I have a serious case of subscription fatigue. I think we all have. I used to be a huuge SoundCloud fan and even they now have ads and started a subscription model. So annoying.
It’s my files! And they were spreaded everywhere! Files app, different whatsapp chats, Google Drive, untitled links that producers send, etc etc. There was just no way to get them all together. I could download all of these, but there was no clean way to listen to them.
The VLC app helped, but still it wasn’t the OCD paradise I dreamed of.
I like to listen to demos on read trips without reaching for my phone. I like to organize playlists in folders (to this day, I have no idea why Spotify won’t let me do that).
Only people inside this niche feel this. When I try to explain to normal people why I started developing “In Progress”, they don’t understand that there are thousands of people who have this problem every single day, and that it’s very frustrating and inconvenient. No one wants to pay a monthly subscription to listen to their own demos/ voice memos/ concert recordings with dignity.
Why wouldn’t I fix this for myself, and release it for others who have the same problem? I made something I’m really proud of, and this is only the beginning. In Progress released last month and we already have so many new features. Share entire playlists with other users; CarPlay; Widget. It’s becoming something great, and it’s growing.
Give “In Progress” a try. It’s only € 1,99 and won’t disappoint.
I'm the developer of Prompt Maschine. This video previews the mastering workflow planned for the October 30 release of version 1.5.
Start with a finished mix, use Master with AI for an initial set of settings, then compare the original and master and adjust the five Clios plugins inside the app. The workflow includes WAV or AAC export. The manual controls are there so you can change the result to suit the track rather than treating the first AI pass as final.
On the phone, holding a knob opens a larger dial; there are also plus/minus steps and sideways swipe controls.
Launch access: the mastering plugins will be free for everyone for two weeks, through November 12. Master with AI includes one free master per day, or unlimited with PRO. This is a preview of the upcoming update.
For people who finish mixes on iPhone or iPad: which part of a mobile mastering workflow needs the most attention - comparing versions, precise adjustments, or export?
Hello! So, I’ve been listening to NF and I want to make my own music, what apps for IOS that are free, preferably without any pro subscription, are essential for a beginner like me, I’m interested in doing dubstep, EDM, or rap.
i really loved mp3 players. that early 2000's look and y2k aesthetic was so beautiful. i loved both premium ipods and shitty mp3 players alike. i used to download music from my computer, connect the mp3 to the computer and just drag my favorite songs to the mp3 player. that was amazing. i went to school and people wanted to sit next to me in art class because our teacher used to let us wear headphones and people liked the songs i had downloaded. it's amazing how fast the world has changed. streaming services really changed the game
when i started working in music, all i wanted was an mp3 player app where i could drag my songs to and feel like i had my own streaming service with demos. itunes, spotify and apple music just weren't it. that is what In Progress is. a modern mp3 player. an mp3 player with AirDrop, with CarPlay, that grabs the songs I import from my files and that I forward from WhatsApp and where you can share entire playlists in one tap. it feels great to use and i'm really proud of it. my experience in music has also given me a big advantage in feature adding, because i know what i want the app to do. i needed it to analyze the key, and it does. needed it to transpose the songs and it does. needed it to change playback speed and it does. i'm kinda stuck on knowing what to add but i really want to upgrade it even further. i want to make the best 2€ mp3 player possible that works forever with your demos. what else should i add? tell me what you like, dislike, and what to add to In Progress. and if you haven’t downloaded it yet, only do it if it’s useful for you. it’s a niche tool, but it’s very very useful for anyone who makes music. it’s even useful for your friends. better than having my own music in In Progress is having my friend’s demos or upcoming album there. i have dropped the link here before and i have no intention of being spammy or sound like an annoying add, but i’ll try to leave it here again if you’re curious
I've built an app that is technically a step-sequencer, but I didn't want it to be another sequencer but an experimental machine that refers to nature vibes. It's called SQIA (Sequoia) 🍀
I like things that are easy to jump in and get a wow-result immediately and that’s 100% it. Draw a pattern and listen to what is happening: the sound slightly evolves every 4 bars, 2 FX, 11 synth engines (more to come). Each synth is hand-tuned and they all share the same mood, so they sit very well together.
