How professional can a sound get with iOS alone?

[goldenanalog]

Hello,

I want to get into making music again, and I’ve been looking at this Spectra 32-Bit DAC Amp for an alternative for an amp for my headphones and speakers.

So far I'm working a pair of Sennheiser HD-650 headphones and an ASUS laptop and Reason from Reason from Propellerhead. I've got an iPad Air 2, and I've been looking at that Auxy.

What do you think? Would it even be necessary to be with have an amplifier anymore with this Spectra DAC attached to my iPad Air?

I found it here – http://bit.ly/Spectra-32-Bit-DAC-Amp

Thanks for help!

The processing power of the iPad is the limiting factor, so I doubt that we'll see a version of U-He's DIVA running on the iPad anytime soon - but there are currently plenty of superb apps that I would classify as professional with caveats - limitations on especially their polyphony versus their vst counterparts, for one.

All things Virsyn; Korg's reinvented-for-touchscreen ip; Sunrizer; Magellan & Galileo (Organ); Crudebyte's stuff; M3000 (Melotron); Arturia's Moog, SEM, & Sequential VS emus; Sugar Bytes' ported stuff; Cakewalks' Z3ta; Prop's Thor - it would be easy to go on and on - some of the amazing audio-production-centric apps available for the iPad (and the iPhone) don't have a counterpart on desktop - they're their own thing likely inspired by the touchscreen/extreme portability/constant availability of the iPad/iPhone .

[DayvanCowboy]

I actually think, that Korgs Arp Odyssei and Steinbergs Micrologue compete very well with DIVA, if you compare the quality of oscillator and filter emulation. Especially the Odyssei, the sound engine is stunning. The iOS Synths lack modulation/polyphony/features compared to the biggest guns on desktop, but don´t sound any less "good". Gadgets on-board synths follow this strategy even further, and deliver great sound with a very limited feature set, hence the popularity of gadget.

I also disagree with Arturia in that list, i remember their iOS synths sound flat and kinda dull, maybe i should give them another chance. Still i´d recommend the actual moog apps over Arturia, even if they don´t have a Minimoog emulation, there´s a lot of minimoog timbre content for animoog.

[goldenanalog]

Hey, DayvanCowboy!

I actually think, that Korgs Arp Odyssei and Steinbergs Micrologue compete very well with DIVA, if you compare the quality of oscillator and filter emulation. Especially the Odyssei, the sound engine is stunning. The iOS Synths lack modulation/polyphony/features compared to the biggest guns on desktop, but don´t sound any less "good". Gadgets on-board synths follow this strategy even further, and deliver great sound with a very limited feature set, hence the popularity of gadget.

I also disagree with Arturia in that list, i remember their iOS synths sound flat and kinda dull, maybe i should give them another chance. Still i´d recommend the actual moog apps over Arturia, even if they don´t have a Minimoog emulation, there´s a lot of minimoog timbre content for animoog.

My point is that a vsti like DIVA - especially running in 'Divine' mode - ain't going to happen anytime soon on the iPad - it's just too much of a resource hog.

iSEM is a great-sounding app imho, if you take advantage of the deeper functionality built-into it, especially the individual-voice detuning. I do agree with you that both the 15 and animoog sound better then any Arturia app, but their polyphony is limited to (4) notes max, unfortunately, which I personally can't live with.

ODYSSEi is the finest sounding synthesizer app available for the iPad, imho - but I wanted to mention some other excellent synth apps that hadn't been brought up in this discussion (yet) to make the point that there are *plenty* of apps which are both potentially useful & sonically excellent from a music-production standpoint - some whose vsti counterparts are widely (or have been widely) used in production environments.

[DayvanCowboy]

´sup

DIVA and u-he synths, which are amazing, use some extreme oversampling in the filter emulation afaik. If Urs could have it his way, he´d oversample it a 1000 times. DIVA was launched in 2012, just like the i7-3770k i´m still on at 4,3 Ghz, and it will take some significant time for tablet CPUs to catch up. Unfortunately i have no idea if the x86 architecture with the SSE Extensions is more or less efficient than the ARM architecture, in terms of audio synthesis/processing.

On iOS the VAs have made a big leap in 2016, and those flagships like ODYSSEi and Model 15 aren´t even running on iPads older than ipad Air, so they must require a lot of cpu/gpu power. No developer likes to miss out on customers...

Still the ODYSSEi sounds so good, i must say i like it as much as DIVA. It´s not a perfect comparison, maybe in the way both synths make you wonder what is possible today with virtual analog emulation.

The iPad really shines with the digital synths like Korg iM1 and iWavestation. These two apps are truly unbelievable and blow my mind! Wolfgang Palm, or Waldorf Nave are also great in this category.

