Spreadsheets Synth vs 24
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Spreadsheets Synth
Create acid basslines and lead sounds with a resonant filter and built-in step sequencer. This app functions as an AUv3 plugin or standalone, offering MIDI support and background audio. It's designed for live performance and integration with other music production tools.
- Acid bass synthesizer
- Resonant filter with cutoff, resonance, decay, accent
- Built-in step sequencer
- AUv3 plugin support
- Standalone app with background audio
- MIDI in and out (including Bluetooth MIDI)
- Phaser and delay effects
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The 303 lives between the sheets. Spreadsheets Synth is an acid bass synthesizer with a built-in step sequencer — a cultural product of the band Spreadsheets, tuned to 313K and pointed straight at the dance floor. THE SQUELCH Sawtooth or square through a resonant filter with cutoff, resonance, decay, and accent — from rubbery basslines to screaming acid leads. Add distortion for grit, then send it into orbit with the phaser and delay. THE SEQUENCER Program patterns step by step, set the line looping, and ride the cutoff live. It's an instrument for performing, not just programming. PLAYS WITH YOUR WHOLE RIG • AUv3 plugin — load it as an instrument in GarageBand, AUM, Cubasis, Loopy Pro, and any AUv3 host • Standalone app with background audio • MIDI in and out, including Bluetooth MIDI NO STRINGS No account, no ads, no tracking, no data collected. Just voltage.
24
Explore microtonal music with a virtual keyboard that plays notes between standard semitones. Hear quarter tones instantly, send them as MIDI to your DAW, and discover unique keyboard layouts that morph into each other.
- Microtonal keyboard for quarter tones
- MIDI output to DAWs
- Morphing keyboard layouts
- Polyphonic and mono MIDI modes
- Visual representation of 24-TET
- On-device sound playback
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Quarter tones on a keyboard you already know. 24-TET Keys is a microtonal keyboard for iPhone and iPad: play the notes between the notes with your fingers, hear them as you press them, and send them on as MIDI if you have somewhere to send them. CAN YOU PLAY QUARTER TONES ON A PIANO? Not on an ordinary one, which is why quarter-tone pianos are rare instruments in a handful of cities. Here the piano board is the starting point. Naturals sit in a row, sharps ride above them, and the quarter tones grow into the gaps with an animated morph, so you can watch 24-TET come out of the notes you already play. Charles Ives wrote his Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart. WHAT DOES A QUARTER TONE SOUND LIKE? Press one. It makes sound out of the box, so you hear the interval instead of reading about it: polyphonic, played by touch, with glissando slides straight across the quarter tones. A quarter tone is half a semitone, 50 cents, the gap between two piano keys cut in two. MICROTONAL CHORDS, NOT JUST SCALES Every finger is its own voice, so a neutral third holds its pitch inside a chord instead of dragging the other notes with it. That is the part quarter tones usually break. LAYOUTS THAT MORPH INTO EACH OTHER This is an experimental collection of unusual keyboard layouts, and not a menu of separate boards: each is a point in one space, and any of them morphs into any other while you watch. The piano-derived board is one point. So is a domino board, where a key carries its natural below and its quarter tone above. So is a snake through the honeycomb. So is an isomorphic layout, where a chord shape is the same shape in every key, the property that makes hex boards worth learning. You can morph out of the piano you know straight into the honeycomb, the bridge between the two. MICROTONAL MIDI KEYBOARD: SEND IT TO A DAW If you already make music and want quarter tones in it, this is the compact microtonal MIDI keyboard part. It sends over a virtual CoreMIDI source to GarageBand, Logic, AUM and other hosts, over USB, network MIDI or MIDI hardware. In poly mode each held note takes its own channel, so a quarter-tone chord arrives in tune; mono mode suits a single-channel instrument. Quarter tones travel as a pitch bend on the in-between notes. WHAT IS 24-TET? 24-TET, also written 24 tone equal temperament and closely related to 24 EDO, cuts the octave into 24 equal steps instead of 12. Each step is a quarter tone. It is the tuning behind much modern microtonal and xenharmonic writing, and the usual way Western notation approximates Middle Eastern maqam. It is an equal temperament, not a Just Intonation system. FAQ How do quarter tones work? They divide the semitone in half. 12-TET gives 12 equal steps per octave; 24-TET gives 24, so a new note lands exactly between every pair you already know. Which instruments can play quarter tones? Voices, fretless strings and many winds can bend to them; fixed-pitch keyboards usually cannot, which is what this app changes. Why don't we use quarter tones? Mostly because the instruments cannot play them. An ordinary piano has 12 keys per octave and no room for more. That is the limit this app removes. How do I make microtonal music with it? Play it as it is, or route the MIDI into your DAW and record the quarter tones onto a track like any other part. Can MIDI be microtonal? Yes. Each quarter tone travels as a pitch bend on the in-between notes, one voice per channel, so a chord stays in tune. Does it import Scala or .scl files? No. It plays 12-TET and 24-TET. Is it a tuner? No. It is a keyboard you play. No ads, no account. Want a standalone instrument to just play? Try our companion app Fingerophone.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: 24 at 4.6 against Spreadsheets Synth's 2.0. 24 also leads on ratings volume (5 vs 1). Spreadsheets Synth's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.6). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
24 holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 2.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: 24 has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
| Parameter | Spreadsheets Synth | 24 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.0 (1 ratings) | 4.6 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | — | Daily |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 14 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | James Hurlbut | Maxim Oransky |
In-app purchases
Spreadsheets Synth
No in-app purchases
24
No in-app purchases








