# Fugue Machine Rubato — user reviews > 63 indexed App Store user reviews of Fugue Machine Rubato by Alexandernaut, rated 4.80/5 from 67 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/fugue-machine-rubato/id6670253122/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/fugue-machine-rubato/id6670253122.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 60 · 4★ 4 · 3★ 1 · 2★ 1 · 1★ 1 ## What do users think of Fugue Machine Rubato? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Powerful and flexible - 🚀 Stable and reliable - 👍 Inspiring and creative - 👍 Intuitive and easy to use - 👍 Lots of presets to get started - 👍 Works great on iPad and iPhone **Cons** - 🐛 Lacks a parameter randomizer feature - 🐛 Doesn't work with Logic Pro (only standalone) **Commonly reported bugs** - Doesn't work with Logic Pro - Compatibility issues with older macOS versions **Most requested features** - Add a parameter randomizer feature - Improve documentation and provide a complete manual ## Newest reviews (12 of 63) ### 4/5 — revised / Very good program / 4 stars due to difficult to see but if he clears this up - 10 stars *2026-08-28* Just received a response from the developer (thank you!) and to bring my crashing issue up to date: i was running multiple instances (3) of FMR and using 3 instances of the Pianoteq demo. My machine is an iPad M1 with 16gb RAM so it shouldn’t crash on what I consider to be a light load. Although I’m using iOS Logic Pro, that can have its own issues with processing, I believe the problem was with Pianoteq. It seems that the protection on the demo versions somehow are demanding a lot of processing power as when I finally purchased the product the crashing (and distortion) was gone. I don’t know how far I can push it but running as many as 5 instances of each app causes no issues. Not mentioned earlier the problem was cos occurring in AUM. I’m not giving this 5 stars because the color of the app still makes it difficult for this senior to see the settings and values. **Developer response:** I'm not getting any crash reports. My first thoughts are that it may be an issue with Logic or the device running low on RAM. Feel free to email me at fuguemachinerubato@alexandernaut.com and I can try to help figure out what's going on. More color options and documentation will be worked on in the near future. ### 4/5 — etwas entäuschend *2026-08-02* Die Oberfläche ist kontrastarm und unübersichtlich. Gerade im Vergleich zur „alten“ Fugue Machine. ### 3/5 — Innovative Sequencer *2026-03-08* I’m pretty satisfied with this unique sequencer. It’s one of a kind and will be one of the few sequencers I’ll use out of the 10 I already have. It’s feature packed and the layout is well designed. Alex added lots of his own presets to get things moving but for the price I REALLY wish this app had the ability to import midi files, as I literally have thousands of them. Also, I agree with the other reviewer who is asking for a randomization feature. I’ll give this app 5 stars if these two requests are implemented. ### 3/5 — Needs more scale options, note bending,and better documentation *2026-02-24* In many ways it’s a great tool that offers solutions to help create complex rhythmic phrasing / sequencing. ¿ Is there a way to bend notes ? ¿ Why is there NOT an easy / simple way to BEND notes? Bending notes is very VERY important for expression. Please implement that or explain how to glissando/bend pitches The manual does not offer much information. You can only have maximum 128 steps to a sequence !!! Increasing that would be appreciated. The lack of scale/modes/tuning is frustrating. Please PLEASE add more scales …. There should be at least 30 scales and tunings to choose from ### 5/5 — Fascinant *2025-12-05* A la recherche d’un séquenceur différent j’avoue que je suis bluffé, enthousiaste et mon cerveau est en ébullition. J’avais déjà la première version. La seconde transcende la première. C’est plein de possibilités. L’idée est aboutie et l’interface reste simple et intuitive. C’est un outil de recherche et un terrain d’expérimentations. En un mot c’est….intelligent. Bravo et merci à son créateur ! ### 4/5 — Good, but on Mac, only works standalone *2025-12-05* A truly great sequencer, but I really thought the point of this app bragging MacOS compatibility was that it would function in DAWs like Ableton Live as an AUV3 but it doesn’t and so can only be run standalone a send notes to a DAW over midi, which is not a good workflow. I hope this gets addressed so I can actually use it. **Developer response:** Hi John, Thanks for the review and feedback. Rubato currently includes an AUv3 MIDI plugin, but unfortunately Live does not support this format — they do support AUv3 audio plugins though. I'm considering ways for Rubato to run as a MIDI plugin within Live (as I would love this