Over the past few days, I’ve been having a lot of fun composing riffs, beats, and rhythms using the new iPad version of Apple’s music production software Logic Pro. The subtly redesigned app translates the company’s pro-level audio app to a touchscreen interface very nicely, and thankfully doesn’t skimp on it for mobile screens.
If you’ve used GarageBand on your iPad, you’re familiar with virtual instruments and a touch interface for recording, but with Logic Pro you have even more knobs, faders, automation, plug-ins, samples, and more. More items to adjust. I use Logic Pro on a 12.9″ iPad Pro, so I’m using the largest touchscreen available for this app (basically the same size as a laptop). That said, the interface never really felt cramped or difficult to navigate. However, it might not be as fun to use with the iPad mini.
The biggest changes in adapting Logic Pro to the iPad are the way you interact with plug-ins, play surfaces, and a redesigned browser. Adapted to screen size, the plugin window contains simplified versions of each plugin, which Apple calls “tiles.” There you can tweak basic settings such as Compressor, EQ and Reverb and tap the tile to open the full version of the plugin to tweak settings. In this kind of setup, it’s very useful to be able to quickly adjust things like the compressor threshold, view the parametric EQ, adjust the wet/dry mix of the pitch shifter, all while viewing the full screen of the editor. Efficient.
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Using multi-touch to play the neck of a bass, piano keys, or drum pads is a definite advantage and a lot of fun when it comes to creating music virtually with an iPad. . I made a funky beat. I was at the airport waiting for my flight, tinkering with the tools while I was mixing on board, and a few hours later landed with something I seriously considered using on a professional project.
Finding Instruments, Samples, and Audio Loops in Logic Pro for iPad is slightly different from how it’s laid out on Mac, where Instruments, Loops, Samples, Presets, and Patterns are all in one place. . At first it was a bit confusing to figure out which types of sounds support which types of tracks, but overall it’s a great place to navigate if you want a particular type of instrument, genre or sample. has become much easier. Overall, I wasn’t too frustrated because the browser allowed me to search for the right type of kick drum I wanted to add to my drum pads, as well as preview synths that worked best for my project. If you want to add your own samples or audio files, you can drag them from the Files app into your project.
Apple has also added more samples and tools to this new version, including some really fun experimental tools for manipulating sounds like Sample Alchemy and Beat Breaker. You could probably spend hours just playing with Beat Breaker on your tracks, chopping up drum beats and samples to create wild new sounds.
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Surprisingly, Logic Pro didn’t feel the need for a keyboard and mostly used the Magic Keyboard to prop up the iPad. Of course, there are still things you’ll want to do with your keyboard, like press spacebar to play, switch between mixer, editor and plug-in windows, and search in browser windows, but like many DAWs, Logic Pro’s interface is modeled after an analog mixer, so it makes more sense to adjust knobs and faders with your fingers. (I’ve never met an engineer who likes using a mouse to adjust potentiometer knobs.)
If you prefer to use both a touchscreen and a keyboard and mouse, Logic Pro for iPad still recognizes some, but not all, of the Mac version’s keyboard shortcuts. This app benefits greatly from using multi-touch. A reflexive shortcut I’ve instilled in my mind is to press Command+S to save, but this doesn’t seem to do anything on the iPad. (The project autosaves, but renaming or saving as had to be done in the file browser.)
Eventually, I came to prefer the precision of my Apple Pencil to my finger for fine-tuning MIDI note placement and clip trimming. However, like his other Pencil-centric apps, it was a bit of a pain to go back to using multi-touch to zoom in and out on the timeline while holding the Pencil in hand. The most useful Pencil feature is for drawing automation curves directly on the screen rather than the slightly frustrating desktop method of clicking and dragging small dots on clips with your mouse.
Also, when you connect your iPad to your monitor, you can draw auto curves or play virtual instruments while looking at your DAW on the big screen, just like using a Wacom tablet, it’s a very nice experience. It turns out that
When it comes to compatibility with the Mac version, the biggest thing the iPad version can’t do is load a ton of 3rd party plug-ins used by many desktop DAWs. The iPad version supports a range of Audio Unit plug-ins available on the App Store, but if you use VST plug-ins or plug-ins not found on the App Store (such as the popular Waves option) they are not supported. I don’t. A project on your iPad. These plugins are lost. Your best bet is to bounce these effects to a new audio track and save them before transferring to your iPad. The iPad app also has some other power user features like viewing MIDI data, adding project notes, and more customizable export settings. This didn’t have a huge impact on my workflow, especially when carrying projects over to the desktop, but it could be a problem for some people.
Another hurdle was that the library audio samples were not available on the desktop when the iPad project was transferred to the Mac. So if you’re going back and forth between devices on a single project, you have to think about what’s compatible with which versions. According to Apple, Logic Pro for Mac will get a compatibility update today to work with the iPad, including the ability to open tracks in non-editable versions of Beat Breaker and Sample Alchemy, although these No word on when the full version of the plugin will be released. ins will also appear in the Mac version. However, if sounds downloaded in the iPad version were not downloaded to your Mac, Logic Pro automatically downloads them when you open your project on your Mac. And vice versa. And of course, if you actually have a Mac and can use pro-level plugins, all this is great. Logic Pro is only available on Apple products. Exporting allows you to AirDrop the file to another device or other app in the Share Sheet.
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What excites me the most about using Logic Pro for iPad is that you now have a professional, reliable multitrack digital audio workstation on your iPad and can easily transfer your projects to your Mac. I was able to connect several external audio interfaces to the iPad Pro and Logic Pro immediately recognized them in the audio input/output settings. From there, it really started to feel like a professional audio workstation.
In fact, the ideal way to mix with Logic Pro for iPad is through an external audio interface. Few iPads have a headphone jack anymore (Logic Pro is supported on iPads with the A12 chip or newer, including the 9th generation iPad, which is the only option with a 3.5 mm jack. increase). You need some kind of adapter to listen with headphones. Of course, you could try using Bluetooth headphones, but Bluetooth’s latency and sync issues make it less than ideal for music production. Apple warns that “you may experience delays when playing Touch Instruments or playing songs” within the app when pairing wireless headphones. When I paired the Bose QC35 to my iPad and tried to mix, it was out of control.
Apple offers Logic Pro for iPad for $4.99/month or $49 with an annual subscription (1 month free). By comparison, a Mac perpetual license costs $199. There’s resistance to subscription-based production software, but $5 a month is very affordable for such a powerful tool, and you can unsubscribe when you’re not using it. You’ll be paying for Logic Pro on your iPad Mini intermittently when you’re traveling, doing multi-track recording, or creating fun tracks.
$5 a month is a very low hurdle for anyone wanting to start making music, so I’ll be focusing on the first album made entirely with this app. Logic Pro for the Mac has been used by artists and producers for years and is the DAW of choice for artists like Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Deploying this software (along with Final Cut Pro) on the iPad clearly demonstrates the strength and flexibility of the iPad more than any other software I’ve seen.