The AUv3 plugins are the next best thing right now. It does so much for the workflow, and should be so much better with the resources. I have the Bram Bos Ruismaker plugins that are again, such an amazing analogue emulation, it´s hard to believe. Especially the FM Bassdrum is seemingly impossible to come out of an iPad. The Klevgrand effect AUs are also amazing, and desktop grade.

So to put it back in context to OPs question, i believe all the parts are aligning to have a semi-professional sound quality on iOS right now. It will always be a tradeoff between pure computing power storage etc, but the gap get´s closer and closer....

[Nightpolymath]

The ARM chip has come a long way, and will probably supersede Intel sooner rather than later on Apple hardware. So I figure there will be an eventual convergence between IOS and OSX. Which makes business sense in the long run - you don't want to be developing two OS'es at the same time. iPhone 7 benchmarks on Geekbench show the quad core 64 bit ARM chips edging out prior generation Macbook Air's even.

[Perceptualization]

I'm wondering whether this Spectra would improve audio output for headphones and speakers for mastering tunes.

Nowadays onboard audio is as good as the professional mastering DACs were twenty years ago. Rumor has it that the onboard audio of e.g. iPad2 already isn't that bad: http://www.pocketables.com/2011/10/the- ... tests.html
For composition, production & mixing I'd say it's good enough. No obvious flaws that need fixing.

Especially if you're just starting: forget about mastering your own tracks. Better leave that to a professional. There's a lot that you need to learn already, so why also take on the burden of mastering? That's an art in itself.

So would this amp be alright with active speakers then?

You'd then connect an output designed for a headphone to a line input of the monitors. While your gut feeling might say that can't be right, in practice it works out quite well. And this is exactly the scenario they have quoted these specs for:

2Vrms @ 600Ω

Because 600 Ohm is the regular impedance for line level outputs.

Thanks BertKoor.

Yeah, I think I have a hangover from when I attempted making music about 17 years ago on my PC. A few people were at me, telling me to get a better sound card and all that. I guess I had that perception still.

Sorry, with the last sentence, did you mean that you could use it to connect to active speakers?

[Perceptualization]

Most iPad music apps sound good via headphones until one routes them to a pair of monitors and then the reality starts sinking in. But I am a sucker for these cheap apps and I will continue buying them just so that I have something I can play with on the go. They're great for generating MIDI clips that can be transferred later to Logic or Cubasis. Some of the filters aren't half bad, such as Filtatron. The PPG synths are OK enough, and so is Nave.

Do you think that the apps could improve to the point of sounding better? What is about this particular software has them sounding weaker aloud vs hardware like the TB-303. I'm just curious how such basic hardware back then sounded so good.

Thanks

[BertKoor]

Yes you can connect active speakers to a headphones output.

[Cinebient]

If you have still a headphone output
Anyway the headphone output sounds not good. The lighning port is the way to get the best out of iOS devices.
But the worst thing in iOS land is still why the hell are there still apps which needs that freaking i-tunes for sharing data...WTF! NO GO!!

[Nightpolymath]

Cinebient is right - use the lightning port to get sound routed to monitors. There are several ways to do this, using apps such as musicio and studiomux connected to a server app on a Macbook or PC. From the computer you then go to your USB or Thunderbolt audio interface. Your iPad becomes the audio input source. No need to go via a DAW if you don't want to.

[Nightpolymath]

Most iPad music apps sound good via headphones until one routes them to a pair of monitors and then the reality starts sinking in. But I am a sucker for these cheap apps and I will continue buying them just so that I have something I can play with on the go. They're great for generating MIDI clips that can be transferred later to Logic or Cubasis. Some of the filters aren't half bad, such as Filtatron. The PPG synths are OK enough, and so is Nave.

Do you think that the apps could improve to the point of sounding better? What is about this particular software has them sounding weaker aloud vs hardware like the TB-303. I'm just curious how such basic hardware back then sounded so good.

Thanks

I think they are starting to sound a lot better now. In the past developers had to work within the constraints of lower available RAM and slower chips, this necessitating shortcuts in the quality of samples used and how each app was coded. I was primarily refering to some of my apps bought three to four years ago and not the newer crop of apps from, e.g. Korg and Bram Bos. Older apps like Rebirth and iElectribe still sound terrible to my ears. Ditto Nanostudio if compared to the newer Cubasis 2.

