As developers of professional audio plugins this is very exciting for us. The horsepower is there and the touch interface allows for some really cool possibilities. We already enjoy using AUM and Cubasis, but will be very interested to see if support for pro hardware improves now on iPad.

Please consider supporting multi touch, where it makes sense

We absolutely do already :D

https://gs-dsp.com/

Big fan of your interfaces here, and MMM is an amazing utility - thanks.

Thank you so much! More stuff coming all the time :)

I've got a Steam Deck and I've been curious about using that as a music composition tool. The controls offer some interesting possibilities as performance inputs.

The problem is that all Windows or Linux music apps tend to presume a large monitor and a mouse and keyboard. I've not found anything terribly usable.

Can steam deck run any Linux application? You might have fun designing creative abstractions in Pure Data meant to fit in the UI. Then, if you can hook it up to a keyboard, you might be able to take advantage of the user inputs on the steam deck & keyboard to make an ersatz OP-1.

> Can steam deck run any Linux application?

Yes. It's amd64, so you probably don't even need to compile it, either.

On top of that, it's basically just Arch linux with a complicated filesystem scheme. Flatpaks are the recommended distribution mechanism, but you can do whatever you want. It comes with KDE and an X server out of the box.

That's a really interesting idea! With the dual trackpads plus all standard controller inputs and the paddles on the back, the Deck is really uniquely positioned here.

You could try plugging in a monitor via HDMI. If you don't have a dock (the JSAUX one is cheap and gets great reviews, but I personally have the official one) you can get a pretty cheap USBC to HDMI cable nearly anywhere. I found some in stock at a random walmart on a road trip. Was able to plug the deck into our van's built-in entertainment system (it still blows my mind that there are now vehicles with TV screens built in).

If you do end up doing it, I'd love to see a video/blog post/whatever about it

I got the JSAUX dock while waiting for Valve to release the official dock. Never bought the official on release, the Gen 2 JSAUX with the extra USBs is awesome. Docked my deck to my TV and its both a media player as well as my console, almost never remove it except to dust :D. Also, the USB has recognized all peripherals I've thrown at it (I use desktop mode 98% of the time) and the ethernet works as expected.

Nice! I've been amazed at what a great console it is. I love docking it and hooking up controllers and doing local co-op with my kids. Some of the best times we've had as a family in the last 6 months were playing Shredder's Revenge with the deck docked to the TV. that game and many others work wonderfully with these cheap XBox 360 controllers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WQGQ6D2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

Bitwig and LMMS work in the Steam Deck although touch mode in bitwig is indeed a bit odd due to monitor size assumption.

If only we had taken the issue of accessibility seriously 30 years ago, and realise that it isn't about pesky blind people wanting to participate in the society, but actually about being able to run software with different interfaces seamlessly, this problem wouldn't even exist today ...

UI is hard and subtle and a touch interface for sighted people might be radically different from a touch interface for people with impaired vision.

I love Cubasis, but it definitely has some frustrating bugs. The team is pretty responsive, but I'd be quite interested to see if Logic is any better.

Logic has been the most intuitive DAW I've used, with Ableton up there but way too busy visually.

Cubase/Cubasis has always been riddled with bugs. It was my DAW for two different stints and I loved a lot about it but had to abandon because it wasn't reliable.

I absolutely love Ableton for all my electronic work. Whenever I am composing with virtual instruments (Kontakt, etc) though, Cubase just works better for me (even though it is a beast).

Big fan of Ableton for my own electronic music jamming too.

Yep it's great overall but sometimes very confusing.

I was a long time Cubasis user but had to ditch when the latest one was released so buggy and with a load of usability regressions that are still not fixed. I bought it on launch day and found about 15 showstopper bugs in the first half hour of trying to use it. At that point they'd lost me as a customer forever more and I switched to NanoStudio 2 which, in terms of touch interface design, is a work of art. Plus it never, ever crashes.

The lack of AU on Windows, and the lack of VST on any mobile device, is done more to hold back DAW than anything else.

Most plug-ins are available as multiple formats though. Is it really that much of a friction point?

Pro Tools has seen huge success despite being the only major user of RTAS/AAX for example.

The part where they're not available on mobile? Incredibly so.

The fact that there's no AU on Windows? Less so.

Yeah on the apple its Au only but with the clap plugin format its open source so it may be possible to have clap plugins in an android daw, but on ios its au only and I doubt that will change.

I recently did a gig with a quad cortex and honestly I couldn't shake the feeling of just wishing I could have all my Plugins (FabFilter, SoundToys, NAM and NeuralDSP mostly) instead. iPad, good interface, some bluetooth switch/expression pedal and all the same plugins I have at home would be amazing for me.

Just curious if anyone knows. Suppose a band of the future is just a few players who show up with iPads (guitar, bass, key/synth, drums) and, where relevant, a control surface (midi controller, edrums, etc). Does Logic have a "federated" mode? Can each iPad synchronize to a shared click track or other backing tracks for lights, etc or does the "brain" of a performance still need to be centralized?

Edit: I'm wondering if that "federated" functionality could be used to reduce the amount of gear required for a band using IEMs. That would be a _killer_ use case.

I'm super excited about this though and really looking forward to a major step forward at least in the guitar world.

While Logic doesn't feature this yet, the closest analog I know of is the Ableton Link protocol which allows users on a network to synchronize their master clock with other users across any app that supports it (Ableton, Pro Tools, Korg sequencers, etc).

While simple and meant more of a collaborative feature, this is a tremendously helpful feature that allows people to jump right in to a music-making session and ensure that their rig is going to be synced up with others in a musical meaningful way.

How does this handle latency of data transfer? I have worked with professional musicians and the delay of even 10ms across the stage annoys them.

I am trying to envision how syncing DAW's through the network could possibly avoid what easily amounts to more than 20ms of delay back and forth between devices.

Is this just not an issue for digital music production? It's a massive issue for live music and in-ear-monitors on stage.

Ableton Link only synchronizes the clock, transport, and BPM. No data.

It measures and accounts for latency between devices.

Well that’s frigging cool! Thanks for enlightening me!

I'm not claiming that it uses NTP, but:

> NTP can usually maintain time to within tens of milliseconds over the public Internet, and can achieve better than one millisecond accuracy in local area networks under ideal conditions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Time_Protocol#Clock_sy...

The algorithm is more sensitive to variance than latency, but over a LAN variance is usually pretty okay. Wifi can be a lot worse, though, especially if there are a lot of clients.

Well that’s cool, I definitely have some reading for today after the work day is over!

Thank you kindly!

Yes, latencies of 10 ms are noticeable for musicians. I feel like I can feel everything over 5-ish.

A fun fact is that that's why a symphony needs a conductor: one corner of the symphony to the other is 17-ish meters, which is 50 ms of latency. They have to lock in to a visual queue because at those distances, you can't synchronize on sound. It's also interesting to note that a symphony very literally sounds different on one side than the other, and not just in relative prominence: at march tempo (120 BPM), if you're sitting on one side of the symphony, some instruments may be a 32nd note ahead of the ones on the other side by the time they reach your ears.

This is a multi-studio live collaboration project which had a MIDI sync over the internet.

Amazing to see affordable connection speeds have risen to the point where this is possible.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FE1sY4OY1D4

Latency is the issue, not bandwidth, and the internet isn't fast enough for live instruments across it (unless the performers happen to be on the same local uplink). Even me pinging Google is 23 ms, where as most actual home users will be 50-200 ms from me.

Latency on a home fibre will be significantly lower than a 56k dial-up connection.

Somehow the artists could collaborate remotely using a shared MIDI clock. Admittedly it was techno which is both loopy and predictable, but still a cool achievement nonetheless.

I have home fiber. Again, I have 20 ms to Google. 40 ms is already in the range that playing traditional instruments in sync is basically impossible. At a more typical 100 ms between nodes, that's a full 16th note of lag at common tempos.

I know people that have also done it with techno, but they consider the lag as part of their unique sound. It's not something you can do with music in a general purpose sense.

For live performances you can do a lot of this stuff with AUM. It’s awesome for chaining plug-ins in novel ways. Has midi support as well. It’s the main way I use plugins on iPad.

The “federated” option you’re talking about sounds like it’s regular MIDI Sync with transport control. You hit play, everything plays in sync. Logic already supports this, you just have to wire things together.

Semi off topic but if I want to develop audio plugins for live performance iOS/osx what is a really good resource, in your estimation?

When I look for books on Core Audio there’s approximately one on Amazon and it isn’t very recent.

I don’t really want to live on another layer, like developing in Max or Juce or AudioKit or whatever is out there.

