Comparison

SampleTank vs Heavy Brass

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

Head to head
About

SampleTank

This professional mobile workstation offers a vast collection of world-class instruments, sounds, and patterns for live performance and composition. Layer or split instruments across 8 multitimbral slots, with an expandable library and a powerful new sound engine.

Highlights
  • 8-part multitimbral sound module
  • Expandable sound library with 2300+ instruments
  • Over 1,200 melodic and rhythmic patterns
  • 8-track MIDI recorder with audio export
  • Intuitive interface
  • New sound engine
  • Zones feature for splits & layers
Read full description

SampleTank 2 for iOS is a professional, fully featured mobile sound and groove workstation that brings the sound, power and features of desktop virtual instruments to your iPad and iPhone — without compromise. It is designed for professional live performance, song composition and puts a comprehensive array of world-class instruments, sounds and patterns right at your fingertips. SampleTank gives you 8 multitimbral instrument slots that you can easily layer or split. Choose from a comprehensive, expandable sound collection that covers virtually every acoustic and electronic sound imaginable. Plus, each instrument category includes instrument riffs and grooves so you can start composing and playing in no time. The included instruments and the new sound engine are derived from the desktop version of SampleTank, IK's flagship workstation, offering you unmatched realism, variety of sound and audio performance. For the first time on iOS, thousands of professional sample-based sounds and patterns can be easily accessed, layered and used for playing live or in the studio. SampleTank 2 comes with over 140 instruments and 1,000 patterns including pianos, electric pianos, synths, organs, drums, basses, guitars, strings, brass, woodwinds, voices, ethnic instruments, percussion and sound FX. What’s more, SampleTank offers an ever-growing library of sounds and are available via in-app purchase: • Elektronika - a series of electronica and EDM-oriented groove libraries and sound collections that make it easy to create hits in today’s most popular styles • Miroslav Philharmonik — the legendary orchestral libraries, now available on your mobile device! Stunningly realistic and expressive samples of a wide range of orchestra and percussion instruments. • SampleTank PRO - the latest and most high-end sounds and grooves available, letting you create professional-grade compositions on your mobile device • Plus additional libraries covering cinematic sounds, the finest pianos, drum libraries from iconic drummers and much more! SampleTank for iOS offers over 2,300 instruments and over 1,200 MIDI patterns — the largest collection of sounds available for any virtual instrument for iOS. Features: • 8-part multitimbral professional quality sound and groove module • Expandable sound library with 2300+ instrument • Over 1,200 melodic and rhythmic patterns • 8-track MIDI recorder with audio export • Totally redesigned intuitive interface • New sound engine derived from SampleTank 3 for Mac/PC • Zones feature lets you easily create splits & layers on your controller • Song and Live environments for composing and playing • Built-in insert effects and master reverb • MIDI learn feature makes programming external controllers easy • Plug-and-play compatibility with iRig interfaces and controller • Polyphony: up to 64 voices on new Apple devices

About

Heavy Brass

This virtual instrument app provides realistic trumpet, trombone, and saxophone sounds for music production and live performance. It offers a wide variety of articulations and sound categories, supporting integration with other music apps and external MIDI controllers.

Highlights
  • Trumpet, Trombone, Saxophone sounds
  • Multiple brass section samples
  • Switchable and crossfadeable articulations
  • Audio Unit v3, Inter-App Audio, Audiobus support
  • External MIDI keyboard and controller support
  • Integrated effects with presets
  • MIDI player and recorder
Read full description

