It also supports MIDI, has a bunch of synth and drum machine add-ons, and videos can be inserted for scoring/mixing to. It’s like the Photos app for audio.Īuria Pro is a DAW that can mix dozens of tracks of mono or stereo 24-bit/96k audio with 64-bit processing. Most importantly, it’s a valuable repository for storing audio files and a useful conduit for sharing them between apps. Three apps form the core of my iOS post-production system: AudioShare, Auria Pro and LumaFusion.ĪudioShare is indispensable for organising audio files on iOS and offers duplicating, re-naming, normalising, trimming, fading, and sample rate conversion. Also, its tablet form makes displaying flight confirmations at airports, watching movies on overnight buses, and navigating new cities much easier than the Macbook Pro. Installing a SIM card for whatever country I’m in gives me internet wherever there’s a phone network, which is everywhere these days - including that remote village I mentioned earlier. My early-2013 Macbook Pro sounds like rubbish by comparison.īecause it’s a post-social media design, it leaves the Macbook Pro for dead when it comes to YouTube, Instagram and Facebook - especially when using their dedicated iOS apps. Apple has been criticised for dedicating so much internal space to speakers rather than a larger battery but, as a sound engineer, I don’t have a problem with that the battery lasts long enough and the speakers sound remarkably good. There are four speakers - one in each corner - with on-board sensors to adjust between landscape and portrait so you always get the proper stereo image. I use it with Apple’s Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, and protect it with an Urban Armor Gear cover that integrates well with the Smart Keyboard. It definitely feels faster and more responsive than the old Macbook Pro it replaces. It uses Apple’s 64-bit A10X Fusion SoC (System On a Chip), which performs well in benchmark tests against the Macbook Pros of its generation, and has a default 120Hz screen refresh rate that adapts to the frame rate of whatever you’re viewing. I’ve got the top-of-the-line 10.5-inch iPad Pro from 2017, with 512GB of storage and the cellular option. I record 24-bit/96k wavs on the Nagra, capture 1080p HD video on the Sony, and do all the post-production on location with the iPad Pro. It’s a modern take on the classic ethnomusicologist’s rig: a pair of Sennheiser MKH800 microphones, a Nagra 7 field recorder, a pair of Etymotic ER4 microPro in-ear monitors and a Sony RX100 MkIII pocket camera. I’ve got a few rigs at my disposal, but this story focuses on the lightweight high-quality rig I use for capturing endangered music in remote places. However, getting to that point was not easy. An iPad Pro now serves all of my ‘post-production on location’ needs, saves two kilograms over my old Macbook Pro and over AU$2000 on upgrading to a new Macbook Pro. I wanted a lightweight DAW with a day’s worth of battery, and a video editing app I could relate to as an audio guy.Ī week later Apple released iOS 11, and reviewers asked “is it time to replace your laptop with an iPad?” Most concluded “Not yet”, but I’d already done the numbers. Apart from being too heavy for what I had in mind, its battery life had faded to a measly few hours and I hated working with iMovie and Final Cut Pro. It’s an early 2013 model with 15-inch Retina display a wonderfully reliable machine that never cost a cent in repairs, but its trekking days were over. That wasn’t going to happen with my Macbook Pro. I pictured myself trekking into a remote area with a lightweight high-quality rig, recording and filming an elderly villager playing endangered music, and leaving behind a finished copy. It was also time to change my approach, from ‘post-production when I get home’ - which had clearly failed - to ‘post-production on location’. There were umpteen dozen sound recordings, videos and pics from numerous forays through Asia and the Himalaya, all just a head crash from oblivion. ‘Why am I carrying around terabytes of stuff I’ve done nothing with?’ That was the question buzzing around my head in September 2017 as I panned across the hard drives in my backpack.
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