Synths, a drum machine, a granular sampler, lofi chords, a multi-effect, chord charts with backing tracks and an SPL meter. Each one has its own colours, and six of them also run as AUv3 inside your other music apps.
All but one are free to start. Pay once, no subscriptions.
Standalone apps, most also AUv3
5.0 ★Free · Pro unlock
A circular drum machine for iPhone and iPad. Build beats on up to twelve rings of light, add swing, switch between eight patterns and bring your own samples. Play it on its own or load it as an AUv3 instrument in your DAW.
4.6 ★Free · Pro unlock
A 16-pad granular sampler for iPhone and iPad. Record or import a sound, sculpt it into textures with the grain engine, then sequence patterns and chain them into songs. Standalone, or as an AUv3 in GarageBand, Logic, AUM and Loopy Pro.
$2.99 US · one time
A retro vocal synth inspired by the 1978 speaking spelling toy. Type any word and it talks back in vintage voices, in English or French. Sequence words to a beat, play them from a MIDI keyboard, or load it as an AUv3 instrument.
Free · Pro unlock
An ambient morph synth you play with one finger. Four neural instrument models sit at the corners of a map, and everything in between is a new, continuous sound. Explore up to eleven sheets by touch, MIDI or as an AUv3.
Free · Studio unlock
A pocket lofi chord studio for iPhone and iPad. Tap a chord and it already sounds good: smooth voice leading, warm synths, lazy drums and mood packs. No music theory needed. Matcha Studio adds recording, Song Mode and the AUv3 plugin.
Free · Pro unlock
A playable modular multi-effects processor for iPhone and iPad. Chain filter, delay, drive, reverb, grain and more, patch modulation to any control, then morph the whole chain with one finger on the XY pad. Standalone or as an AUv3 effect.
Free · Pro unlock
A hand-drawn retro pocket synthesizer for iPhone and iPad, after the calculator-synths of the early '80s. Play five lo-fi voices over ten rhythms, program your own voice with an eight-digit code, record and share what you play, or flip to the calculator and play the keypad.
Free · Mac $5.99
A chord chart app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Write lead sheets with sections, repeats and endings, then practise over a backing band with an A-B loop, Tempo Ramp and fingering diagrams. Your songs live in your own iCloud Drive, with no account.
Free · Pro unlock
A careful, offline sound measurement app for iPhone and iPad. The SPL meter, a 1/3-octave RTA and an FFT are free, and every band shows how far a phone mic can be trusted. Pro adds a 3D waterfall spectrogram, RT60 room measurement, a signal generator, recordings with A/B compare, export and calibration.
Where each one started
AU · VST3 · CLAP · Standalone
Character effect
A character effect for Mac. Run any track through five broken signal paths: a phone line, a '90s game console, AM radio, a flaky voice chat and a cassette. Six macros instead of two hundred knobs, as AU, VST3, CLAP or a standalone app.
From the release notes
The spectrogram can now be a 3D waterfall: each moment becomes a ridge line, so resonances and decays stand out, and a drag turns it. It's part of Pro; the free Spectrogram tab shows it blurred and slowly turning. Tactical Violet is a new Pro theme with its own console layout for every screen, and iPhone gets a landscape layout.
Playback no longer cuts out for a moment when pads run through a group bus, are muted or play very quietly. Turning effects on and off, switching presets and editing chains while playing are all smoother.
Exports and bounces from your DAW come out clean, with the release and reverb tail intact. A MIDI keyboard plugged into the app finally plays it, and recordings play back at the speed and pitch you played them.
Each app starts from one odd idea: a drum machine in the round, a sampler that thinks in grains, a synth you play by walking across a map. I design them, build them and answer the email myself.
A lot of Orbeat came from emails. If you want something, write in.