too), but tbd on that. The AUv3 MIDI plugin currently works great in Logic Pro and other AUv3 MIDI hosts on iOS and macOS. In the meantime, the best way to use Rubato with Live is side-by-side in standalone mode, with Ableton Link enabled on both Live and Rubato. This is actually preferred in one critical way compared to using a MIDI plugin within Live, as you can use the single instance of Rubato to route to multiple Live tracks simultaneously. Hope this helps, and please feel free to reach out at fuguemachinerubato@alexandernaut.com for any reason. All the best, Alexander ### 5/5 — Absolutely briliant *2025-12-04* For my use case of writing deterministic, evolving generative pieces this is the best tool I’ve found. Most other things I’ve found use randomness as the primary method of producing variation; I’m not critical of that but it’s not for me. I tried things like orca, Midinous (nodal doesn’t seem to work anymore), others, but didn’t get on with them. With far I seem to be unable to produce anything I don’t like so far. With other tools I often get frustrated with the ui, the limitations, and the results. The ui in fmr is amazing, some really next-level concepts that I think will be copied as other devs see how well they work; it appears to have nearly bottomless complexity if you want it but can be dead simple if you want that too, and I haven’t yet thought “I wish it could do …” (except for sending of midi cc, hope that gets added). I was on the fence due to the price but when the sale came I decided to give it a shot. I would not hesitate to buy it at full price now that I know what it does. Can’t recommend it enough ### 4/5 — Great but needs more scale options and documentation *2025-12-04* In many ways it’s a great tool that offers solutions to help create complex rhythmic phrasing / sequencing. But the manual does not offer much information, and I have yet to see a video that really explains how everything works. You can only have maximum 128 steps to a sequence !!! Increasing that would be appreciated. The lack of scale/modes/tuning is frustrating. Please PLEASE add more scales …. There should be at least 30 scales and tunings to choose from ### 5/5 — OMG *2025-11-27* Long have I waited till the price came down for the first time. This is a universal app that runs on Intel Macs too, hence the steep price. Had fun with the Classic Fugue Machine, but this is a completely different beast. It’s a mighty compositional tool. Like an instrument it will take time to learn. I‘m already awestruck by listening to the presets alone, and this is only with the simplistic built in synth. ### 5/5 — Excellent App *2025-10-13* Wonderful, useful, and complementary to the original version. They can be used together to great effect. Worth every penny of the price as nothing does what it does, and it’s surprising. ### 5/5 — amazing sequencer - can do true polyrhythms! *2025-10-03* every time someone tries to sell me a sequencer I ask “can it do true polyrhythms?” and they always say “yes” but they don’t mean yes they mean “it can do polymeters” - but lemme tell ya - that ain’t the same thing! Not this one though, this one is the genuine article - in that it can actually do polyrhythms. Also it’s crazy cool and can do a bunch of other stuff and is a worthy upgrade to the original (it’s got a mac app! You can actually do polyrhythms in Logic now without hurting your loop braces!). ### 5/5 — fantastic and DEEP *2025-10-01* I was a big fan of the original fugue machine, but I hesitated on buying rubato due to cost and a lack of need. I’m glad I revisited that decision however as this app is incredible!! It’s so deep and such a cool way to approach sequencing. You could easily write a whole piece using just a single instance of this app! Also the fact that this was also released as a universal app makes it worth the added cost imo. I just hope at some point they release an auv2 wrapper so I can also use this in Reaper. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — interesting but poor usability *2026-06-14* Seems like an interesting and promising app but the documentation is still very basic for such a complex app and the UI is quite bad (small text, low contrast, three-finger-tap on small button, how?). Contacted support over a month ago but no reaction. I hope for a future update to significantly improve overall usability. Until then, there fortunately are others apps making music with is actually fun. **Developer response:** Apologies for missing your email, it seems to have slipped through the cracks on my end. I've been focused on some other projects recently, but will be getting back to Rubato soon. The manual, text, and contrast will be addressed. Re: 3-finger-tap on a small button, if you're referring to the shift buttons, you can tap down on the shift button and pan your finger