11 ms·

Ableton Note – A playable iOS app for forming musical ideas

173 points by alphadelphi 4y ago

ivanvanderbyl 4y ago
This looks so promising, but there's no volume control and it seems to bypass the system volume. I didn't even know that was possible.
- dumpsterdiver 4y ago
  I just purchased it and system volume control works fine.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  > there's no volume control Took me a minute to find it, but it's there. On the set screen, there's a levels icon at the bottom that lets you control channel volume.
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gernb 4y ago
There's a ton of music apps on iOS including Garageband that comes with it. https://www.reasonstudios.com/mobile-apps https://www.reasonstudios.com/mobile-apps https://ampifymusic.com/groovebox/ https://ampifymusic.com/groovebox/ https://www.bandlab.com/ https://www.bandlab.com/ I'm too lazy to look up more but I feel I've seen more than 20. Anything special about one over another?
- tomashubelbauer 4y ago
  I'm also aware of https://www.flipsampler.com https://www.flipsampler.com by the YouTuber and electronic music producer Andrew Huang. I've had good feedback on this app from my musically talented friends. I can't provide any judgement in this area myself as while I am an ardent music fan and a keen observer of music production mastery of others, I have not been blessed with the necessary skills or propensity for developing them myself, unfortunately.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    I used several iOS apps, and flipsampler is one of the best ones I've tried, quite intuitive. I didn't expect it, as many times such apps from vloggers and celebrity musicians are just BS endorsement deals for mediocre cookie-cutter stuff. >while I am an ardent music fan and a keen observer of music production mastery of others, I have not been blessed with the necessary skills or propensity for developing them myself, unfortunately. If you want to give it a try, Ableton themselves offer a nice tutorial: https://learningmusic.ableton.com/?pk_vid=7fc48d891c93e8661666174760772dc2 https://learningmusic.ableton.com/?pk_vid=7fc48d891c93e86616...
    - singingfish 4y ago
      Andrew Huang is really interesting. He does a good line in bubble gum pop type stuff as well as radically experimental synth stuff.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  For me, the most inspiring music app on iOS is Endlesss (http://endlesss.fm http://endlesss.fm) because it allows me to share ideas with my fellow music-makers seamlessly .. hours and hours of jams have gone on and on because of the easy to use interface and very well integrated sharing of clips between users ..
- coldtea 4y ago
  Many things special about one over another, as most have different features and strong/weak points. One particularly special about this one is easy integration with Ableton Live, the DAW of choice for many/most electronic music producers - automatic sync, access to a sutset of the sound library, same (but stripped-down) workflow, and compatible project files (from Note to desktop Live).
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Koala is a fun one for making sample based beats, it is inspired by the Roland SP404 which is a legendary sampler used by e.g. J Dilla. Drambo is my personal favourite, an incredibly powerful semi-modular groovebox somewhat inspired by Elektron’s sequencer, but with infinite possibilities for sound design (especially when combined with AUv3 plugins) and a great UI. Not as beginner friendly though.
- wishfish 4y ago
  My personal favorite is Auxy. Has a subscription, but there's a ton of free instruments included so the subscription isn't mandatory. Very easy interface but can create complicated compositions. Can export to Ableton, MIDI, WAV and others. It's easily my most used app outside of Safari. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/auxy-studio/id1034348186 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/auxy-studio/id1034348186 I think the basic interface of Auxy would pass the grandparent test. Some of the knobs might be a little confusing. But selecting an instrument and plotting out the loops is dead easy.
- jkellermann 4y ago
  Ah, bandlab is very nice. Thx für the suggestion!
- marci 4y ago
  For a more Lo-fi experience, theres's the excellent https://nanoloop.com/ https://nanoloop.com/ Works on: - iOS - Android - Game Boy - Game Boy Advance
- josters 4y ago
  Lots of really good suggestions here. To add to this, I recently discovered https://www.songen.app https://www.songen.app. I think you have to pay for the export functionality, but just playing around with the parameters and genres gives a nice starting point whenever I feel stuck.
aa-jv 4y ago
Seems like a cheap ripoff of Endlesss, which is far more mature and allows very easy live jamming without fuss: http://endlesss.fm/ http://endlesss.fm/
- gnrlst 4y ago
