For all the things that Apple’s iPad does right — high-definition movies on the go, games, an increasingly popular coffee shop pay-per-view — it rarely makes sense as a powerful musical instrument.
Whether you have an infectious rhythm in your head, you want to turn into a ringtone, you want to learn a little music theory, or you are a serious musician with studio ambitions, the tablet is surprisingly capable. It combines hardware power and useful applications that can help with recording, editing and exporting your music.
The basics: what you need
To get started, you obviously need an iPad. Any iPad you buy today or that has been purchased within the last few years should be more than capable of realizing your musical dreams. After all, Madlib created all the rhythm for his collaboration with Freddie Gibbs, bandanaon an iPad a few years ago, and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn had already made an album on an iPad in 2010. The hardware has improved significantly since then.
The most important thing to know if you are going to plug in any mixers, instruments or other hardware is whether your iPad has a Lightning connector or a USB-C connector, which is usually on a newer iPad Pro, iPad Air and iPad be found. Mini models.
You can buy Apple’s Lightning-to-USB 3 camera kit or an AV multiport adapter to plug in most USB instruments or mixers and add a MIDI-to-USB cable, or even in ‘ invest in a wireless adapter that uses Bluetooth. A more direct cable solution may be available, but some instruments may require an additional power source than the iPad can provide.
It’s certainly possible to record ambient sound or chorus with the iPad’s built-in microphone and to create loops and music without any external hardware, but it’s nice to have the option to add microphones, keyboards and other tools.
Next, you need some software to turn your iPad into a digital audio workstation. DAWs have been around for a long time, and the term covers anything from a studio mixer setup to Apple’s free GarageBand application. If GarageBand is not pre-installed on your iPad, you should be able to download it from the App Store.
Although it has a bit of a learning curve, GarageBand has very of loops (installed and downloadable), tool tools, and editing options, more than you ever need. Hokusai Music Editor, AudioKit and Spire are some additional audio editing programs that are either free or free to use with in-app purchases.
Make Your Music
Next you will want to get comfortable with the idea of creating multiple tracks of sound and mixing those tracks together.
GarageBand and other DAWs work on what is called a timeline, typically a horizontal set of tracks stacked on top of each other that display sound levels and offer editing options such as infade-in / fade-outs, effects and the ability to create a section repeating a trajectory as a loop.