For iOS, creative apps are constantly appearing. Musical synthesizers, watercolor painting, pixel art and much more. Inspired by the next such application, I decided to share with you information about the opportunities for creativity that are available on iOS devices.

In a small series of articles we will cover music and drawing. We will get acquainted not only with applications, but also with gadgets that can be connected to a phone or tablet.

My goal is not to list programs on iOS, but to give an overview of the creative opportunities that exist, and perhaps inspire you to be creative.

And today I’ll talk about music apps and gadgets.

Music

iOS can be interesting for fans of electronic and live music. Both will need a program for recording and working with sound or DAW.

Daw

DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is a program for recording and editing musical compositions. The same as the IDE in programming, only for working with sound.

The DAW selection on the iPad is pretty wide. Get started with Apple’s GarageBand .



GarageBand is a lightweight DAW, which nonetheless contains a lot of useful stuff for creating musical compositions. Here you have work with music tracks, and an equalizer, and built-in drums and synthesizer; There is support for third-party instruments via Audiobus and AU3, MIDI support and much more. And most importantly - it’s free .

On YouТube you can find videos with famous songs played entirely in GarageBand directly on the iPhone.

If you need more advanced features, such as sound routing, compressor, various effects, etc., you can pay attention to programs such as Cubasis (from Cubase developers for PCs), FL Studio Mobile (mobile fruity loops) , and indeed they are many different.

Musical synthesizers

Synthesizers are devices for generating sound. They can play dense bass, cosmic waves, a drum part. All this can be done on iOS devices. Now you can figure out what all of these “twists and switches” do, even without buying expensive analog synthesizers.



In the AppStore you can find paid or free emulators of analogue retro-models, modular and other types of synthesizers. There are synthesizers from brands such as Korg, Moog, and Arturia .

Most synthesizers integrate with DAW. But you should pay attention to compatibility with AU3 and Audiobus. Support for AU3 suggests that the synthesizer can be used as a virtual instrument inside DAW, transmit MIDI to it and receive sound at the input. Audiobus only supports audio transmission, and when used with DAW, you get a ready-made audio track that is harder to fix than a MIDI track.

Examples of synthesizers: Arturia iMini, Adulus 3, Zeeon.

MIDI keyboard

You can play the synthesizer using the touch screen, but it is more convenient to do this using the MIDI keyboard.



To connect most keyboards to iOS, you only need a suitable USB adapter. You can find many examples of the iPad + Akai MPK mini keyboard on YouTube .

But iOS devices can be used not only for electronic music.

Drum machine

If you urgently need to read a rap, or the drummer did not come to a rehearsal, or you want to add drive to your guitar playing, you will need a drum machine - a program for playing a drum part. You can use GarageBand or standalone programs such as DM1 as a drum machine.



DM1 has a large library of different drums and the ability to compose whole compositions from different rhythms. For example, I use it as a metronome, and in order to “add Rubilov” when I play the guitar.

Audio interface

To record vocals or live instruments you will need an audio interface.



iOS devices are compatible with different interfaces. There are specialized for iOS: iRig family, Korg plugKey. There are also desktop solutions, for example Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD. When buying, you should pay attention to the presence of Lightning wires in the kit, and you may also need a MIDI interface to synchronize electronic instruments.

Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter

The adapter that you will need to connect external USB-devices. Here it is so that you know what it is and how to google it.

Looper

Looper is a device for recording and looping audio playback. With it, you can record a rhythm guitar and play the solo part to the recorded accompaniment. Or, if you are fond of beatboxing, record all the instruments in general. But good loopers are expensive and cannot always do what you need. Loopy HD



application has not only all the features of loopers, but also many others. More than 8 tracks, synchronization with a given tempo, synchronization with MIDI and other applications (for example, with a drum machine), tracks of different durations, export of the entire recording and individual tracks.

All of the features described indicate that iOS devices can be used to create electronic music and to complement live instruments. You can take your phone or tablet with you and be creative on the go, while traveling, in parks, cafes - wherever you find inspiration. Personally, I really like the bunch of iPad + Loopy + iRig + DM1 + ​​electric guitar + analog synthesizer.

But I must admit that doing serious work on the tracks is more convenient on a computer with a mouse and a large screen. In addition, a lot more plugins and effects are available for him. But as part of a hobby, this is perhaps not critical.

To be continued. In my next article I will tell you about drawing on iOS and how cool Apple Pencil is.