  Looks interesting. Also I noticed they have a "connect wallet" button for NEAR. How are they using that?
  - aa-jv 4y ago
    I don't know, I've never used any of the wallet stuff in Endlesss .. for me its just a great way to work on song ideas with my friends while we're all out and about in the world and not sharing a studio session together.
- least 4y ago
  > Seems like a cheap ripoff of Endlesss, which is far more mature and allows very easy live jamming without fuss: The live jamming thing seems cool, though it's been done before. The NFT and "web 3" nonsense turns me off of it instantly, though. Ableton Note is more like a notepad for music making that you can easily export to Ableton Live to build out the track, much like how GarageBand for iOS serves as a notepad for Logic Pro X users.
  - aa-jv 4y ago
    Endlesss allows you to do the same - build out sketches and transfer them to your DAW of choice for later production. Didn't notice the NFT and Web3 stuff, but I've been an Endlesss user since the beginning and only skip straight to the "Jam" page in the app, ignoring everything else ..
- hxr-news-act-1 4y ago
  For me, it feels a bit disingenuous to call this a cheap knockoff of a specific 2yo app, when clip-launch music apps have been on phones for over a decade. The Endlesss UI, while quite refined, isn't exceptionally divergent from prior art... It's like calling Nova a cheap knockoff of VS Code. And given that Live has played a large role in popularizing the clip-launch style of music production for more than 2 decades, this kind of app feels like a very natural extension of what they want to do. This did get me kinda going down a rabbit hole though to remember the ui of old ios music-making apps, though... This timeline was kind of a fun memory lane: https://www.jakobhaq.com/log/2021/10/23/sources-evolution-of-ios-music-making-2007-2021 https://www.jakobhaq.com/log/2021/10/23/sources-evolution-of...
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_def 4y ago
I think the selling point of this app is that this is the only way you can start an idea on the go and then easily bring that into Ableton Live. Don't know if it works the other way around too but I'd be surprised. But it's interesting to see Ableton dipping their toe in mobile water.
- least 4y ago
  I don't think it'll work the other way around, much like the GarageBand for iOS to Logic Pro X conversion is only one way. It'd really only work in cases where you're only working with audio and not software instruments.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Wouldn't be impossible as long as the same soft synths are available on both devices, which in this case, they seem to be. Case in point: Maschine+ and the desktop software has a similar approach where you can create songs on Maschine+ and later transfer it to the desktop application. If you just tune some things without adding soft synths/effects/VSTs not available on the standalone device, you can also transfer them back to the Maschine+ to continue edit it there.
    - least 4y ago
      Maschine is different because it is for all intents and purposes the same application. This does not have the same capabilities. Live just added support for AUv3 but generally third party Audio Units are not cross compatible and Note doesn’t even support those (yet?). It does seem like Note could serve as a framework for porting Live to iPadOS with its touch oriented interface, but I do not think you could send it back and forth between the two without issue. Ableton doesn’t even let you load files saved for beta versions into regular Live, even if you’ve done nothing to the file.
can16358p 4y ago
Just tried it. As someone who has never used Live, I didn't understand anything (I know Logic though, and I'm generally good with figuring how apps work as a dev myself) even after the tour. I believe the onboarding should be interactive and telling the user how things work instead of just putting a sample video which doesn't teach much. That said, from what I see from the results it can be a great tool... if one can figure how things work.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Judging by the landing page, this app is not meant to be a standalone tool in your music production but a companion tool to Ableton on the computer. You sketch your idea in the mobile app and eventually transfer it off to the computer to finish the track in Ableton. With that in mind, most of the screens seems to be self-explanatory, at least for someone who dabbled around in Ableton.
  - milesward 4y ago
    This is wild, because I think of Ableton desktop as a song prototyping environment…
    - sleepybrett 4y ago
