What iOS musicians apps do you use?

TheBigDipper

The @Emp_Fab ; decision to buy a tablet and ending up with an iPad (well, two, actually) made me wonder what apps we use on them as usicians. To get the ball rolling, here’s a list of the iOS apps that I use regularly, and what I think of them. 

What are yours?

If you’re an Android user, why not start another thread for Android platforms? 

Music Memos (Apple) - free. I use it on my phone, with the built-in mic. It’s so easy to just capture an idea, or record something without fuss. The file ends up in your iCloud, so it’s easy to move it into GarageBand or Logic if it’s worth keeping - or just to use as a guide track for a proper recording. 

MultiTrack DAW (Harmonic Dog) - costs. A nice multitrack recording app that’s very iPhone-friendly in the way it works. If you only ever record audio, don’t need MIDI and think EQ and compression are the only effects you need, I’d say this is very good indeed. I use it on my phone for for field recordings - 24bit WAV files - but it works on iPads too. 

GarageBand (Apple) - free. It’s ridiculous how good this is. Until I bought a MacBook Pro and Logic, this was my ‘proper DAW’ using a PreSonus AudioBox iTwo audio interface. Now it still gets some use as a MIDI ‘doodling’ sketch pad.

Pro Metronome (EUM Lab) - costs?. Meets my needs. Supports lots of different time signatures and has an easy way of emphasising specific beats in the bar.

Anytune Pro+ (not sure) - costs. This is my “work out the tune” software. Lets you play back songs, speed up, slow down (no pitch change), retune a recording not at concert pitch so it is, loop, isolate certain frequencies, etc., etc. Can’t fault it. Liked it so much I paid again for the Mac version too. Logic can do all of this, but it was too much faff for me, whereas I like using this. 

SongSheet Pro (Ghostdust) - costs. This is still under review with me. I saw Glenn Tilbrook using an iPad to give him his lyrics and chords in performance, using a footswitch to turn the pages. I decided to take a look at this sort of thing and picked this app to try. Importing a tab (text or PDF) works fairly well but you still need to dive in and edit it. Once it’s edited, then the playback of the song and controlling the pages works well. The editor itself isn’t great, though - there’s no “rollback” if you make an editing mistake and it only supports one font in the document - I’d prefer one for the lyrics and a fixed font for any tablature I add to it. The library management, organising and retrieving the documents in various useful ways, looks fine for my needs.

I’ve tried loads of other apps that didn’t stick - either because they weren’t very good or because I just didn’t need them as much as I thought I did when I downloaded them. The ones above get regular use.

RobDavies

There are some brilliant synths.... and some are compatible with GarageBand, too. 

Synthmaster and Alchemy are my favourites.  Noise is good fun, although I think it's just been rebranded as Seaboard 5D.  

Not too impressed by Amplitude, if I'm honest....

kin

Too many to list, individually.

I have twenty three different synth apps, six amp sims, sixteen drum and fifty odd effects apps,
linking these up through AUM or Audiobus 3 is great fun.

Auria is my favourite daw but quite often I'm just as happy using GarageBand to get ideas down quickly.

The sounds available from some of these apps is incredible and with most costing less than twenty quid a pop it's easy to experiment.

Beware though , AAS is definitely a thing, there are always new apps in development ,new shiny,betterer things to tempt you.

wave100

Really enjoying Moog Model 15 and of course Animoog. Also using Cubasis but there is no way that is making my laptop redundant.

Moss

+1 for Animoog - awesome app

strumjoughlamps

Korg Kaossilator
Yamaha TNR-i
Garageband

Gulliver

Morphwiz is a lot of fun

TimmyO

TheBigDipper said:

The @Emp_Fab ; decision to buy a tablet and ending up with an iPad (well, two, actually) made me wonder what apps we use on them as usicians. To get the ball rolling, here’s a list of the iOS apps that I use regularly, and what I think of them. 

What are yours?

If you’re an Android user, why not start another thread for Android platforms? 

Music Memos (Apple) - free. I use it on my phone, with the built-in mic. It’s so easy to just capture an idea, or record something without fuss. The file ends up in your iCloud, so it’s easy to move it into GarageBand or Logic if it’s worth keeping - or just to use as a guide track for a proper recording. 

MultiTrack DAW (Harmonic Dog) - costs. A nice multitrack recording app that’s very iPhone-friendly in the way it works. If you only ever record audio, don’t need MIDI and think EQ and compression are the only effects you need, I’d say this is very good indeed. I use it on my phone for for field recordings - 24bit WAV files - but it works on iPads too. 

GarageBand (Apple) - free. It’s ridiculous how good this is. Until I bought a MacBook Pro and Logic, this was my ‘proper DAW’ using a PreSonus AudioBox iTwo audio interface. Now it still gets some use as a MIDI ‘doodling’ sketch pad.

Pro Metronome (EUM Lab) - costs?. Meets my needs. Supports lots of different time signatures and has an easy way of emphasising specific beats in the bar.

Anytune Pro+ (not sure) - costs. This is my “work out the tune” software. Lets you play back songs, speed up, slow down (no pitch change), retune a recording not at concert pitch so it is, loop, isolate certain frequencies, etc., etc. Can’t fault it. Liked it so much I paid again for the Mac version too. Logic can do all of this, but it was too much faff for me, whereas I like using this. 

SongSheet Pro (Ghostdust) - costs. This is still under review with me. I saw Glenn Tilbrook using an iPad to give him his lyrics and chords in performance, using a footswitch to turn the pages. I decided to take a look at this sort of thing and picked this app to try. Importing a tab (text or PDF) works fairly well but you still need to dive in and edit it. Once it’s edited, then the playback of the song and controlling the pages works well. The editor itself isn’t great, though - there’s no “rollback” if you make an editing mistake and it only supports one font in the document - I’d prefer one for the lyrics and a fixed font for any tablature I add to it. The library management, organising and retrieving the documents in various useful ways, looks fine for my needs.

I’ve tried loads of other apps that didn’t stick - either because they weren’t very good or because I just didn’t need them as much as I thought I did when I downloaded them. The ones above get regular use.

Music Memos

Cubasis (although I did use Multitrack DAW too as my first iOS DAW) 

OnSong - by far my fave chordbook/lyrics app. 

It's easy to get sucked in with synths/virtual instruments too. I like: Thor, iLectric, Sampletank

ChordBot

Suggester

and I've just got around to trying Korg Gadget

wave100

Samplr is good for Fucking Samples Up (tm)

guitarmangler

Time guru and visual metronome .
IReal and anytime pro+
PolyTune .

Roland

Set List Maker holds the set list, and reminds me of chords and cues
X Air to control the mixing desk
iBooks holds documentation for all our equipment. It also holds copies of things like insurance certificates in case we need to show them.