Heavy Brass delivers the most flexible and innovative approach to modern brass sounds ever provided by a virtual MIDI instrument!¹ With this ultimate brass app your productions and live performances will gain such powerful and amazing tone you previously were only able to retrieve from a real brass section! This app contains the following instruments: Trumpet, Trombone and Saxophone sampled in four different brass sections. Watch and listen to the demo video on our product website! Minimum requirement: at least iPad 3 / iPad Air 1 / iPad mini 2. This app supports Audio Unit v3, Inter-App Audio and Audiobus, so you can directly use it with other apps as well! External MIDI keyboards and controllers are supported as well of course, both via Lightning/USB cable connection, as well as wireless via Bluetooth LE MIDI.¹ There are 3 fundamental sound categories: „Singles“, „Switches“ and „Combis“, where „Switch Sounds“ allow you to either switch or crossfade between configurable articulations. Some „Combi Sounds“ allow you to switch or crossfade between predefined articulations as well. 24 Single Sounds: Solo Trumpet, Solo Sax, Solo Trombone, Heavy Brass 1-4, Section 1, Section 2, Section 3, Section 4, Crescendo, Growl, Doiks, Shaker 1, Shaker 2, Staccato 1, Staccato 2, Staccato Sax 1, Staccato Sax 2, Falls 1, Falls 2, Falls 3, Falls 4. Switch Sounds: Five base sounds: Section 1, Section 2, Section 3, Section 4 and Crescendo, which are switchable or crossfadeable to four alternative articulations: Shaker, Growl, Doiks or Falls. 16 Combi Sounds: Sections Velocity Layer 1, Sections Velocity Layer 2, Sections Velocity Layer 3, Sections Velocity Layer 4, Sections Velocity Layer 5, Sections Velocity Layer 6, Sections Modwheel Layer 1, Sections Modwheel Layer 2, Staccato Layer 1, Staccato Layer 2, Staccato Round Robin 1, Staccato Round Robin 2, Staccato Round Robin 3, Sections & Staccato Round Robin 1, Sections & Staccato Round Robin 2, Sections & Staccato Round Robin 3. General Features: • Low latency disk streaming. • Polyphony up to several hundred stereo voices.² • Configurable audio latency down to 1 ms. • Integrated effects with 18 presets. • App States: Save app's entire state as user presets. • 16 parts. • Provides Audio Unit v3 plugin version of this app, which allows it to be used as virtual instrument directly within third-party multi-track DAW apps. • Support for Apple's "Inter-App Audio" system. • Audiobus support. • MIDI velocity response curve editor. • Master Tune & Scale Tuning. • App can keep running in the background, so you can play on your keyboard while e.g. using Safari or another app to display scores or surfing the Internet. • Virtual on-screen piano keyboard with velocity support, scalable & scrollable. MIDI Player / Recorder: • Record, save and load your songs in standard MIDI file format. • Share your songs easily as audio file. • Unlimited amount of tracks. • Configurable target MIDI channel per track. • Unlimited recording and playback length. • Open MIDI (.mid) files directly from other apps (i.e. from Safari, Mail). • Download or upload MIDI files with iTunes. • Load your favorite songs as MIDI files from the Internet, and watch at the virtual keyboard how to play it. • Metronome. • Use the "Tempo Zoom" dial knob to i.e. slow down playback at any time and learn your favorite songs more easily. ¹ For more information about adapters and connecting external MIDI keyboards: https://doc.crudebyte.com/iOS/External_MIDI_devices/ ² Various sounds are using several voices per note. Polyphony depends on the exact device model being used. You find a polyphony table on our product website. Anti-Spy Commitment: We take your privacy very seriously. None of our apps contain so called „spy” behaviors and we committed ourself to a very high privacy standard. For more information read our „Privacy Policy for Mobile Apps”.

Screenshots

SampleTank4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Heavy Brass at 81% against SampleTank's 30%. Heavy Brass also leads on price ($9.99 vs $24.99) and rating (4.2 vs 2.7). SampleTank's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

SampleTank costs $24.99 and Heavy Brass $9.99 up front. SampleTank sells 13 one-off in-app purchases. Heavy Brass asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Heavy Brass holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 2.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 107 and 37 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 30% of SampleTank's written reviews are positive against 81% of Heavy Brass's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and June 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
SampleTank versus Heavy Brass: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSampleTankHeavy Brass
Price$24.99$9.99 — better
Rating2.7 (107 ratings)4.2 (37 ratings) — better
Positive reviews29.8% of reviews81.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings107 — better37
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPad
Requires iOS13.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size1.5 GB353 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperIK Multimedia US, LLCChristian Schoenebeck d/b/a Crudebyte

Customer experience

SampleTank

All ratings107 ratings
Positive33.6%
Neutral16.8%
Negative49.5%
Written reviews305 reviews
Positive29.8%
Neutral13.4%
Negative56.7%

Heavy Brass

All ratings37 ratings
Positive83.8%
Neutral0.0%
Negative16.2%
Written reviews32 reviews
Positive81.3%
Neutral3.1%
Negative15.6%

Bugs and requests

SampleTank

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Freezes when adjusting parameters
  • Crashes on launch for some users
  • Incompatible with certain iOS versions
  • Issues with downloading and restoring in-app purchases

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for Audio Unit (AUv3)
  • Improve MIDI integration and control
  • Implement a more robust sequencer
  • Allow user-defined pitch bend range
  • Add ability to back up and restore custom presets

Heavy Brass

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

13 purchases

SampleTank

One-time13
  • Organ$4.99
  • Strings$4.99
  • Brass$4.99
Show 10 more
  • Synth Pads$4.99
  • Synth Leads$4.99
  • Electric Piano$7.99
  • The Grid$14.99
  • Miroslav Philharmonik - Mobile Edition$24.99
  • Sample Moog - Mobile Edition$24.99
  • Sonik Synth - Mobile Edition$24.99
  • All Sounds$64.99
  • SampleTank PRO - All Sounds Pack$64.99
  • Miroslav Philarmonik 2 - All Sounds Pack$64.99
None

Heavy Brass

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SampleTank free?
SampleTank costs $24.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Heavy Brass free?
Heavy Brass costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, SampleTank or Heavy Brass?
Heavy Brass is rated higher. SampleTank averages 2.7 out of 5 from 107 ratings, while Heavy Brass averages 4.2 from 37 ratings.
Do SampleTank or Heavy Brass have ads?
Neither SampleTank nor Heavy Brass shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SampleTank or Heavy Brass?
SampleTank ships an update every 2 months, and Heavy Brass every 2 months. Most recently, SampleTank was updated on September 25, 2026 and Heavy Brass on June 11, 2026.

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