I’d rather code directly against Apple’s APIs. Or I think that’s what I want. Maybe I’m misguided.

Do you have any suggestions?

We develop on JUCE and I really would suggest anyone just getting into this should too or maybe iPlug2. Handling all the quirks of different formats and DAWs is an enormous time sink. Do you want to do that or do you want to spend time developing your idea for an effect or instrument?

You don’t need to use the GUI stuff from JUCE so if you have a preferred framework use that instead. We use none of their DSP. We concentrate on developing our own DSP algorithms and making them best in class.

A second vote for JUCE - but also don't forget to add TRACKTION to your framework shopping list. It sits on top of JUCE. The basics are: JUCE for audio i/o and cross-platform plugin coding, TRACKTION on top of JUCE for DAW-like features.

Any opinions on getting Faust involved while we are at it then?

I just completed an article on how to build your first plugin using Javascript through Elementary Audio Framework.

The article contains a Repo that should make it easier to build. Would really appreciate your feedback.

https://www.chrisjmendez.com/2023/03/29/build-vst-or-audio-u...

It's an interesting consideration how frustrating and dangerous non-tactile interfaces can be in cars, and how versatile they can be when you can give them your full attention.

I had always assumed pro-level DAW users would want lots of knobs and sliders to change as many parameters of the sound as easily and quickly as possible.

Do you have any insight on why bigger companies like Arturia don’t bring more of their VSTs and plugins to iOS?

I’m a hobbyist music maker and I vastly prefer AUM on my iPad to working in GarageBand (logic is far beyond my needs). I just want more of the desktop plugin ecosystem to trickle down.

I can only guess but it can be a daunting prospect to get things portable. Could be their DAW abstraction or their graphics framework that causes them massive work. And let’s get real here. It’s not exactly a lucrative market. We charge much less on iOS than we do on desktop for several reasons (among them no method for resale). Yet when we launched on iOS people were shocked at our high prices (we’re not making yet another compressor or 3 band eq we’re doing complicated original stuff at the highest audio quality). We are just two people and want to make a modest income. (We would earn way way more in typical software jobs). So yeah I suspect it’s just not worth it to these larger companies. Especially with the Apple cut.

Fellow audio developer here. Yes, the iOS market is rubbish. I spoke to some DAW companies, and they all said they sell their iOS apps at a loss - they don't cover the costs of developing them. It only makes sense when you think of iOS apps as a promotion to sell their desktop counterparts.

Which is a shame because I think the iPhone is a beautiful device for musicians. A fantastic microphone, right in your pocket.

I kind of knew the answer when I posted the question. It's also hard to properly price something like an audio plugin, right? Niche customer base, poor customer base (musicians)… the people making money, audio engineers and such, want to work on the "best" hardware for their job, which basically means a traditional computer.

I do believe that using a modern touchscreen interface to creative software unlocks more potential than simply using a keyboard and mouse. Touching interfaces to control sound just seems like it would hold a lot more creative potential energy to me.

If so, then what would really be revolutionary would be adding touchscreen to Macs.

Chicken and egg problem. Hardly worth porting plugins if there is no decent DAW ecosystem beyond a watered-down Cubase version ..

The desktop plugin ecosystem will come to iOS now that Logic Pro is on iOS. I'm seeing tons and tons of plugin developers jumping on the AUv3 bandwagon that is now on the road ..

Glad to hear it. I think maybe it's generational too. Watching the promotional video for Logic Pro on iOS and nobody featured on it is over 40, maybe even over 30.

> Having a full DAW on the go is a killer feature imho.

Macbook?

I guess I should expand why not a laptop, but it boils down to removing lots of little friction points that make ephemeral ideas harder to put down.

1. Touch first is important because your instruments are touch as well. Being able to record my live instruments and not have to switch to a trackpad to move between UI elements seems small, but it really keeps me in the zone.

2. Same point above, but basically being able to switch between my live instrument and an on screen virtual one is a big deal to layer up an idea. Can’t do that easily with a trackpad or mouse.

3. There’s something to be said for the mobile platforms single app as a focus model. I know you can full screen a Mac app, or split screen on an iPad, but having a singular focus helps reduce distractions.

4. Weight/portability are quite different. Maybe a MacBook Air would be better, but I take my iPad Pro to more places with me than I take my much heavier MacBook Pro . I’m already taking it to draw on the go, so this is just one more thing I can do without needing to buy a new device or take a heavier one.