anywhere on the screen and it will remained pressed. So you can put one finger down at a time and pan it out of the way for the next finger. This was designed to have parity between the iOS and Mac versions and to have modifiers on a touchscreen without having 4 separate modifier buttons. I find it hilarious that it actually works well, but for the record, 2/3-finger shift operations can mostly be achieved in other ways on a touchscreen ### 1/5 — Amazing but.. *2026-06-12* I want to give this 5 stars, but I can’t do anything with this cool sequence I just did on my phone, there’s no way to render it to audio or midi or inter app audio or load this as an audio unit or anything which makes it worthless.. add any one of those and I’ll change this to a 5 star, but for a 20 something dollar app I expect at least one of those options **Developer response:** It runs very well as an AUv3 MIDI plugin, just gotta make sure the AUv3 host supports MIDI plugins and if so, how to add them. IAA is deprecated, so I didn’t support it. And bouncing to MIDI is planned for a future update. Feel free to email me at alexander@alexandernaut.com if you have any questions ### 1/5 — Nice idea, but hard to use *2026-01-20* I really like the idea and the output is great. The big problem I have is the UI. The background is black. The text is a darkish gray and very small. It’s very very hard to read. I can make the window larger, but the text stays the same size. Why does the text have to be gray on a black background? This is on my iMac with a 27” screen. Great idea, but the app is very hard to use. If I could read the text I’d give the app five stars. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work as AUv3 in Ableton *2025-12-26* Despite saying that it supports AUv3 on Mac it doesn’t work in Ableton as a plugin. Misleading description at best. ### 1/5 — Bad beginning *2025-12-24* The first thing I wanted to do was: a preset with eight playheads running, to edit one playhead. However, in order to listen to what a single playhead is actually doing you need to disable the other seven playheads one by one (!!), instead of hitting a solo button, which obviously has been forgotten to provide. If you take this basic action further, listen to all the playheads and repeatedly pick one to fine-tune the settings you literally have to do hundreds of clicks or taps for simple editing. Next thing: the fonts are too small with no contrast, partly barely readable. **Developer response:** The solo/mute buttons are in the global module. Tap the globe button in the bottom toolbar to show the global module, then tap the grabber button on the right side of the module to show its second page of parameters. There you'll find solo/mute buttons for the playheads, effects, midi outputs, and drum triggers. ### 1/5 — Wasted days *2025-12-03* I just wanted to do something simple like increase the amount of steps on the grid …. ¿ Where is it ? Something like that should not be hard to find… The manual does not offer much information…. Please make a proper tutorial and manual ### 1/5 — Absoluter Reinfall *2025-09-23, version 1.1.0* Die App ist eine große Enttäuschung ### 1/5 — Be Careful Before Buying… *2025-09-08* I realized within about 30 minutes or so after purchasing the new Fugue Machine Rubato that it wasn’t an app that I would use to make music. It might be a good app, but it’s not for me. I requested a refund within an hour of having bought this app, and my request was rejected twice. Man, was I naïve in thinking I’d be respected more than this. The reason I even bought the app in the first place was because for several years I’ve enjoyed the original Fugue Machine. But at this point, after having this extremely poor customer service experience, I don’t even enjoy using the original Fugue Machine anymore either. **Developer response:** Hi Kyler, regarding the refund request, I wish I had control over that, but unfortunately Apple makes that decision and it's based on many parameters. There's a TestFlight demo available via the app's website, and I mention it at the top of the description here in the App Store so users can try it before purchasing. Sorry to hear Rubato didn’t fit into your workflow. If you'd like to discuss more, please feel free to send an email to alexander@alexandernaut.com. ### 2/5 — Needs more scale options, note bending,and better documentation *2026-06-24* The lack of scale/modes/tuning is frustrating. Please PLEASE add more scales …. There should be at least 30 scales and tunings to choose from In many ways it’s a great tool that offers solutions to help create complex rhythmic phrasing / sequencing. ¿ Is there a way to bend notes ? ¿ Why is there NOT an easy / simple way to BEND notes? Bending notes is very VERY important for expression. Please implement that or explain how to glissando/bend