MIDI Tape Recorder vs Stellarvox
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MIDI Tape Recorder
This app offers a unique approach to MIDI recording, capturing performances with audio-like precision. It focuses on preserving the nuances of your playing without altering timing, ideal for expressive MPE performances. Simple controls make it fun to record, play back, and loop MIDI.
- Sample accurate MIDI recording
- MPE support
- Four independent MIDI tracks
- Overdub and punch-in recording
- MIDI file import/export
- Undo/redo functionality
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MIDI Tape Recorder takes a radically different approach to MIDI recording. Now in version 2.0, it runs both as an Audio Unit v3 plugin inside your favorite host and as a standalone app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. MIDI messages are recorded and played back with the same accuracy and precision as audio recordings. Most modern DAWs, even at their highest resolution, still change the timing of MIDI messages to accommodate their editing features. These changes impact the playback of your performance as MIDI messages get reordered and delayed, altering how they influence sound, sometimes in very significant ways. MIDI Tape Recorder records your performance exactly as you play it, just like an audio recorder, accurately reproducing every nuance. It purposefully has no MIDI note editing, no quantization, no individual CC tweaking, nothing you wouldn't do with audio. Instead, very expressive and ultra-dense MIDI streams are perfectly stored and reproduced. It excels at capturing and playing back expressive performances with MPE controllers and MPE plugins. The controls are purposefully simple and intuitive, like a traditional four-track tape recorder, making it fun to record, play back, and loop your MIDI performance. Even with non-MPE MIDI, it keeps you in the flow and creative, without being interrupted by the technical nature of most DAWs. New in the standalone app: run MIDI Tape Recorder on its own, with CoreMIDI input and output to route your performance to any of your MIDI apps, synths, and hardware. Sessions are autosaved and can be saved, opened, and shared as documents. Recording keeps running in the background and with the screen locked, so you never lose a take. MIDI Tape Recorder makes no sound on its own: as a plugin it records inside your host; as a standalone app it routes MIDI to your instruments. Features: • Runs as an AUv3 plugin or as a standalone app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac • Four independent tracks for recording MIDI channel voice messages • Sample-accurate MIDI recording and playback • Real-time display of active recorded notes and other received messages • Full MPE support • Continuous loop recording that re-records over the loop on each cycle instead of stopping at the loop end • Multi-level undo and redo • Overdub recording, with punch-in/punch-out for automated regional overdubbing • CoreMIDI input and output routing in the standalone app • Autosaved, shareable session documents in the standalone app • Background and screen-locked recording in the standalone app • Automated storage and recall of all recordings inside the AUv3 host project • MIDI file import and export, for the whole project or each individual track • Repeated playback with start and stop locators • AUv3 parameters for all controls • Snap-to-beat positioning for the playhead and locators • Per-track MPE configuration (MCM) detection and envoy • Host transport and host tempo sync • Clear all recordings or a single track, and crop the session to a new duration • Fully resizable UI with per-track input/output activity indicators • Optional per-track record enable, input monitoring, and mute • Four virtual MIDI cable inputs, with optional routing of the first cable to all tracks • AUv3 user presets when the host supports them • Open source, freely distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Stellarvox
Design immersive ambient soundscapes with a hybrid reverb and artificial space designer. Create lush textures, deep spaces, and whispering backgrounds for electronic, experimental, and sound design projects. Offers intuitive controls and inspiring presets for quick, high-quality results.
- Hybrid reverb with artificial space designer
- Algorithmic reflections tail processing
- Dynamic timbre changes over time
- Geometry and dimension control
- Factory presets and random feature
- MIDI learn support
- Standalone and AUv3 module
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Hybrid reverb with an artificial space designer, combining it with algorithmic reflections tail processing, is ideal to creating immersive ambience of deep spaces, lush atmospheric textures or stunning whispering backgrounds in your ambient, electronic, experimental and sound design projects. Unlike traditional algorithmic reverbs, Stellarvox constructs a complex model of a vast resonant sound spaces with choice of geometry, dimensions and tonal structure of the space, along with a unique feature that dynamically change the timbre of reflections over the reverberation time. The second algorithmic reverb allows you to prolong and blur reflections, adding extra dimensions to the sound space. Easy-to-use controls on a single screen, along with optimally designed parameters that always give great results, make insignificant the peculiarity of that kind of reverbs, when the model creates with a little delay after changing it. Factory presets and the random feature will give you a starting point of inspiration and allow you to get a quick result where you need just to slightly tweak the parameters to align with your idea. This application is great for ambient projects, it can create mesmerizing atmosphere from single infrequent sounds of various instruments, or giving a beautiful and deep backgrounds to sharp sequences in electronics, as well as for any experimental projects that require unusual, deep and rich sound ambience. Stellarvox is a universal application for iOS and macOS. It can work on iPhone and iPad as well as Mac / MacBook with M1 chip (and later). Stellarvox works on iPhone and iPad standalone, as an Audio Unit or Inter-App Audio module, with supports Audiobus host app. On MacOS, Stellarvox can works both as a standalone application and as an Audio unit (AUv3) with DAWs and other hosts that support AUv3 plugins. All application features are available on iOS and macOS, including MIDI support (with a MIDI learn option) and audio unit parameters. Stellarvox has a built-in detailed description of all parameters also available as PDF file on the application site. Sound demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEtZfvLtJy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqCYa1tp2Qw You can find more information on Stellarvox and other audio apps at: https://motion-soundscape.blogspot.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: MIDI Tape Recorder at every 2 weeks against Stellarvox's every 5 months. MIDI Tape Recorder also leads on ratings volume (61 vs 11) and price ($9.99 vs $11.99). Stellarvox's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 79%) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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
MIDI Tape Recorder costs $9.99 and Stellarvox $11.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Stellarvox holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MIDI Tape Recorder has 61 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of MIDI Tape Recorder's written reviews are positive against 100% of Stellarvox's.
MIDI Tape Recorder ships an update every 2 weeks, Stellarvox every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MIDI Tape Recorder | Stellarvox |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 — better | $11.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (61 ratings) | 5.0 (11 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 79.4% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 61 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Uwyn, LLC | Igor Vasiliev |
Customer experience
MIDI Tape Recorder
Stellarvox
In-app purchases
MIDI Tape Recorder
No in-app purchases
Stellarvox
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is MIDI Tape Recorder free?
Is Stellarvox free?
Which has better reviews, MIDI Tape Recorder or Stellarvox?
Do MIDI Tape Recorder or Stellarvox have ads?
Which is updated more often, MIDI Tape Recorder or Stellarvox?
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