Drumline vs Ensemble Composer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Drumline
This app provides a comprehensive marching percussion experience, allowing users to write and play drum notation, design drill charts, and practice conducting. It features realistic sounds from top brands and tools like a metronome and drumhead tuner.
- Write and play drum notation
- Design and visualize drill charts
- Conducting program with tempo control
- Realistic percussion instrument sounds
- Metronome with subdivisions
- Drumhead tuner
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Snare drum, Tenors, Basses, Cymbals, Xylophone, Marimba, Vibraphone, Write Notation, Charts, Drum Major, Metronomes, Drumhead Tuner, and Challenges!!! In your pocket for the cost of a drum key. This app isn't for people who like drums or are drum-curious. This app is for those who can't stop drumming on anything and everything around them to the point where they are considered "disruptive" to their family, friends, and neighbors. Honored by Apple as "New & Noteworthy" in the Music apps category. This isn't some free tap app with canned sound effects and busted graphics. We're bringing the world's best drumming hardware to your fingertips. We've partnered with Dynasty USA Drums, Pro-Mark Drumsticks, Evans Drumheads, and Sabian Cymbals to deliver an optimized marching experience directly to your iPhone and iPad. And now you can write it, play it, and march it. Are you kidding?! WRITE NOTATION That thing you've been tapping on every available surface? Write it down. Build snare, tenor, bass, and cymbal parts with accents, diddles, flams, sticking, dynamics, and tuplets. Go from mf to f with a crescendo. Hit play and hear your battery bring it back. Save and share editable .perc scores, or export PDF and PNG sheet music. CHARTS A whole drill book, right here. Place performers, build sets, choose the counts, add your music, and watch the transitions in 3D. Check the drill from overhead, orbit, judges, or a performer's view. Basketball courts, WGI floors, custom spaces, and .drillbook sharing. Yes, we're moving feet now too. DRUM MAJOR Somebody's got to keep this thing together. Build a conducting program with different tempos, meters, dynamics, and count-ins. Set a countdown so you can put your device down, then play to the hands. That tempo change isn't going to practice itself. If you're reading this you're late. 1000s of drummers before you downloaded this app: • Battery samples professionally recorded by DCI DVD sound engineer Jamie Vanadia at NoiseFloor Ltd. in Chicago. • Front ensemble samples courtesy of the University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples (MIS) project. You guys rock! • In Snare: toggle between dynamics and standard modes. • In Basses and Tenors: switch between Pro-Mark nylon and soft mallets. • In Cymbals: crashes, chokes, taps, sizzles, sizzle chokes, hi-hats, and zings. • Full and split keyboard layouts for xylophone, marimba, and vibes. Foot pedal on vibes, too. • Color themes to match your drumline. THE HARDWARE Snare: Dynasty MS-XD14 Marching Snare Drum. Tenors: Dynasty MT-680234, five- and six-drum configurations. Basses: Dynasty MB-18 through MB-26, 18", 20", 22", 24", 26". Cymbals: Sabian Synergy HHX, 18" and 20". METRONOMES 30–300 BPM in wood block, metal, or duts. Quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and triplet subdivisions. Offbeats and all that sweetness you need. Save your presets for the next rep. DRUMHEAD TUNER Do the impossible: tune your tenors or basses. Hit-and-hold pitch detection, Low/Standard/High tuning targets, and smart harmonic correction. No piano tuner nonsense, just drums. CHALLENGES Test your phrasing memory on snare, tenors, or basses. Put your BPM senses to the test in Line Leader. Grab your practice pad and find out how many single strokes you can play in 30 seconds in Speed Test. Drumline captains, this will put your titles to the test! It's a whole drumline in your pocket for less than a drum key. Get all this when you buy now! Like no tricks. Buy once. No subscription. No in-app purchases. Learn more: https://drumlineapp.com Join the line: https://facebook.com/drumlineapp Or X: https://twitter.com/drumlineapp Yo! Don't use real drumsticks on your device... you'll crack your screen and your friends will point and laugh at you! Let's try not to make this the bad, 1985. :)
Ensemble Composer
Create custom drumline music with realistic recorded sounds. Compose street beats, stand jams, or entire musical books. Play along, practice, share, and edit your compositions.