pitches The manual does not offer much information. You can only have maximum 128 steps to a sequence !!! Increasing that would be appreciated. **Developer response:** Thanks for the message, will be getting back to rubato soon 🌀 ### 2/5 — interesting but unpolished *2026-06-14* I’ve been using fugue machine rubato pretty regularly on both iPad and macOS. The basic premise is interesting but there’s some major UX hurdles encountered pretty quickly. There’s many nested menus hidden under multiple modifier buttons. Trying to save a pattern or protect has like 40 ways to easily lose all your work and one multi step process to save it. Ableton Link does not function with Ableton Live, pressing stop just resets the pattern. **Developer response:** If you're referring to the menus within the popovers, those menus are contextual for specific parameters — essentially right click menus. The main parameters are all on the main interface. Every change you make to the sequencer is automatically written to disk and accessible in the Snapshots menu. The most recent 100 changes are stored, persisted between pattern changes, app terminations, etc.. This was designed to allow you to quickly change patterns without "Are you Sure?" menus, without worrying about losing your work if you intended to save. Ableton Link does work on my end, I just tested it again to verify. Please feel free to email fuguemachinerubato@alexandernaut.com if you'd like help troubleshooting. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Karamba 🧑‍🚀 🛸 *2026-07-06* Was für ein komplexer und aufregend-intuitiv bedienbarer Monster-Sequenzer. 🧌 Mit seinen vielen einstellbaren Verläufen, welche nochmal mit Automationen beeinflusst werden können, fliegt man durch Galaxiencluster benachbarter Universen. Und dann noch für Mac verfügbar - ein Träumchen. Etwas klein im unteren Menübereich, trotz 13er IPad - hier würde ich mir ein Fenster zum nach oben verschieben oder nen Zoom wünschen. Danke für diese wunderbare Neuauflage❕ ### 5/5 — Impressive *2026-03-25* Had this app, upon ChatGPT recommending the classic one, just a couple of days ago. I didn’t know this monster of a MIDI app existed. 2 days in, with zero knowledge, and I’m already having a blast! **Developer response:** 🙏 ### 5/5 — Stellar app let down by lack of MIDI input *2026-02-19* A very deep app, capable of totally unique sequences. The glaring omission is the lack of midi keyboard inputting of notes - it REALLY REALLY needs this - it’s the only thing holding back the app - I want to connect my Axis49 hexagonal midi controller via USB! ### 5/5 — Great progression *2026-02-13* I had the demo, but never had enough time to get really deep into this. Since the price dropped, I bought it and I’ve been working with it for hours and hours. It’s quite deep and I had to look into the manual which isn’t quite finished, for more information. I find it quite musical now much more than the first one. If you’ve got an Apple Pencil, it makes using this quite a lot better. And as people have been saying, the printing could be much easier if it was white. Anyway I think it’s a WOW sequencer and I have got a lot to compare to. ### 5/5 — Innovative *2026-01-22* If you dig it, you will love it! ### 5/5 — Mind bending time bending *2026-01-13* Go past the inbuilt sound engine and route some MIDI… fugue machine rubato will take you to new planes!! It’s such a deep and rich system to explore… ### 5/5 — Solid and unique *2026-01-06* Any video of this software will quickly demonstrate that its output can be captivating. The interface is excellent and feels only a little cramped on iPhone. However, it lacks support for batch operations or other quality of life features which might ease an otherwise tedious and repetitive workflow. Documentation is good but incomplete, and interface elements such as menus can be idiosyncratic; the learning process remains mostly intuitive. MIDI support is robust, and routing works well in Cubasis. The app is overall elegant, flexible and stable. ### 5/5 — Totally unique *2025-12-22, version 1.1.0* Original and inspiring take on composing, learning curve is real but worth it! I’d request midi import, and more note names to extend composing power ### 5/5 — Incredible, just needs.. *2025-12-13* So unique, learning curve is might take 3 days. Logic Pro on ipad is fiddly and the manual and tutorials need more work. But get this , it's incredible ### 5/5 — Sequenzer-Monster!!! *2025-12-06* Was für ein geniales Sequenzer-Monster!!! Alles, was man sich vorstellen kann (und noch mehr) ist mit diesem genialen Werkzeug möglich. Für fast jeden Parameter kann man Hüllkurven einzeichnen und phantastische Verläufe aus einfachsten Sequenzen bauen. Trotz seiner Komplexität ist die Fugue Rubato einfach zu bedienen. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-07.*