NanoStudio 2 is a powerful music production environment for synthesis, sampling, arranging, editing and mixing. It’s the successor to the original NanoStudio, an app held in high regard by musicians for many years for its usability, quality and productivity.
NanoStudio 2 builds upon the same design principles as its predecessor and introduces a huge range of extra features. An all-new audio engine delivers truly professional sound quality, highly optimized to handle complex projects with large numbers of instruments and effects.
NanoStudio 2 hosts external Audio Unit (AUv3) instruments and audio/MIDI effects. A library of all your AU instruments and presets is maintained so they’re tagged, searchable and just as accessible as NanoStudio’s own internal instruments.
Obsidian is NanoStudio’s built-in synth. It has 3 oscillators with 32 note polyphony and 7 different synthesis methods including analogue, wavetable, FM, multi-saw and phase distortion. It also supports samples and multisamples which may be split by note or velocity. Obsidian has 18 different filter types, including resonant analogue, super clean digital, formant, comb and waveshaping. Nearly every parameter can be modulated via the synth’s 5 envelopes, 5 LFOs and 10 configurable macro controllers, and modulation connections can be assigned with just a few taps. 300 factory patches are supplied with macros set up and ready to go. It’s easy to create your own patches and there are many more professionally produced patches available as IAP.
Slate is NanoStudio’s second built-in instrument, a sample/synthesis-based performance pad which makes it easy to tap out drum beats. Slate comes with 500 quality factory samples ranging from multisampled acoustic drums with natural variations through to cutting-edge electronic percussion and effects. 50 factory kits are include, and it’s easy to construct your own drum kits using the factory samples or your own. Slate can also be used with samples of just about anything: vocals, guitar riffs, synth pads – you name it.
There are powerful editors for song arrangement, MIDI, automation and samples. All share a consistent user interface so you’ll be up to speed with them and making music in no time.
A fully-featured sequencer supports tempo and time signature tracks (including tempo ramps) and Ableton Link.
Everything’s brought together by a mixer with unlimited tracks, track grouping and audio/MIDI sends. Tracks may have an unlimited number of insert effects with 11 built-in effects to choose from including reverb, sidechain compressor/expander, EQ with spectrum analysis, look-ahead limiter, delay, exciter, chorus, flanger and phaser. You can add AU audio/MIDI effects to the chain and use them just like an internal effect.
There are many mixdown options available with quality settings up to 32 bit/96kHz and support for file formats including wav, aiff, ogg and M4A. You can mixdown track stems in a single operation or select just a region of the song - great for resampling.
NanoStudio supports Audiobus and has many options for file sharing via the iOS Files app, Dropbox, AudioShare, iTunes File Sharing, AirDrop, email, WebDAV and importing music from your iTunes library.
Develop your initial musical ideas through to a final master with an intuitive workflow designed to get things done.
And they were due roughly 6 months after the release of this app. There are armies of people who will staunchly defend this app, and I used to be one of them, but I must say that there are better alternatives available for the same price range that include audio tracks, instead of having to spend more money on AUV3 units to work around and load your clip to a pad MPC style.
And it’s a shame. Because so much time and effort has been put into this thing, and you can really see that, but NS2 doesn’t have options like other DAWs do to bypass Apple’s sound filters which *really* makes a difference to your output sound. If you dare to use AUV3 units outside the box you’re going to choke up the CPU and DSP pretty quickly, another reason proper audio track support would benefit.
So it’s up to you, if all you care about is toying around with tracks then this is it for you. If you care about the small details in your sound plus having the ability to print to audio when you run out of CPU, then maybe an alternative would be better for you.
Go have a read of the forums before you buy this. It’s a shame, but I ended up uninstalling it.
The best of the best
If you are a producer you HAVE to get this. And get NanoStudio 1 while you are at it! To me, easier to use than GarageBand and most other production software bundles. I use it almost exclusively. I’ve made some of the best tracks I’ve ever done just because of the epic sound packs you can purchase, but the stock sounds are great anyway. Mixdowns and mixing in general is simple. Trust me. If you are a beginning producer or advanced, this is the way to go. But like I say, buy the first one too; it’s got some fun features and the guy who made it really understands the needs of music artists. Awesome!
If it ain’t broken...
I loved the original NanoStudio and have waited a long time for the updated iOS version, but considering NS2 is so much more expensive it is very disappointing: not as intuitive, nor as user friendly as the original, and the new GUI is dated and ugly. The synth is good and the developer is obviously talented, but I don’t get the price hike for what feels like a step backwards. The original NanoStudio was brilliant so why mess with a winning formula?
Great midi/daw
Really works well. Beautiful user-friendly interface. Very nice midi/daw for composing on the fly. Only leaves a couple of things on my wishlist:
1. Ability to see ‘ghost notes’ of other midi tracks to aid in note placement and editing
2. Ability to set scales and fold piano roll down so only in-scale notes are available. Out of scale / chromatic notes can be entered when unfolded.
3. Basic chord entry: major / minor triads and 7ths
4. Ability to duplicate tracks
One of the best DAWs on iPad
Probably meets my needs the most.
So far so good but..
I must say, Blip did a really nice job with this. Very solid, very few bugs, easy enough to use and well designed gui. Obsidian is a pretty impressive little beast of a synthesizer and Slate while not my favorite drum machine on the platform is certainly capable. As of now lack of AU midi recording is a downer and lack of Audio recording is pretty rough but were told they will be added soon. Overall this is a very good option as your iOS DAW and certainly to me the second best option available after Cubasis. Although in time with a few updates I can see that potentially changing. After downloading and using NS2 for about a week i found myself opening Cubasis a fair bit more again and now I’ve relapsed all the way back to Steinberg’s workhorse DAW full time. I’m hoping Blip will give me reason to give Nanostudio another go in the near future and that he doesn’t make us wait a year to get whats necessary to make this the king of iOS DAW’s as all the ingredients are there, the foundation is rock solid, just the cream filling.
NanoStudio
Total waste of money. Very un-intuitive and no audio recording - comes sometime in 2019, but judging by dev record, it will be 2011 or2012
Do yourself a favour and buy Cubasis instead 😄
