Logic now available for iPad - thoughts?

D-One · 2023-05-09T15:04:36+00:00

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Looks pretty interesting, I'm no expert on mobile stuff but I don't think I ever saw an iPadOS DAW this advanced: https://www.apple.com/logic-pro-for-ipad/

Projects seem interchangeable with the desktop version... It looks like a full-fledged DAW... Got me wanting to buy an iPad now even tho I don't personally like Logic.

With the amount of power an M1 iPad has I wonder if other DAW companies will follow and make iPad versions, what do you guys think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mqWw5UH1qg

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spock

It would be so awesome if NI moved to iPad. With Maschine directly on iPad we would have a real standalone workstation with decent performance. Maybe one day, but I don't have much hope for innovations at NI anymore. Generator's time is over, they remain on their achievements (selling kontakt banks and samples) and seems to be stuck in their technical debt

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/69933#Comment_69933

Humm.. Yeah, I have no hope for NI neither in the context of this thread, their tech dept seems like a snowball getting bigger and bigger every year, and having 10000 products doesn't help either. Maschine can't even get high res support on computers so can't imagine them adding something else to their catalog and being able to maintain it, iOS/iPadOS is not very forgiving to devs who abandon their software and don't keep up with changes.

I do wonder if this move from Apple will encourage other companies with less tech dept and a much smaller product line like Ableton to make a move towards iPadOS.

Kymeia

Great I have a M1 iPad Pro so it should run like a dream

Kubrak

I guess, it is question of price of SW for iPadOS/iOS. .... They are much lower than MacOS/Win. And one can run iPad App on Mac.... If licence for iPad cost like for Mac, only few would buy it, I guess. So it would not be profitable.... And imagine You would have to buy Komplete 14 U CE twice. One licence for Mac, the other for iPad. Insane.

Best way would be if Apple unifies MacOS and iPadOS. That is the only sound solution.... Not sure, if it happens. I guess Apple customers would have to "force" Apple to do it.

Concerning mobile solution. There already is mobile solution for years. At least on Win. OK, it is not that strong as M1/M2, but one may easily sketch things. And with comming soon mobile AMD CPUs, Win 'tablets' (2in1s) might bring about the same CPU capability like M2.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/69957#Comment_69957

Lets us know how it works out and if you like it, I am very curious. The downside is it apparently is a subscription-only app 😡

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/69960#Comment_69960

The double payment is indeed annoying; personally, I don't think it's a deal breaker since developing a touch interface requires a ton of adapting the GUI and the overall UX so I think atm it's understandable. iPad apps running on Mac's hasn't materialized much yet, every app I check for is not available in my M1 laptop, probably due to the interface stuff ??

Yeah, unification seems to be their long-term goal and would def be ideal.

For mobile stuff raw CPU power isn't even the biggest issue IMO. Yes, there have been other solutions for a long time but Android music stuff for example doesn't have a lot of dev support and it's hard to imagine it ever will since the range of devices goes from potatoes to close to a M1, it seems like a nightmare to develop for.

The solutions that do run full Win x86 like some Surface touch devices will always suffer from the issue of running apps that are not being designed with touch in mind, so it feels kind of broken... a stopgap, I can only see this changing if Microsoft tries to force it but Windows users tend to hate changes. Hybrids have the same issue, to me they don't feel different from a regular laptop enough to be in their own class.. AMD has been coming up with awesome stuff for quite a few years but so far it hasn't changed these issues.

Kubrak

Concerning mobile app on Win. Maschine runs satisfactory. It is not 100%, but with pen, everything is doable...

Guitar Rig has touch interface mode. And Traktor works 100% fine with pen.

Or one may use MS Dial....

I use Surface mostly for Traktor and for sketching ideas in Maschine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rv_DYI2H8w

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/69973#Comment_69973

Yeah, I was considering that solution for a long time, it's certainly valid but for me, just 'doable' isn't enough to make me spend 1k+ on a device just to see if I end up liking it... I doubt I'd enjoy fiddling with tiny GUI elements.

For your use case, it seems nice. If you only have your Surface around how do you input MIDI? Did you get a separate app with some big pads / keys to send MIDI to the host?

The logic iPad app has a cool on-screen keyboard that allows for slides like a seaboard, not that I like touch keyboards but that's still pretty impressive (might be a common thing, not sure.)

tetsuneko

I got both M1 on my mba and ipa, should be fun ;)

nightjar

This is a HUGE game changer.

NI better get onboard ASAP.

All of their controllers need a complete re-think on where the "brains" and display reside.

Kubrak

@D-One I input MIDI using the pen. That is that part that is not that satisfactory.... I could get or programm a virtual keyboard. Good idea.

Still, I would prefer small HW keyboard.

I use Surface more for DJing than for music production. I do not travel much (as I work at home and see customers on screen, mostly. :-( ) More joy to play on full range keyboard.

My general opinion is that one needs very big screen, hardware controllers/instruments and good audio interface to do anything but sketching. So, just iPad/Surface does not seem to me to be suitable for sketching/experimenting, or some minor, rather limited tasks.

But I am not fan of tablets, smartphones and so. I have no tablet (beside three Surfaces that I use as main computers) and classical button dumb mobile..

You may buy Surface secondhand. I got mine fot about 500 EUR each including keyboard and pen. It is passively cooled, 4C/8T i5, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SDD. I may attach up to two external monitors....