Edit: oh and number 5 is a big one. I can put my iPad Pro in my existing music stand that works for me at multiple heigh levels. There are laptop stands that might work too, but I already use my iPad for sheet music, so it’s already a convenient setup.

Even as a paying Bitwig subscriber, I don't get it. My instruments are velocity and aftertouch sensitive. Having a touchscreen interface for these instruments is no better than typing on your keyboard to play notes. And then if you want to plug in hardware, you have to either settle for one thing and no charging or buy a dongle.

> being able to switch between my live instrument and an on screen virtual one is a big deal to layer up an idea. Can’t do that easily with a trackpad or mouse.

Keyboard shortcuts exist. Failing that, it's one click on my trackpad to switch channels.

> There’s something to be said for the mobile platforms single app as a focus model.

There's also something to be said for multitasking desktops that give you the flexibility of both.

It's a neat option for people who already use Logic Pro, but touch-enabled DAWs have existed for over a decade (and they all kinda suck - ask me how I know). Besides the form-factor of the iPad being fairly convenient, there's no way I'd trade-in my laptop's IO and OS for a mobile one. The iPad doesn't offer enough flexibility to replace my DAW laptop.

You don’t need to get it. You do you.

Every time you’ve replied to one of my comments in the past, it’s been very binary in terms of workflows and the discussions always devolve.

So this time I’m leaving it as: I explained why it’s a big deal for me. If you have your own workflows or needs, so be it. But it’s irrelevant to why I like it.

I don’t need velocity for a quick idea for example. I just need to get the idea out as quickly as possible. Besides, you can always connect an external midi keyboard or audio interface to an iPad as well.

All that's well and good, I'm mostly just agreeing with the people who suggest a Macbook for this. The iPad runs iOS, it's gimped for all kinds of creative applications. I won't judge you if you've found a workflow to apply it to, but the status quo feels unchanged. Professional DAWs existed on iPad before, the world beneath our feet didn't crumble or anything.

> Besides, you can always connect an external midi keyboard or audio interface to an iPad as well.

Sure? Everyone can use class-compliant USB audio hardware. Android and Linux both support it, for whatever that's worth. Both of those OSes even support audio plugins, too.

Not everyone can install MPE drivers or get that Focusrite interface set up properly without software though. That's why I still carry a laptop, it may not apply to everyone.

>The iPad runs iOS, it's gimped for all kinds of creative applications.

It's also a great form for many kinds of creative applications, and it's a very hassle-free, it just works experience for those.

How hassle-free it is for a given workflow or user is highly subjective and relative to the task at hand. The file management on iOS is still a dumpster fire.

What’s wrong with the file management on iOS?

Lacking plenty of common power user functionality to do things efficiently. It's fine for casuals, they don't know what's missing, but it's pretty poor versus a fully-fledged file manager on a desktop computer.

Ah, I was going to join in with my own thoughts but this conversation seems to have gotten a little... personal...

For the record, I find touchscreen interfaces rather underwhelming. I've tried to love my iPad for creative purposes but I just find trackpad/mouse + keyboard faster and more versatile.

Of course - both pale in comparison to physical buttons. I dream of a touchscreen with really convincing haptics. That would be the best of both worlds.

It should go without saying, but I’m not talking about absolute workflows because there are no such things.

Workflows are subjective and contextual. I too use a Mac for a lot of audio work, and I’m not suggesting that one replaces the other in all forms.

I’m simply saying why this is a big deal for that one part of my workflow that had a hole which a Mac doesn’t cover.

The whole “touch vs not” discussion doesn’t add much because it’s not a binary. It’s only a subjective preference for me in my workflows in a specific context.

I’m simply elaborating on why I prefer an iPad in this context. Rebuttals are pointless as a result because it’s not a debate, it’s an elaboration of choice.

So again, I would say to people: “you do you” because my workflow doesn’t impose or force other people’s choices with their own trade offs.

I think there's a difference in conversation style here.

If somebody says "I think x" I've always felt it was entirely reasonable to respond with "I disagree because y" - that's not being argumentative, it's just having a conversation.

You're not the first person that seems to feel differently about whether or not it's impolite to respond in this way. It just always surprises me when I hit this particlar difference in communication preferences.

That’s fair, and perhaps an issue of tonality being lost in text or cultural differences in speech styles .

though part of the issue is “I disagree because Y” is not relevant because it’s an opinion with no negative effect on those who disagree (as opposed to say opinions on very factual science). So “I disagree because Y” is implicitly a rebuttal.

