Bringing The iPad Into The Studio

I just got a lovely new ipad. A big motivation for getting one is the idea of integrating it into my studio as a touch screen controller. I've seen a few topics here talking about some of the music apps like Traktor but a place for all creative ideas and app recommendations would be nice. Are any of you actively using the ipad in the studio with success? What is the best music app you have seen? I'm enjoying Propellerheads Figure a lot right now. It's not really something to use in the studio but for quickly formulating an idea that has potential to be worked on in full with your DAW it is excellent. Touch and swipe actions are such an alien way for me to create music so I find the fresh approach truly inspirational. Anything that drags me away from conventional methods and routine is a great thing. Share your thoughts.

TouchOSC!

That looks pretty amazing. Do you know if it suffers latency over wifi?

it does not suffer latency, but the ipad itself in some ways suffers from interference. I used touchOsc during a live set and at some point the connection got cut out by interferences (or at least I believe it was so). I believe the best way it's always having it plugged in via cable (I use an alesis iodock for that, but it only fits ipads 1, 2 ans 3, due to the different connection plug on the 4).

In my experience tho TouchOsc is not that useful, for it forces you to edit things on the mac/pc with a separate editor and then upload things to the ipad.

I stopped using the ipad as a touch control, I mostly use it as a sound source/sketchpad, but I guess that when I'll need it to be a controller agian I will look into, and buy, either Lemur by Liine (http://liine.net/en/products/lemur/ but it's 50 bucks) or Beatsurfing (http://beatsurfing.net/ that's 12 bucks now). They both allow you to edit things directly on the ipad.

I've got quite a lot of music apps for the Ipad .... my fav is Beatmaker 2. That said I haven't tried any other daws except for Garageband really. The only thing frustrating me at the mo is the inability to be to clock sync Beatmaker with Ableton fully.

I used touchOSC on my ipod touch, very powerful application. Also check out nanoloop, had lots of fun with that, especialy with the (internal and external) sampling function.

  On 3/12/2013 at 5:37 PM, pierlu said:

it does not suffer latency, but the ipad itself in some ways suffers from interference. I used touchOsc during a live set and at some point the connection got cut out by interferences (or at least I believe it was so). I believe the best way it's always having it plugged in via cable (I use an alesis iodock for that, but it only fits ipads 1, 2 ans 3, due to the different connection plug on the 4).

In my experience tho TouchOsc is not that useful, for it forces you to edit things on the mac/pc with a separate editor and then upload things to the ipad.

I stopped using the ipad as a touch control, I mostly use it as a sound source/sketchpad, but I guess that when I'll need it to be a controller agian I will look into, and buy, either Lemur by Liine (http://liine.net/en/products/lemur/ but it's 50 bucks) or Beatsurfing (http://beatsurfing.net/ that's 12 bucks now). They both allow you to edit things directly on the ipad.

 

 

Oh god you may have just made me spend $50. This is gonna be difficult to resist.

imo editing the layouts for touchOSC on another computer isn't really a hindrance... i edit the layouts on my PC, where I use ableton, and it's the same PC that the ipad is interacting w/ via wifi anyway. basically i wouldn't want to do it any other way. =P

that said, I also have a bcr2000 and in ableton that works well for controlling simple synths as well. i don't always use touchOSC... but it's about the only way I integrate my ipad into a typical recording session. and it's generally only at its most fun and useful when i'm jamming with other people. i'm not a huge fan of mobile DAWs or ipad synths or anything like that, it's much easier for me to just take care of all the sound generating on the PC itself, or with dedicated hardware. :2cents:

i don't own an ipad, but holy lols, best username & avatar ever (OP). well done.

I use Lemur as a controller. The physics engine is awesome, you can do some wonky stuff with it. I don't know of they have fixed the ad hoc problems with iOS 6 but over a regular wifi connection the only latency I really notice is with a keyboard, which probably has more to do with my clumsy hands than the connection. I have touchOSC as well but I use it for none-musical purposes as a interface for some projector rigs.

The Lemur and Konkrete performer are the main things making me consider an iPad but the MIDI adaptors available are pretty piss poor imho.

Lemur has me so intrigued but it looks as though I would have to get pretty deeply involved in scripting to get a control surface built to my needs. I'm quite amazed at it's possibilities, especially when alongside the likes of Reaktor and Max. I'm getting the impression that it is quite strongly geared towards Ableton Live or at least that seems to be a common focus in the user downloads.

I've been recording for about 12 years now and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I have never tried Ableton. I'm seriously considering just diving in head first with Live + Max and Lemur. The premium content on the Liine site looks like a lot of fun if I can get past the headache of learning a new DAW.

Leeeeeeeeeemuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur.