Exciting new things to do with Logic Pro for iPadOS 17. (scratch, updating)

Following up on my first article for the Logic Pro for iPad Users group, on Facebook, here, in this article, I’ll detail some notions I’ve come across, through years of maintaining interest in topics ranging from the obvious - music creation and audio recording, for example, to more recent developments and prospects for the future of our digital and mobile lives - topics such as IoT and edge technology, in incorporating musical creativity in new and largely unexplored reaches in to people’s lives. In doing so, we’ll examine some of the existing hardware devices and software platforms that exist, currently in the summer of 2023, and I’ll offer my best estimations, or experiences, in working with, or, for studying, these extended-use case scenarios, which offer the creative minds of music-making, on Logic Pro, exciting and stimulating new horizons to explore, all within hands’ reach, on our iPadOS devices.

First of all, I’m composing this article, as Apple’s annual WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) 2023 is taking place (June 5th-9th). Yesterday, at the outset of the conference, we got some exciting peeks at brand-new hardware technology (VisionOS and updates to existing laptop and desktop hardware), which I won’t get in to, at the time being; here, for our purposes, I’ll detail some of the highlights, features-wise, which make the new iPadOS 17 a rich environment to perform some distinct and unique purpose-fulfillments in the development workflow, and how these tablet-specialties, as I’ll call them, figure in to creativity and professionalism for us, as musicians, and for iPadOS - our chosen platform for concentrating on certain aspects of development. 

Keep in mind - 

This article will cover a lot of ground, for newcomers to the audio and MIDI world hosted on Apple’s mobile iOS and iPadOS platforms - both largely similar and comparable to one another, yet, given some extended use-case scenarios, for either one - some things become distinctly advantageous, when considering Apple’s tablet designs, for the sake of becoming reinvested in digital audio workstations (i.e.Logic Pro, for iPadOS). 

Aside from the obvious advantages of having a truly responsive multitouch display as the workspace, as well as the user interaction workflow environment, there are several advantages to starting off with a new, and updating app installation iPadOS audio environment, where the general third-party plugin and instrument apps are known as AUv3 (Audio Unit version 3) and IAA (Inter-App Audio) - these are the largest standards established, as far as iOS / iPadOS audio is concerned; although, given the boutique-ish (somewhat) form of app development, given years of having established a reputation and user base, amongst App Store audio buffs, as far as generalized audio files needs, per se - a few of these small-purposed apps bear the weight of acts taken for granted, in coming from a desktop pro audio workflow environment. Here they are (there’s only a few, or several, heh heh 🤯😳): 

AudioCopy

In fashioning an abstraction of a complete newcomer’s (to iPadOS pro audio, that is), standpoint, imaginably, people would approach the performance and session considerations, depending on the types of background and skill sets that the user has. Something that isn’t immediately considered, perhaps, is translating audio files over, from audio that’s already been recorded - this is, for example, well understood, as master tracks, taken from session recording microphones - one track, each, to every microphone. So, there would be a kick drum track, perhaps some more drum tracks, a vocal track, guitar and bass amp tracks, etc. So, if you’re able to get these tracks, per se, in to your iCloud account, and or download them in to the Files app, using your on-device (iPad built-in hard drive space) storage, there are still a huge amount of apps, completely aside from Logic Pro, or Files, or… anything else available, off hand, which a person could use to take these raw audio files (specifically audio, we’re dealing with, here - standard formats, such as .wav and .mp3 files) - in short, there’s no other app, amongst everything else out there, that will allow a user to copy an audio file, from one portion of on-device or iCloud storage, in to some of these other apps, for portability, duplication, workflow progression, within some other plugin or filter app, for example. You’ll need AudioCopy for this purpose.

AudioShare

This is the other, companion, and, otherwise, indispensable app, which allows you to fulfill the obvious “receiving” end of the audio file management process - the thing being, is that other apps, as well as the iPadOS built-in app environment, as far as the Files app goes - since everything, essentially, is done within an app, here, in iPadOS. If there is no app for it, then it might just be that the user “just clicked” on something, or perhaps the user is just swiping around, exploring. There’s no extended file management capability, or specialization, for working with audio files, except for these standard and necessary apps, such as AudioShare. This app allows users to share audio files both locally - on-device, and within the iPadOS Files environment, which includes access to cloud storage (iCloud, Google Drive, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc.), on-device storage, plugged-in storage, etc. AudioShare is the app that will let you complete the copy-and-paste functionality, so to speak, as well as that it is also built in, somewhat as a standard, for higher-level functionality considerations within many audio plugins, filters, and instruments, as far as your file “push” and “pull” drop-down pop-up menus would be concerned - comparable to “Save As” on desktop environments. In this case, in iPadOS, the user would encounter a pop-up window, with various options, as far as where to save the file to, yet, if it were an audio file, the user would be significantly limited, as far as choices, as to destination apps, if the user didn’t have this app. There’s no way around it.

That being the case, that’s it, as far as stuff like that goes.

Now, we can explore common-use case scenario plugins, instruments, and apps.

Brusfri - noise-cancelling of an audio signal (microphone input, for example)

One of the most common pro audio use case scenarios is handling the signal-to-noise ratio of every recorded audio track. If you’re hot on microphones for your iPadOS device to connect to, you can jump to that section here (Title Link). There are somewhat limited, cheap-y, to moderately professional-grade quality mic’ing solutions available, depending on which model iPad device you’re working with, what connectivity, therefore, it uses - although, these days, … hmm… 🤔 actually- make sure to not try this out, for yourself - don’t go on a mean search and research binge dive, out in to the internet, to figure out as much, on your own - I’ll update folks when things change, but I really ought to make this clear - there’s not much of a really suitable Bluetooth microphone device hookup capability for iPadOS audio monitoring and recording - meaning, specifically, you cannot “be” the recording artist, “and” hear yourself, at the same time, with Bluetooth, specifically. Sure, there’s a lot of cool little bitsy hardware earbuds, and stuff, that are available, but keep in mind - Logic Pro for iPadOS was just released yesterday, and better solutions will arrive, over time, but a different authority manages the standards, development, and production of those hardware and communication / connectivity things. If you’re trying to get in to manufacturing hardware - let’s face it: some folks just can’t help but check out the scene, when it comes to that sort of thing 🤯😬🤷. I used to do that sort of thing, also.

