SampleTank vs Midiflow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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
Midiflow
This app enables seamless MIDI data transfer between different applications on your device. It allows for app synchronization, routing MIDI from sequencers to synths, and assigning keyboard zones. Users can save and recall configurations, and monitor MIDI activity.
- App-to-app MIDI routing
- MIDI clock synchronization
- Channel filtering and remapping
- Note and velocity manipulation
- Custom virtual MIDI ports
- Preset saving and recall
- Controller filtering and remapping (in-app purchase)
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Midiflow allows you to send MIDI from app to app in a similar way to what you already do with audio. That way, you can sync apps with each other or send MIDI parts from a sequencer app to different synth apps. You can also route the MIDI from your keyboard to apps and assign different key zones to them. Different settings can be stored as a preset, recalled later and inserted into another preset. Furthermore, all MIDI transfer can be monitored in order to find problems or just to learn what MIDI is doing (normally) behind the scenes. Important news: There is a full documentation on the Midiflow website now! HOW DOES IT WORK? Midiflow allows you to create multiple routings. Each routing receives MIDI data on its source and sends it to its destination. The selectable sources and destinations include your CoreMIDI compatible MIDI interface and other apps if they provide a virtual MIDI port. You can also create custom ports that can be used by other apps to receive data from Midiflow or send data to it. A routing also has a modifier which allows you to filter data or modify it. That way, you can transpose notes, limit them to a key range, change the MIDI channel of the incoming data, etc. (see the feature list below). LIST OF FEATURES + MIDI clock – specify tempo and your apps will be in sync + Channel filtering and remapping + Velocity filtering – a routing is only active for notes in a given velocity range + Note shift – shift all notes by a given number of half-tone steps + Note remapping – shift each note individually + Velocity remapping – apply a velocity curve, transform to fixed velocity, or specify the map value by value. In the latter case, you can also export the mapping to the clipboard, edit it in another app like Apple Numbers, and paste it back in Midiflow + Filtering out Clock or dividing the tempo into subdivisions + Filtering out SysEx + Connect to other iPads/iPhones via Bluetooth MIDI (iOS8 or higher) + Save a configuration as a preset, which can be recalled later or inserted into another preset + Custom virtual MIDI ports, which can be selected in other apps as a source or destination + Control aspects of Midiflow via MIDI. For example, select presets or control the clock with any MIDI command + Launch your synth apps from Midiflow (works with an increasing number of apps) + Sharing your configurations ADDITIONAL FEATURES (available as an In-app purchase) + Filtering and remapping of controllers – transform (a) the controller type, e.g. from CC1 to pitch-bend or note value to CC1, and (b) transform the value in several ways: as a linear remapping from an input range to an output range, as a curve, or as a value by value list. In the latter case, you can also export the mapping to the clipboard, edit it in another app like Apple Numbers, and paste it back in Midiflow. This allows you to create very sophisticated remappings. + Controller conditions – adjust your routings depending on other MIDI messages. This allows you to create sophisticated behavior within your setup by switching routings on and off. DOES MIDIFLOW WORK WITH MY SYNTH APPS? Midiflow works with every app that has a correct MIDI implementation. In the best case, it has an own virtual MIDI port and can be configured so that it receives MIDI only on that port. Unfortunately, some apps don't have that, but can at least be restricted to one MIDI channel. In that case, you can send to that channel on the global MIDI port "Network Session 1". If you can't select a channel either, then the app won't work with Midiflow. There is a tutorial video on www.midiflow.com that explains this in more detail.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Midiflow at $7.99 against SampleTank's $24.99. Midiflow also leads on rating (4.0 vs 2.7) and review sentiment (59% vs 30%). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
SampleTank costs $24.99 and Midiflow $7.99 up front. SampleTank sells 13 one-off in-app purchases and Midiflow sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Midiflow holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 2.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 107 and 39 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 30% of SampleTank's written reviews are positive against 59% of Midiflow's.
SampleTank ships an update every 2 months, Midiflow every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SampleTank | Midiflow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24.99 | $7.99 — better |
| Rating | 2.7 (107 ratings) | 4.0 (39 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 29.8% of reviews | 58.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 107 — better | 39 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 5 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 9.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.5 GB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | IK Multimedia US, LLC | Johannes Doerr |
Customer experience
SampleTank
Midiflow
User reviews
SampleTank
From 107 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great sounding app
- 👍 Lots of instrument options
- 🚀 Useful for live performance
- 👍 Decent sound quality
- 👍 Intuitive interface
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🐛 Compatibility issues with iOS updates
- 💰 Expensive in-app purchases
- 🔒 Lack of user manual access
- 🔒 Aggressive advertising for other products
Midiflow
From 39 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Comprehensive MIDI routing
- 💡 Flexible MIDI manipulation
- 🚀 Powerful functionality
- ✨ Intuitive interface (for some)
- ✅ Works in background
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes
- 🐛 App doesn't open
- 🐛 App closes immediately
- 🐛 Bugs and quirks
- 🐛 Unreliable for live use
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
Midiflow
Reported bugs
45 issues- Frequent crashes while editing CC map
- Mapped CCs dropped during performance
- App does not open on iOS 10
- Layout issues on iPhone 11 (no 'Done' button)
- App stops working, opens for 2 seconds then closes
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- Bug in Velocity remapping: 'Reset curve' makes screen blank
- Note Off messages have vel value = 0
- App simply doesn't start after paid updates
- No 'Done' or 'Back' button visible in menus
- App crashes when editing a song and saving
- Edits lost after crash
- Backup song lost after crash
- App crashes when trying to remap
- App crashes on first note when Roli Seaboard is connected
- App closes when searching for nearby devices
- App closes when selecting 'find nearby devices' or 'advertise device'
- App doesn't work with iOS 14
- App doesn't work with iOS 15
- App doesn't work with iOS 16
- App crashes on iPad 5 after update
- App closes immediately after starting
- No back or cancel button, stuck in menus
- CC control mapping issues (e.g., CC7 dropped)
- Bluetooth connectivity crashes the app
- Program Change to MIDI note remapping not working
- App doesn't search for nearby devices
- App force closes when remapping
- GUI problems with returning to main page
- App crashes on first note
- App doesn't load after paid updates
- No return button
- Layout issues on iPhone
- Filter out Note Off messages functionality missing
- Frequent crashes while editing
- Mapped CCs dropped during performance
- Note off velocities are ignored
- App doesn't open
- App closes immediately
- App doesn't work with SampleTank in background
- Remapping doesn't work properly
- MIDI messages blocked or morphed
- Remapping adds code instead of replacing
- Fixed MIDI channels in Korg iPolysix
- Does not work with Arturia iMini/iProphet
- App shutdown on iPad 2
Requested features
6 requests- AUv3 plugin version
- Mass sharing of songs
- Dark mode
- Ability to map multiple notes from one key press
- Individual transpose for split zones
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- More MIDI features controllable by external hardware
In-app purchases
SampleTank
- Organ$4.99
- Strings$4.99
- Brass$4.99
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- 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
Midiflow
- Send Controller On Load$1.99
- Controller Conditions$2.99
- Controller Remapping$3.99









