Comparison

Quartet 2 vs Strange Loop

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

Head to head
About

Quartet 2

Practice and perform jazz standards with live studio recordings. Mute your instrument to play along, change key, adjust tempo, and loop sections. Features animated chord diagrams and royalty-free multitrack exports for creative remixing.

Highlights
  • Live jazz standard play-alongs
  • Adjustable tempo and key
  • Looping practice sections
  • Animated chord diagrams
  • Multitrack audio export
  • Cross-app playlist syncing
Features
Read full description

Practice and perform jazz standards on another level with Quartet. And with a host of brand-new features, the top-selling jazz play along apps just got even better. No subscriptions. No in-app purchases. Volume 2 includes another 150 stunning jazz standards recorded exclusively by 7 of the world’s best jazz musicians. All ‘live’ studio recordings with intros, endings and top line solos. Whether you play jazz piano, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass, drums…simply mute your instrument from the Quartet for the ultimate jazz play along. And for jazz singers too, each edition of Quartet is an unrivalled collection of jazz backing tracks powerful enough to gig with. Change key on the fly. Speed up or slow down the audio seamlessly. Loop sections and slow them right down for practice. Select the number of repeats. Choose from preset mixes or create your own custom mix using the new onboard mixer. Arrange each song exactly the way you want it with the new ‘Arranger’ feature. Add a touch of reverb and you’re good to go. Improve your skills with full screen animated chord diagrams for Piano, Guitar and Ukulele. Search the entire Quartet song library (700 songs) by composer, style, BPM, associated artist and more. Build and share multi-app playlists and easily export PDF chord charts for every song. Export your stereo mix or export the multitrack if you want to develop the high quality separated parts in GarageBand or whatever DAW you use. Either way, all recordings are offered to you royalty-free giving you endless creative possibilities. The 150 jazz standards in Quartet Volume 2 include improvisations in the style of… ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’, ‘As Time Goes By’, ‘Blue Skies’, ‘Chega de Saudade’, ‘Corcovado’, ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’, ‘Emily’, ‘Invitation’, ‘Laura’, ‘Mambo Inn’, ‘(A) Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square’, ‘Old Devil Moon’, ‘Over the Rainbow’, ‘Pennies from Heaven’, ‘Recado Bossa Nova’, ‘Sunny’, ‘Sway’, ‘What a Difference a Day Makes’, ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’, ‘You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To’… and 130 more. Install Quartet on all of your iOS devices plus your Mac devices (M series only) at no extra cost. Ready to take your jazz standards to another level? Hear more at www.quartetapp.com Featured artists Saxophones and Flutes Andy Panayi Credits - Shirley Bassey, Jessye Norman, Paul McCartney, Seth MacFarlane, Elaine Paige, Salena Jones, Elvis Costello, Georgie Fame, Irene Reed, Elaine Delmar, Helen Shapiro, Madeline Bell, Patty Austin, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Lovano Dave O’Higgins Credits - Joey Calderazzo, Joe Locke, Eric Alexander, Grant Stewart, Max Ionata, Phil Dwyer, Joe Lovano, Phil Woods, Jimmy Smith, Nancy Wilson, Peggy Lee, Kurt Elling, Wayne Shorter, Eddie Gomez, Jamie Cullum, Stéphane Grappelli, Michel Legrand Graeme Blevins Recording and performing credits include Phil Collins, Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Kyle Eastwood, Mark Knopfler, Quincy Jones, Mark Ronson, Tom Jones, Taylor Swift, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Piano Graham Harvey Credits - Incognito (MD), Stacey Kent, George Benson, M People, Hamish Stuart, Will Lee, Philip Bailey, Chaka Khan, The BBC Big Band, Omar, Madeline Bell, Jocelyn Brown, Mica Paris, Kenny Thomas, Sir Cliff Richard Bass Geoff Gascoyne Credits - Jamie Cullum (MD), Sting, Van Morrison, Bill Bruford, Mari Wilson, Paloma Faith, Georgie Fame, Gloria Estefan, Guy Barker, Charlie Watts, Benny Golson, Jacqui Dankworth, Bob Dorough, John Martyn, Eartha Kitt Drums Sebastiaan de Krom Credits - Herbie Hancock, John Scofield, Phil Woods, Dave Holland, Jamie Cullum, Guy Barker, Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry, Tim Garland’s Big Band Rod Youngs Credits - Gil Scott-Heron, Lee Konitz, Sia, Courtney Pine, Jon Hendricks, Hugh Masekela, Natalie Cole, Bennie Maupin, Mica Paris, Denys Baptiste, Abdullah Ibrahim, BBC Concert Orchestra

About

Strange Loop

This app generates unique melodies using chaos theory and music theory principles. Save your creations as MIDI files or use them as an AUV3 plugin. You can influence the sound by interacting directly with the visual representation of the attractors.

