Imagine all the magic some of the worlds greatest music producers and composers created in their mind but never had the means to sketch down or record it? I’m sure the world lost its fair share of treasures of the years. Who else would like to go back in time, hand John Lennon an iPhone, and see what he can create in a couple minutes? These are the things that randomly pop into my mind in the middle of the night.
I decided to put together this list of the best iOS apps for music producers on the go. If you read my book, you’ve already put into action my strategic method of taking your list of music supervisor contacts and turning it into an automated machine that feeds you their open projects. The efficiency shouldn’t stop there though. It’s 2019 and we can all get creative and dream up a little magic literally anywhere! So, let’s take a look at the list.
FL Studio Mobile
A truly impressive application that allows you to record, sequence, edit, mix, and render complete songs while you’re on the road. You can also move seamlessly from your desktop version on Windows to the iOS application and vice versa. With this on the go app, you won’t skip a beat (pun intended). If you are using the Windows version and don’t have this mobile version, I suggest you change that today!
iMaschine 2
iMaschine 2 is another feature rich DAW application for iOS. One of my personal favorite features is the smart play keyboard that comes built-in. One can play chords, melodies, and basslines that are always in-key. The keyboard in iMASCHINE 2 maps to the notes of a scale, so every note you’re playing sounds right. AMAZING!
iMPC Pro 2
Like the previous 2 mentioned apps, with the iMPC Pro 2 you truly can be a creative force on the go. Inspired by the legendary MPC 2000, iMPC Pro stays true to its roots but includes various new features that make it a truly top-notch platform for creating or performing music. iMPC Pro’s interface is broken down into five tabs – Main, Program, Mixer, Timeline, and Song – that intuitively organize the core elements of your music. For those who own some MPC hardware, I highly recommend you pair it with this robust app!
Ultimate Circle of Fifths
Just like the Youtuber mentions in his above video, I was getting blasted with Instagram Ads for the Circle of Fifths app and decided to give it a try. I was happy I did. With its simple to use interface, you can seamlessly put together sketches of various chord progressions. The best part is that this can all be exported as a midi file that you can toss into your DAW of choice when you’re back in your studio. Well done.
Sheet Music Scanner
Okay, so who was like my ADD self when they were a kid and used to thumb through every sheet music book at their local music shop? Imagine taking out your iPhone, snapping a photo of a few sheets, and then transforming them into an exportable midi file with a few touches of your screen. Yup, that’s what sold me on Sheet Music Scanner. A very powerful OCR-type tool for sheet music. Another way to sample and sketch out new ideas on the go.
TonalEnergy Tuner & Metronome
Metronome, Tuning, Key finding, this app has a plethora of useful features for the traveling musician. It’s amazing the accuracy it provides and it is an effective collaboration tool as well. I like to think of it as a jump start to any workflow for an idea I may have while on the road. Definitely a must have of mine.
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