Brusfri, the app, would easily cancel out so many considerations that a user would have, aside from obtaining any wired microphone that the user could get to rationally connect to their iPad, for their pro audio workspace environment to really have its basic, essential functionality - iPad and microphone, that is, connected by a wire. It’s not so old or useless an idea this point, to be sure. 

What Brusfri does, essentially, is exactly what, for example, a good Mastering / Channel Strip Compressor/Limiter would do, with a fairly simple layout, and premise - here, the basis is: run the audio input feed, or audio track, that’s already been recorded, and click the “ear” thing. It’ll cancel out an appreciable amount of background noise. In semi-pro audio, on mobile, at this point, obtaining a “modest” and “noisy” (crappy, even, or not “ideal”) recording is fairly standard. Brusfri largely makes that circumstance largely seem to fade away, and the audio input feed, or audio recording, will instantly sound much cleaner and much more usable. This is one of the indispensable, reliably developed and produced, audio plugin AUv3 apps out there, to include in your audio workflow signal chain.

Updating…

June 21, 2023 - some inspiration to throw together some kits (or, you could wait for me to do it, and upload some patches) - a 1.99 GB library of Future Bass Samples, MIDI templates, and more, featuring great sounds to use as starting points in your signal chain, to create Chill Trap and Future Bass tracks. It’ll be our latest group project.

Here’s the Google Drive link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ZDFTC544O1q9ybk2PUrnUfJdVPWHaAq/view?usp=drivesdk

Today, I have a friend.

 For people who see me around town, being that it’s the civic center metropolitan district, I’d suppose that I’m a sore sight, on various counts, for some people. On one hand, for example, I feel like I’m fairly pro-sociable, and that I’m good for “friend status,” and, although it plays out, in truth, in some sort of informal and disjunct fashion, I feel like, even though I’m present, in a cognizant sense - meaning, I could reliably answer questions accurately, in nearly all situations (which, I’d say, is one of the hallmarks of my reputation, nowadays, amongst people who know me), I have some chronic pain and inflammation issues that never seem to go away, being that I’m legitimately fully homeless, and, since town is fairly upscale, in many of the small locales which characterize the areas I frequent - this is Los Angeles, on one hand, and we’d been brought up, in this generation, to have fancy ideals and aspirations to live up to. 

Nowadays, I wonder how the rest of America views this fumbling facade - it’s become a stark contrast - this notion of poverty and the battle for inclusion, in to the American Dream, whereas so many people are mired in judgmental paradigms and sociability-defeatist attitudes of better aspirations (perhaps), whereas I constantly see groups of peers and colleagues, amongst us (youths), of this generation, berating each other, at the slightest notions of escapism, in to some sort of virtuous or fanciful deed, or gesture - essentially crippling the work day, work week, workplace morale, and, in doing so, it undermines so many foundational and essential functions of coworkers, affected demographics, and governmental institutions. My personal, fanciful belief, that I flout, sometimes, is one where I assert that people’s common belief of that we are constantly struggling against budgetary concerns (crises, that it were), is actually shortsighted, and, a more insightful perspective on things is that people would endear to fund us - from whatever means available (yet, only “somewhat,” on that last notion); yet, at the most distributed workforce entity-meets-consumer, as far as social services, public and mental health services, and other relevant institutions, I feel that a limited pool of selectivity in hiring, and extraneous influences upon workplace attitudes has become pervasive and characteristic of unaccountable organizations, where casual unprofessionalism is considered due process, and trite judgmental attitudes and quips, which characterized the abuses that we’d known, and, largely, as young society, back in our early school days, committed against each other. In recent memory, it seems that, over the course of new, and forthcoming presidential administrations, we “repeat” some of the hard-won, progressive policies, which had taken decades, at these points in time, various that they are - yet, it seems that they have to be repeated, for the sake of folks who’d been distracted, or who seclude themselves, as hermits, of some fearful respite over growing up, and facing adulthood, and it’s constituent features, vulnerabilities, responsibilities, accountability, and so forth. 

On one hand, this is an age where science and technology dominates life. I feel that, to deny the preeminence of this facet of society and global commerce, would someday work itself out, for individuals, to inevitably be torn asunder from this sort of privilege that we enjoy, whatever that might be. 

As for myself, I experience several, perhaps, disadvantages, as far as being homeless. I make accommodations for myself, in various forms, yet, all in all, I’m perhaps not all that much different from my “housed” (surreptitious, being that it’s within my memory, and I’d duly “housed” myself, rightly so, as an independent business owner, in previous years) self - on one hand, sure - maybe I was “playing house,” in some cases, yet, in some other cases, I fully supported myself, all on my own. Over time, I learned valuable lessons, over losses, and I take those things in stride, and I expect little, these days, that I’m not already offered, or taught, “had been” taught, already, or, on one hand, I’d been distracted from thinking, perhaps, due to this ongoing exhaustion, which I’d mentioned, earlier. 