      ...but hard to use on the bus or in line at the bank.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      Well, for many other producers, it's both were songs start and end. They might send them elsewhere for mastering, but not for production work. Anything without analogue instruments doesn't need much to be found elsewhere (I'd argue also anything with analogue instruments doesn't either, but many prefer to track vocals, drums, guitars, etc. on Pro Tools or similar) Mostly, though depends on the genre, and the kind of artist. Artists working mostly with analogue instruments, or that have huge sales and production teams, will tend to use other apps, mostly Pro Tools, and use Live as a starting point/sketchpad. Producers and composers of pop and electronic music, that are not on the paycheck level of, say, top-charting artists, even if they still have tons of fans and a good career, do tend to do everything "in the box". It's perfectly capable. Heck, even FL Studio has created tons of "in the box" global hits...
chaosprint 4y ago
I don't what's the motivation for making it iOS only. It makes more sense to choose web platform like another of their products learnsynth (https://learningsynths.ableton.com/ https://learningsynths.ableton.com/).
- alexdbird 4y ago
  Super low latency makes native iOS apps popular for music.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Kinda mitigated when your best option for headphones is Bluetooth, though.
- least 4y ago
  iOS has a significantly better audio stack than Android that works consistently between iPhones/iPads and Apple actually supports music production as a use case. Android has had issues with its audio stack forever. One significant issue that's plagued it has been its audio latency, which is pretty important when it comes to building music apps. It's become less of an issue now but it's a massive crapshoot. Maybe they could target the web, but it's pretty clear that iOS is a superior platform to the web for music production apps as well.
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    Was going to say the same, a couple of years back I led a team shipping an audio app on iOS and Android (pretty simple in terms of audio demands) and Android was a nightmare. Different devices vary so much in terms of audio performance due to drivers, bugs and performance optimisations (e.g. Samsungs would ramp down the CPU to minimum frequency if you weren’t actively touching the screen) so testing is a huge undertaking if you want to cover a wide range of devices. Latency was a big problem, and the Android audio stack itself had plenty of issues. The situation did seem to be improving last time I looked though. Then on top that you’d have the complexity of shipping a cross-platform app and either building large parts of it twice or using something like Flutter or React Native. It must be annoying for Android users but the reality is that shipping an audio app for Android is (or was a couple of years ago at least) a huge challenge and probably much harder to make a compelling business case for. WebAudio has similar issues in terms of wildly varying performance across devices (it used to be pretty poor on iOS for example, though I think this has improved) and relative to native, you’re pretty limited in terms of processing power. Again this is improving all the time, but I’d guess Note has a cut down version of Ableton’s synth engines and effects running rather than remaking them for the app, and running something of this complexity with WebAudio is likely to be very challenging if not impossible, especially on mobile.
mandmandam 4y ago
I'm loving this. No one has pointed out how cool it is that you get random instruments at the start. It's a looot of fun to be able to 'doodle' songs based on a cool thing you made inspired by a drum sound, or a hot synth line. The equivalent would be having a magic art supplies drawer that gives you a few coloured crayons, or watercolours, or charcoal etc at random, paired with different types of paper and scales. And if you don't like your random set, you can make another in 3 seconds. The 'quick start' aspect with the touch of randomness is just so cool. I don't know how many times I've opened Ableton, then gotten bored before I could pair an instrument with a drum track and a bass. This leapfrogs that pain point beautifully. I also really like how intuitive it is for an Ableton user. To be fair the learning curve for Ableton was pretty steep - but so, so worth it. One area that I think needs improvement: there are many finicky little problems about setting and correcting the length of your loops. For example, I love that it auto-guesses your tempo and loop length, but it can be very wrong sometimes and I'd like to be able to change it without going into Ableton Proper. I hope they can solve that. I'm also struggling to figure out how to lengthen notes once they're put down - maybe it's not possible? This results in some rough edges, but nothing not very easily fixed in desktop Ableton. Overall, this is really fun. I made about 15 little song seeds yesterday, and it was enjoyable.
- least 4y ago
