Hello all!

There's been some discussion about using tablets etc. for music so this is an attempt to list tools and workflows that can help and add to your production experience.

I'll only list things that I actually use, and since my phones and tablets are all Apple it's going to be a bit biased, but hopefully Android users will feed back with their recommendations!

So I'll start with these:

* TouchOSC (iOS and Android)

This is the app to get for all. It let's you create touch surfaces (there's a editor thankfully) for anything you could think of. Though it says OSC it will work with MIDI using the included TouchOSC Bridge software.

So what do I use it with? I've setup my phone to be simple transport control (Play/Rec/Stop/Rewind etc) and an older tablet to be whatever I want it to be, I mostly use a template for faders to quickly set levels, and some synth controls (like TAL Bassline).

* Soundprism Pro (iOS)

This is a quirky one, but hear me out. It's a keyboard controller but it's based on the circle of fifths. It let's you play a lot of stuff with no hassle, your right hand controls the bass and the left hand lets you play chords in whatever keys you want. Every note in a scale can be modified so you're not stuck with basic major/minor tonalities, and since it's based on the circle you can easily do modulations and so on.

* Velocity KB (iOS)

Enter some proper black magick fuckery. It's a keyboard controller with several layouts (piano keyboard, guitar layout in 4ths etc.), but it is really responsive. How the fuck they could extract velocity on machines that don't have such sensing, but it does.

But the short of it that it's a MPE controller, and a really responsive one at that.

* iMaschine 2 (iOS)

Well, it's a sample based groovebox but it has a really quick way of doing things. Tap some pads to get a beat going and then arrange those using the scenes. It really is a solid notepad to get ideas down quickly.

The greatest thing is that you can export your projects, samples and all, and open it in Maschine directly, and it doesn't require you to have the expansions on your computer Maschine install.

Also it's a great experience on mobile phones as well, the UI is well defined.

* Animoog (iOS)

Animoog is a wavetable/vector synth hybrid. A sound consists of 8 wavetables that you can scan along, but it lets you define the paths how the sound should evolve and add modulations for that.

Soundwise it's a fairly digital fare but there's a Moog filter to tame it. Also it has features such as 4 track mode to create deep layered soundscapes and you can easily record and export things you come up with.

* Moog 15 Modular (iOS)

Well, what can you say about this? It's a modular synth for your tablet. It sounds fantastic and it's just so much fun to patch. The layout is as intuitive as you can get and it sounds really "full". I'd lie if I said that my bathroom breaks would be shorter after this.

It also works on a phone but the display on my 5S makes it hard to use. So I'd say this is one for bigger displays.

* Audiobus (iOS)

This is probably must as well. It makes zero noise on its own as it's a tool to create workflows and patching between audio/MIDI apps. Ok, say you want to use Animoog, but want to pass it to a looper? No problem, just create a chain that does it. So it's kind of glue that brings all of your apps together.



Also something else to consider: some of these use Wi-fi which can induce latency, this can be mostly dealt with using a second Wi-fi adapter and Ad Hoc mode.