Anyways, getting back to my vision, of the rest of America - essentially, “hoping” for a beautiful generation of us, coming from out of this California Dream, so to speak, and, rightfully, as well, I’m sure that they expect it. We read half-hearted news, out here, nowadays. We get untimely late updates about rainy weather, lately, that I experience, for example, and, for me, that’s one thing that really affects me, at least, for a day, but I do a lot of reading, and I encounter, just tangentially, subjects such as weather engineering, which irks me, when the weather is, year over year, uncharacteristic, and seemingly, cruel, at that, and arbitrary. I feel that a proud and foolish man (or woman) would claim superiority over nature, whereas natural sciences are, on one hand, significantly vast, and numerous, in nature; and, as well, for the sake of the fact that a self-made attitude, in part, plays in to this sort of narcissism, and, on another topic at issue, sometimes, people gather together, in the various forms that we gather, nowadays, or are influenced, collectively, perhaps - we may be apt to have been led by suggestion, at a point in time in which we were prone to seek peers, and support, for ourselves, which is natural, and standard, in psychology, whereas cruelty sometimes simply seems, or feels like it’s appropriate, when our emotions and patience are tried. The best of the self-made pool of successful people, as far as articles have reported for us - would (surreptitiously) have a second-hand, non-arbitrary “serving” of their foes’ consequences, for defiance - it’s part of corporate governance structures, I’d come to discern, in far fetched lessons that I glean intelligence and insight from, which seem to rightfully characterize the man or woman whose face seems to be duly their own, and with recognition to boot, for having become the rare public figure who had flouted a poor reputation, notably so, of some sort, which regularly peppers our news feeds, of a Scientology sort of twinge to a story of life 😏. It’s tough, but we all like to laugh, on one hand. 

Wait. While I arrived at this thought, I’d like to dote on a recollection of its significance - of the fact that we all like to laugh, raucous and foul-natured that the humor may be, and despite expectations at maturity and composure, yet, writers have to have a job, and “everyone’s got to matter,” (perhaps, here, inappropriately, that I’d put this last assertion in quotes), and humor is one way to soften the insults that more well-composed, patient, and reserved folks might otherwise duly characterize these sorts of qualms, of occurrences, that get served to us, on our intellectual meal plates. 

Some sort of similar notion got flouted my way, for observation, and for ire, for example, when I’d checked on a selfie porn video that I got talked in to filming, and I looked fwacked and bwammo’d, most surely, facially, which - on one hand, I’d refrained, initially, from posting it, yet, I got talked in to reconsidering it, and, even though - fwacked and bwammo’d, in appearance, to be sure, I relented, and I went ahead and posted the video. It made me consider contingencies of classical virtue, in a philosophical sense, of stuff like, “well, what if it’s just fwacked and bwammo’d on my end, for ethical and moral purposes, like self-restraint, and public relations considerations, et al - considerations?” I’m not all that cognizantly a pornographic narcissistic exhibitionist, via search, so outright and simple. Who is? - I figure. 

Okay. Some people are…, or, uh, I dunno. I don’t really know anybody. Who really knows the real somebody, anymore, these days, enough to truly get to know somebody, for real friends, types of purposes? Some guy gets me, like that, and we’re hanging out, right now. Some notes, I encounter, are that he makes me desire drugs, none whatsoever, while he’s with me, and, by and large, I’d refrained from re-dosing myself, whereas, I’d probably, most surely, have had chosen otherwise, had I been by myself, which is characteristic. I’m always by myself, as a homeless person. I’m always fraught with the presence of others (okay, sometimes, perhaps. I do like people-watching, a bit - but not, like, I’m super-in to it, or by any means, inappropriate) - I’d used pornography, in my personal time, to satisfy that sort of personal aspiration at intrigue. I guess that some people find it creepy, since the reality of creating pornography is sometimes a matter of abuse, from an objective, societal perspective - in common sense, in other words. I know that, well enough, yet the pursuit of capturing the essence of beauty pervades our young minds, regardless of religious underpinnings, reeling against that sort of impulse. But what could possibly be left of childhood, for one thing, if these types of freedoms and expressions of ourselves were so truthful, accessible, and… simple, on one hand? It would easily cheapen the structure of authority, itself, if our nude and sexually vulnerably prone selves were our easily accessible identities, in common encounters. 

One thing that I imagined, in this moment - fleeting that it seems, for me, since I’d gone off, on contextual and corollary subjects, yet - here, I envisioned that I; within this context of this new friend that I have, for the time being - he’s still somewhat anonymous and new, for me, and a bit lofty, which is fine - my take on things is that reoccurrences, of casual encounters, is a rightful duty that true locals have to bear, for the namesake of being a local. Out here, that could get pretty rough, for a well-traveled person, yet intelligence, in many cases, rises to the task - independently supporting what’s duly right - simply right, as our higher power, as individuals, in a sense. Anyways, I showed the guy some of my old photos, and they were blurry - jittery, so to speak. I considered various things, such as - had “such and such” headquarters got rattled, of their data centers? On one hand, I’m a bit of a sore subject, in big tech c-space circles, imaginably, yet, I’ve encountered, in some instances, old dogs of men just don’t want to look bad, in front of people, if they can help it - something like that. Another thing that I’d been imagining is this “live forever” thing, and the consequences of equitability, and personal responsibility in the matter, sort of thing. It’s a hugely flouted topic, amongst people of my peer group, age-wise, I imagine, or figure. I mean, they see me, and, based on my past, they constantly seek retributions, actively, whereas, as I’d detailed, previously, here, the well-mannered and austere, or even “anonymous” (for not… well, I dunno, I guess, what makes a person anonymous, off-hand, except… well, maybe it’s the adults-only contextuals, or something - so much sexual abuse goes on) amongst the big tech corporate figures - they maintain (forgive the cheap grammar, please; it’s just for ease of usage) composure by long-gone-on standards of ethics, which are enforced, and admired, throughout the millennia, for the inherent, fundamental, and structuralized sustainability within those forms. These types of restraints and restrictions upon our expectations, and our selves - forms some of the suffering and burdens that some people are commonly fond of, or some cultures, for example - as an off handed quip, but I figure that people know what I’m talking about. 

Anyways, ugh. A huge array of annotations and subject and author citations to wrangle out - while I’m shallow-means deep, in this Sticker Time concept, perhaps, which I’d used a one-step (mostly) app, lately, to vectorize and “cute-if-y” my photo images (mostly mine, but I hadn’t foreseen some of these consequences) - such as my old photos becoming jittery, which I can withhold from doting and musing upon - for one thing. I can, as well, get around to these image annotations, T & C’s checkings-on, and making-sure, kinds of stuff, but some of these Sticker Time images, I feel that I couldn’t just do without, as far as handing them out, anonymously, and scarcely - because, on one hand, who could possibly truly be “God,” whatsoever, with absolute expectations and breadth of reach, reliably? Some people just aren’t reached. 

