The BEST iOS Music Production Apps of 2022
2022 is almost over which means it’s time for me to share what I think were the best music production Apps released this year.
And what a year it was! It really felt like iOS music making came into it’s own this year, with smaller indie developers releasing some of their best work and several desktop developers coming over to the dark side and porting their plugins onto the iOS platform too.
It’s not made my job any easier. Trying to make a concise list of apps that I really really loved this year was almost impossible, but I think i’ve pretty much got there.
And as always if there’s anything you think i’ve missed or any picks you don’t agree with, sound off in the comments below this article.
Here are my picks for the BEST iOS Music Production Apps of 2022!
Crystalline
Baby Audio whetted our collective whistles at the start of the year when they released ios versions of their two desktop freebies; Magic Switch and Magic Dice. They followed that up a few months later with a 1-1 port of their fantastic desktop reverb plugin – Crystalline.
Crystalline features an intuitive UI, that you’d swear if you didn’t know any better was designed specifically for touch. And the sounds you can get from this App are just brilliant.
One of the very best reverb apps on the iOS platform and a confident first full iOS release from Baby Audio. Crystalline is worth every penny of its asking price.
Loopmix
Audiomodern are renowned for creating some of the most interesting and exciting effect plugins on the market. Their latest release; Loopmix is perhaps Audiomodern’s most intriguing offering to date.
Billed as a ‘creative loop remixer’, Loopmix allows you to quickly and easily create glitchy, randomised remixes out of up to six loops.
I’ve always appreciated that Audiomodern apps allow newcomers to just dive in and easily create some cool sounds, while simultaneously providing more in depth controls for the more technical minded.
Loopmix strikes this balance exceptionally well.
Loopmix is as creative a plugin as you’ll ever use. More than that it’s ridiculously addictive and great fun to use.
Be warned – you’ll likely lose hours tinkering away with it!
VHS Synth
A collaboration with renowned producer/Berkley college of music lecturer Brian Funk and built on a brand new version of Audiokit’s open source codebase, VHS Synth, released back in May was a revelation.
There are over 120 sounds on offer here. All are plucked from Mr Funk’s originally Ableton only 80’s VHS synths and VCR wave instrument packs.
They were created by recording samples from various analog synths like the Prophet 6, Novation Bass Station, and Korg Volca FM onto VHS tapes and then exporting them. The secret sauce here is that VHS synth allows you to blend two of any of these sounds together. And these sounds are brilliant!
iOS synth newcomers found lot to love in VHS Synth’s straightforward UI and expansive selection of presets. Advanced users loved how easy it was to design and fine tune their own unique takes on the many included sampled sounds.
This ended up being one of the best Apps Audiokit released in ages and personally, I absolutely loved it.
Overdrive Synth
What does a synthesiser sound like through an overdrive pedal?
That was the question asked by Nick Culbertson AKA Moby Pixel in perhaps the year’s best bit of word of mouth marketing.
The answer? Really REALLY cool…
To create Overdrive Synth, Nick essentially re-amped the sounds of many classic synthesizers using a variety of different overdrive pedals. He then took those sounds, wrapped them up in a lovely looking app built using the open source Audiokit framework and then unleashed it onto the iOS App store.
And that’s it. The sounds he’s created are nothing short of phenomenal.
Not only that, Nick has been incredibly open to feedback from users and even completely changed the way the app acts as an AuV3 off of the back off user feedback.
A fantastic App, a fantastic developer – i’m excited to see what Moby Pixel comes up with next!
Pure Upright
Pure Piano is my favourite Piano App on iOS, so when Hamburg based e-instruments released Pure Upright this year, I was beyond excited.
Imagine my surprise when I found a more reserved, refined piano sound waiting for me in the App itself.
Pure Upright is everything that Pure Piano is, except instead of emulating the sound of a studio grand piano, you can now play a nigh on perfect recreation of an upright piano instead.
Perfect for those working on the hip hop and pop genres (or pretty much anyone else who loves a punchier piano sound), Pure Upright has all of the editing options of its predecessor, meaning you can either let the App’s presets do the work for you, or fine tune your piano sounds to your heart’s content.
SILO
Another desktop plugin producer who made the leap to iOS in 2022 is Unfilterd Audio, who held a very generous public beta for five of it’s plugins earlier this year.
To say the iOS music making community were excited about these apps would be a bit of an understatement, and the fact that when Unfiltered Audio did release them they did so at an incredibly reasonable price, made their release all the sweeter.
All five of the apps Unfiltered Audio have released so far are brilliant, Bass Mint is excellent for adding some extra oomph to pretty much any bass sound, and Needlepoint is a great way to add som vinyl flavour to your sounds.
For me though, SILO is the best of the bunch.
SILO is a properly unique granular reverb that can utterly transform any sound you apply it to. Preset surfers will love the dozens of patches on offer and the in depth fiddlers among you will love tinkering with SILO’s slick and easy to use interface.
There isn’t anything quite like SILO on iOS, I highly recommend it.
Fluss
Just sneaking in at the end here is Fluss, a mind bogglingly superb collaboration between Bram Bos and experimental electronic music producer Hainbach.
Fluss is mental. And weird. And amazing.
In a nutshell it’s a granular synthesizer and effects processor, but one that allows users to manipulate tiny grains of audio in a range of complex ways.
You can bring in your own WAV files and mangle them up with Fluss’s unique set of controls, or you can make use of its extensive library of presets crafted by Hainbach himself.
Whether you’re into creating weird glitchy elctro or rolling ambient soundscapes, Fluss will add a unique bit of spice to your sounds.
It’s mad, I LOVE it.
Thjose are my picks for the BEST iOS Music Production Apps of 2022. Was you favourite App of the year on the list? le me know your favourites in the comments!