Music Spectrograph vs SoundScope
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Music Spectrograph
Visually reverse engineer sound and music in real-time with a live MIDI piano roll displaying pitch and frequency. Slow down or stop audio to analyze musical patterns, aiding in music transcription and learning.
- Real-time MIDI piano roll
- Pitch and frequency visualization
- Slow down and stop audio
- Music transcription aid
- Adjustable playback speed
- Color-coded pitch graph
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Music Spectrograph allows you to visually reverse engineer sound and music, in real-time. See a live MIDI piano roll showing pitch and frequency. When playing music files, you can slow down, and even stop sound in time. Music Spectrograph is being using in college music programs to aid in learning music transcription. The Hotpaw Music Spectrograph presents a high-resolution scrolling spectrogram as you listen, so that you can see these patterns in sound and music, as well as how sound corresponds to notes on a piano keyboard. This piano alignment makes it far easier to spot which frequencies in sounds correspond to which musical notes. Features include: - 12th-octave MIDI-pitch-centered spectrograph (also called a sonogram) - Usable with live audio, tunes from your iOS device's music library, or a file downloaded via a URL (web address) - Records up to a 4 minute spectrograph history you can stop, scroll back and review - Slow Down music files by up to 8X, or speed music up by 3X to skip sections faster - Stop music in time, and still hear the music frequencies present via re-synthesis (scroll back a little in time to bring up the ReSynth switch). - Play tunes in mono, left or right channel only, or with center-panned vocals reduced - Color the pitch graph to see if notes are in-tune or out-of-tune - Color the spectrograph for loudness, or graph in black-and-white or with Pastel colors - Mid-pitch filtering to remove some of the higher overtones Use the Input? button to select a tune from your library (DRM protected iTunes files not supported). Use the Gear button to select among several viewing modes. There's a volume control to manually set the sensitivity threshold. Stop playing or recording to scroll back and review or resynthesize sound. Touch the keyboard during resynthesis to isolate one note. For many musical sounds, this app will show you many overtones and harmonics, not just the fundamental pitch of notes. Some musical experience is required to tell musical notes from their overtones and harmonic frequencies.
SoundScope
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See your sound. SoundScope turns your iPhone and iPad into a complete audio analysis instrument — spectrum, loudness, stereo field, and dynamics, measured with broadcast-grade precision and rendered in a stunning brushed-metal interface. Whether you're mixing, mastering, running live sound, tuning a room, or you simply love watching music breathe, SoundScope shows you what your ears alone can't catch — and tells you how to fix it. — FOUR WAYS TO SEE YOUR SOUND — • SPECTRUM — high-resolution real-time analyzer with bars or silky line mode, animated peak hold, 20 to 120 bands, logarithmic or linear scaling • SPECTROGRAM — scrolling waterfall with a gorgeous inferno heat map, 20 Hz to 20 kHz • RADIAL BLOOM — an ambient circular analyzer with a core that pulses to the beat • RIBBON TUNNEL — a mirrored neon ribbon that turns your desk into mission control — BROADCAST-GRADE LOUDNESS — A full ITU-R BS.1770 loudness suite: Momentary, Short-term, and gated Integrated LUFS, Loudness Range (LRA), intersample True Peak (dBTP), and a DR dynamics score. Know exactly how loud you are before you upload — not after. — A MIX ENGINEER IN YOUR POCKET — The built-in diagnostics engine listens with you and speaks plain English: clipping alerts, loudness-war warnings, crushed dynamics, mono sub-bass cancellation, and frequency-balance issues — all judged against genre profiles for EDM, Hip-Hop, Rock, Classical, Acoustic, and Podcast. It even tells you how far streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube will turn your track down. — READ THE STEREO FIELD — Stereo VU meters with peak hold, a live stereo-image scope, Mid/Side spectra, and a phase-correlation meter. Per-band RMS from sub to air, plus a mono-compatibility strip that shows exactly where your mix collapses in mono. — SURGICAL CONTROL — FFT sizes from 64 to 131,072 with TRANS / BAL / MASTR presets, overlap up to 93.75%, HOLD to freeze and inspect any moment, and input sensitivity from 0.1x to 4x. — ANY SOUND. ZERO SETUP. — Point it at your studio monitors, a live PA, an instrument, or a track playing back — through the built-in mic or any connected audio interface. Rotate to portrait for full metering, landscape for the analyzer. — DESIGNED TO BE LIVED IN — A luxurious brushed-metal instrument with tactile controls, haptic feedback, and eight accent themes — including a live per-frequency Spectrum rainbow. Full dark-mode and Reduce Motion support. — PERFECT FOR — • Studio engineers, producers, and mastering • Live sound and FOH engineers • Musicians, vocalists, and podcasters • Acousticians, installers, and educators • Anyone serious about sound No subscriptions. No accounts. No sign-in. No telemetry. Everything runs on-device and offline, with Apple-native engineering that stays silky-smooth on iPhone and iPad. Stop guessing. Start seeing. Download SoundScope and hear with your eyes.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: SoundScope at $3.99 against Music Spectrograph's $9.99. SoundScope also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 6 weeks). Music Spectrograph's advantage is iOS requirement (12.4 vs 26.1). 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
Music Spectrograph costs $9.99 and SoundScope $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Music Spectrograph ships an update every 6 weeks, SoundScope every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 6, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Music Spectrograph | SoundScope |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | $3.99 — better |
| Rating | 2.5 (4 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.4 — better | 26.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | HotPaw Productions | Waldemar Schneider |
In-app purchases
Music Spectrograph
No in-app purchases
SoundScope
No in-app purchases








