Best iPad Synths?

RaymondLin · June 2022

I want to dib my fingers into synths, but before buying a real one...are there any good iPad ones?

monquixote · June 2022

Korg Gadget has a whole bunch of synths and a decent DAW environment.

People go nuts about Drambo, but I haven't tried it.

RaymondLin · June 2022

Is the Minimoog Model D any good?

I think it might be wise to start with the classic?

personalnadir · June 2022

RaymondLin said:

Is the Minimoog Model D any good?

I think it might be wise to start with the classic?

There’s only one Moog in town On the iPad: the Animoog is where it’s at https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/animoog-z-synthesizer/id1586841361

personalnadir · June 2022

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

RaymondLin · June 2022

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

paganskins · June 2022

AudioKit synth one is good, and free

monquixote · June 2022

I personally don't find the iPad great for synths (There are plenty of good apps it's just not a fun environment for me)

I'd suggest getting a Circuit Tracks or a Model Cycles and then selling it if you don't get on with it.

monquixote · June 2022

Another thing I'd mention is that if you get some super amazing pro synth with a million parameters you will just scroll through the presets, press down a key and go "oooo" and then get bored.

You need either something with a sequencer where you can make some patterns or something really simple you can twiddle about with that's really simple which means you will learn synthesis (This is why I recently bought a Reface CS)

personalnadir · June 2022

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

One of the main things to make sure you have a is a midi controller. I use an Arturia Keystep 37 and a Beatstep with my iPad. Makes such a difference.

RaymondLin · June 2022

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

One of the main things to make sure you have a is a midi controller. I use an Arturia Keystep 37 and a Beatstep with my iPad. Makes such a difference.

Before I spend any more money....what do you mean by midi controller?

personalnadir · June 2022

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

One of the main things to make sure you have a is a midi controller. I use an Arturia Keystep 37 and a Beatstep with my iPad. Makes such a difference.

Before I spend any more money....what do you mean by midi controller?

Anything which lets you send instructions from hardware to your iPad. As you’re interested in synths, probably something with a piano keybed that you can connect to your iPad. You can play synth on the iPad screen, but I found it’s much harder to get the rhythm right

RaymondLin · June 2022

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

One of the main things to make sure you have a is a midi controller. I use an Arturia Keystep 37 and a Beatstep with my iPad. Makes such a difference.

Before I spend any more money....what do you mean by midi controller?

Anything which lets you send instructions from hardware to your iPad. As you’re interested in synths, probably something with a piano keybed that you can connect to your iPad. You can play synth on the iPad screen, but I found it’s much harder to get the rhythm right

I have a Yamaha P75, which has a midi out.

RaymondLin · June 2022

Do you think this will work?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-MDBT01-Wireless-Bluetooth-Adapter/dp/B01AXSYSLU

personalnadir · June 2022

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

One of the main things to make sure you have a is a midi controller. I use an Arturia Keystep 37 and a Beatstep with my iPad. Makes such a difference.

Before I spend any more money....what do you mean by midi controller?

Anything which lets you send instructions from hardware to your iPad. As you’re interested in synths, probably something with a piano keybed that you can connect to your iPad. You can play synth on the iPad screen, but I found it’s much harder to get the rhythm right

I have a Yamaha P75, which has a midi out.

That’ll be perfect for it then. You may need a midi interface and or usb hub if it doesn’t have midi over Usb. I use one by ESI which is great, though I have to be careful about which order I plug stuff in or it get confused

RaymondLin · June 2022

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

Perhaps a better question is what sort of sounds are you after? I bought a hardware synth for pads, but lucked out in getting the Medusa which is rather versatile.

The Sonicstate Friday Fun vids are a good place to start, as he jams with a variety of synths. Can give you an idea of what tones you like, could make use of

https://youtu.be/QKCTQtj17FQ

I have no clue to dipping my toes in, I was at one point during lockdown considered getting a minibrute but came to my senses (bought another guitar instead!?) I just got an itch again and i recently bought an iPad so thought trying an app instead. £20 instead of £500 is much easier to swallow.

One of the main things to make sure you have a is a midi controller. I use an Arturia Keystep 37 and a Beatstep with my iPad. Makes such a difference.

Before I spend any more money....what do you mean by midi controller?

Anything which lets you send instructions from hardware to your iPad. As you’re interested in synths, probably something with a piano keybed that you can connect to your iPad. You can play synth on the iPad screen, but I found it’s much harder to get the rhythm right

I have a Yamaha P75, which has a midi out.

That’ll be perfect for it then. You may need a midi interface and or usb hub if it doesn’t have midi over Usb. I use one by ESI which is great, though I have to be careful about which order I plug stuff in or it get confused

I just got an app off the app store which does the Midi to Bluetooth thing, app is Midimttr ???

I also bought the Moog Model D (i think it looks cooler). Will get that Midi adaptor and use my piano. This seems like a much cheaper way to get into synth than a physical unit.

personalnadir · June 2022

I just got an app off the app store which does the Midi to Bluetooth thing, app is Midimttr ???