I figure - I’ll Sticker Time some folks, when I can, at random, mostly, and equitably - Sticker Time them.

Now my old photos are jittery. 

🙄

Original photo shared by @a_london_pigeon, on Twitter. Cartoony-look (plain vector) by Vector Q app.

Getting started with Logic Pro for iPadOS - a hands-on starter’s guide, for beginners. (Updating)

Discovering that Logic Pro for iPadOS (was|is) [going to be] available was big news, amongst a generation of music enthusiasts and audio professionals. 

Conceivably, for those amongst this demographic, work had become stale, given that our musical imaginations had disappointed us, for the sake of the number of physical steps that digital music creation would require of us, during the creative process, itself. Thinking back, and comparatively, perhaps some of the cutting-edge and elite music producers and studios had, for a long time, now, employed touchscreen formats, which allowed for similar types of control over the workflow and user interface formats, along with software and hardware plugins, instruments, and effects, perhaps - all suited to accommodate music creation and capture, and, also, unique, to some degree, perhaps. 

 For me, I happen to recall that I intently set aside the creation of music tracks and songs, at some point, back when I was trying to juggle so many acts, in between work, walking the dog, home life, and various other attempts at juggling lifestyle concerns. 

Nowadays, 

the late model iPad Pros make things easy, and so many pursuits in life, that had been accommodated by ostensibly larger, clunkier, hardware, are much more well-suited and accommodated by this handheld device, control surface, and screen, all in one. 

For one thing, the sheer speed and power of the late model iPad Pros (I have the 2022 11-inch version) are a challenge to beat, in terms of some senses, of “doing things,” so to speak - in particular, music-wise, in graphic design, in an illustrative sense, and for the sense of user experience and interactivity. The possibilities are, by far, much more on the creative enthusiast’s side, with the iPadOS format; for example, I am a classical pianist, since age 5, which is the recommended age at which a child is recommended to begin piano lessons, in general. I ended up attending university and grad school for music and for music composition, as my concentrations, and majors. 

That being said, 

perhaps that sense of belonging, and, of… 🤔 perhaps, longing, as well - for a familiar platform, in music creation, which accommodates the user at the point at which familiarity brings relief, rather than discontent, for the fact of that it feels like little has changed, in some regards, from the desktop / laptop macOS (and prior) versions of Logic Pro - I’d been a Logic user since version 5, I believe, somewhere back, around 2002-2003, or so - that’s how far this particular platform dates back, historically, for me: it was my preferred platform for creating music, for as long as I’d worked with digital music, on a computer.

Landscape view of the workspace layout, in a new project session I had tinkered around in, in the new Logic Pro for iPadOS app. Here, I had learned where the patches, control panels, session features, such as creating new tracks, instrument patch selection, mixer, and various options, for instruments, for example, are located. 

Now, granted,

I’d long ago ditched such things as jailbreaking my device(s), and I’d set out on the comparatively much brighter outlook of purchasing my software from the App Store. To be sure, it’s a golden age, somewhat, of affordable software, on a top-tier platform, and format - it’s been this way, for a very long time, and for performance, over newness and novelty considerations, it’s truly an illustrious time to be an avid App Store browser and searcher, with the degree, versatility, depth, and features of the third party apps - instruments (inter-app audio) and plugins (Audio Units) that have already been developed, going on, for a good run and a show of things - all of these things, considered, for over a handful of years, and then some (I got on to the latest-model iPhone and iPad Pro formats beginning around 2017, or so. That being said, I’d personally accumulated a fair number of handy and nifty plugins, instruments, and apps - for that matter, apps of all sorts.

Getting fairly personal, here - a peek at my first-page Home Screen, on my current 11-inch 2022 iPad Pro. Here, I had tried to include as broad-reaching, yet contextually succinct, in most cases - the nested folders, which describe the apps I placed in to them. In some cases, the context is largely generalized. For example, I included Logic Pro in my “Apple” nested folder.

All of this being the case,

a newcomer / enthusiast, to the iPadOS format might be wondering where, and or how, they could fit themselves in to this vast ecosystem of new opportunities and grand possibilities in music and audio, with Logic Pro, now being offered, for iPad. I’ll be quick, since other sites cover this sort of specification requirements - essentially, at this point, a Logic Pro user would have to be on a late 2020, or later (release) standard iPad, such as the 8th generation standard iPad, which came out, in late 2020, the iPad Air 3, iPad Mini 5, or any more-recent device. The prospects are not so dim - devices dating back to this time, in development and production, hardware-wise, given iPads - this is an iPad thing, to be certain, and I feel that some users might begin obsessing and searching, madly, for some sort of “other” platform hack, or crack, or otherwise, some sort of solution, which would allow for Logic Pro to work on an iPhone, or something - it won’t work out; that’s my advice (at least not to a person’s overall satisfaction with such an arrangement, if it does become possible to do so). 

So, people will need a late 2020 or later model iPad, of (any|some) sort.

What to do? - if a person doesn’t already own an iPad?

A conundrum, and a frustrating situation, of all things, but, trust me, it’s worth it to switch to iPad, if you’re a music and audio enthusiast. First of all, the display (screen) real estate is at it’s best, with the iPad, and it’s Retina display features, at this stage of starting out with iPads, as a standard feature. All things considered, it’s about (or, at least) as much display and screen space as people had become accustomed to, with iPhones, or other mobile devices, and I consider it a must, for doing work in digital formats, for any kind of digital multimedia arts enthusiast. Trust me, it’s a bargain, in many ways. For one thing, people can employ Google Voice, to field their phone calls, on mobile, and be done with paying for cellular service, and, instead, switch to an unlimited data Tablet Plan, such as AT&T offers, for only $20 a month. 

