Comparison

AudioTheory Guitars vs Surface Builder

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

Head to head
About

AudioTheory Guitars

This app serves as a comprehensive reference for guitarists, offering interactive chord and fretboard diagrams. It simplifies music theory by allowing seamless transcription between piano and guitar, with customizable tuning and note exclusion features.

Highlights
  • Interactive chord and fretboard diagrams
  • Piano to guitar transcription
  • Customizable tuning and capo settings
  • Chord sheet playback
  • Note exclusion for playing in key
  • Left-handed mode
Read full description

AudioTheory Guitars is the ultimate reference tool for guitar notes and chords. Featuring a built-in keyboard, each note reacts to your input across the customisable chord and fretboard diagrams. For anyone who's ever wished music theory was that little bit more straightforward – this is the software you need. Features: –Seamlessly transcribe between piano and guitar using a straight-forward colour coding system and notation highlighting. Play a note on the keyboard, or directly from the chord and fretboard diagrams to see where it is across all formats. –Set your tuning and capo. Everything else adjusts accordingly – no need for a chord transposition chart. –Choose your chords with open, power, barre, sus2 and dim7 chord sheets with fullscreen diagrams and playback options. –Exclude notes and never play out of key again. Your fretboard diagram now only shows the notes you need and your keyboard doesn't play the ones you don't. –Full customisation. Select the chords you want. Left-handed mode for left-handed players. Set your fretboard size, number of strings, start fret and per-string tuning.

About

Surface Builder

Create custom MIDI control surfaces for audio applications. Design interfaces with buttons, knobs, and faders to send and receive MIDI data, control audio clips, and customize appearance. Supports AUv3 plugins and standalone use.

Highlights
  • Customizable MIDI control surfaces
  • AUv3 plugin and standalone modes
  • Send/receive MIDI data (notes, controllers, pitch bend)
  • Audio clip playback control
  • Multi-scene interface design
  • Drag and drop interface customization
Features
Read full description

Surface Builder is a tool for creating control surfaces that send MIDI data to one or more audio components in order to simplify remote control tasks. You start by creating a surface of a given size, adding buttons, knobs, faders, etc. to the surface and configuring them to generate the required MIDI output. Surface Builder allows you to send note on/off, controller change and program change values as well as being able to emulate modulation wheel and pitch bend data. Buttons can also be configured to send bulk MIDI data using a single key press. You can build surfaces that span multiple scenes and link between them for large complex interfaces. Incoming MIDI data can also be used to control or trigger elements of the interface, giving a bi-directional stream of MIDI data. Surface Builder can be added as a pure MIDI plugin which allows processing of MIDI only, or as an instrument plugin, allowing you to process audio passing through it. You can even load it as an intrument and configure a surface to start and stop audio clips either manually or remotely. Surface Builder was designed to be used as an AUv3 plugin within your favourite DAW, but it can also be used in standalone to send MIDI directly to MIDI hardware using direct access to their MIDI ports. Many different object types are supported including buttons, switches, lights, rotary knobs, faders, sliders, XY-Pad, keyboards, as well as text, image and box objects. Each object has many different styles and colours, so no two surfaces look the same. Drag and drop an audio file onto a button and that button becomes a clip player. Attach rotary knobs to control the clips volume and pan. Throw on top of that a LP/HP filter knob and you are cooking on gas. Drop PNG transparent image icons on buttons to customise the look and feel. A button can record and playback bulk MIDI commands, on both button press and release. So pressing a button could send the notes of a chord when pressed, and appropriate note offs on release. A surface can consist of up to 6 scenes for really complex designs. Buttons and switches can be used to switch scenes and also to show and hide other objects to make better use of screen space. Once your surface is complete switch to presentation mode to hide all the toolbars. Each surface can be saved with compressed audio and images all in a single surface file. Features ○ AUv3 and standalone modes. ○ Bluetooth MIDI support. ○ Drag and Drop interface. ○ Send and Receive Note On/Off. ○ Supports all Control Change parameters. ○ Supports Program Change commands with bank support. ○ Multiple Audio Clip playback. ○ Record and playback bulk midi data. ○ Multi-Scene. ○ Multi-level undo/redo. ○ MIDI Monitor ○ Presentation Mode. ○ iPhone and iPad compatible.

Screenshots

Surface Builder4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: AudioTheory Guitars at $6.99 against Surface Builder's $14.99. Surface Builder's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 3 months) and review sentiment (80% vs 67%). On ads, in-app purchases, monetization model 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

AudioTheory Guitars costs $6.99 and Surface Builder $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

AudioTheory Guitars ships an update every 3 months, Surface Builder every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on June 1, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
AudioTheory Guitars versus Surface Builder: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAudioTheory GuitarsSurface Builder
Price$6.99 — better$14.99
Rating4.7 (15 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews80.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings15 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
DevicesiPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS15.013 — better
Further details — not scored
Size318 MB32 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperFraser Mackenzie4Pockets.com

Customer experience

AudioTheory Guitars

Written reviews3 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative33.3%

Surface Builder

All ratings15 ratings
Positive93.3%
Neutral6.7%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews15 reviews
Positive80.0%
Neutral13.3%
Negative6.7%

In-app purchases

None

AudioTheory Guitars

No in-app purchases

None

Surface Builder

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is AudioTheory Guitars free?
AudioTheory Guitars costs $6.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Surface Builder free?
Surface Builder costs $14.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do AudioTheory Guitars or Surface Builder have ads?
Neither AudioTheory Guitars nor Surface Builder shows ads.
Which is updated more often, AudioTheory Guitars or Surface Builder?
AudioTheory Guitars ships an update every 3 months, and Surface Builder every 3 weeks. Most recently, AudioTheory Guitars was updated on June 1, 2026 and Surface Builder on September 22, 2026.

Other comparisons