Comparison

kineticSynth vs Percussive Synth

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

kineticSynth

Transform your phone into a virtual musical instrument that responds to your movements. Explore unique ways to create music with high-fidelity sound and intuitive controls. Perfect for aspiring musicians and sound enthusiasts.

Highlights
  • Motion-controlled instrument playback
  • Virtual 37-key synthesizer
  • Drum pad simulation
  • Bass drone control
  • Hi-fidelity 44kHz sound
  • Instrument tutorial videos
Features
Read full description

Use the phone as a virtual musical instrument, producing sounds depending on how you move it in the air. Every instrument has a help video demonstrating how the instrument is “played”. Hitting and sustaining the keys of a 37-keys keyboard synthesizer, or hitting drums as if with a drumstick, or controlling the buzz of a bass drone, it’s a completely new musical experience that feels natural like a real musical instrument! All in 44kHz hi-fidelity sound. Everyone can now sweep that filter like a pro electronic producer!

About

Percussive Synth

Create rhythms and melodies with a versatile sequencer and virtual analog synth engine. Experiment with sound design, record your creations, and export them for use in DAWs. Supports Ableton Link and MIDI.

Highlights
  • Virtual analog synth engine
  • Unique sequencer with odd subdivisions
  • Four independent synth voices
  • Record and export audio as .wav
  • Ableton Link support
  • MIDI input/output
  • Synth as AudioUnit
Features
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Percussive synth will accompany you while you jam, be your groove experimentation space, or be your source of recording material you may export and mix in a DAW. Fine control over many virtual analog synth parameters allows for vast sonic experimentation potential. And unique sequencer implementation equipped with such potential creates an exceptional user experience. The app consists of the sequencer and the synths engine: SEQUENCER A rhythm or a melody can be created using the sequencer. Tap notes into one of the four tracks, one track for each voice of the synthesizer. Set note's pitch and velocity using knobs. Or don't, and rely on a global track's pitch setting. Each synthesizer voice has a completely independent set of parameter values, so you get four different synths playing polyphony. One of the cool features of the sequencer is the ability to switch between straight and odd subdivisions - a note can be one-fourth of the bar, but also one-sixth, and one-tenth. Also, notes can overlap and re-trigger after overlap ends, which allows for creating weird rhythms when used with odd subdivisions. And if you're into drone music - BPM can go over 9000. SYNTHS The basis of each voice is two oscillators and a white noise generator. Each oscillator can produce a square, saw, triangle, or sine wave shape. The second oscillator's frequency can be discretely shifted from -2 to +2 octaves, or smoothly offset using the "osc2 freq" knob. Oscillators' frequency can glide to a higher or a lower value - "decay time" will set the duration of this glide, and "decay amt" the frequency destination - it's quantized to octaves and fifths. A mix of these sound sources goes into the low-pass filter. The filter's cut-off frequency can be dynamically controlled by ADSR (attack, decay, sustain, release) module. The amount and direction of this control are set by the "env" knob. The second ADSR module controls the volume envelope. OTHER FEATURES - Sequencer and synths modules have separate preset managers and undo histories - Audio can be recorded and exported as .wav files from the app - Recording's start and end time can be quantized to the sequencer transport's start and stop - Synth can be used as separate AudioUnit - Ableton Link support - MIDI io, CC mapping - Export preset files - Toggle between quadratic and linear ADSR - Toggle velocity sensitivity in knobs Some of the amazing feedback from our precious users: "I can’t stop playing with the app and love using Record in stand-alone for doing quick exports with live tweaks" "Really Good work man, different from my habitual drums seq plays, and this is good" "Definitely some lovely sound coming out of this" "The sequencer looks very unique and interesting for odd and glitchy tunes" "I have only scratched the surface of it. Going to be awesome for sure. Wow high praise indeed. Can hardly wait to play some more. Enjoy!" "The sequencer in the standalone is really interesting and fun to play" "Still diving in. Lots of fun. The flexible simplicity of the sequencer with wide range of bpm is really cool. So far the sounds make me believe i am existing in an apocalyptic 80s film" "Recently purchased your app and i love it so so much. I do all my jams in AUM and have been looking for an interesting sequencer, found yours and i love it! "

Screenshots

kineticSynth3 screens
Percussive Synth4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: kineticSynth at 5.0 against Percussive Synth's 3.9. Percussive Synth's advantage is ratings volume (9 vs 2). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

kineticSynth holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 9 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

kineticSynth ships an update every 3 weeks, Percussive Synth monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
kineticSynth versus Percussive Synth: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterkineticSynthPercussive Synth
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better3.9 (9 ratings)
Positive reviews—50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings29 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS11.0 — better12
Further details — not scored
Size121 MB94 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperStefan NikolovVadym Rostok

Customer experience

kineticSynth

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Percussive Synth

All ratings9 ratings
Positive66.7%
Neutral11.1%
Negative22.2%
Written reviews10 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative30.0%

In-app purchases

None

kineticSynth

No in-app purchases

None

Percussive Synth

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is kineticSynth free?
kineticSynth is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Percussive Synth free?
Percussive Synth is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, kineticSynth or Percussive Synth?
kineticSynth is rated higher. kineticSynth averages 5.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Percussive Synth averages 3.9 from 9 ratings.
Do kineticSynth or Percussive Synth have ads?
Neither kineticSynth nor Percussive Synth shows ads.
Which is updated more often, kineticSynth or Percussive Synth?
kineticSynth ships an update every 3 weeks, and Percussive Synth monthly. Most recently, kineticSynth was updated on September 28, 2026 and Percussive Synth on October 4, 2026.

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