, or even Cubasis(though I'd prefer to avoid that one, as I am not a Steinberg fan)). I'd like it to be as easy as it is to load a VSTi into my present Windows DAW (Studio One, or Acid Pro) without a lot of faffing around.

I'd like to be able to do basic editing and export each track as a midi file (and maybe also as an audio file) which I could then import later on my PC, to convert the sketch into a proper tune.

Now, I understand that AudioBus is what has let you use the virtual instruments within a DAW in ios; but that unfortunately, under ios7, AudioBus has problems, and that the Apple version of it, IAA, is not compatible with most instruments at the moment. (If I've misuderstood, please correct me). In fact AudioBus and Native Instruments came out saying that ios7 just isn't ready for audio. Not at all encouraging.

In other words, I've heard that under ios 7, music making no longer "just works," but rather is buggy as hell.

2) doing some basic mixing, for example, importing 10 or so vocal tracks (takes), recorded on my PC, into an iPad DAW, for comping / rendering into a single best take, basically by using volume automation and then mixing down. This is easily the most time-consuming task in most of my projects; so it would be great to be able to do it on a light, portable device for whenever I happen to have free time for it when I'm on the road. Wouldn't need much in the way of FX; if I could route all the takes to one bus and slap an EQ and or touch of reverb / compression on that, it would be enough.

Yet I wonder … does the Ipad 2 have enough RAM / CPU to handle this?

Also, I hear that ios 7 has brought GUI problems to apps like Auria which worked fine under ios 6; specifically, for example, extremely slow updating and the like; that would drive me crazy when drawing detailed volume envelopes, which I do a lot of. If true, I wouldn't use it.
***

If I could use the iPad for these, without a lot of headaches, head-scratching, forum queries, etc I'd be happy enough; and if I could do anything else musical with it, such as being able to record, edit and import into a DAW performances with really groovy-looking apps like Morphwiz; or hooking my midi keyboard up to it; or using it to record audio on the road with a suitable interface, I'd consider it icing on the cake, though by no means necessary.

So… What do you folks think?

Not trying to pick any fights here, but I've heard from a number of sources that ios 7 is the buggiest update ever from Apple, really denting their reputation as the world's coolest toy maker.

I personally am not in awe of the brand, a hard-core member of the cult etc. I'd grudgingly accept Apple effectively forcing me to upgrade to ios 7 (the unit as shipped has ios 6; and while in theory I don't have to upgrade, Apple will force me to download ios 7, which, even if not installed, will take up a lot of hard drive space); which I basically think is a shitty attitude - after all, do I own the device, or am I merely renting it on Apple's terms? Anyway, I'd put up with it, but ONLY if in return the device is in fact the great magic music making toy which "just works". Otherwise, I got no time for it. I get enough buzz-kill with my Windows setup as it is.

Sorry for going on so long; just trying to explain where I'm coming from and what I'd like to do, so that folks can advise accordingly.

Any guidance **much** appreciated.

[ecamburn]

That's a very long post that I didn't read in its entirety. I've recently started working on the ios platform. Here are some of my experiences you may find helpful.

Like you, my main platform is Windows 7.

I had similar aspirations as you, essentially sketching out songs + using livecontrol2 to control ableton live.

Livecontrol2 can be a little flaky but generally does what it says on the tin.

As far as song sketching goes - a prevailing thought I have when working on the ipad is "I could be doing this much more efficiently on a computer." I have a small, powerful Dell laptop that makes couch production with Ableton live viable. So for me, the ipad isn't a huge win on convenience. And for my workflow, it's quite a bit less efficient. For example, sequencing midi in genome is less efficient than sequencing midi in Ableton Live.

That said, there are a lot of fun, good sounding, creative apps on the ipad. I do enjoy working on ios, but anticipate I'll mainly be using it to sketch audio that gets ported to a computer. I'll also likely use steppolyarp as a midi controller for Live, essentially like a touch screen midi effect.

As far as your technical worries about ios7, I'm not experiencing them. All the apps I use - thumbjam, arturia isem, genome, steppolyarp, yellofier, figure, tenori i - generally work as expected. Audio bus works like a charm here.

