Loopy Pro

Loopy Pro is amazing.

I've always loved watching performers skilled with loopers, and have always wanted to get into that workflow. I have tried with five or six loopers on iOS and just haven't found anything flexible enough or easy enough to use as primarily a guitar player.

Loopy Pro can be as simple or as complex as you like. I prefer to keep it somewhat simple, but have also designed custom workspaces for building up and performing pieces on the fly. With the flexible actions and assignment to MIDI, I can do everything I need with a straightforward setup on my iRig BlueBoard.

I've not experienced anything so liberating in 20+ years of computer music making as just letting things rip in Loopy Pro. At first I thought I'd make little use of it with only audio, not MIDI looping. However, I find that I don't miss being able to go back and tweak MIDI at all! There's something so creatively inspiring about committing ideas to audio as quickly as possible, and moving on.

(MIDI looping is coming to Loopy Pro at some point, and even now other MIDI tools such as Atom Piano Roll, MIDI Tape Recorder, and Imaginando LK can be used.).

Another huge thing for me as I still have an old, underpowered iPad Air 2. Loopy Pro lets you add synths and FX plugins, but then "idle" them as you go. Idling a plugin removes its processing overhead. So, once I've recorded a loop, I can idle the plugins, reducing their footprint to near zero, but still be able to go back and add more loops later, or fine tune an FX chain, or other tasks later on.

Michael Tyson, the developer is very responsive and involved with the Loopy Pro community. There is a published and interactive roadmap that is not just lip-service. Suggestions and priorities are genuinely considered and honestly published. There's a vibrant Discord channel and of course the Audiobus forum, arguably the most active iOS music making community forum on the internet.

I can't take the time to explain all the wonderful things beyond just audio looping that you can do with Loopy Pro. Just check it out! Pick a week when you have lots of time and download it for free. You have one week to explore everything without restriction, so it's best to be sure that you really can dive in well enough to make a decision ... unless, like me, you see the value almost immediately.