  That's definitely a good point. Restricting options and randomization can be great tools for creativity. I also like Splice's "CoSo" app for the same reason. It isn't a great app for making full songs but it's phenomenal for helping getting my creativity flowing.
jkellermann 4y ago
hmmmhmm, nice... is there something similar for Android devices?
- chaosprint 4y ago
  https://glicol.org/ https://glicol.org/ Not similar but for music making as well.
  - jkellermann 4y ago
    Wicked! Thx!
ngcazz 4y ago
Love it, but the latency with a Bluetooth headset is a sore point. Probably an inevitability of iOS...
- reinder 4y ago
  Latency is inherent in Bluetooth, for music production you're pretty much tied to wired headphones (or expensive live setups). AFAIK, AIAIAI makes wireless headphones for music production, which has its own dongle and doesn't make use of BT.
- samkon 4y ago
  I can’t believe it doesn’t support manual midi entry (as far as I can tell), seems like a huge miss. This is a well understood limitation for apps in this space (see Auxy), and people increasingly have only wireless headphones.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    well, those people will have to put up with Bluetooth latency, or use wired headphones on the Lighting jack. That's not up to the app (or even iOS itself). It's not meant for the general public that just wants to have bluetooth headphones. Musicians working with DAWs and music apps, mobile or not, will have wired headphones too.
    - samkon 4y ago
      I am such a musician, and have been looking for years for an app I can use on the go to capture a spontaneous idea on the go and then pick it up later at my home DAW. The ability to manually enter musical notation is a essential here, because it allows me to use an app even if I don’t have my wired headphones (and when I’m out and about living my life, I don’t carry wired headphones). The closest I’ve found is Auxy, but it can’t do a truly native import to Ableton. This app misses so badly because, by design, it makes such manual entry impossible. It actually hides the musical grid, and tries to focus on snippets of musical performance that are automatically (and invisibly) tempo analyzed and locked. This means that with wireless headphones the app is actually complete useless, instead of merely impaired. Unless I’m missing something?
aecorredor 4y ago
The app also works great on iPad btw. I think ableton missed advertising for it since there’s now iOS and iPadOS.
liquidify 4y ago
All I want is a remote transport with the ability to place my start markers. The ability to create tracks, arm them and assign inputs would be secondary but awesome. I need to be able to sit at my drums and control basic recording / playback features in ableton.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  You can already use your phone as a virtual transport with several different apps, but I do agree: one would expect this kind of feature from a companion app.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    it's not a mobile Live controller app - that's where you'd expect to see a virtual transport. it's a mobile Live sketchpad app.
hit8run 4y ago
I love Ableton. They simply offer the best workflow. I use it for more than 10 years and I can reproduce almost every sound I hear in a song and quickly compose anything that comes to my mind. I also bought Logic but it just didn't click for me.
koinedad 4y ago
Looks really cool and packed with features
mkr-hn 4y ago
I had hoped to use it to draft ideas on the go, but I don't play an instrument, so I lack the timing practice to use it the way it's made to be used (live). I really need the note editor and sequencer from the big desktop program to be productive in it. However, it's fun to poke around in, and I'm sure they'll add missing features over time.
- reinder 4y ago
  A nice work around is using the note repeat feature, and then moving those notes around.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
What's the easiest to "play" with Ableton, but with software only?
- tkk23 4y ago
  https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ https://learningmusic.ableton.com/
an_aparallel 4y ago
FL Studio Mobile has been around for 11 years at this point. Specifically as a launchpad for ideas which are then finished in FL Studio. Not the best place for this...but i just cant help but sigh at the near shunning of FL as a major DAW player by the industry by and large. the amount of third party VST houses which list support for all major DAWs and consistently leave out FL is just laughable at this point. How can one of the most forward thinking DAWs with some of the most industry leading features, abd year on year reported most popular DAW by marketshare continue to be ignored in this way? I understand a common excuse is "FL Studio is highly pirated". So what? Adobe and scores of other software is...
MrTrvp 4y ago
If only FL Studio Mobile exported as a Ableton desktop project file..

