GlitchBreaks vs StepBud
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
GlitchBreaks
This app is a powerful tool for manipulating breakbeats and creating new sounds. It offers real-time audio manipulation, loop editing, and effects for electronic musicians. Record your creations and export them for further use in other applications.
- Real-time audio manipulation
- Loop point editing
- Four audio channels
- Performance tool
- Granular sound destruction
- Recording and export
- Auto-BPM detection
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Glitchbreaks is an iOS Universal manipulation tool for “Glitching” breakbeats. Manipulate beats to create new beats and record them. ● "Glitchbreaks is a sick sample loop glitching app with a groovy interface and nice instant touch control of real time audio. It's capable of seriously twisting sounds out, is one of the most modern audio apps I've seen yet and Ninjas will love it" -Ninja Tune Records ● GlitchBreaks is an addictively fun and very useful app that will appeal to electronic musicians in a variety of settings. it’s a serious tool for manipulating audio loops. - iosmusicandyou.com ● I've spent many hours playing with Glitch Breaks, cutting, and modulating my way to pure glitch bliss. It's unmistakable high quality, effortless interface makes it easy to forget the world outside and go full tilt boogie to your hearts content. -smitematter.com Glitchbreaks uses four audio channels setup like mute groups. You can quickly switch between them to construct new beats, or manipulate loop points to “Cut” or “Glitch” the breaks. Glitchbreaks can be used as a performance tool to juggle breaksbeats or destroy sounds at a granular level. You can make interesting effect-like-sounds by manipulating pitch, loop start, length, and cutting the beats with fluid responsive controls. You can record your performance and bring it into iTunes through file sharing, or copy it out into another iOS application via Audio Copy and Paste. You pre determine the length of your recording by bars to easily make pieces to bring into a song without the need for further sample editing. Auto-BPM detection will detect the tempo of a sample you copy into Glitchbreaks (you just need to specify the bars between 1-4). You can turn this feature off in order to manipulate audio that doesn’t have tempo, this is especially useful for manipulating voice samples. Glitchbreaks contains a 4 channel mixer to adjust the levels of each sample, as you change the levels the sounds are combined into the mix, on the iPad version this is displayed graphically with a rendered waveform that is combined to give you an indication of what the entire sound looks like. All of this is very easy to operate and even a beginner will be glitching and juggling breaks like a pro in minutes. Features : ● 130 high quality factory beat loops ● Audiobus Support: Now you can stream live audio from Glitchbreaks directly to other Audiobus-compatible apps. ● Audio Copy and Paste and General Pasteboard support ● Full MIDI support, Virtual MIDI, MIDI Clock Sync In and Out, MIDI Learn ● 4 continuous looping channels with 4 channel mixer ● Dynamic Effects ● Auto-BPM detection / with on/off setting ● Set the BPM up to 2.9 times the original sample BPM ● Touchable Waveform Display with accurate position indicator ● Large Waveform view for iPad ● XY-Pad Loop Modulation (Loop Length, Loop Start) ● Cut Editor / Sequencer with 4 user save slots ● XY-Pads for selecting 4 Glitch or Cut styles ● Index Tracking keeps the beat on time ● Retrigger pads with quantize ● Pitch Shift ● Pitch Reset ● Independent time settings Whole, Half, Quarter ● Quantize for Cut and Glitch operations ● Recording to 44.1khz 16bit Wav files ● Set custom record length in bars ● Background Audio supports mixing with other apps ● iTunes File Sharing ● Mute ● Reverse ● Mixer view with volume faders per channel. ● Master volume ● Universal app ● Supports the New iPad retina display / iPhone retina display ● Load sounds while playing without hitting stop ● Preset Loading and Saving ● Background Audio Tracks ● Snap to Index System Requirements and Recommendations Glitchbreaks requires iOS 8.1 or higher It is recoomended to run Glitchbreaks on : iPad/iPhone4/iPod Touch 4th Gen higher.
StepBud
This app is a versatile MIDI sequencer that allows for unlimited steps and detailed control over each step's parameters. It integrates with other music apps and supports various sequencing modes for creative performances.
- Unlimited steps
- Step parameter control (note, velocity, rate, etc.)
