cut the noise

There seems to be one really big hindrance in working with the iPad as an audio editing and producing platform. Yes there are all kinds of great apps. They are cheap and some are truly amazing. But they all seem to work in isolation from each other. You may make a great sounding synth part in Animoog or Sunrizer, a cool beat in FunkBox, Modrum, or iElectribe, and maybe some vocals or guitar in Garageband, but how do you get them all together? It’s a pain to record audio directly into another DAW or recording device when the the iPad should have some kind of solution. Even with audio copy/paste, which fortunately is included on many apps now, how to you use more than two of them together? Enter Multitrack DAW (App Store Link).

One app brings together many

Multitrack DAW is relatively simple, but what it does it does extremely well. It is an overlooked app that can add quite a bit of flexibility and power to any workflow situation when one is trying to work solely on your iOS device.

Though it has “DAW” in the title, Multitrack DAW is not a workstation in the sense of Garageband, FL Studio, or Nanostudio. It does not have any instruments, beat creation or sampling tools. However, you can record into it directly by using the internal mic, an audio interface, or something like the iRig. Where it really shines though is how it works with audio copy/paste, and how you can use it like a computer based workstation to chop up, arrange, balance, and mix audio from many different apps.

edit, copy, paste, and move around regions easily

Audio import

Multitrack DAW is able to import audio in multiple ways. The first way and that which seems the most flexible in context with other apps is Audio Copy and Paste. With many apps out there that support Audio Copy and Paste, it becomes a rather simple affair to record something and paste it into Multitrack DAW. This immediately makes interaction between many apps possible, and you can utilize the strengths of certain apps with each other to make a song.

Do you like the snare sound in Modrum, but want the hi-hats from FunkBox and the 909 kick from ReBirth? No problem, just make each pattern to the same bpm, and copy and paste each one to a new track in Multitrack DAW. You can loop the patterns, move them around and snap to the grid easily.

Multitrack DAW can also import files via email, opening any audio file directly in the app. It can pull files from your iPod/music app, and you can drop files into the app using iTunes sharing while your iOS device is synced as well. This makes getting music into the app a breeze and it is one of the few apps that offer this kind of versatility.

Audio here from apps: Modrum, Sunrizer, Addictive Synth, and Meeblip recorded straight in.

Audio export

Multitrack DAW makes it easy to get your files off, with the ability to export your mixdown to email, iTunes sync, or SoundCloud. This is doubly impressive because you can mixdown your track to either an m4a, ogg, or wav. The only thing that would make this even better (though I don’t know if it is possible) is if there was an option to bounce all the files individually to iTunes sync. Then you could import them into your computer DAW to really get serious. Even still though, the export options are quite good. You can also Audio Copy individual audio tracks as well.

Multitrack DAW mixing

You can even do some simple mixing within the app, with EQ and compression per track, and a newly added FX bus with basic reverb and delay. There is also a master bus with EQ and compression. All this makes for a pretty full featured app that you can start to get really creative with.

While the basic app is only 8 tracks, you can upgrade to a total of 24 tracks which seems like quite a lot. I haven’t personally tried anything so large, but it seems like the iPad 2 might be better suited for taking care of all those audio files at once. Multitrack DAW is also universal, so you can do all the same stuff on your iPhone if you don’t have an iPad.

Nice EQ

What about the “real” iPad DAWs?

There are so-called proper DAWs on the iPad, and I think they are each quite powerful, but they are each lacking in some significant way. In a nutshell, my thoughts on each:

Garageband is easiest to get rolling with, and the only one that really supports recording vocals and guitar.

Nanostudio has the best sound design capabilities with an extensive synth editor. It is probably the most powerful of the the 3 overall, but there is still not an iPad optimized version, so you have to run it in 2x mode which is less than ideal.

FL Studio is pretty easy to use, and creating drum tracks seems the easiest with it. But sound creation is nearly non-existant, so you’re stuck with the built in sounds. Also pretty crashy for me.

None of the three support importing audio from other apps though. You can export music from them, but not really get music into them, minus some sampling type of stuff. So really, Multitrack DAW can enable you to use the best parts of all of these three together, when you couldn’t do it otherwise.

Bottom Line

Get Multitrack DAW if you want to use a bunch of your audio apps together. As long as the app can do audio copy, you can slap it into Multitrack DAW and get rolling. Easy. And hey, maybe you’ll like it so much that you’ll start grabbing audio from your computer and putting it into your iPad to play with rather than the other way around.

You can grab it on the App Store for $9.99: MultiTrack DAW

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