TL:DR
We had band practice last night and it just all clicked that we are cresting the learning curve and just rocking out, no big hiccups technical or in performance. A year into making music on iPad and electronic-based music at all, massive gratitude to the app developers and forumites here.

Longer version:
Realizing I am a year into trying to make music on iOS and we had band practice last night. We ended most songs with nods, smiles or 'fuck yeah' to each other.

But it has been a long road to that. _Didn't really take a year, we had some side things to do, finishing up a covers EP as our drummer moved, another album with my sister, _but still it was a substantial learning curve.

Technical learning issues were the smaller ones but definitely ones you all helped us with a lot, from app manuals to questions asked and answered here. But the idea of electronic drums, and synths sounds to two guys that can basically play a real drum kit, and are mainly guitar players, conceptually challenging.

And we went through a few gear versions to get something that really hit a sweet spot.
Initial idea was just electronic drums and bass and we'd both play guitar. Occasional iPad synths.

Then decided we could fit a small desktop synth on the board (which was built to fit in a guitar pedalboard case). Went with a Minitaur as bass was the 2nd most important thing. But found we could easily get sweet bass sounds on the iPad and the ability to mess with the knobs directly on the Minitaur wasn't being used as much. Went thru a couple, ended up with a Sirin (if only that had been out originally ugg).

Then I was just getting more and more into the synth sounds, playing guitar less. Last few practices, I've added a Minilogue XD and just been singing, playing the iPad and keys. It is a lot of fun, two man band that sounds like a crew. Granted, some midi is prerecorded, but I play all the main parts except the bass and drums, can do live drum fills, can manipulate effects on the prerecorded parts, switch/extend song parts on the fly. So there is more sonic space taken up by slight or dramatic improv than not.

Current setup: iPad, Vantec USB hub, CCK, Akai MPK225, Korg Minilogue XD, Moog Sirin & Source Audio Nemesis, Modstep, StepPolyArpUnit, various AU plugins, esp. Ruismaker, Icegear, Virsyn. Using Audiobus and Audioshare to make samples.

It is a fun time to be a musician.