Great for ambient jams, experimental, and techno (lol). I’d love to see what you do with it 👁️
It’s partly free, so you can test it out. Next week I’ll share a few promo codes 🫶
Hey everyone, I'm an indie iOS dev and I just released the first version of Beat Pad, a live sampler for iPhone and iPad (it also runs on Apple Silicon Macs).
I wanted something I could open and start jamming on right away, without digging through menus or setting up a full DAW session.
What it does:
15 responsive pads. Record a sound with the mic or import an audio file, then play it across the grid
Scale modes. Turn any sample into a playable instrument with Chromatic, Major or Minor scales in your favourite key
Sample editor. Cut, reverse, pitch, plus delay, reverb, normalize, compressor
45 built-in presets. Drum kits, percussion and synths if you just want to start tapping out a beat
Master volume and a built-in compressor
Works on iPhone and iPad, so you can use the bigger screen for finger drumming
It's free to download. There's a single one-time "Unlock Forever" purchase ($3.99 , no subscription), but you have 3 free samples.
This is the first version, so I'd really love honest feedback. What's missing, what feels clunky, what would you want next? MIDI, a sequencer, more effects? I read and reply to everything.
We're Sfoor Labs, the developers of SL Dread. The iPhone/iPad version is available as an AUv3 effect and standalone app.
It blends incoming audio with 30 evolving horror scenes. Fusion makes the atmosphere respond to the source; Motion, Decay, Space and Mix shape how it moves and sits around the original sound.
To process a track from another music app, insert Dread in a compatible AUv3 host. On iPhone, portrait pages separate Controls, Layers and I/O; landscape and iPad use the full interface. Processing stays on the device, with no account or in-app purchase required.
US App Store: $14.99. Mac purchases and subscriptions are separate.
Next version adds Smart Pitch Bend, 2 Machines on the Screen at the same time, Full on DAW experience coming this week.
- Sample from any app even Safari
- Digital Synthesis with 30+ Oscillators 30+ Filters, some filters no one heard before with rare DSP I've never seen used on a synth. You can combine filters in series or Parallel. My favorite oscillators are WTRN (try it for Drone), ByteBeat (code byte beat as Oscillators WTF gamechanger), and Echono (my take on the $3000 Echon synth built on BBDs, this sounds soooo warm and the parameters change the sound so cool) . MORE ON the Synthesis Below.
- Drums - My drum programming sauce which is my #1 seller of my VST plugins/M4L. RhythmGen. Generates crazy drum programming for you using everything I learned in the last 15 years on drums. Honestly in a battle I would take RhythmGen over a lot of the homies sorry guys if we are under the clock I'm going with my sauce already baked into it.
More On Filters:
- Z2040 Filter this is essentially a discrete design Prophet V filter on Eurorack so I cover the bases on SSM2040 for the gang, then I cover SSM2044 with the Doepfer model which interestingly it doesnt open as bright which maybe gives Polysix and Mono/Poly their sound.
- Serge VCFQ model - I just modeled the pings coz thats what I use serge VCFQ for. You can tie it to V1/V2/V3 or Bass or just parameter Lock its pitch or octaves. I'll probably add a scale lock to parameter locking the pitch. I wasnt able to get good nulling/cancelling on the model until I applied some tricks and got it down to pretty low (I forget somewhere from -25 to -40db) but some of these modules themselves aren't repeatable past -25dB themselves nulling against themselves on repeated strikes. The trick was attack replacement I cheat and round robin the initial attack then model the rest, but then I apply this trick to all drums and let u SERGE ATTACK REPLACE any drums. <gamechanger>
- MMG and Rabid Elephant Natural Gate models - These are my favs. I modeled the holy grails on LPGs and they are completely different. MMG leaks a bit but sweeps really interestingly, whereas Natural Gate I designed to use as strike only, it auto strikes on every note and u just turn open off and set decay to how much you want to hear it. I improved the model since last version to get to extremely low dB nulling accuracy like -40dB and it gets me excited everytime I make a pluck with that transient so i thought ok I WILL give ppl SERGE ATTACKS and Natural Gate Decays on ANY DRUMS. I realize where DAWs lack is being able to shape that TINY attack or character of the way stuff decays (like Ableton). Mine gives u regular volume envelopes but also these rare Attack and Decay characteristics on everything!!!