173 points by alphadelphi 4y ago

This looks so promising, but there's no volume control and it seems to bypass the system volume. I didn't even know that was possible.

dumpsterdiver 4y ago
I just purchased it and system volume control works fine.
mandmandam 4y ago
> there's no volume control Took me a minute to find it, but it's there. On the set screen, there's a levels icon at the bottom that lets you control channel volume.

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gernb 4y ago

There's a ton of music apps on iOS including Garageband that comes with it. https://www.reasonstudios.com/mobile-apps https://www.reasonstudios.com/mobile-apps https://ampifymusic.com/groovebox/ https://ampifymusic.com/groovebox/ https://www.bandlab.com/ https://www.bandlab.com/ I'm too lazy to look up more but I feel I've seen more than 20. Anything special about one over another?

tomashubelbauer 4y ago
I'm also aware of https://www.flipsampler.com https://www.flipsampler.com by the YouTuber and electronic music producer Andrew Huang. I've had good feedback on this app from my musically talented friends. I can't provide any judgement in this area myself as while I am an ardent music fan and a keen observer of music production mastery of others, I have not been blessed with the necessary skills or propensity for developing them myself, unfortunately.
- coldtea 4y ago
  I used several iOS apps, and flipsampler is one of the best ones I've tried, quite intuitive. I didn't expect it, as many times such apps from vloggers and celebrity musicians are just BS endorsement deals for mediocre cookie-cutter stuff. >while I am an ardent music fan and a keen observer of music production mastery of others, I have not been blessed with the necessary skills or propensity for developing them myself, unfortunately. If you want to give it a try, Ableton themselves offer a nice tutorial: https://learningmusic.ableton.com/?pk_vid=7fc48d891c93e8661666174760772dc2 https://learningmusic.ableton.com/?pk_vid=7fc48d891c93e86616...
  - singingfish 4y ago
    Andrew Huang is really interesting. He does a good line in bubble gum pop type stuff as well as radically experimental synth stuff.
aa-jv 4y ago
For me, the most inspiring music app on iOS is Endlesss (http://endlesss.fm http://endlesss.fm) because it allows me to share ideas with my fellow music-makers seamlessly .. hours and hours of jams have gone on and on because of the easy to use interface and very well integrated sharing of clips between users ..
coldtea 4y ago
Many things special about one over another, as most have different features and strong/weak points. One particularly special about this one is easy integration with Ableton Live, the DAW of choice for many/most electronic music producers - automatic sync, access to a sutset of the sound library, same (but stripped-down) workflow, and compatible project files (from Note to desktop Live).
tomduncalf 4y ago
Koala is a fun one for making sample based beats, it is inspired by the Roland SP404 which is a legendary sampler used by e.g. J Dilla. Drambo is my personal favourite, an incredibly powerful semi-modular groovebox somewhat inspired by Elektron’s sequencer, but with infinite possibilities for sound design (especially when combined with AUv3 plugins) and a great UI. Not as beginner friendly though.
wishfish 4y ago
My personal favorite is Auxy. Has a subscription, but there's a ton of free instruments included so the subscription isn't mandatory. Very easy interface but can create complicated compositions. Can export to Ableton, MIDI, WAV and others. It's easily my most used app outside of Safari. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/auxy-studio/id1034348186 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/auxy-studio/id1034348186 I think the basic interface of Auxy would pass the grandparent test. Some of the knobs might be a little confusing. But selecting an instrument and plotting out the loops is dead easy.
jkellermann 4y ago
Ah, bandlab is very nice. Thx für the suggestion!
marci 4y ago
For a more Lo-fi experience, theres's the excellent https://nanoloop.com/ https://nanoloop.com/ Works on: - iOS - Android - Game Boy - Game Boy Advance
josters 4y ago
Lots of really good suggestions here. To add to this, I recently discovered https://www.songen.app https://www.songen.app. I think you have to pay for the export functionality, but just playing around with the parameters and genres gives a nice starting point whenever I feel stuck.