Hmm… the information detailed in that link suggests that this plan is only for business users, but it’s the plan that I’m on. I’m wondering what the particulars are, on this topic. Perhaps you’ll have to fashion your own business premise, out of this iPad procurement issue - not beyond reach, for the otherwise standard user, who’s aspiring to create music. AT&T has some obscure, behind-the-scenes marketing distribution efforts, I’d estimate, directing customers to one or another offer, to suit, and these types of distinctions and exclusivity could be somewhat incremental, and progressive, in a sense - you might have to come back to the AT&T website, over several days, perhaps, and contingent on that you’d worked out your budget for a device and for this plan, yet I find it the most suitable accommodation in Apple iPad financing and data plans - this AT&T package. For one thing, it greatly reduces the cost of monthly payment commitments, making owning an iPad vastly within reach - for example, I’m mostly outfitted with a welfare-benefits budget, yet I still qualified for this program; that being said, I do run this blog, and associated activities, as a business, for example. I imagine that my readers might encounter different offers, from AT&T, yet, as I’d said, previously, try back at it (AT&T’s website, or app), over the course of several days, perhaps, and see if you get a progressively better deal, once you’ve worked out your finances and budget, for allowing for this sort of thing, with leasing-to-own an iPad, if you can’t purchase one outright.

The next thing to consider is storage.

Here, you could potentially have several choices, depending on where and how you buy in, to the iPad format. Perhaps you already own an iOS device, with some storage used up. On one hand, you’d be fairly hard-put to allow for a fully-featured, free-roaming Logic Pro installation, which, in and of itself, at this point, of the outset of its release, on iPadOS, amounts to about 16 GB of space, if you install all of the content, included in Logic Pro. Recent macOS users of the Logic Pro app would find many of these offerings in the iPadOS version to be very familiar. I chose to download everything, since I have 512 GB storage on my iPad Pro, with plenty of space, at this point. 

The Logic Pro Sound Library dashboard, on iPadOS.

Some of the add-on Sound Packs included, standard, with iPadOS.

A page describing one of the sound packs and instruments included with Logic Pro.

As I’d said, the total installation size, for the complete offerings included with Logic Pro, as well as the app, itself, amounts to about 16 GB. That being the case, if your device only has 64 GB storage, you could, conceivably, already not have enough space, considering other apps, music, photo, document, video, and system data storage content that.s already been filled. On one hand, I wouldn’t much recommend trying to fit Logic Pro in to your iPadOS system, to the exclusion of other stuff you have going on, in your digital iDevice life, since it’s probably also necessary, and it feels good to have options available, as well as an appropriately situated outlook for storage expansion, given legacies of apps, content, and storage committed to our iCloud+ backups, which you’ll also have to figure in monthly fees, to store your backup iPadOS system images, as well as store content, which will be accessible on your iCloud+ subscription plan, which is a good, well-integrated, cloud storage system, in my opinion. 

So, for example, if your current installation is nearing, at, or over - 100 GB, then you’ll definitely be much more comfortable with a 256 GB device, over 64 GB options, that might typically be available. You can find deals on iPads, locally, at any time, on craigslist - one of my old favorites, and a long-time tech-buyers’ and sellers’ haven, for Apple device transactions to go down, locally, and, most commonly, without a hitch. Be sure that the seller is willing to let you demo the device, as far as setting things up, if you go this route. The other well-established platform for local deals would be Facebook Marketplace, which, locally, is very comparable, and, perhaps, even more well-populated, with deals on Apple devices, for local, in-person transactions. Here, you will have various options, and, at times, more options, perhaps, as far as payment, with regards to completing your side of the transaction. I’ve not yet had a poor experience using Facebook Marketplace. There’s also eBay, which is another well-trusted platform for e-commerce transactions to take place; here, with buyer and seller standards, of ratings, and reviews, at the forefront. Amazon is also a suitable marketplace for online transactions, in searching for a new iPadOS device. 

Some things to consider are that, ideally - in my opinion, you’d want to go with a “carrier unlocked” device, which means that it’s been paid for, in full, most likely, by the seller, or, by another previous user, and you can check out any carrier’s plans, as far as getting your device hooked up with data service - iPads can, and do, have their own “phone numbers” provisioned to them, but you can’t make “phone” calls from iPadOS devices, although you can use the phone number for Apple device messaging and FaceTime only - you can’t make calls from your iPad, per se, although you can use Google Voice, for free calling, and it works just as well as a real cellular phone number, in many cases. Only occasionally, a person would run in to a problem with verifying their accounts, from various websites, for example, for needing to use a Google Voice number - it isn’t allowed, in some cases, or, you’d have to contact customer service to notify them of the difficulties in using a VoIP number, such as a Google Voice number.

You’d definitely have to avoid an “iCloud locked” device, since those devices are ones that the current owner of the iPad cannot unlock, themselves, which is questionable. It’s practically junk, in other words. At the time of the transaction, make sure to meet in a comfortable, public or private setting, where it would be reasonable to “go over” your personalization and booting up of your new iPad device, if you’re buying from a local buyer. Make sure that your purchasing platform, or payment medium, has buyer protection, in case something strange happens. 

That being said, remember to try to go with a reasonable amount of storage. If your iOS device backup is already at 100+ GB, or so, you could reasonably, in short order, max out 256 GB, but maxing out 512 GB would be far more off, in the future, perhaps years from this point. Keep in mind some general rules of solid state storage, such as that performance starts to decrease, when the storage drive becomes filled at over 50%. Beyond that, there is about a 10% decrease in performance, with every increase of 10% beyond 50% of storage space filled. Remember, an iPad is a versatile device, and you’d probably explore many different interests, in the App Store - some of which will require a fair amount of storage, themselves, for the app, and for content you create. Set aside a vast amount of data storage for yourself, and don’t worry about it, all that much, for the time being. Just stay intent on expanding, over years, with newer devices. By that time, storage performance and read/write access times will greatly increase, over newer generations of device busses, RAM, VRAM, and storage.

