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Sampler app to play loops

Hi,

I am looking for an ios app that can load a bunch of loops and play them in tempo with my master bpm.

I have a lot of loops I have built through out the years inside Ableton, and would like to jam with them in my iPad, but I would love to be able of loading them into some sort of launcher/sampler and have the app timestretch or adapt the tempo (maybe not looking for something too crazy, but being able of going from 120bpm to 100bpm, I don't care too much about having artifacts, that will probably give cool effects and textures).

My setup is AUM running a bunch of synths, effects and sequencers, plus a hardware synth that I loop and process inside AUM. I am not too crazy about building drum loops live, so I rather have a nice pool of stuff I have premade and I can easily trigger and have it sync to AUMs tempo.

I dont know if there is anything like this, or if any sample app can do it (I have not tried any yet). I have all my loops properly archived with bpms and root note, so worst case scenario, I could use an app that simply loads those loops and I can just set the bpm in AUM to mirror the loops tempo. But still, I don't know of an app that would do this. As I say, I am not looking for a sampler tailored towards sound design (I already have Samplr, which is a lot of fun but I really struggle to use it within my setup, except to just create textures and noises), I am wondering if there is a nice easy app that works as a sample player that will look its tempo (this isnt mandatory, but would be great, but I understand that a good timestretch algorithm might not work inside ios).

Thanks in advance :)

Comments

  • edited September 2021

    Blocs Wave and Launchpad apps ... for now... New stuff is coming down the Pike.

  • Blocs Wave would be the app for that. Allows you to import a ton of loops, which you can then further tweak, and then send it to Ampify Launchpad.

    Here’s two videos demonstrating this

    1. Quick summary of the workflow

    2. Detailed breakdown

      Other app you could look into would be Koala Sampler and Beatmaker 3 as it has an excellent time stretching algorithm, sEGments, LK or Atom 2 for MIDI clip launching in AUM, and Remix Live. Here’s a video covering all these apps (except for sEGments)

    Hope this helps.

  • Wow! Thank you soo much! And for such a quick answer :)

    Ill go through all these, but block waves seems like a no brainer at this point

  • Oh yeah, Blocs Wave + Launchpad is 30000% what I was looking for! These two apps are amazing! I can see many other benefits from them besides my first idea. I have been just loading all my loops and jamming for hours, it actually seems like a great way of organizing loops too, and an amazing way of coming up with new ideas for arrangements!

    Amaaazing

  • edited September 2021

    @pao said:
    Oh yeah, Blocs Wave + Launchpad is 30000% what I was looking for! These two apps are amazing! I can see many other benefits from them besides my first idea. I have been just loading all my loops and jamming for hours, it actually seems like a great way of organizing loops too, and an amazing way of coming up with new ideas for arrangements!

    Did you see?:

  • edited September 2021

    Besides the aforementioned Blocs Wave…..

    Segments, which just updated its Algorithm, would work well. Sure it’s a slicer but also plays loops really well with pitch and/or time adjustments. New algo is an IAP.

    Koala should be good for you too especially with the Samurai IAP.

    If the loop is relatively short, Hammerhead can surprisingly do this pretty well. I use drum breaks sometimes and it stretches them pretty good. Load sample on one of 8 sounds then set duration to 1bar, 2 bar, instead of regular sample duration. Might need to get a little creative by adding a click into a separate sound, add loop, and use several patterns. Put it in sequence mode to play a longer loop. This way you aren’t limited to 1 bar, it can play something a little longer.

  • I love Segments for this and most sampling needs, what would be even more amazing was if it had warp markers.

  • @Poppadocrock said:
    Besides the aforementioned Blocs Wave…..

    Segments, which just updated its Algorithm, would work well. Sure it’s a slicer but also plays loops really well with pitch and/or time adjustments. New algo is an IAP.

    Koala should be good for you too especially with the Samurai IAP.

    If the loop is relatively short, Hammered can surprisingly do this pretty well. I use drum breaks sometimes and it stretches them pretty good. Load sample on one of 8 sounds then set duration to 1bar, 2 bar, instead of regular sample duration. Might need to get a little creative by adding a click into a separate sound, add loop, and use several patterns. Put it in sequence mode to play a longer loop. This way you aren’t limited to 1 bar, it can play something a little longer.

    IMO, as much as I like sEGments, Blocs Wave does a better job to my ear with time-stretching and pitch-shifting. BlocsWave is also much better, imo, for dealing with large loop libraries.