I also bought the Moog Model D (i think it looks cooler). Will get that Midi adaptor and use my piano. This seems like a much cheaper way to get into synth than a physical unit.

Check out Animoog too, free from memory. A Moog classic

RaymondLin · June 2022

personalnadir said:

I just got an app off the app store which does the Midi to Bluetooth thing, app is Midimttr ???

I also bought the Moog Model D (i think it looks cooler). Will get that Midi adaptor and use my piano. This seems like a much cheaper way to get into synth than a physical unit.

Check out Animoog too, free from memory. A Moog classic

Will do.

also this seems better and cheaper. Bluetooth 5.0 vs 4.0 in the Yamaha.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cart/view.html?ref_=sw_gtc

more · June 2022

If you have an up-to-date I pad , it has one , GarageBand

Hurling_Fruitmig · June 2022

I love the Minimoog model D app for noodling around. I use my Arturia Microbrute (a lockdown purchase) as a controller through a USB hub into my iPad. I think I’ve tried all of the apps mentioned above and they’re all interesting in their own way.

Funkfingers · June 2022

The KORG iKAOScillator and Electribe apps are good for Beat-based music genres.

The more recent Electribe Wave looks interesting. The wavetable manipulation aspect reminds me of my brother's DW-8000 synthesizer. I would want to watch a few official product demonstration videos before committing funds.

hollywoodrox · June 2022

Dexed, , FM player 2, synth one

RaymondLin · June 2022

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

Anything which lets you send instructions from hardware to your iPad. As you’re interested in synths, probably something with a piano keybed that you can connect to your iPad. You can play synth on the iPad screen, but I found it’s much harder to get the rhythm right

I have a Yamaha P75, which has a midi out.

That’ll be perfect for it then. You may need a midi interface and or usb hub if it doesn’t have midi over Usb. I use one by ESI which is great, though I have to be careful about which order I plug stuff in or it get confused

Just want to say i got the MIDI Bluetooth thing, came with ZERO instructions, good thing i read an Amazon review that pointed me towards that free app which acts as a bridge between and after 15mins of fiddling i got it working!

No noticeable latency, feels weird to have the piano now to make all these weird noises from it but certainly makes the app into a more tangible product.

horse · June 2022

RaymondLin said:

No noticeable latency, feels weird to have the piano now to make all these weird noises from it but certainly makes the app into a more tangible product.

Off topic, but I play keys a lot, and as my collection of gear has expanded over the years I've learned just how much the feel of the keyboard changes what I think I'm hearing. Eg the same piano sound played from a synth keyboard seems to sound more "weighty" when played from a piano type keyboard. Likewise, synth sounds played from a piano type keyboard seem to sound less convincing, but if I play them on a light synth action the same sounds can seem to sound different / right.

A certain amount of this can be explained by velocity curves, but not the whole thing in my experience - the feel of the keyboard really does seem to influence what I think I hear.

d8m · June 2022

Couple of my favourites are Poison 202 + Moog Model D.

The Moog apps do drop in price/ go free from time to time so worth keeping an eye on appsliced.

Drambo is very good but very very deep in potential and comes with a huge learning curve. Ive not really got into the building my own synths with it yet but as it can host AUV3s I use it purely for its sequencing and p-lock capabilities.

personalnadir · June 2022

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

personalnadir said:

RaymondLin said:

Anything which lets you send instructions from hardware to your iPad. As you’re interested in synths, probably something with a piano keybed that you can connect to your iPad. You can play synth on the iPad screen, but I found it’s much harder to get the rhythm right

I have a Yamaha P75, which has a midi out.

That’ll be perfect for it then. You may need a midi interface and or usb hub if it doesn’t have midi over Usb. I use one by ESI which is great, though I have to be careful about which order I plug stuff in or it get confused

Just want to say i got the MIDI Bluetooth thing, came with ZERO instructions, good thing i read an Amazon review that pointed me towards that free app which acts as a bridge between and after 15mins of fiddling i got it working!

No noticeable latency, feels weird to have the piano now to make all these weird noises from it but certainly makes the app into a more tangible product.

Cool, glad you got working. Opens up a whole world of iPad synth apps

https://musictech.com/ Is a great resource for them.

If you want to get advanced you can look at DAWs like AUM which let you set up keyboard splits and have multiple synths assigned to different parts of your keybed
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/aum-audio-mixer/id1055636344

https://youtu.be/SXPOQEApf90

personalnadir · June 2022

d8m said:

Couple of my favourites are Poison 202 + Moog Model D.

The Moog apps do drop in price/ go free from time to time so worth keeping an eye on appsliced.

Drambo is very good but very very deep in potential and comes with a huge learning curve. Ive not really got into the building my own synths with it yet but as it can host AUV3s I use it purely for its sequencing and p-lock capabilities.

https://www.cheapcharts.info/gb Is a useful site for being notified when app prices drop. Also let’s you see historic price changes

d8m · June 2022

d8m · June 2022

Korg sale just started on appstore, looks like everything is 50% off again.

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Best iPad Synths?

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