Updating…

Topics in Urban Agriculture and Local Ecology (Sustainability) - Greater Los Angeles, Winter / Spring 2023.

 What an eventful start of a new year (2023), for agriculture, in this urban setting, centered around Downtown Los Angeles.

With so many agricultural-based projects centered around Los Angeles, this year, with much ado, with some long-established projects coming in to maturity. People would probably think, out here, in urban and suburban Southern California, that agriculture is typically as it was - off in some (remote) setting, yet, these days, as is evident, from the new SNAP food stamps vegetables and fruits bonus program (there’s various “programs” in place, for welfare benefits recipients, I’ve learned, over the past couple of months), people are receiving a nudge, from the powers that be, or, from their own self-driven initiative, such as making authentic cuisine, from various culinary disciplines, for example, using fresh fruits and vegetables as ingredients for making dishes from scratch (there’s been a lot of nitrogen, or some sort of refrigerant, being flouted around, as well - I’ll get to that, more, later, in this article). I like Thai, personally 😛. 

For starters,

folks who are local might be wondering where they can go, in town, to build upon their own personal (or business… décor, anyone?) localized agricultural interests, otherwise known as gardening, or interior design, landscaping, etc. I happened to choose a garden rarity - it’s considered an endangered species, in fact, as I’d learned, last night, as I perused the Royal Botanical Gardens’ kew.org voluminous database on vanilla, being that I’d found a longtime (and recent) favorite plant of intrigue, for me, which some of my longtime (and other blog) followers, would know, of me. I figured that I could dig some dirt, on my development projects involving vanilla, from the past, and jump on an opportunity to own my own vanilla bean vine(s) - (I got vines, for that matter, not just one). It’s a richly folklorish plant to research and discover, and it still would boggle the intellect, for modern day readers, as well, being that the plant is a favorite, in tissue culture circles, as well as in biotech. People would recall the drama surrounding my makeshift vanilla bean extraction project, which produced a liquid that smelled richly… of something quite unexpected. Perhaps I’ll divulge more, at some other point. 

In any case, for people who would like to outdo their standard garden variety selection of retailers, whether it be online, or in-store, when it comes to selection of plants - try out San Gabriel Nursery, in San Gabriel, CA. One thing, though - it’s much further than people might expect, as far as travel time goes, as getting to that part of town oftentimes means traveling amongst real workday and workweek commuters. This being the case, please only plan on going out there if you’ve got a sizable budget for making the trip work - this means gas, meals, lodging, even, perhaps, and, of course - plants. There’s nothing quite like local retail, and if I happen to have an outsized pop up audience, for this article, I could be doing the various locales, from here to there, from wherever you might be coming from, to arrive at - what amounts to rubbing the locals the wrong way, perhaps, as well as the nursery shop owners, potentially - it’s a well-stocked nursery, with lots of rare and exotic plants, but it’s definitely a small shop type of feel, so please don’t show up there with some kind of religious group, or religious following, sort of thing, about you - I’ve been going there since I was young, and that would really hurt, if this place was improperly targeted. 

Other than that, there’s no place like it in town. I think that there’s kind of a “no homeless people” kind of rule about the locale, and in towns surrounding the place, I have to warn people. I tried it, and man, it was pretty rough. I got a lot of attention, as a homeless person, out there. 

Which reminds me… about the cracks in the ground. 

On one hand, outgoing people (out in public) probably couldn’t possibly be all that regularly outgoing, and deny, that there are definitely tons of cracks in the ground, that are kind of a new thing, some of them. One person had chimed in, on the subject, going back to agriculture, with the oil industry, being one of the predecessors, or “diversions,” perhaps, from standard and organic agriculture, and, now biotech, with plant-based developments and energy resources being a hot topic, of development, and of sustainability. 

Anyways, the saying was something like, “well, all the cracks in the ground, well, that’s actually a great thing,” on the oil and natural gas industry’s side, but the context was an “out here” sort of thing, which is Downtown LA, and, at the moment, nearly everyone is trying to figure out how to get back to monetization of business and industry - the working folks are, at least. 

Or is this some sort of “Democracy,” or Democratic thing, that I don’t quite understand? That might be me, and maybe that’s the case. 

How are you a patron, here?

- some timely voice chimes in, on the subject - “as.” 

Eh. 

Everybody seems to be accusing others of this or that, but I think that so many people are really over it, and people are becoming concerned about - 

Umm, ugh. Never mind. So much drama. Here’s my Vanilla Planifola, Mexican variety, as a Harajuku Doll (I’d suppose… right?)

Rendered by Vector Q app, on iPadOS.

I didn’t even know that Harajuku dolls were amenable to tropical plants, until I did it.  

For people who would like to delve off-local cartography and travails around town, to unfamiliar places, Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups are both good places to network and mingle with people who are fairly time- and science-based invested in the vanilla industry. I just feel that showing up, somewhere, locally, beats a whole lot of ad serve and marketing efforts, even on my part, because it offers the consumer the option to browse a rich array of products that are suitable for local climates, here in Southern California, and there’s a whole lot of Asian and Chinese cuisine and nightlife, along the way, if you’re heading east, out from metropolitan Greater Los Angeles areas, off on Valley Blvd., or, if you’re headed down Mission, from the other side of town, you could perhaps check out the Alhambra public library, for example. 

This all being the case, check back on this blog, for some of my indoor and outdoor gardening and interior design: plant-related contexts, for growing tips, and expert insider decorative insights. For example, I thought that the vanilla plant resembled a rubber plant, perhaps, and I had some grand confabulations of perhaps becoming some sort of commodities mogul, as a next step, beyond Vanilla planifola localization, in to Southern California (outdoor, ideally) agriculture, which got me thinking, since the vines I have are nested on a dead log (of some kind of dead wood), that the plants could, perhaps be placed, strategically-minded, in this case, on some other sort of living plant, to the benefit, and eventual unique development (furtherment) of the species that I have, being that I somewhat envision the plant as a dynamic and adaptive grower, albeit under ostensibly tropical conditions. The significant issue, here, is that most people, in Southern California, hot and sunny, though it is, have nearly scant-to-none - experience, that is, living in a truly tropical, or subtropical environment, which these vanilla plants truly thrive in - the humidity hits the traveler, to a tropic region, from a locality such as ours, immediately, and a person would virtually begin sweating, the moment the person exits the airplane.