Instead , the subtly different “I see where you’re coming from however for me Y” is not a rebuttal. It’s an acceptance that two views may exist simultaneously and be equally valid.

If you look at the responses of the person I responded to, they’re always in the form of “well I need this so it makes no sense”

Note that they never acknowledge that others may not have the same needs or views. There’s an absolute way in all the interactions I’ve had with them.

The simple act of accepting another’s perspective changes the post from a negation to something that builds upon it.

Yeah. I probably would have found smoldesu a little brusque if they were replying to me. But on the other hand I'm sure I'm a little too brusque for by other people's standards.

What's the human version of Postel's Law?

Or 3D touch! Aftertouch and velocity are both possible on a touchscreen, the tech just never lived long enough to give it an earnest try. I'd be very curious to see how that works if someone had a POC up and running, doubly so with good haptics.

I'm with you on every one of your preference points. My own extra one is that I spend all day every day at work on my Mac, when I want to relax and work on music I want to physically separate myself from the thing I do my work on. I embraced touch in the first place just for that, but now I'm infinitely more productive for music on my iPad than I am on desktop. I can reach a state of flow that's just not there when I use Logic on my Mac.

>Even as a paying Bitwig subscriber, I don't get it. My instruments are velocity and aftertouch sensitive

So what? You can get an idea down without either. It's not about making the final performance (though you can also program the DAW piano-roll this way just fine too).

>And then if you want to plug in hardware, you have to either settle for one thing and no charging or buy a dongle.

God forbid you have to buy a $20 dongle, or like, just use the device without one, and enjoy merely 10 hours of use instead of 15.

I bring up Bitwig because it was originally made as a touch-enabled DAW. I daily-drive it on a laptop with a touchscreen, and used to even have it configured to run on my Surface Pro. Despite all this, the touchscreen was never really intended as a performance surface. If you look at how Bitwig (or even the new Logic) is designed, this is obvious: the portion of the screen reserved for performance is minuscule. Touchscreen devices are outclassed in expression by cheap XY pads with aftertouch sensitivity. Everyone, Apple included, knows people are not going to use this as a touchscreen MPC. Akai's touchscreen MPC does not rely on a touchscreen for expression.

> God forbid you have to buy a $20 dongle

God forbid the iPad ever exposes a second USB port worth of IO bandwidth.

Actually, I take it back. Knowing Apple, I'll get my wish fulfilled with 2 Lightning ports and some MFi cable DRM...

There seems to be a divide between people who find the extra level of abstraction with a keyboard/mouse to be a problem. I don't understand it either, to the point where I see people try to flex with a room full of synthesizers, I just roll my eyes as I pull up my favorite VST

FWIW, the iPad is velocity sensitive. I haven't tried Logic Pro on it yet, but with Garage Band, it definitely plays louder if you hit it harder (for patches that support it). Some software synths in GB also have a pseudo-aftertouch where you slide your finger up after hitting the key to invoke aftertouch.

That said, I don't like playing on a screen. I'm a long-time piano and keyboard player so I just hook up an external instrument. But I was pleasantly surprised by what I could do just on the iPad with GarageBand.

I wonder if this works by measuring the size of your touch (i.e., how much your finger "splats" when it touches) or using the accelerometers/gyroscope or what.

It just uses the accelerometer, it's just as neat and inaccurate as you can guess.

Lots of electronic music devices don't have velocity.

have the UX such that you can have multiple screens that you swipe btwn... such that you can add screens for DRUM MACHINE 1 through N and you just swipe btwn them... and swipe up or down for media access and other screens.

it would be cool to have both apps (final cut for vids and logic for trax) running at the same time with "integration" such that you can swipe btwn video and sound editing on the same final output...

I think there is a lot going for the music ecosystem on ipad - lots of affordable apps, cheap effects compared to desktop etc.

At the same time I don't think the device itself is built with the connectivity for the kind of music making I think about. If all your synths and effects live on the iPad and you don't care about after touch maybe, but if you want to hook external gear up the iPad just isn't made for it.

no headphone out. requires an external audio interface to connect to hardware synths. not an aftertouch capable control surface. Not really portable if I have to lug a bunch of supporting equipment to make it usable.

I agree to a large extent, but I've been pleasantly surprised just how much audio hardware works using a USB hub, especially now all iPads have USB-C ports with the exception of the 10.2 inch entry one.