- Custom MIDI CC messages
- Step locking and skipping
- Master fader with copy/shift modes
- Step Editor for detailed note editing
- Arpeggio modes (up, down, random)
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StepBud is a MIDI Sequencer with Audio Unit AUv3 plugin, Audiobus and Ableton Link. Add an unlimited number of steps to your sequencer. Your steps appear with a LED and a fader on top of your screen. You can change the active mode that your step faders displaying/controlling. - Set the current note or chord in range of the scale and key you selected with respect the range of the octave you want to focus, - Set the velocity, rate, gate time, modulation, pitch bend, portamento, probability and swing for each step, - Try increasing the rate and repeat count your steps if you want to add more flavor. - Send unlimited custom MIDI CC messages if you want to control your hardware or software synth parameters. - Lock steps if you don't want them to change their value. - Skip steps for creating interesting live performances. Below the step faders, you have a master fader where you can control your entire sequencer. It has two modes which you can change from the settings strip on the bottom of the app. - In copy mode, it assigns its value to each step. - In shift mode, it shifts up or down each step. If you want to go off-scale or try some crazy chords on some of your steps, or maybe on all of them, you can go to the Step Editor by double tapping the LED of the step you want to edit. In StepBud's powerful Step Editor, you can set your step's notes either from the virtual keyboard or your connected MIDI keyboard. Don't forget to enable MIDI in port of your MIDI keyboard or the you want to receive MIDI from the settings menu. You may also preview the selected notes by pressing the preview button in Step Editor for making sure you created the perfect sound for your particular step. You can also toggle the steps you want to disable by tapping its LED. If you long-press the LED, you can access a menu where you may copy/paste the steps around, remove them or edit them. If you enable the lock mode from the settings strip on the bottom of the app, you may adjust each visible step fader on the screen by a single swipe gesture without having to lift your finger up. Try to change your arppegio mode from the settings strip. You can sequence your steps up, down, up-down or random order. StepBud is a MIDI sequencer app and it does not generate sounds itself. You need to route its MIDI out port in the settings menu to the audio app you want to sequence. Please note that you need to have an iOS 11+ device and an Audio Unit host application such as AUM, apeMatrix, Cubasis, BeatMaker or Audiobus in order to use the StepBud as an Audio Unit plugin. And don't forget to route StepBud's MIDI out to the app or audio unit you want to sequence. StepBud's MIDI layer powered by free and open-source project AudioKit https://github.com/AudioKit/AudioKit Also, StepBud offers its core components for free on GitHub. Feel free to star, fork or contribute. https://github.com/cemolcay/MusicTheory https://github.com/cemolcay/LiveFader https://github.com/cemolcay/MIDIEventKit
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: StepBud at none against GlitchBreaks's 2. StepBud also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 5 weeks). GlitchBreaks's advantage is iOS requirement (11.0 vs 13.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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
GlitchBreaks costs $4.99 and StepBud $4.99 up front. GlitchBreaks sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. StepBud asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for GlitchBreaks against 4.4 for StepBud. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 38 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 75% of GlitchBreaks's written reviews are positive against 71% of StepBud's.
GlitchBreaks ships an update every 5 weeks, StepBud fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | GlitchBreaks | StepBud |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | $4.99 |
| Rating | 4.4 (20 ratings) | 4.4 (38 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better | 70.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 38 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 61 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Alex Matheu | Cem Olcay |
Customer experience
GlitchBreaks
StepBud
Bugs and requests
GlitchBreaks
Reported bugs
17 issues- App crashes on launch after importing samples
- Crashes when changing presets
- White noise output when importing custom audio
- Incompatibility with Audiobus 3
- Cut editor buttons disappear after saving
Show 12 moreShow fewer
- Cut values not saving properly
- Sample stops snapping back to real time on iPad
- Cut button indicator states incorrect
- App crashes with three-finger glitch input
- Preset loading causes crashes
- Audio playback freezes during certain operations
- Crashes on iOS 5.1.1 and older devices
- App closes immediately after opening on some iOS versions
- Memory warnings causing sample loss
- Incompatible with BeatMaker 2 audio paste
- Imported samples play at different BPM
- NanoStudio pasted audio cut in half
Requested features
15 requests- Ability to record own audio directly into app
- Custom sound import without white noise conversion
- Working manual and documentation
- Transport control and MIDI clock synchronization
- Hardware version of the app
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- Multi-screen interface similar to Akai i-MPC
- Ambient record mode for live audio capture
- Parameter automation recording
- Better sample preview before assignment
- Support for longer audio files (3+ minutes)
- WAV editor integration
- Improved cut editor with proper swiping controls
- Support for 24-bit audio quality
- Step sequencer functionality
- Simultaneous playback of multiple loops
StepBud
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
GlitchBreaks
- BreakLoops Volume 1$1.99
- BreakLoops Volume 2$1.99
StepBud
No in-app purchases