Highlights
  • Melody generation using Lorenz attractors
  • Markov policy for taste customization
  • Save melodies as MIDI
  • AUV3 plugin for instruments/MIDI processing
  • Interactive attractor influence via painting
Features
Read full description

Strange Loop writes its own music. Three coupled Lorenz attractors drive the piece — one proposes pitch, one shapes rhythm, one wanders the emotional plane. A Markov policy then decides what actually plays, learning from its own output and rewarding intervals that sound consonant. Chaos proposes, the policy disposes. Slide BLEND to choose who wins. Nothing is pre-recorded and nothing loops. Every run is new. PAINT ON THE MATHS Both scopes are paintable. Draw on the attractor and the trajectory bends toward what you drew and lingers there, pulling the melody into those pitches. Draw on the mood pad and the feeling follows your strokes — brightening the harmony, lifting the register, pushing the tempo. Set how hard the ink leans, how big the brush is, and how long it lasts before it fades. WHAT YOU GET • 26 scales — major and minor modes, pentatonics, blues, whole tone, harmonic and melodic minor, altered, both octatonics, and folk scales from Japan, China, Egypt, Spain, Arabia and Hungary • 7 accompaniment styles — chaos grooves, jazz comping with walking bass, stride piano, Alberti bass, classical, arpeggios, ambient rolls • A sampled grand piano plus synthesised voices: soft piano, glass, strings, FM bell, AM organ, pluck, fat saw and more • 6 moods on a valence/arousal plane, from serene to tense, driving chord quality, register, tempo and note length • Live scopes — the attractors, the note-probability distribution the engine is sampling from, and the mood point, all drawn in real time • Deep control: key, scale, tempo, chaos rho, rhythm spread, grace notes, chord-tone pull, softmax temperature, per-track mixer • Record a take and export it as a standard MIDI file to the Files app — melody, chords and bass on separate tracks TWO AUDIO UNITS Strange Loop ships as an instrument AUv3 and as a MIDI processor AUv3, so it can either play its own sounds or sequence any other instrument in your host. Melody, chords and bass each send on their own MIDI channel, so one instance can drive three different instruments. Both Audio Units follow your host's transport and tempo — hit play in AUM, GarageBand, Logic, Cubasis or Zenbeats and it locks to the grid. One install registers both. CREDITS Sampled piano: Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC BY 3.0).

Screenshots

Quartet 24 screens
Strange Loop3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Strange Loop at every 4 days against Quartet 2's every 2 months. Strange Loop also leads on monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid) and review sentiment (100% vs 89%). Quartet 2's advantage is ratings volume (55 vs 9). On price, rating, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Quartet 2 sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and Strange Loop sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Strange Loop holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Quartet 2 has 55 ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 89% of Quartet 2's written reviews are positive against 100% of Strange Loop's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Quartet 2 ships an update every 2 months, Strange Loop every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Quartet 2 versus Strange Loop: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterQuartet 2Strange Loop
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (55 ratings)5.0 (9 ratings) — better
Positive reviews88.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings55 — better9
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS16.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size613 MB23 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperUK Music Apps LtdSoft Brew Mobile

Customer experience

Quartet 2

All ratings44 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews18 reviews
Positive88.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative11.1%

Strange Loop

All ratings9 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Quartet 2

One-time5
  • Upgrade song$0.99
  • Buy 10 tokens$8.99
  • Buy 20 tokens$14.99
Show 2 more
  • Buy 50 tokens$22.99
  • Upgrade all songs$49.99
1 purchases

Strange Loop

One-time1
  • Unlock AUV3 Plugin$1.99

Questions

Is Quartet 2 free?
Quartet 2 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Strange Loop free?
Strange Loop is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Quartet 2 or Strange Loop?
Strange Loop is rated higher. Quartet 2 averages 4.8 out of 5 from 55 ratings, while Strange Loop averages 5.0 from 9 ratings.
Do Quartet 2 or Strange Loop have ads?
Neither Quartet 2 nor Strange Loop shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Quartet 2 or Strange Loop?
Quartet 2 ships an update every 2 months, and Strange Loop every 4 days. Most recently, Quartet 2 was updated on October 27, 2026 and Strange Loop on October 25, 2026.

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