Helping build the watershed, aided by more well-established and practiced agricultural nations - 

Here and there, rumors float around of miraculous personal developments happening, typically due to intentional decree, and some sort of flash and ecological disaster-scaled whim of being on the side of virtue, whatever that is, in cases such as this. In this instance, a bunch of generally small guys, I’d somewhat have come to believe, had grouped together, as some sort of group establishment, part urban-development team, and part disruptive hoodlums and drug users, from out of the collective sober living home scene - to build a too-skinny-to-stand high-rise, from out of what used to be a standard-sized parking lot in Downtown Los Angeles - on one hand, sure, perhaps it could have been something better, in any case, but, on the other hand, some of the sidewalks in DTLA are kind of skinny, still, and it’s still a bit intimidating to go out and have to maneuver, deftly, and well-informed (sometimes), of that a bunch of people just want to do the drug-use scene and casual streetside death attempts, on a casual, fanciful, favorite, or targeted victim. We’ll see how far this sort of thing goes. The other night, thy were rumored to have taken a woman, from the company of some guy I used to know, who wound up doing psychotic gestures towards me, in my head, once I became schizophrenic, and, later, simply knowingly harassed, in short. A crack-pack kid, as I knew him, as a young person - I thought that it was kind of impressive, at the time. 

It’s a challenging premise, perhaps, but it’s cheap and slutty to believe the best, out of a situation, in general, when there’s some sort of distaste, inherently assumed, between individuals, whereas cheap and slutty would generally sum up these types of differences in life. Small micro-ecological events, and concentrations, of certain types of behaviors, for example, from a kidnapping, and drugging, of a whore, for example, could, in turn, spur some form of unexpected, and or unprecedented sort of retaliation, such as that we had seen, supposedly - across the nation, and locally, here, in Southern California, and in Los Angeles. I felt like I was disproportionately drawn in to the extreme weather action. 

All things being the case, as such, I’ve been attempting to burgeon the agricultural contexts, within this urban setting, as best I can, while maintaining some personal boundaries, such as keeping to things that interest me, and also by trying to tidy up some of the sloppiness, or, at times, things would be a matter of waiting things out, to discover what the eventual decided purpose and uses would be, per se, for stuff that had popped up, around town, such as a recurrent and persistent urine smell, that had shown up, in Pershing Square. For that matter, due to some of the rains, which featured dropping atmospheric nitrogen, in excessive levels, the subway walls had become hopelessly tainted with calcified urine, and several other stations had  taken on, as well, the characteristic odors of urine, which played out fancifully, in some remote sensing humor development settings, such as “I’ve gotta be of on piss, for a pissed-on!” - a crowd favorite. As it turns out, the sparrows took a fancy to the of on olde (piss), as, they had discovered, the urine was a source of novel pleasure, should the power of it, be released, and they would sometimes hop around, and meddle in the dirt, where the piss was of on olde, and constantly there, embedded in the clay dirt, still, despite the rains.

So, there was some bit of inclusivity, that I could feel, for being the bird-feeding guy, on a regular basis, of some of these other projects, which had been developing, yet I had not much of a clue, about these niche and sub-pop themes, for some of this stuff.

Ugh. (from then, until now):

Catching up with neat-o fancy apps of web | app UI design, with universal or hybrid platform code bas

For first-time web | app (website-derived apps, or even in-page call stack coding “miniatures,” if you will) - somebody (like, myself), who is a “basically” amateur open-book sort of web app developer | aspirational type of approach to coding (except for Linux stuff, which has only limited-scope usefulness and portability, in this consideration of a use case scenario):

• Many people, I imagine, simply draw a blank, as to what to do, in a case like this, since it was all just some imaginable “great” internet-borne experience.
• Consequently, the urge to come up with something ingenious and worthwhile (worth talking about, perhaps) comes to mind.
• The mind comes to consider that somebody else had already come up with this great idea.
• A search on the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store commences / newbies might, alternately, opt to try to break in to / subvert their devices security measures, and pursue some sort of disassembly of their device and or it’s operating system, for the sake of coming upon something “better.”

• Ugh.

• Personally, I stopped doing the self-hacking of the device and the disassembly thing, several years ago, since I was always at odds with coming up with something innovative, or productive. 

   To be certain, 

  most decent development ideas have already been derived and established, of an organic nature, independently - just as an offhand fleeting assertion; the notion could extend to as much as that we are always, it may seem, and from here on out - aside from the expectation of that novelty, as a general premise in development, and in discovery; perhaps, innovation, per se, we now have some recent seminal works on the limitations of novelty, given some development task. For example, in the recent years, leading up to this point in time, we have some of the formative rhetoric and ideological and logistical backdrop established, as to what can be attained and wrought, from out of an intersection between novelty and the influence of creative works, from the study:

  Park, D., Nam, J. & Park, J. Novelty and influence of creative works, and quantifying patterns of advances based on probabilistic references networks. EPJ Data Sci. 9, 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-019-0214-8

  “Also, there are implications for the psychological study of novelty as well. It has been known in optimal theory of novelty that the positive acceptance (also called the “hedonic value”) of novelty follows the so-called Wundt curve that increases initially but decreases after a peak, indicating that too much novelty can be off-putting to humans…”

  which includes references to information derived from yet other works:

  Berlyne, D. E. (1969). Arousal, reward and learning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 159(3), 1059-1070.

  and  Berlyne, D. E. (1970). Novelty, complexity, and hedonic value. Perception & psychophysics, 8(5), 279-286.