aa-jv 4y ago

Seems like a cheap ripoff of Endlesss, which is far more mature and allows very easy live jamming without fuss: http://endlesss.fm/ http://endlesss.fm/

gnrlst 4y ago
Looks interesting. Also I noticed they have a "connect wallet" button for NEAR. How are they using that?
- aa-jv 4y ago
  I don't know, I've never used any of the wallet stuff in Endlesss .. for me its just a great way to work on song ideas with my friends while we're all out and about in the world and not sharing a studio session together.
least 4y ago
> Seems like a cheap ripoff of Endlesss, which is far more mature and allows very easy live jamming without fuss: The live jamming thing seems cool, though it's been done before. The NFT and "web 3" nonsense turns me off of it instantly, though. Ableton Note is more like a notepad for music making that you can easily export to Ableton Live to build out the track, much like how GarageBand for iOS serves as a notepad for Logic Pro X users.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  Endlesss allows you to do the same - build out sketches and transfer them to your DAW of choice for later production. Didn't notice the NFT and Web3 stuff, but I've been an Endlesss user since the beginning and only skip straight to the "Jam" page in the app, ignoring everything else ..
hxr-news-act-1 4y ago
For me, it feels a bit disingenuous to call this a cheap knockoff of a specific 2yo app, when clip-launch music apps have been on phones for over a decade. The Endlesss UI, while quite refined, isn't exceptionally divergent from prior art... It's like calling Nova a cheap knockoff of VS Code. And given that Live has played a large role in popularizing the clip-launch style of music production for more than 2 decades, this kind of app feels like a very natural extension of what they want to do. This did get me kinda going down a rabbit hole though to remember the ui of old ios music-making apps, though... This timeline was kind of a fun memory lane: https://www.jakobhaq.com/log/2021/10/23/sources-evolution-of-ios-music-making-2007-2021 https://www.jakobhaq.com/log/2021/10/23/sources-evolution-of...

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_def 4y ago

I think the selling point of this app is that this is the only way you can start an idea on the go and then easily bring that into Ableton Live. Don't know if it works the other way around too but I'd be surprised. But it's interesting to see Ableton dipping their toe in mobile water.

least 4y ago
I don't think it'll work the other way around, much like the GarageBand for iOS to Logic Pro X conversion is only one way. It'd really only work in cases where you're only working with audio and not software instruments.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Wouldn't be impossible as long as the same soft synths are available on both devices, which in this case, they seem to be. Case in point: Maschine+ and the desktop software has a similar approach where you can create songs on Maschine+ and later transfer it to the desktop application. If you just tune some things without adding soft synths/effects/VSTs not available on the standalone device, you can also transfer them back to the Maschine+ to continue edit it there.
  - least 4y ago
    Maschine is different because it is for all intents and purposes the same application. This does not have the same capabilities. Live just added support for AUv3 but generally third party Audio Units are not cross compatible and Note doesn’t even support those (yet?). It does seem like Note could serve as a framework for porting Live to iPadOS with its touch oriented interface, but I do not think you could send it back and forth between the two without issue. Ableton doesn’t even let you load files saved for beta versions into regular Live, even if you’ve done nothing to the file.

can16358p 4y ago

Just tried it. As someone who has never used Live, I didn't understand anything (I know Logic though, and I'm generally good with figuring how apps work as a dev myself) even after the tour. I believe the onboarding should be interactive and telling the user how things work instead of just putting a sample video which doesn't teach much. That said, from what I see from the results it can be a great tool... if one can figure how things work.