  • @pao said:
    Oh yeah, Blocs Wave + Launchpad is 30000% what I was looking for! These two apps are amazing! I can see many other benefits from them besides my first idea. I have been just loading all my loops and jamming for hours, it actually seems like a great way of organizing loops too, and an amazing way of coming up with new ideas for arrangements!

    Amaaazing

    I spent a lot of time really enjoying Blocs wave and using it as a recorder. It does do a lot of things well, very handy. However, I don’t think there is any way to do a quick, efficient library backup or transfer to another device, if that is an issue for you. (Maybe things have changed since back in my Blocs days…)

  • Good points all around, I was just throwing out a few other options.

  • What can Blocs Wave import audio from? Is it possible to route audio from other apps, or is it file import only? Not much detail on the App Store.

  • @michael_m said:
    What can Blocs Wave import audio from? Is it possible to route audio from other apps, or is it file import only? Not much detail on the App Store.

    You can record directly in to it in Audiobus along with importing from AudioShare.

  • @robosardine said:

    @michael_m said:
    What can Blocs Wave import audio from? Is it possible to route audio from other apps, or is it file import only? Not much detail on the App Store.

    You can record directly in to it in Audiobus along with importing from AudioShare.

    You can import files using the standard Files browser. Audioshare not needed. You can alse use the Share Sheet to send audio data to Blocs Wave. If you make BlocsWave a destination in Audiobus, you can also send audio to Blocswave from Audiobus aware apps loke AUM for recording.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Poppadocrock said:
    Besides the aforementioned Blocs Wave…..

    Segments, which just updated its Algorithm, would work well. Sure it’s a slicer but also plays loops really well with pitch and/or time adjustments. New algo is an IAP.

    Koala should be good for you too especially with the Samurai IAP.

    If the loop is relatively short, Hammered can surprisingly do this pretty well. I use drum breaks sometimes and it stretches them pretty good. Load sample on one of 8 sounds then set duration to 1bar, 2 bar, instead of regular sample duration. Might need to get a little creative by adding a click into a separate sound, add loop, and use several patterns. Put it in sequence mode to play a longer loop. This way you aren’t limited to 1 bar, it can play something a little longer.

    IMO, as much as I like sEGments, Blocs Wave does a better job to my ear with time-stretching and pitch-shifting. BlocsWave is also much better, imo, for dealing with large loop libraries.

    I was unsure about this, I love sEGments, and so last night I did a test warping a 80 BPM, 4 bar, drum loop, to 83 BPM, with both sEGments and Koala. Not very scientific, but still on good headphones, and it was clear, to me at least, that Koala did a much better job that sEGments. For example, there was some subtle noise that was completely lost with sEGments, but was nicely retained with Koala. This is with the IAP update, using the warp feature in sEGments.

    Hopefully this will be addressed in an update to sEGments. please, please, please ...

  • There’s a very recent thread on this forum comparing the time stretch ability of a few apps. I think it’s called “time stretch test” or something similar. @espiegel123 ran some tests. Check it out.

  • edited September 2021

    @espiegel123 said:

    @robosardine said:

    @michael_m said:
    What can Blocs Wave import audio from? Is it possible to route audio from other apps, or is it file import only? Not much detail on the App Store.

    You can record directly in to it in Audiobus along with importing from AudioShare.

    You can import files using the standard Files browser. Audioshare not needed. You can alse use the Share Sheet to send audio data to Blocs Wave. If you make BlocsWave a destination in Audiobus, you can also send audio to Blocswave from Audiobus aware apps loke AUM for recording.

    Audio import is an IAP for blocs wave, I think. I bought the app before it went free, awhile back to include audio import and slicing. I don’t have the EQ.

    Can you do that without the IAP?

  • @Poppadocrock said:

    @espiegel123 said:

    @robosardine said:

    @michael_m said:
    What can Blocs Wave import audio from? Is it possible to route audio from other apps, or is it file import only? Not much detail on the App Store.

    You can record directly in to it in Audiobus along with importing from AudioShare.

    You can import files using the standard Files browser. Audioshare not needed. You can alse use the Share Sheet to send audio data to Blocs Wave. If you make BlocsWave a destination in Audiobus, you can also send audio to Blocswave from Audiobus aware apps loke AUM for recording.

    Audio import is an IAP for blocs wave, I think. I bought the app before it went free, awhile back to include audio import and slicing. I don’t have the EQ.

    Can you do that without the IAP?

    I am not sure if it can be done with an IAP.

  • I doubt I would use the included samples, so would really be looking at importing them. I'll take a look at a few videos and see how people use them.

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