[Cinebient]

But there are also several things i like about iOS.
Installing and deinstalling things (and everything via ONE account) on as many devices as i connected to my account is so much more comfortable.
The file management is still bad but i still hope some day it evolves.
If i could use external SSD´s to stream samples and iOS would be a bit more open in terms of file sharing between apps and there would be a powerful 15" iPad i really could imagine to try it with iOS only again (and the Seaboard Rise as my midi controller).
When it comes to performence iOS apps often offer more interesting ways.
If i just could get Logic and Alchemy 2 for an iPad Pro (with 3D touch) i would be very happy.
When i see all the updated GUI´s in Logic they look very usable for touch input now...maybe they prepare it for the future....
For sure iOS IS the future for Apple and if intel goes on with the lame cpu speed increase i also have the feeling that ARM-chips one day will deliver more power (especially compared to notebooks and single core performence).
I think nearly all big synths could run on the latest iPads but it´s hard to create a usable GUI and of course the market in iOS wants no synths for 200 dollar.
The main thing i miss are really proper FX like B2 reverb, Kaleidoscope, Cableguys stuff like Midi Shaper, Volume Shaper etc. and an awesome delay like Replika XT with extras like the awesome pitch shifter which makes sound incredible huge and immersive if needed.
But then i´m also sure we see more from Moog, Korg, Arturia, Fabfilter (pro-R reverb seems to coming for iOS as Auria plug-in as well).
It´s just all a bit unstable for me when trying to combine a lot different iOS apps.
My most wanted iOS apps i´m waiting for is NanoStudio 2 and BeatMaker 3.
Maybe they can please me to migrate back.
I made a few 100 tracks with my iPhone 4 and 5, later with my iPad Air. But things get worse, iOS more unstable...so i stopped working with it.
Now i often miss it and the more simple things which often let me be much more creative.
Of course i would kill for an OSX-iOS hybrid...even running iOS apps on my non-touch macbook would please me for years. Of course that will not happen.
I hoped a few iOS developers would start to make "real" multi-touch apps for windows 10 but that seems to be still a dead island.
Time will tell......

[DayvanCowboy]

I think they are starting to sound a lot better now. In the past developers had to work within the constraints of lower available RAM and slower chips, this necessitating shortcuts in the quality of samples used and how each app was coded. I was primarily refering to some of my apps bought three to four years ago and not the newer crop of apps from, e.g. Korg and Bram Bos. Older apps like Rebirth and iElectribe still sound terrible to my ears. Ditto Nanostudio if compared to the newer Cubasis 2.

Absolutely, 2016 has been a big year for iOS synthesis. In the old days, the only synth that sounded great (and still does) was the Moog Rompler Animoog, which i bought for 0,99 cents on my iPad 2, and was as happy as a child on christmas, because i instantly knew what i was holding in my hands.

Other iOS synths seemed often dull, uninspiring, flat and generic. They couldn´t oversample filters, or use faithful circuit modeling like with the ODYSSEi. Korg has an interesting website, why the ODYSSEi sounds like it does, maybe it´s marketing, but makes a lot of sense.

http://www.korg.com/us/products/software/arpodyssei/

[Cinebient]

I think they are starting to sound a lot better now. In the past developers had to work within the constraints of lower available RAM and slower chips, this necessitating shortcuts in the quality of samples used and how each app was coded. I was primarily refering to some of my apps bought three to four years ago and not the newer crop of apps from, e.g. Korg and Bram Bos. Older apps like Rebirth and iElectribe still sound terrible to my ears. Ditto Nanostudio if compared to the newer Cubasis 2.

Absolutely, 2016 has been a big year for iOS synthesis. In the old days, the only synth that sounded great (and still does) was the Moog Rompler Animoog, which i bought for 0,99 cents on my iPad 2, and was as happy as a child on christmas, because i instantly knew what i was holding in my hands.

Other iOS synths seemed often dull, uninspiring, flat and generic. They couldn´t oversample filters, or use faithful circuit modeling like with the ODYSSEi. Korg has an interesting website, why the ODYSSEi sounds like it does, maybe it´s marketing, but makes a lot of sense.

http://www.korg.com/us/products/software/arpodyssei/

But Sunrizer, Nave, NLog sounding still fantastic i think!
But i must really say that if i put Odyssei in 8 voice unsison mode and detune it, it sounds fat like sausages!

[DayvanCowboy]

But Sunrizer, Nave, NLog sounding still fantastic i think!
But i must really say that if i put Odyssei in 8 voice unsison mode and detune it, it sounds fat like sausages!

I´d say Nave is a slightly different category, and Sunrizer and NLog are good, but not great. What´s your opinion on the Steinberg Micrologue in Cubasis? I think this is the sleeper "bread & butter" VA, with 10 voices and a creaminess in the filter that i haven´t heard yet on iOS anywhere. It´s especially great for Pads!