capableweb 4y ago
Judging by the landing page, this app is not meant to be a standalone tool in your music production but a companion tool to Ableton on the computer. You sketch your idea in the mobile app and eventually transfer it off to the computer to finish the track in Ableton. With that in mind, most of the screens seems to be self-explanatory, at least for someone who dabbled around in Ableton.
- milesward 4y ago
  This is wild, because I think of Ableton desktop as a song prototyping environment…
  - sleepybrett 4y ago
    ...but hard to use on the bus or in line at the bank.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    Well, for many other producers, it's both were songs start and end. They might send them elsewhere for mastering, but not for production work. Anything without analogue instruments doesn't need much to be found elsewhere (I'd argue also anything with analogue instruments doesn't either, but many prefer to track vocals, drums, guitars, etc. on Pro Tools or similar) Mostly, though depends on the genre, and the kind of artist. Artists working mostly with analogue instruments, or that have huge sales and production teams, will tend to use other apps, mostly Pro Tools, and use Live as a starting point/sketchpad. Producers and composers of pop and electronic music, that are not on the paycheck level of, say, top-charting artists, even if they still have tons of fans and a good career, do tend to do everything "in the box". It's perfectly capable. Heck, even FL Studio has created tons of "in the box" global hits...

chaosprint 4y ago

I don't what's the motivation for making it iOS only. It makes more sense to choose web platform like another of their products learnsynth (https://learningsynths.ableton.com/ https://learningsynths.ableton.com/).

alexdbird 4y ago
Super low latency makes native iOS apps popular for music.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Kinda mitigated when your best option for headphones is Bluetooth, though.
least 4y ago
iOS has a significantly better audio stack than Android that works consistently between iPhones/iPads and Apple actually supports music production as a use case. Android has had issues with its audio stack forever. One significant issue that's plagued it has been its audio latency, which is pretty important when it comes to building music apps. It's become less of an issue now but it's a massive crapshoot. Maybe they could target the web, but it's pretty clear that iOS is a superior platform to the web for music production apps as well.
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Was going to say the same, a couple of years back I led a team shipping an audio app on iOS and Android (pretty simple in terms of audio demands) and Android was a nightmare. Different devices vary so much in terms of audio performance due to drivers, bugs and performance optimisations (e.g. Samsungs would ramp down the CPU to minimum frequency if you weren’t actively touching the screen) so testing is a huge undertaking if you want to cover a wide range of devices. Latency was a big problem, and the Android audio stack itself had plenty of issues. The situation did seem to be improving last time I looked though. Then on top that you’d have the complexity of shipping a cross-platform app and either building large parts of it twice or using something like Flutter or React Native. It must be annoying for Android users but the reality is that shipping an audio app for Android is (or was a couple of years ago at least) a huge challenge and probably much harder to make a compelling business case for. WebAudio has similar issues in terms of wildly varying performance across devices (it used to be pretty poor on iOS for example, though I think this has improved) and relative to native, you’re pretty limited in terms of processing power. Again this is improving all the time, but I’d guess Note has a cut down version of Ableton’s synth engines and effects running rather than remaking them for the app, and running something of this complexity with WebAudio is likely to be very challenging if not impossible, especially on mobile.

mandmandam 4y ago

I'm loving this. No one has pointed out how cool it is that you get random instruments at the start. It's a looot of fun to be able to 'doodle' songs based on a cool thing you made inspired by a drum sound, or a hot synth line. The equivalent would be having a magic art supplies drawer that gives you a few coloured crayons, or watercolours, or charcoal etc at random, paired with different types of paper and scales. And if you don't like your random set, you can make another in 3 seconds. The 'quick start' aspect with the touch of randomness is just so cool. I don't know how many times I've opened Ableton, then gotten bored before I could pair an instrument with a drum track and a bass. This leapfrogs that pain point beautifully. I also really like how intuitive it is for an Ableton user. To be fair the learning curve for Ableton was pretty steep - but so, so worth it. One area that I think needs improvement: there are many finicky little problems about setting and correcting the length of your loops. For example, I love that it auto-guesses your tempo and loop length, but it can be very wrong sometimes and I'd like to be able to change it without going into Ableton Proper. I hope they can solve that. I'm also struggling to figure out how to lengthen notes once they're put down - maybe it's not possible? This results in some rough edges, but nothing not very easily fixed in desktop Ableton. Overall, this is really fun. I made about 15 little song seeds yesterday, and it was enjoyable.

