My iOS Magic Audio Apps - Nov 2024

A pic is worth 1k words so here's what I love on iOS Nov 2024, made in Canva on an Android phone.  😁

Has been months since Ive touched iOS Audio, because of Suno AI 3.5, but today was Black Friday sale so I picked up new stuff - REAMP & ONESHOT by Klevgrand for my coming birthday.

Have to say that while I passionately enjoy making music on iOS, I dont think Ive ever made anything vaguely commercial. With SUNO AI, almost every song fits the formula! So that is one hook there.

Highlights from this pic (showing 56 apps/plugins!!), here's my fav AUV3 plugins:

FAV APPS

Drambo -- DAW of choice, has oscillator modulation & automation

AUM - incredible for generative / live performances 

Turnado - want unique noise fx?  An unstoppable monster

Grand Finale 2 ( / TD Barricade) - go to for mastering

FabFilter Q3 - Pro EQ that Im using to sweeten the mix

Koala - Wow, a complete audio solution to get crazy with samples

FAC Drums (& other FAC plugins) - great drum presets and DIY

Perforator - an effect I overuse always

Mela (2-5) - good lineup of preset synths, not sold on 5 yet

Dagger Synth - Beepstreet's synth, some phat sounds!

Audio Converter - tool to get that file format / bitrate you may need (mp4, wav, aac, FLAC, etc)

Audio Share - audio sharing tool, I find it awkward -- except when its useful

Want To Use More

Bleass Voices - Wow!  I want to use this!

Haaze 2 (Klevgrand) - this sounds wide & deep

New Purchases & Hopeful Greats

OneShot (Klevgrand drums) - analog drum samples

REAmp (Klevgrand) - amp modeling

Honorable Mention

Figure - the most fun way to rock out on iPad

Sector - trippy drum machine

Patterning - another interesting drum machine

Magic Switch & Magic Dice <-- fun, simple effects.

Tell me your favs and why?  Id love to know, & maybe I'll review them!

The Acolyte - Star Wars flipped on it's head

The Acolyte - a fun and entertaining Star Wars show that flips a lot of things on their head.  [SPOILERS AHEAD!!]

First, lets acknowledge the dialogue was painful. Shouting character names should not be dialogue unless its a romance, or very rarely.  This show suffered from overload of "Mae" and "Osha" and a smattering of others.

The action was amazing.  And the acting and cinematography was a mix of ok and bad.

Highlights - Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) as a Jedi!  

Manny Jacinto as an early Sith.  Wow

Witches of Dathomir - interesting, curious, but not spectacular.  Amuxing for sure.

Problems - Many, lets look at a few.

Amandla Stenberg as Osha and Mae, twins.  There were a lot of problems here, but to summarize - the tension and arc were not very interesting, and there was no logical payoff at the end.

I like the Meka-Nek idea and Mae's mission to be turned dark, but I feel like they were positionee as essential to the story & then unresolved.

The little bodiless droid (a first) was mind-wiped without even a tear.

Flips Star Wars genre on its head - don't know if they broke canon, but they definitely ignored some accepted Star Wars premises:

Jesi Sol was messed up and did things that should've had him booted from the Jedi.  He wasn't booted, tho, and as a result a lot of people were killed.  Sol was sort of the bad guy.

Manny's 'the Stranger' was great at killing herds of Jedi with his weird helmet -- hopefully the helmets will get more explanation in future as helpful vs Jedi -- but couldn't kill Sol.  

Why not?  Didn't make sense to me.

Osha flipping to Dark - how could she not?  Sol's betrayal would be enough to infuriate anyone, no?  Destroying her family, separating her from her sister, etc.

The force-choke death was a cool end, but didn't think would work on a Jedi, tho.

Loved the light saber color change, had no idea the alignment affected the color.  Cute.

And then there was the Leader Green Jedi with strange makeup, Vernestra Rwoh, played by Rebecca Henderson.  She reports to Yoda, she's handling & misrepresenting Jedi intrigues, and literally shows that Jedi can't be trusted.  That was the final flip for me.

Summary - I enjoyed the show, but I dunno -- I feel like Acolyte didnt exactly understand what it was doing.

Got 2 iOS plugins for mastering!

Had amazing discovery and made 2 iOS AUV3 purchases to master tracks on iPad.

TB Barricade - a compressor limiter, apparently Pro sounding and great for mastering.

Grand Finale 2 - another tool for mastering, but with compression and 4-band compressor, widening tool, and a way to change / enhance the sound.

Recommendations were for both, and lots of praise.  TB Barricade had more praise, so I got that first, but I really wanted the 4-band compressor in Grand Finale 2 so I got that also.

While I tagged both in Appsliced waiting for a sale, I realized over a $30 meal that I shouldn't allow a few bucks to stop me from making my music kick.  Also, the more I read about Klevgrand AB the more I wanted to support them.  Lastly, the iOS pricing landscape is incredibly reasonable relative to Mac plugin costs.  I'm suprr happy to have spent $25 on these apps.

My fav iOS audio production apps:

- Drambo

- Turnado

- Koala

- AUM

- FAC Drums

and I've picked up a bunch of other fun synths and fx along the way.