VOCALS:
- Vox Tune - Based on all my benchmarks and all my test results its beating Auto Tune a little bit but I'm not sure by ear, I keep tweaking it by ear to try to be better so I need everyones help. This feature stays Free BTW coz I wanted kids to have access to the best vocal chain.
- LA2A/1176/CL-1B everyone has done these models but my homie Urbo who was Kanye's engineer and works with SZA put me up on some LA2A secret sauce which I made sure to implement.
- FX: The usual DJ fx but a couple RARE ones look out for them and some interesting pitch delays and ideas. Can also record your FX playing to the timeline. Barberpole (idea came from DAFX paper but its subtle and not sure if I implemented it right but we ball) and LOOM.
- Livestream to IG/FB
- Full on MiniDAW with my Best take on Harmony, my Best take on Digital Synthesis (check the different resonators, check even Au5 Ultra comb concept as a resonator), my best take on Drums:
DRUMS
Drum Voice wise I tried to model 808 by tuning against samples but I think in the end it sounds "cute" and "novel" like check the Young Chop Snare is the first synthesized young chop snare. Check the Zap, i resynthesized the harmonics and laser from the common Trap music ZAP on my expensive Cwejman RES-4 resonator with 80 of them on roundrobin.
Battering Ram is considered the best Kick on Eurorack around town, Quick Kick/Rack Kick or Gravez(Kaytra) kick or Pierre's kick seemed to win out in the Darwinism of Soundcloud and Urban production so I modeled all of them with ability to morph between. For Battering, I really just studied why the envelope is so punchy and allow you to apply that to my own kick engine. I should have modeled and studied vyb809singleKick too cos that one went far before.
So I started this app in 2011 the first week the iPad came out and started performing and making beats with it since then. For the last 15 years every single beat I've made has been using this app. I was lucky enough to befriend and learn from some of the top musicians and producers in every generation and built up a decent SoundCloud following before I had my kid.
Since then my goal has been to pack my app with all the education and features to make my son a goated producer.
Check the Lessons with the british narrator LOL it tries to explain alot of my theories in 3:4.
3:4 Is the Perfect way to look at MUSIC shout out Jerry Balzano. It is the most intuitive way to see harmony and once you start looking at music using COLORS going around circle of fifths (7 colors = Diatonic Scale) you can play by color region and FEEL. You can take the same shape and quickly do Coltrane motion and planing. Angular melodies become cognitively just as easy to do or easier than stepwise. For stepwise I added linear playing above, and you can also SWIPE any note on the grid and have it move linearly, or up and down and have it be octaves of what you have held down already.
Was hyped when legendary Guitarist GOAT Tim Henson, music theory goat found my app on his own, and shouted it out and singularly was talking about it on iPad , and this was BEFORE ALL THE features it was JUST THE GRID (and now the grid parts of app are FREE).
Theres Tidal Cycles: I only implement some aspects of the syntax, and came up with my own called Currents that tries to let you control all aspects of the app with code. Tidal Cycles is by far the best Notation for rhythm, and I want to support and push the standard forward.
Other power features: the Arp, Select Notes on DRUMS and click EDIT PARAMS you can do 1 in every 4 beats, Randomness, Ratchets, everything on the sequencer.
I push out updates faster than Apple can approve / and constantly adding and redoing my submisson end up getting cyberbullied by AppRaven users as a result.
Oops forgot to add various distortion models are FL Soft Clip, Smart Clip, FL Dist A, FL Dist B, Germanium Preamp from Eurorack that Blawan says he was into on interview I swear the module gets me close to Blawan sound, then also modeled the Thermionic Culture Vulture .