I have ditched my two older i7 notebooks as Surface is better.... I guess iPad couldits bring the same "value" in replacing bigger brothers (notebooks) for many users, if only Mac and iPad had the same OS,... But as I said, I strongly doubt it will happen. Market segmentation is market segmentation. Better to sell iPad and Mac notebook, than just iPad....

LostInFoundation

My 2 cents:

I use iPads daily to make music. Probably more than my studio. Taking an object in your hands while you are on the couch with 20 min to enjoy a little music making is priceless. In the same 20 min I would not even had turn on my studio (let alone that every time I do it, then I spend half the day to update things, instead of making music 😂😂😂)

Some little info for the ones that haven’t approached this “mobile” world yet:

About DAWs there are already decent DAWs on iPad (Cubasis 3, NanoStudio 2, Auria Pro, Zenbeats, Beatmaker 3, …). Some of them have counterparts on PC and allows an “iPad to Pc” flow, for the others exporting audio stems (or midi) to continue working on a full fledged PC Daw is getting constantly better (many apps have direct Ableton als project export, some even have Studio One projects export)
The main point is, the strength of music making on an iPad isn’t to mimic what we already have on PC, but to take a different approach. Many “iPad musicians” prefer a “modular” approach, and not a “DAW to make everything” solution. Making iPadOS coincide with Mac OS would be a big mistake in my opinion: the ipad strength is its directness and touch interface. In fact, the best apps for music making on ipad are the ones that have been thought with this in mind. Loopy Pro, Patterning, Samplr, Jordan Rudess’ GeoShred, Borderland, Touchscaper, Beatsurfing 2…and also all the synths that benefit of the fact you can play them with an on screen keyboard, maybe a MPE one (and there are many, and constantly improving their quality…Moog’s Model D and Model 15, all the Korg’s ones, the indie developer’s ones, often better than the ones from big companies,…). These are the real gems that makes the iPad experience different from anything you can find on computers. And to make an example of how these strengths are recognized even in the industry: the Sample Alchemy you see in Logic on iPad announcement has surely been developed by Samplr developer, that made this wonderful app years ago and since he is a genius has been hired by Apple itself a little later. Now we know to do what
Then you have the hundreds of very valid effects (the iPad could also be used simply as an external fx processor, or as a huge soundbank to compliment what we already have on computers). Or the wonderful Grooveboxes (Korg Gadget, Ninja Tunes’ JammPro, Amplify Blocks Wave and Groovebox, Groove Rider,..). Or the sequencers, chords apps, piano rolls,… To finally come to the midi controllers and the companions apps, which for how I use iPads, are really the best things for me> Apps like Scaler 2, TouchAble, Lemur, Midi designer Pro, Logic Remote, Presonus Studio One Rc to control S1, UC Surface to control StudioLive mixers, Loopy Pro (that other than being a FANTASTIC modular looper and daw and sequencer…also allows you to build personalized midi controllers for…well…EVERYTHING you want…). And apps like Drambo…that can’t even be categorized, being it able to do…practically anything…
About the Logic coming to iPads… It is surely more than welcome, but believe me, it’s not that without it iPads musicians couldn’t do things anyway. And about it being a subscription…even admitting that the price is more than good (5.99 a month or 59 for a year), I must say that a choice between subscription or one time payment would really have been better. And my “allergy” to subscription will probably make me skip it. Not too much worried, since, as I said, I can do things anyway…and probably on a “better” way, since I can repeat that iPad strength is not to mimic a computer. Is a little bit like saying that making music with real instruments is better than making it on computers. They are 2 different worlds, and in my house, they are both VERY WELCOME.

I could go on and on, since I see very often that a lot of musician still underestimate iPads as music instruments, probably not knowing the giant steps they have done in all these years. But maybe is suffice to say (as I wrote in another thread some days ago) that if people like Damon Albarn and Madlib made entire albums produced on an iPad, the toy could start to be taken seriously 😉

And…since we are in a NI forum, let me tell you one thing: I’m SURE that any Maschine user, if willing to test Beatmaker 3, won’t be disappointed…AT ALL 😏

Jojo123

@D-One

"The downside is it apparently is a subscription-only app 😡 "

What do I think? There's a number of downsides. One of the worst is I hate the subscription model with a passion. No matter how much companies may say they'll keep perpetual licenses alongside subs, its the foot in the door. Its the slippery slope. It's one step closer to pulling the plug. I've seen many recent comments about this hideous move and how people absolutely hate it. Whether (as some posit) its the future or not I won't be going down this route no matter how good it looks.

If Apple (worth trillions) can screw over their customers for a tiny piece of cloth to the extent they willingly line up en-mass and fork out anyway, you know we have huge problems.

MarkFoster

guitar rig definitely needs an app!!

daswans

A full version Maschine on iPad would be great, but I would prefer if development could focus on basic functionality of the software- more specifically standalone time signature and tempo change capabilities per scene. (Should have been built into the software on day 1)

Flexi

An iOS version of anything by NI is less likely than an update to Absynth hahaha, they don't have the resources to do anything outside of Play and expansions, and those are done by off site third parties.

I am musing here obviously, but it really "feels" (again, musing, not fact, they have staff, they just don't do anything) like the only full time staff at NI right now are there to turn the lights off and on and post things online, like sending out an email to discuss this topic.

It is actually pretty genius, in terms of future investors or sell off, it looks like they are still fully operating.

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