[minor edits for clarity]

[Aural Chaos]

TL: DR
It isn't going to replace a Windows 7 DAW, but you can go a long way with it. I wouldn't attempt lots of tracks plus FX.
Have you checked out Multitrack DAW? Not as sexy as Auria or Cubasis, but has a much lighter footprint.

Please ignore most of what you've heard about ios7. People will bitch about anything, but it certainty hasn't hurt my experience. IAA is still in its infancy- it may be killer someday soon, but for now Audiobus is where it's at.

[Breeze]

With an iPad 2, iOS 6 vs iOS 7 is not the issue: CPU, RAM and Memory, and the state of iOS audio/music infrastructure in iOS are more relevant.

I got an iPad2 almost exactly 2 years ago. So far, nothing replaces the experience of working with a DAW on a full computer. In my experience, the iPad2 can't run more than 1 to 6 separate music apps simultaneously but that is HIGHLY dependant on the system resources each app needs. Usually running more than 3 is a stretch. The 2 is simply too underpowered for more.

I've found it interesting to play with sound apps that use the touch screen in new and interesting ways. Conventional synths are less interesting although there are some real winners there too. The most useful musical thing I've done with the iPad 2 is used it as a wireless DAW remote for tracking.

My iPad 2 has 64gigs of storage and after 2 years of app "collecting", I've got less than 5 gigs free and 3/4 of the used space is mostly apps. 16gigs is not much for music-based use unless you're disciplined enough to install only what you really need and leave yourself enough space for data. IMO 16gigs is just not enough space if you plan on exploring and experimenting. If you want to use the iPad 2 to jot down ideas, I suggest you do it with a self contained iPad App that provides it's own instruments like GarageBand, Nanostudio, Beatmaker, and the like. BTW, I find it telling that Apple still sells the iPad 2 but only 16GB of RAM; my suspicion is that if they offered the 2 with more RAM it would seriously cut into the sales of their flagship models.

And then there are issues with the way MIDI and audio are handled. There still isn't a perfect consensus on how MIDI should be handled (there are in fact two main trunks) and there's no system-wide management of external Audio and MIDI interfaces like there is in OS X. Sometimes you have to load in apps In a certain order just to get things to work. Sometimes it feels like a crap shoot...

IMO, music on iOS is more of a toy and an experimenter's delight unless you work with one app at a time. But it's also been useful to me in many non-musical ways; why you get one is always a very personal decision. I actually held out buying an iPad 3 or 4 simply because they didn't look to me like serious evolutionary steps up from the 2 which still has no issues running any single available App or iOS. The iPad Air looks like a bigger step, but I'll wait and see how much better it really is...

[audientronic]

16 gb is not enough. It will be the most frustrating part. iPad 2 is a little slow for Auria if adding effects (fabfilter, etc.). I'd wait and get the latest.

[george]

Please ignore most of what you've heard about ios7. People will bitch about anything, but it certainty hasn't hurt my experience.

This.

[superscan]

If you are looking for the iPad2 to last you more than 14-18 months from an iOS perspective it probably won't happen. Also, the iPad2 will likely not run the next major revision of iOS. I'd suggest returning the unit. It's the lowest spec'd model in the fleet, and the new iPad Air / Retina Mini are both 64bit (not to mention the iPhone 5s). Much like the move from the older 30pin connector to Lightning Cable, Apps will be increasingly refreshed using 64bit code. It's likely that a future upgrade (maybe even free) to an app you use everyday will be 64bit only and you'll be stuck.

I would return it and try to get the best deal on an iPad4 (a.k.a. New iPad) that was released in March of this year. You'll get the new Lightning connector, A6X chip and a Gig of working memory (not storage). It won't be 64bit, you'll get more than a year out of it with a major iOS upgrade or two in there as well.

It won't replace your PC DAW, but you'll want the additional capacity to run the multiple programs like a DAW.

I hope this helps.

[lingyai]

Big thanks to everyone -- some truly invaluable advice given here. What I have decided, based on it, is that the iPad 2 is going back to Amazon. I don't know what will happen next, besides taking my girlfriend out for a nice meal and then shoe shopping. Thanks very much again.