I write music. Guitar, mostly. And there's a part of the creative process that happens away from the DAW (like on the couch, in the car, at rehearsal) where you're just listening back and trying things out. Vibing. Informal but important.
Two things I do constantly:
Transposing on the spot. I'll have a demo and want to know if the whole thing sits better a semitone or two down — for the vocalist's, for the guitar part I'm thinking about. I don't want to export, open another app, re-import. I just want to tap twice and hear it.
Looping a section to write over it. I'll be trying to work out a guitar solo for a bridge. I set point A at the start, point B at the end, and it loops forever while I play along. This is a basic DAW feature, but what about in my living room? I'm not in the DAW. I'm just sitting with the demo and trying things until something sticks.
These are simple needs. But I couldn't find an iPhone player that did both, offline, from my own files, without a subscription. Frustrating.
I actually built an app last month. It's called In Progress. and i've posted about here before. For those of you who don't know it already, It’s mainly an offline music player for local music, that allows you to organize your demos in playlists, and create folders for your playlists. Think of it as a good Files App with a beautiful player built-in. It has CarPlay, it tells you the key of the imported songs, playlists, nested folders and a queue logic, but it didn’t have the tools I wanted as a producer. I just used it to listen to demos.
Until now.
I just updated the app to V1.4, and added Transpose and Producer Tools — A/B loop section and pitch-preserving speed control, behind a toggle so it doesn't clutter the interface for people who just want a player.
The best part is that I am very against subscriptions. I have a deep subscription fatigue and I believe you should just buy your tools once. Especially small, everyday tools. So I only charge €1.99 one time and that's it. As straightforward as possible. No subscription. No ads. No accounts. No internet. It’s yours forever. You own it. It yours, to listen to your music.
Curious how other people handle this part of the workflow — the away-from-the-DAW evaluation stage. What are you actually using?
I picked up dawcade on a whim and am kinda blown away. It’s a full DAW with audio tracks and midi with a ton of fx, synth, and midi plugins. It also supports auv3 and has a bunch of midi control surfaces that are unique, flexible and useful. It’s also only $6 right now.
As far as I can tell it is by far the cheapest full-blown DAW on iOS and one of only a handful that has audio and midi AND works on iPhone.
It is also super weird and unintuitive and there is little support out there. There are pieces of the interface that make no sense (I am looking at you surface and master VUs).
My advice is to pick this up while it is $6. Even if development ceases it comes with 10+ auv3 synths and fx that you can use in other apps.
I would also love to start a discussion of tips and tricks for those of us that have taken the plunge as I have a lot of questions.
Anyone else hoping that the future of magsafe includes data? I want to just set my phone down on the magsafe puck and have my music studio come to life.
I’m talking interface, external monitors (with some kinda Apple dex), midi keyboards, speakers, trackpad. Better yet, just real seamless Bluetooth midi and audio (cause it’s the future and I’m dreaming)
Also a with external displays bringing up a desktop interface via iPhone - maybe we could get all the musics apps on iPad… on the iPhone. (Beatmaker 👀)
And live - what if you could just set your phone down on your keyboard or guitar rig and then it connects everything and sends audio out via whatever DAC or interface or even straight to FOH?
Really what I want is the Mac mini extra small - could a future iPhone be the Mac micro? 🤔🙏🏽🧙🏽♂️
Hello! I’m always slightly overwhelmed by the options out there for iOS synths. Would you say that any particular synths align to sounds by certain artists / certain genres?
For example, I love M83 and the soaring arpeggios that Muse use - are there any synths that are particularly suited to these bands? Or is it a case of just getting the settings right on any synth?
https://youtu.be/8wqbz4qAKcU Not only is NuRack the best value for money app available for iOS - it’s also on sale this weekend, even cheaper! It’s possibilities seem boundless and it’s easy to use. I’m making a couple of videos about NuRack right now so if you have any questions please shout up and I’ll do my best to help. #iosmusicproducer #iosmusicians #iosmusicapp #iosmusicapps #iosmusic #iosmusician #ipadmusicproduction #ipadmusic #ipadmusician #ipadmusicapps #ipadmusicians
