SoundBow vs Synesthesia Synth
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SoundBow
Create music by drawing curves and gestural movements on a clean interface. Record your own sounds, build melodies, and export compositions as audio files. This app offers a unique, interactive approach to music production.
- Drawing-based music creation
- Gesture-based sound manipulation
- Record and use own sounds
- Export compositions as audio
- Rescale instrument elements
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SoundBow is a drawing based music instrument with a clean and simple visual interface. You can create music by drawing curves over the screen with lines and gestural movements. Apart from drawing, you can rescale your instrument by moving graphical elements around. Record your own sounds through the microphone and start creating melodies, soundscapes with your own voice. If you wish, you can also export your composition as an audio file. "Touch-based mobile devices allowed interactive, gesture-based music production to hit the masses. So far, this type of musical creation hasn't exactly taken the world by storm. But SoundBow, a drawing-based musical instrument app, should shake things up a little bit with its clean, minimal visual interface and mesmerizing potential for complex, loop-based music production." - The Creators Project "Binaura bring their beautiful SoundBow app to iOS at last. It is a gorgeous instrument with huge possibilities for expression and creativity. I think that in many ways these are the kinds of apps that iOS was made for." - Palm Sounds SoundBow is made with free and open source tools. The interface is built with OpenFrameworks. The sound engine is made with SodaLib, a free Data Sonification Library built on top of libPd (Pure Data).
Synesthesia Synth
An experimental audio-visual instrument that allows users to sculpt evolving spatial audio by manipulating floating capsules. Position, rotation, and pulse changes affect tone, texture, and synchronized particle generation. It's a visual synthesizer, not a game.
- Experimental audio-visual instrument
- Sculpt evolving spatial audio
- Manipulate floating capsules
- Control tone, texture, and particles
- Visual synthesizer
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Synthaestesia is a free experimental audio-visual instrument. Three capsules float in space. Every contraction produces sound. Move them, rotate them, reshape their pulse — and sculpt evolving spatial audio. Position changes tone. Rotation alters texture. Delay generates synchronized particles. This is not a game. It’s a spatial synth you can see.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Synesthesia Synth at Free against SoundBow's $1.99. Synesthesia Synth also leads on update cadence (every 10 days vs every 2 months) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). SoundBow's advantage is ratings volume (13 vs 2) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 16.0). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Synesthesia Synth is free to download; SoundBow costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Synesthesia Synth holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SoundBow has 13 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
SoundBow ships an update every 2 months, Synesthesia Synth every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SoundBow | Synesthesia Synth |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (13 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 65.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 13 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 141 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Agoston Nagy | MICHELE ZACCAGNINI |
In-app purchases
SoundBow
No in-app purchases
Synesthesia Synth
No in-app purchases