Given how many USB accessories now work with the iPad, I really really wish Apple would relent and at least give us two USB ports on the side like the MacBook Air.

I get a spare USB-C port from my Magic Keyboard. I generally plug the charger into it and something else into the on-board port, but I have the option to put devices into both ports.

The USB C on the Magic Keyboard is for power only.

Regarding aftertouch, it does support it in a way (and it's shown in the video). For many synths, after you press a key on the on-screen keyboard, if you hold it and move your finger up towards the back end of the key, it gets translated into aftertouch. GarageBand on iPad has supported this as long as I've been using it (a few years). I don't know if every synth supports it, but there are definitely some who do.

I think I have seen that some users connect AVB capable devices (e.g. from Presonus or Motu) to the USB port of iPads and got full connectivity to the other studio setup via AVB networking. Some AVB devices are quite affordably nowadays. That would also allow for great audio routing setups in a gig I assume

I have a presonus audio interface. It works 100% with my ipad pro and has for years. But if I have to take an ipad and an audio interface and and and then why do I need an ipad at all? I could be using my laptop and have more options.

Current-gen 12" iPad Pro is 1.5 lbs to the MacBook Air's 2.7 lbs. That's a considerable weight difference still.

You aren't going to use a keyboard case?

for music production? I can see how you'd carry a midi keyboard but no keyboard for typing.

Real musicians type on a midi keyboard. I mean their text doesn't make sense because their alphabet has only seven letters, but still.

(I jest!)

Well, you have 7 letters, but you can also use the black keys for keyboard shortcuts.

And pedals! I've half-seriously considered experimenting with an expression pedal as a vertical scroll controller for desktop applications, using a second pedal to switch between relative (pedal position relative to center → scroll velocity, zero movement when pedal position is centered) and absolute (pedal position → page position, zero movement unless pedal position changes) modes.

For wide multicolumn IDE/text-editor layouts, spatially-mapped fader banks and/or organ drawbars might also make useful scrollers.

I would assume more people using Final Cut Pro will use a keyboard case, but for mobile music production, it there may be more people willing to go without the keyboard case, particularly if you are mostly using it to noodle down ideas, use the on screen instruments, etc.

682g and 1240g.

The 11-inch iPad (Pro) is much more compact, imo. You can also just mount it flat against some hardware in a rack, or against a wall in a small studio booth.

It goes on the ubiquitous music stand, too. Lots of musicians use iPads already to show sheet music.

Personally, I feel like the iPad is very "flow" and the computer is very "precise." When I'm in the zone, just vibing, I'd much prefer to bust out musical ideas on an iPad (assuming no instruments available, of course). When I want to tweak the exact reverb parameters I'd rather have the computer.

There already has been a DAW on the go for a while. It's even multiplatform with iOS and Android.

https://www.steinberg.net/cubasis/

True, I didn’t mean to imply that there wasn’t and I thought I’d alluded to that by mentioning the other recording apps on the iPhone.

However I’m a Logic Pro user. Cubase is great but it just never clicked with me as much as Logic did. I’ve gone through a majority of the DAWs on macOS but Logic Pro and Live were the only ones that really stuck for me.

Obviously purely subjective. I edited my comment above to reflect my DAW preference factors in.

Subjective indeed. I usually dabble in Nuendo and have pretty much all Steinberg workflow with Dorico in the mix too (also on iPad).

I really should check out Logic too one of these days, but as it's a mixed environment in the "studio" with Mac OS and Windows these multiplatform apps make life a bit easier for now.

This captures my use case pretty well. I’m a hobby photographer and use Lightroom on iPad as my only software step.

I’d like to dabble with video. Now I have an easy avenue to do that. If it goes well and I need more, I can move to the full experience on a Mac.

GarageBand was always pretty decent on iPad back in the day, at least as a scratchpad for ideas. But yes, this is exciting. I'd quite like to see something like Ableton or Bitwig make its way onto iPad as well.

Ableton on iPad would be such a great fit, especially the session clip view.

Have you tried Ableton Note? It's not a 1 to 1 version of Ableton, but it streamlines a lot of the features to make the equivalent of musical sketching app. You can then save your session and it opens perfectly in Ableton Live.

I'm not a huge fan of music apps on iOS, but I played with it briefly and it's quite good. They've really done a great job to make it a very musical tool within the limitations of an iPhone (and presumably iPad).

