Koala is a fun one for making sample based beats, it is inspired by the Roland SP404 which is a legendary sampler used by e.g. J Dilla.
Drambo is my personal favourite, an incredibly powerful semi-modular groovebox somewhat inspired by Elektron’s sequencer, but with infinite possibilities for sound design (especially when combined with AUv3 plugins) and a great UI. Not as beginner friendly though.
I'm also aware of https://www.flipsampler.com by the YouTuber and electronic music producer Andrew Huang. I've had good feedback on this app from my musically talented friends. I can't provide any judgement in this area myself as while I am an ardent music fan and a keen observer of music production mastery of others, I have not been blessed with the necessary skills or propensity for developing them myself, unfortunately.
I used several iOS apps, and flipsampler is one of the best ones I've tried, quite intuitive.
I didn't expect it, as many times such apps from vloggers and celebrity musicians are just BS endorsement deals for mediocre cookie-cutter stuff.
>while I am an ardent music fan and a keen observer of music production mastery of others, I have not been blessed with the necessary skills or propensity for developing them myself, unfortunately.
If you want to give it a try, Ableton themselves offer a nice tutorial:
For me, the most inspiring music app on iOS is Endlesss (http://endlesss.fm) because it allows me to share ideas with my fellow music-makers seamlessly .. hours and hours of jams have gone on and on because of the easy to use interface and very well integrated sharing of clips between users ..
Many things special about one over another, as most have different features and strong/weak points.
One particularly special about this one is easy integration with Ableton Live, the DAW of choice for many/most electronic music producers - automatic sync, access to a sutset of the sound library, same (but stripped-down) workflow, and compatible project files (from Note to desktop Live).
My personal favorite is Auxy. Has a subscription, but there's a ton of free instruments included so the subscription isn't mandatory. Very easy interface but can create complicated compositions. Can export to Ableton, MIDI, WAV and others. It's easily my most used app outside of Safari.
I think the basic interface of Auxy would pass the grandparent test. Some of the knobs might be a little confusing. But selecting an instrument and plotting out the loops is dead easy.
Lots of really good suggestions here. To add to this, I recently discovered https://www.songen.app. I think you have to pay for the export functionality, but just playing around with the parameters and genres gives a nice starting point whenever I feel stuck.
Drambo is my personal favourite, an incredibly powerful semi-modular groovebox somewhat inspired by Elektron’s sequencer, but with infinite possibilities for sound design (especially when combined with AUv3 plugins) and a great UI. Not as beginner friendly though.