Need to record audio from the real world into your iPad? Sing, play guitar, record an entire band? It’s all possible.
Keyboards let you play that synth via a Bluetooth keyboard, or controllers let you tweak a DAW. Interfaces enable you to add vocals or guitars to your iPad compositions, for example, and play back the results through decent studio monitors. There are some great hardware iPad options, including devices that allow you to route audio into and out of your iPad or allow you to ‘play’ your apps.
And as we shall see, there are many such devices, and even more apps to run on iPads to make the mobile studio experience just that more, well, pro! The hardware you need (or not) Plus most of the latest iPads have USB and even Thunderbolt compatibility meaning you can plug in and play a range of audio interfaces, MIDI keyboards and more.
Fast forward to 2021, and Apple’s latest Pro iPads have the same M1 chips found in the company’s desktop and laptop machines, so the devices are very much on par power-wise with your standard computer. In 2020, we might have told you that mobile music making can't yet offer the flexibility of a decent studio based around a powerful computer.