  Both, simply for a quick flash of the context’s potential subject areas, which could, or ought to be considered, in this case. 

  Essentially, the topic, in and of itself, supposes that novel ideas are limited, in their usefulness and in their longevity, yet, as we may observe, from the initially-cited article, 

Checking in: What’s happening, and what’s there to look forward to, at iPigeon.institute.

 I’d been a bit absent, lately, 

in recent months. This has been due to personal difficulties, on account of various things:

• Back and neck pain
• Budgeting challenges
• Poor weather
• Perceived, or actual threats, to my personal security
• Persona developments
• Remote sensing acquisitions of my time

The truth is, I’d become a bit apathetic, and worry-worn, due to constant challenges and negativity surrounding me, essentially drawing a dark cloud over previous years, in which I’d had eccentric bursts of creativity and prolific resource of novelty and humor. These days, I find it difficult to drum up the same personal rapport and morale, being that the situations suppose, even more than I’d experienced, previously, since I began suffering from bouts of hearing persecutors voices, and from then until now - largely, now, have a distinctive dark taint of familiarity, amongst the characters whom present themselves to me, as harassers, which envelops my subconscious mood and fears of ever establishing yet another dysfunctional relationship, that I bring myself in to.

To be sure, it’s mostly guys that do this to me. With women, I’m much more optimistic, of that they could be “fixed,” perhaps, if necessary, or set aright, in some manner, if it came to that - it’s just sort of a feeling, more than that anything’s materialized; encounters with females are scarce, and not much of anything, although I have been feeling sparks of inspiration, in romance, in recent days and weeks, I’d suppose, and I guess that I’ve been working myself up to dipping my toes in the water, once again, so to speak. It’s a raw deal, that I run, being that I’m fraught with such a defensive and secluded personality framework spectrum of “possible” me’s, which I could make available, and secure some kind of workable sociability profile, for a lady, being that I’m picky, I’ve got formative standards and boundaries set for myself - I don’t tolerate much of any kind of conflict, or distaste, or aversion, to something that’s “not right,” or worse, in a relationship setting, being that I’m a very high 99th percentile degree of honest, and forthcoming, in life, I “don’t smoke (any drugs),” I’m very much present, in the moment, when it comes to opportunities to judge people, and on top of that, my neurotic spectrum of tendencies is still of that I’m generally shy, not much really capable of coming up with a right way to casually wedge my way in to some young lady’s life, and circumstances, and, furthermore, I’m somewhat expected to not even try to date, while on the job, for various reasons and rationale:

• I’m a bum
• My clothes are oftentimes messy
• Sometimes I sweat a lot
• I have a bunch of baggage - literal, bum and pigeon-feeding bum sorts of carry-along baggage
• My nose leaks and drips, endlessly
• I feel like crap, as far as limber qualities - I carry a lot of bags, as I’d mentioned
• A lot of people (women) could run circles around me, in socialization standards
• I’m there for the pigeons, and I can’t afford to look like a creep
• It’s a better trade-off, to be silent, keep to myself, and persist, in feeding pigeons
• I run a strictly fairly conservative Christian Protestant profile, of not much talk, or socializing
• I just keep to myself
• I have to protect my iPad Pro
• Sometimes, I feel like people are following me
• I have people making appearances in my mind, all the time
• I feel like some people definitely don’t like me, categorically, and sometimes, they show up, in town
• I feel like it would look funny, or scandalous, if I somehow materialized some kind of idealized female counterpart, at my side
• People put my personal private time at issue, and they criticize ostensible things that I do (or not)
• I have to do a sit-in job, while out and about, of performing licensed talk and behavioral therapist, marriage and family therapist, some sort of amalgamated public and mental health capacity type of fill-in, sort of work profile, lumped in
• Maybe these are just the “toilet can years” of this pigeon-feeding gig’s enterprise

The neat-o iPigeon.institute homemade instrument of the day (updating).

As an aspiring mobile device-driven music box designer, from various standpoints of development: nature’s form of the instrument (whistles, clicks, pops, bird sounds, and resonant bodies of materials, such as metal, wood, etc.), digital design of the emulated instrument (physical modeling, synthesized sounds, audio recordings, key mappings, and transpositions), as well as the delivery of the app, in a usable form, of some standard such as MIDI, 

I have, on one hand, a lot of free space to work with, given that any individual component would reasonably simulate some sort of more complex mechanical form and instrument structure, for example, my first novelty device:

The Can Drum Bellows Clicks-Flourisher - runs on tar!

Long-time readers of mine know that I’m big in to tar. What a fortunate discovery, to have happened upon this hand-crafted (post-manufacture and consumer use of this recyclable product - an aluminum can) bellows device - a sequential flourish-clicker, if you will, with features of a miniature steel drum; on one hand, percussive, as the form of the instrument was crafted by my own musician’s take on suitable design, for a makeshift tobacco pipe, whereas - as a pipe, for that matter, the instrument is played with the breath. It goes well, with a popping sound, perhaps, as a flourish moment, in a musical idea, whereas the tar, from smoking the aluminum can pipe, with tobacco; then smeared (the tar) across the numerous holes in the can’s smoking bowl section, whereby the can, suitably designed, mind you, would blow out, with a bellows thrust and force design concept, in mind, with both flutish and percussive effects being achieved, in one simple blow. 

It’s a simple thing to construct, yet it takes a musician’s skill and finesse, along with some entrained tonal fine-motor muscle tuning, which goes in to the crushing of the can - perhaps even a newcomer could construct the panels of the body of the instrument well enough; it’s just that this is particularly a musical instrument consideration. The holes are poked through, slightly, with a safety pin, or needle, perhaps, and the blowing happens through the drinking mouthpiece, otherwise, visually, the “top” of the can. 

Try it for yourself! It’s really a cute instrument to pull off, to wow your friends, compatriots, and passersby, alike. Try it with a squeeze pop!

Hear the individual sounds of the instrument, freshly capped with tar, from tobacco!