> DAW

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

The idea that any piece of gear enables artist is one of the biggest lies we have been sold. True Artist will use any tool at their reach to do art. In terms of music the level is so high already that is irrelevant. Sound is not music.

Does a piano player relying on a piano not count as “gear enabling an artist”? If there’s no piano does that true artist start playing a napkin instead because it’s within their reach?

You will be surprised when you find out how many amazing piano players have practice in a piece of wood/cardboard with the keys drawn/carved

As a piano player I definitely depend on the existence of a piano for me to play. Better tools absolutely enable artists to make better things faster — Yo-Yo Ma can make a cheap cello sound amazing, but he can make an expensive cello sound even more amazing.

And he should get an amazing cello! But most people that buy gear they do not need it nor use it!

I mean, the OP was clearly referring to music composition:

> The divide from putting down an idea when it hits, to working it into something, has always been really high.

And in terms of music composition, you can probably get away with just humming out the tune and leave the rest for the producer to figure out.

If they relies on a piano of a very specific brand, and can't play a cheap alternative at all, then yes. But I don't think most pianists are like that.

A DAW is near essential for making EDM. It's actually quite cheap compared to the instruments you need for other music styles.

Sure you can make EDM with more limited means, but a DAW opens up basically everything.

And many think that for art more options is better, however the greatest works were done with huge limitations. Beatles 4 track, Bladerunner no CGI to name 2.

If by "everything" you mean better production quality, sure, but I doubt you'd do your best sound-design work laying down on your couch with your airpods.

I think the only thing this enables is for you to "finish" your songs on the ipad itself, which is not the game changer the OP is saying it is.

Saxophone player of adequate standard here ... yeah the gear shouldn't matter and you can get good stuff out of garbage with the right pre-existing skills and attitude. But on the other hand I've upgraded my two main instruments recently-ish from low/mid range instruments to high end, and in both cases my playing improved a lot instantly, as suddenly I didn't have to work so hard to get the instruments to cooperate[1]. However having to work around the limitations of my old instruments also improved my skills too.

[1] having a good soprano sax that basically plays itself feels like cheating, but one of the reasons for that is having developed the skills to keep crappy sopranos cooperating reasonably well for so long too.

Glad for you, is really nice to have a nice instrument, even inspiring, I play guitar many years and some guitars when you pick them up, they almost inspire/invite for music, while others they make you want to quit music altogether. So i am with you, i wish everyone could work themselves up to a nice instrument. I doubt an app in an ipad can have this meaning to someone.

The iPad is not an entry point to the ecosystem; the difference with Macs in terms of modality of use is too stark.

The Macs are simply meant to eventually go away. From the perspective of Apple, they are a legacy coccyx. For them the iPad, where nothing is replaceable and Apple is in full control of content distribution, is the superior form of computing.

They must be doing a terrible job since Apple is selling more Macs now than they ever have.

Why would Apple only sell iPads when they can sell iPads + Macs?

Developers have been begging for years to be able to code for iPad on iPad, wouldn’t allowing this be an easy first step towards the iPad only dystopia? Do you have an explanation for why it’s still almost impossible?

Apple will allow that when they have the means and inclination to lock you into coding only what they want you to code, and nothing more. At the moment this is not possible - developing an iOS app requires knowing about files and filesystems and utilities etc etc, which means you cannot stay in your little sandbox. Once they figure out how to build tools that do away with all of that and still work, then you'll be able to do it.

That's exactly what they did when they allowed users to "Submit your completed apps to the App Store with App Store Connect" from Swift Playgrounds on iPads: https://apps.apple.com/app/id908519492

Apple makes money off requiring you to buy a Mac to code for iPad (jailbreaks notwithstanding). Why would they willingly give up that revenue stream?

> Having a full DAW on the go is a killer feature imho.

I think the problem here that most won't realize is that they'll have no idea what you're listening to and so will be mixing audio in the dark, so to speak. Professionals will check headphone mixes, but generally won't mix with headphones certainly not bluetooth headphones. I suppose there may exist such a thing as powered Bluetooth monitors, but again, the wireless Bluetooth, and what it does to audio, is the weak part in the chain. iPad built in speakers are not flat, so if you mix for them, the audio might only sound alright coming out of an iPad.