- Compose drumline music
- Realistic recorded drum sounds
- Play along and practice
- Share and edit compositions
- Support for any time signature
- Customizable rhythms
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A whole drumline in the palm of your hand! Compose a street beat, a stand jam, or even your whole book. Play along, practice, share, and edit. With amazing real recorded drum sounds and the ability to create any rhythm over any time signature, this is the real deal. Compose and play along with the actual battery drum line sounds of the Paul Rennick 2012 Santa Clara Vanguard, as recorded by bass tech Brian Lowe - tuned the way they sounded on finals night. Best used with Headphones About Telephonic Amusements: Nicholas Wheeler, software engineer, marched Sky Ryders, Velvet Knights, and UNT - taught at Pioneer and UNT; David Croy, designer, marched Sky Ryders and tech’ed under Paul Rennick at Sky, VK, and has provided visual consulting for UNT and Dynasty Drums. Like us at https://www.facebook.com/DrumlineApps
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Drumline at $4.99 against Ensemble Composer's $14.99. Drumline also leads on chart position (#42 vs unranked) and ratings volume (1.2K vs 276). Ensemble Composer's advantage is review sentiment (77% vs 40%) and rating (4.6 vs 4.1). 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
Drumline costs $4.99 and Ensemble Composer $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Ensemble Composer holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1.2K and 276 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 40% of Drumline's written reviews are positive against 77% of Ensemble Composer's.
Drumline ships an update every 4 months, Ensemble Composer every 2 months. Both last shipped on November 1, 2026.
| Parameter | Drumline | Ensemble Composer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 — better | $14.99 |
| Rating | 4.1 (1.2K ratings) | 4.6 (276 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 39.7% of reviews | 77.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1.2K — better | 276 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #42 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 17.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 183 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | 4+ |
| Developer | John Ostler | N. Wheeler |
Customer experience
Drumline
Ensemble Composer
User reviews
Drumline
From 1.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great app for practicing percussion
- 👍 Realistic drum and cymbal sounds
- 🥁 Variety of percussion instruments (snare, tenors, bass)
Room to improve
- 🐛 Unresponsive or inaccurate hit detection on drums
- 🔧 Bugs with certain drum sounds (e.g. buzzing tenors, incorrect bass pitches)
- 📱 Compatibility issues on newer phones
- 🤔 Confusing in-app purchase model
Ensemble Composer
From 276 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎵 Authentic drum sounds and audio quality (older versions)
- ✍️ Intuitive composition interface for writing cadences
- 📱 All-in-one drumline app combining multiple sections
- 💾 Export functionality to sheet music and audio formats
- 🎯 Useful for educators and students to practice rhythms
Room to improve
- 🐛 Severe audio quality degradation after recent update
- 🐛 Choppy scrolling and laggy performance
- 🐛 Audio stuttering and cutting off during playback
- 🐛 Files not saving or disappearing after updates
- 🐛 Backward compatibility issues with legacy files
Bugs and requests
Drumline
Reported bugs
4 issues- Drums not registering hits correctly
- Tenors and bass drums not playing proper pitches
- Cymbals not functioning as expected
- App crashing or not producing any sound
Requested features
4 requests- Add landscape mode for better playability
- Allow customization of drum tuning and sound
- Implement a metronome and ability to play along with music
- Add more advanced drumming techniques (rolls, diddles, etc.)
Ensemble Composer
Reported bugs
16 issues- New update prevents opening older files
- Audio stutters and cuts off in faster rhythms
- Triplet rolls don't sound even
- Bass drum subdivisions not working
- Tenor section drums moved to incorrect positions
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- Scroll feature is choppy and laggy
- Rhythmic accuracy issues
- Cymbal sounds bleed into each other
- App crashes with certain subdivisions
- Polyrhythm and odd time signature issues
- Saving functionality fails intermittently
- Split feature freezes and causes progress loss
- Files duplicate unexpectedly
- Export format incorrect (.mxl instead of .xml)
- Tempo synchronization issues
- App crashes on startup
Requested features
16 requests- Revert snare sounds to pre-update quality
- Multiple sound option choices for drums
- Hi-hat option for cymbals
- Single tenor drum section option
- Separate tempos within drum sections
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- Undo/redo functionality
- Auto-save feature
- iCloud or cloud backup support
- Different drum tuning options
- Legato and staccato buzz options
- Smoother and longer buzz roll sounds
- Sixtet tenor configuration option
- Video export/share functionality
- In-depth tutorial documentation
- Accent dynamics improvements
- Rim click sounds for tenors
In-app purchases
Drumline
No in-app purchases
Ensemble Composer
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Drumline free?
Is Ensemble Composer free?
Which has better reviews, Drumline or Ensemble Composer?
Do Drumline or Ensemble Composer have ads?
Which is updated more often, Drumline or Ensemble Composer?
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