For pros and power users who nerd out about things like MIDI mapping, sequencing, and automation, Loopy Pro is a wonderland of customization and inspiration that will serve as the central control hub of your studio after a bit of careful tinkering.

Click the pencil icon at the bottom of the page to view the array of widgets that can join (or replace) your donuts in the session view, which can be divided into a near-infinite number of pages that are accessible via tabs or custom mappings. One-shot loops are great for percussive sounds, while the clip slicer can point to an existing loop and automatically map each of its buttons to a specific “slice” of the loop, allowing easy glitched-out goodness that fans of IDM heroes like Aphex Twin and Autechre will immediately love.

An X-Y pad mimics the functionality of a Korg Kaoss Pad, with each axis being freely assignable to any combination of knobs, buttons, or faders within the session, as well as external MIDI devices that are connected via the 5-pin MIDI ins and outs of your interface, or MIDI over Bluetooth (BLE) if you’re allergic to cables. The latter takes about a minute to set up, and Loopy Pro’s MIDI mapping mode uses a standard “learn” method that can be as simple or complicated as you’d like it to be. Map one incoming MIDI message to as many widgets as you’d like, or do the inverse to make a single button-press in the session view adjust an infinite number of parameters on your outboard gear on the fly.

Just Bring Sounds

Loopy Pro doesn’t come loaded with any sounds of its own, so you’ll need third-party plug-ins to supplement your audio recordings with things like drums, synths, and effects. The AUV3 format is the gold standard for plug-ins that work seamlessly within iOS DAWs, and the amount of high-quality options available for free or just a few dollars in the App Store is staggering.

To create a track, simply open the mixer section of LP, click the + icon in the lower right-hand corner, select “Add Audio Unit Input,” select your plug-in, and a new channel automatically populates with your selected plug-in as the audio source. A similar workflow is utilized for external audio sources from an interface, Bluetooth MIDI sources, and MIDI plug-ins, which are essential if you’re into sequencing or manipulating MIDI messages in weird and creative ways before they’re routed to internal or external devices.

The mixer uses color-coded groups in lieu of channels, which is the one facet of Loopy Pro that takes a bit of getting used to. Assigning different colors to things like drums, bass, vocals, and guitar helps keep things tidy, and the eye-catching contrast of the neon-color donuts and widgets against the black background makes LP easy to keep track of in any environment. Hardware inputs and color groups can be routed to the master bus or an infinite number of buses via discrete send knobs that are either pre- or post-fader, or other color groups that can resample separate audio sources that are merged into a single color group and loop.