Pixound vs FrequencyCat
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pixound
Transform any image into a musical instrument and create unique songs. Explore a deep musical experience with extensive controls, over 127 instruments, and various scales. It's a fun and educational tool for all ages, allowing you to play live video and record your performances.
- Turn any picture into music
- Play live video as an instrument
- Record performances with touch playback
- Over 65 scales and modes
- 127+ instruments for four voices
- Save and share creations
- MIDI export
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"Pixound Turns Photos into Musical Instruments, and It’s Better Than You Think" — Gizmodo "Pixound is a trippy music app for iOS that allows users to turn any snap into a song." — MTV Hive Enjoyed by top musical artists including: Herbie Hancock, David Byrne (Talking Heads), Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO), Michael Shrieve (Santana) and many more. Have you ever jammed on Saturn's Rings with a whammy bar? Have you ever played the rainbow? What about you're dog's nose? What does it sound like? How about creating your own music just by dancing? With Pixound you can do all this and much more! Pixound is a revolutionary form of musical entertainment! Pixound provides a deep musical experience that lets YOU instantly create music using any picture. It's pure fun to play (at any age) and deep because it can be used to play music like you've never heard before. It's so much fun that artist Peter Max bought an iPhone just to have Pixound! Since there is no limit to what pictures you can play from art and graphics to photos and they can be combined with thousands of different musical settings, there is no limit to the music you can create and enjoy. You owe it to yourself to try Pixound!!! By the way, you will learn a lot about music just playing with Pixound so it's also an educational tool, sometimes referred to as a Deep Toy. Features: • Play any picture from snaps to outer space to art masterpieces • Play Live Video (in-app purchase) so that reality becomes a musical instrument • Record audio or use effects processors via Audiobus 2.1 or Inter-app Audio • Record performances including where you touched in the photo that plays back for others to see. • Play in any key or scale (over 65 scales/modes) • Add Bass and Drums from lots of choices • Tons of musical controls to create a huge variety of great music • Select from many different autoplay styles including device tilt • Add harmony voices • Add Song Progressions from basic to classical and more • Select from over 127 instruments for four voices R, B, G and bass • Import samples using AudioShare™ • Save your own settings to Banks and share with others via community or email • Built-in Reverb • Save MIDI files and go direct out to MIDI synthesizers (in-app purchase) • Access and share your creations with the Pixound Community
FrequencyCat
Transform your photos into unique sound art using advanced image-to-sound technology. Explore, enjoy, and share your creative audio-visual pieces. Embrace your inner artist and discover the unexpected.
- Morph images into sound art
- Create spectrogram oddities
- Share sound art creations
- Unique audio-visual experience
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Hide an image inside sound. FrequencyCat is a playful tool for exploring the connection between images, sound, and spectrograms. Choose an image, and FrequencyCat transforms it into a unique audio signal. Play the sound and view its spectrogram, and you’ll see the original image emerge again from the frequencies. With FrequencyCat, you can: - Turn images into sound - View audio spectrograms in real time - Play sounds and reveal the images hidden inside them - Explore how different images create different sounds - Discover the relationship between sound, frequency, and Fourier transforms in an intuitive way There’s no magic behind it. Just frequencies, phases, an inverse Fourier transform, and a little curiosity about sound. Whether you’re interested in acoustics, music, signal processing, or simply wondering what an image might sound like, FrequencyCat gives you a new way to explore. Pick an image. Hear what it sounds like.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: FrequencyCat at Free against Pixound's $0.99. FrequencyCat also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.1) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). Pixound's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 40 months) and ratings volume (8 vs 1). On 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
FrequencyCat is free to download; Pixound costs $0.99 up front. Pixound sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. FrequencyCat asks for nothing beyond the download.
FrequencyCat holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pixound has 8 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 72% of Pixound's written reviews are positive against 100% of FrequencyCat's.
Pixound ships an update monthly, FrequencyCat every 40 months. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pixound | FrequencyCat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (8 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 72.2% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 40 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.1 GB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Techné Media | Xuesong Zhang |
Customer experience
Pixound
FrequencyCat
In-app purchases
Pixound
- Pixound Live Video$1.99
- Pixound MIDI Features$2.99
FrequencyCat
No in-app purchases









