Guzheng Master vs spool.
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Guzheng Master
Learn and play the Guzheng with a virtual instrument on your mobile device. Explore lessons, practice with music games, and access a vast library of songs. Record your performances and master various playing techniques.
- Virtual 21-string Guzheng
- Left and Right hand playing techniques
- Interactive lessons mode
- Music practice games
- Audio recording
- Extensive song library
- Multi-touch and swipe support
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With the Guzheng Master, it will be an indispensable application for professional Guzheng players. With Guzheng Master, you have a real virtual pro music instrument right in your pocket! No need to carry your instrument all the time, you can start jamming at any time, play riffs tabs and chords anywhere, anytime. Features: - Full string guzheng with 21 string. - Playing techniques for Right Hand: Pluck, Gliss, Tremolo(Shake/摇指) / Automatic Tremolo, Overtone. - Playing techniques for Left Hand: Pitch slide, Samll-Vibrato, Big-Vibrato, Tap Pitch (Dian Yin - 点音). - Lessons mode for easy learning. - Music games to practice. - Be able to record audio while playing. - Play with 650,000+ song from music songbooks. - Automatically play "Shake" technique (自动摇指) when touches moving on the string horizontally. - Multi-touch and swipe supported. - Flexible Guzheng View, easy scrolling and zooming with drag / pinch gesture on the Pitch Slider Bar. - "Dian Yin" Effect (点音/Tap Pitch), Tapping pitch slider after plucking string to make "Dian Yin" sound effect.
spool.
Create full songs on your phone with this pocket music studio. It offers a variety of sound engines, sampling capabilities, step sequencing, and a 4-track tape recorder for recording and mixing your music. Effects and MIDI controller support enhance the creative process.
- Multiple sound engines
- Sampling and sequencing
- 4-track tape recording
- Extensive effects rack
- MIDI controller support
- Step sequencer
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Make a whole song on your phone. Spool is a pocket music studio inspired by the joy of hardware grooveboxes — play, sample, sequence, and record to tape, all in one playful instrument. Fourteen sound engines. From punchy FM and fat subtractive Pulse to shimmering Cluster, plucked String, granular Cloud, the TALK vocoder, the WIDE stereo engine, THUMP bass, a Sampler, and two drum machines — each with its own animated, touchable visualizer and four hands-on controls. Sample anything. Record straight from the mic into the sampler or drum kits, trim it, and play it across the keyboard. Drums & beats. Build kits, chop a sample into a playable kit, and lock in grooves with the step sequencer. Playful sequencers. Pattern and arpeggiator to start; unlock Stream, Taps, and the bouncing-ball Gumball machine for happy accidents. Six minutes of 4-track tape. Record, overdub, varispeed (including reverse), scrub, and bounce your jam to a finished mixdown — export to WAV. Your tape is saved with your project. Effects & mixer. A deep rack — delay, spring reverb, drive, compressor, chorus, multimode filter, phaser, tremolo/auto-pan, beat-repeat stutter, and a pitch-shifter/harmonizer — many tempo-syncable. Plus a master EQ and brickwall limiter so it always sounds finished. Plays with your gear. Connect a USB or Bluetooth MIDI controller and play Spool like hardware. AUv3 plugin support is planned for a future update. Free to download and make music with a starter set of engines and sequencers. A single one-time Spool Pro purchase unlocks the full instrument — all engines, sampling, every effect and sequencer, unlimited projects, export, and MIDI. No subscription. Spool is an original, independent work by a solo developer — affiliated with no hardware maker.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: spool. at 100% against Guzheng Master's 55%. spool. also leads on price (Free vs $1.99) and rating (5.0 vs 3.9). Guzheng Master's advantage is iOS requirement (11.0 vs 17.0). On ratings volume, 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
spool. is free to download; Guzheng Master costs $1.99 up front. Guzheng Master sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and spool. sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
spool. holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 12 and 7 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of Guzheng Master's written reviews are positive against 100% of spool.'s.
| Parameter | Guzheng Master | spool. |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.9 (12 ratings) | 5.0 (7 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 54.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 12 — better | 7 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 158 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | SENSOR NOTES JOINT STOCK COMPANY | Kristopher Yang |
Customer experience
Guzheng Master
spool.
In-app purchases
Guzheng Master
- Unlock All Songs$0.99
- Pro Version$2.99
- Vip version$3.99
spool.
- Spool Pro$9.99