There are probably audio docks for iPad which will include a DAC for converting stereo sound from the iPad USB-C port, and jacks for monitors, but I have never seen one that doesn't have the cheapest components available. Not sure of the current abilities of iPad and USB-C, but last I heard, iPad was only capable of stereo in and stereo out. There's a lot that can be done with just two tracks, but do not doubt that everything depends on the converters and preamps, so a professional quality USB-C ADC/DAC with decent pres (unless off-boarded) is paramount to creating half decent tracks, which is paramount to creating very good mixes.

Not everyone is a professional audio engineer, and everyone here that is an expert at everything will likely be satisfied with terrible converters and the audio they produce. YMMV

> the wireless Bluetooth, and what it does to audio,

It should do about the same as the "oxygen-free copper" cables, perhaps slower - moving bits from A to B.

Is there any evidence otherwise?

Well, BT introduces additional delay and jitter. It's fine for listening to music because you can "cache" segments. That's totally not going to working real-time audio.

Apple doesn't support aptX HD, aptX Lossless, LDAC for Bluetooth devices. IIRC they use AAC 256 kbps for their wireless audio.

Once again, totally fine for listening Spotify and apply music, but I imagine suboptimal for DAW.

I had a brief foray into using a set of Bluetooth headphones for PC gaming. It was “brief” because the delay was enough that it got me killed in games regularly enough that it was just intolerable.

Yeah, for gaming you need headphones that use some proprietary protocol, unfortunately. BT just doesn't work well.

It's not as noticeable for people who never talked on a real landline phone (i.e. not VoIP) because everything else has noticeable and often non-constant latency.

Evidence? It uses lossy audio codecs. Some are good, and some are less good, but they're all lossy. The quality loss happens before the bits hit the radio. That part is fine, as you note. "Oxygen-free copper", regardless of whether it's beneficial, is generally used for analog signals, which isn't moving bits at all.

Bluetooth also introduces latency. It might be ok for mixing, but it's completely unusable for recording applications.

Can't the software correct for the iPad speaker so that it's effectively flat?

I'm fairly sure this isn't quite possible. It has to do with the physical properties of the space. Not that I'm an actual audio engineer. Not to mention that the iPad speakers are probably mostly designed to be compact and this probably places some limitations on what they can do.

> abilities of iPad and USB-C

I use iPad with RME ADI DAC-2 and I can't think of a single issue.

> I use iPad with RME ADI DAC-2 and I can't think of a single issue.

I hope I missed a joke. That is a high end DAC that retails for $1300, and could very well be the best DAC available for less $1500. That'll do nicely. I'd prefer Lavry Engineering's discontinued DA11 (and AD11), but it's somewhat of a judgement call at that level.

There's nothing special in RME regarding its USB operation.

iPad can emit material with different sampling rate (haven't verified different bit depth, but I guess, there should be no issues), iPad also knows not to meddle with the software mixing and delegates everything to the DAC. It behaves exactly as I'd like it to behave.

No joke intended. My point was, that if iPad has no issues with this device, then it must be able to drive any other USB Audio Class interface.

> There's nothing special in RME regarding its USB operation.

It's USB Audio that is special.

> iPad can emit material with different sampling rate (haven't verified different bit depth, but I guess, there should be no issues),

Core Audio is a component of iPadOS and iOS, and along with Core Audio comes everything Core Audio can do.

> iPad also knows not to meddle with the software mixing

Is there an example or anecdote you have in mind of a platform meddling with mixing?

> and delegates everything to the DAC.

It's really USB Audio that is performing these miracles.

> Is there an example or anecdote you have in mind of a platform meddling with mixing?

Sure, Android resamples everything to 48kHz, uses software mixing. No workaround. GNU/Linux by default does the same with PipeWire, PulseAudio and ALSA (dmix). One can configure it for bitperfect playback though. I can’t say about modern Windows, the last one I used was Windows 7, and by default it resampled everything to 48kHz too.

> USB Audio that is special

The last time I saw a non USB audio class device was some 15 years ago. I frankly do not understand, why are you stressing this so much.

Wonder how Logic Pro ipad compares to FLStudio mobile?

Yay more Apple users complaining that their VSTs don't work on Apple's XYZ variant that yet again broke something instead of actual talk about the VSTs in question. It already makes many discussion threads nearly useless, I look forward to more of it.

I'll be more excited when they finally can bring over xcode and I can use an ipad to write au plugins.

Main issue is lack of compatibility with any audio interface not in CC mode.