Hi
pt3r,
I have an iPad Pro 11" model with the stylus and absolutely love it! The stylus works absolutely fantastic for writing and makes it really usable.
Since it has a USB-C port you can attach any USB or Thunderbolt drive to it. I use a 1TB Samsung T7 SSD and it works great even without a powered hub and is super fast.
One big drawback is that this model no longer has a headphone jack
However if I wanted to make music with connected MIDI keyboard etc. I would use a USB hub and connect a keyboard and my Zoom H6 and the H6 then acts as an audio interface and I connect my headphones to that.
Connecting the Zoom H6 is super cool - it gives you 6 channels of audio in to the iPad which you can then record or otherwise manipulate with the apps below.
Music and recording apps - these are must haves IMHO:
-
AUM - this is a digital mixing desk and so useful and immediate and fun. This together with the Zoom H6 provides even more functionality than the 101010 Bluebox IMHO
- Garage Band / Cubasis / Auria Pro - any of those is a good DAW, with Garage Band the least feature rich. I prefer Cubasis.
- Koala - this is a very intuitive and feature rich sampler
- Loopy (Pro / HD) - is one of the best loopers you can get
- Eventide Blackhole - awesome reverb
-
Audiodamage Effects are probably all worth having
-
Bram Bos: Kosmonaut and Perforator are also great FX
-
BLEASS effects - not too expensive and offer a quality range of FX
- Borderlands and Spacecraft - both are amazing granular effects/instruments
In terms of super deep instruments on the iPad I would recommend
DRAMBO which is a modular synthesizer/DAW/all-in-one music station. If I only had one of those apps, it would be this.
Too many synths and noisemakers to list, but to me the following stand out:
-
Nambu - super flexible FM synth by IceGear
-
Kaspar - this has 8 polyphonic synth layers for each patch by Yonac
I bought most apps either when they just came out and had an introduction price or I waited until they came on sale. Sign up to the relevant Facebook and Reddit groups (iPad Musicians, etc.) to be notified. Also
Appsliced can help.
One other thing: Video editing on the iPad - there are currently only two serious contenders: Lumafusion and Da Vinci Resolve. Lumafusion is the better option IMHO but it's $$$ whereas Da Vinci is free. The latter is great, but a cut down version when compared to the PC version.
All that said ... while I love the "idea" of making music with the iPad and the fact that I can just take it with me anywhere ... I've actually never made a single track with any of the many apps which I've acquired over the last 10 years.
However as a recording device to record my AE modular ... I could see myself doing that.
The stupid Apple lock down thing is a pain though. For instance I record video on my Android phone and there's no way to directly connect an Android phone to any Apple device to just get the files via a normal file transfer. That really sucks! I have to attach an external SSD to my phone to transfer the video on to that and then attach the SSD to my iPad to load the files for further processing. Some BS also with my Macbook ... it's so silly.
However if I wanted to make music with connected MIDI keyboard etc. I would use a USB hub and connect a keyboard and my Zoom H6 and the H6 then acts as an audio interface and I connect my headphones to that. 