least 4y ago
That's definitely a good point. Restricting options and randomization can be great tools for creativity. I also like Splice's "CoSo" app for the same reason. It isn't a great app for making full songs but it's phenomenal for helping getting my creativity flowing.

jkellermann 4y ago

hmmmhmm, nice... is there something similar for Android devices?

chaosprint 4y ago
https://glicol.org/ https://glicol.org/ Not similar but for music making as well.
- jkellermann 4y ago
  Wicked! Thx!

ngcazz 4y ago

Love it, but the latency with a Bluetooth headset is a sore point. Probably an inevitability of iOS...

reinder 4y ago
Latency is inherent in Bluetooth, for music production you're pretty much tied to wired headphones (or expensive live setups). AFAIK, AIAIAI makes wireless headphones for music production, which has its own dongle and doesn't make use of BT.
samkon 4y ago
I can’t believe it doesn’t support manual midi entry (as far as I can tell), seems like a huge miss. This is a well understood limitation for apps in this space (see Auxy), and people increasingly have only wireless headphones.
- coldtea 4y ago
  well, those people will have to put up with Bluetooth latency, or use wired headphones on the Lighting jack. That's not up to the app (or even iOS itself). It's not meant for the general public that just wants to have bluetooth headphones. Musicians working with DAWs and music apps, mobile or not, will have wired headphones too.
  - samkon 4y ago
    I am such a musician, and have been looking for years for an app I can use on the go to capture a spontaneous idea on the go and then pick it up later at my home DAW. The ability to manually enter musical notation is a essential here, because it allows me to use an app even if I don’t have my wired headphones (and when I’m out and about living my life, I don’t carry wired headphones). The closest I’ve found is Auxy, but it can’t do a truly native import to Ableton. This app misses so badly because, by design, it makes such manual entry impossible. It actually hides the musical grid, and tries to focus on snippets of musical performance that are automatically (and invisibly) tempo analyzed and locked. This means that with wireless headphones the app is actually complete useless, instead of merely impaired. Unless I’m missing something?

aecorredor 4y ago

The app also works great on iPad btw. I think ableton missed advertising for it since there’s now iOS and iPadOS.

liquidify 4y ago

All I want is a remote transport with the ability to place my start markers. The ability to create tracks, arm them and assign inputs would be secondary but awesome. I need to be able to sit at my drums and control basic recording / playback features in ableton.

eurasiantiger 4y ago
You can already use your phone as a virtual transport with several different apps, but I do agree: one would expect this kind of feature from a companion app.
- coldtea 4y ago
  it's not a mobile Live controller app - that's where you'd expect to see a virtual transport. it's a mobile Live sketchpad app.

hit8run 4y ago

I love Ableton. They simply offer the best workflow. I use it for more than 10 years and I can reproduce almost every sound I hear in a song and quickly compose anything that comes to my mind. I also bought Logic but it just didn't click for me.

koinedad 4y ago

Looks really cool and packed with features

mkr-hn 4y ago

I had hoped to use it to draft ideas on the go, but I don't play an instrument, so I lack the timing practice to use it the way it's made to be used (live). I really need the note editor and sequencer from the big desktop program to be productive in it. However, it's fun to poke around in, and I'm sure they'll add missing features over time.

reinder 4y ago
A nice work around is using the note repeat feature, and then moving those notes around.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

What's the easiest to "play" with Ableton, but with software only?

tkk23 4y ago
https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ https://learningmusic.ableton.com/

an_aparallel 4y ago

FL Studio Mobile has been around for 11 years at this point. Specifically as a launchpad for ideas which are then finished in FL Studio. Not the best place for this...but i just cant help but sigh at the near shunning of FL as a major DAW player by the industry by and large. the amount of third party VST houses which list support for all major DAWs and consistently leave out FL is just laughable at this point. How can one of the most forward thinking DAWs with some of the most industry leading features, abd year on year reported most popular DAW by marketshare continue to be ignored in this way? I understand a common excuse is "FL Studio is highly pirated". So what? Adobe and scores of other software is...

MrTrvp 4y ago

If only FL Studio Mobile exported as a Ableton desktop project file..