Comparison

midigarden vs MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope

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

Head to head
About

midigarden

Features
Read full description

midigarden is a touch-based synthesizer that turns your iPhone or iPad into a musical instrument. Play melodies on an 5x8 grid mapped to musical scales. Each pad triggers notes with 8-voice polyphony, letting you play chords and melodies with your fingers. FEATURES • Touch Grid - Play notes on a responsive grid. Choose from multiple scales including major, minor, pentatonic, and chromatic. • Retrospective Looper - Captures what you just played, even if you weren't recording. Never lose a good take. • Custom Patches - Load your own Pure Data patches via the Files app. The app automatically wraps them with voice allocation and mixing. • Live Parameters - Every knob and slider in your patch becomes a touchable control. Drag to adjust in real-time. • Built-in Synthesizers - Ships with patches ready to play, physical models, fm and drum synths. • Camera Background - Optional live camera feed behind the grid for screen-recorded performances. PURE DATA POWERED Under the hood, midigarden runs Pure Data patches - the same open-source audio engine used by professional musicians and sound designers worldwide. Create patches on your computer and load them into the app. PERFECT FOR • Live performance and jamming • Sketching musical ideas • Learning synthesis • Use iOS screen capture with background camera to make performance videos that capture the mood and environment • Sound design experiments No music theory required. Just touch and play.

About

MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope

This app combines a multi-touch performance keyboard, a 16-channel step sequencer, and a real-time oscilloscope. It allows seamless integration with hardware synthesizers and audio gear via USB, enabling music creation and analysis.

Highlights
  • Multi-touch velocity-sensitive keyboard
  • 16-channel step sequencer with piano roll
  • Real-time 8-channel oscilloscope
  • USB MIDI and audio interface support
  • Network and Bluetooth MIDI compatibility
  • Live recording and transposition
  • Sub-millisecond sequencer timing
Features
Read full description

A powerful all-in-one studio companion for hardware synthesizers, drum machines, and audio gear. Connect your USB MIDI devices and audio interfaces and start playing, sequencing, and analyzing instantly. KEYS — Multi-Touch Performance Keyboard • 3-octave velocity-sensitive piano with multi-finger support • Velocity from touch position — soft on top, loud at the bottom • Spring-loaded pitch bend wheel (14-bit precision) • Mod wheel (CC#1) for expressive control • Program change selector with quick recall • Octave shifting from -2 to +5 • Per-channel routing to different synths • Transpose mode — keyboard transposes the live sequence SEQ — 16-Channel Step Sequencer • 16 independent MIDI channels, up to 32 steps each • Mono mode for melody and bass lines • Poly mode with full piano roll editor • Swing control for groove (0-50%) • Live recording from your external keyboard • MIDI clock sync — auto-detects tempo from incoming clock • Per-channel destination routing — each track plays a different synth • Live transpose during playback • Adjustable note range and pattern length SCOPE — Real-Time Multi-Channel Oscilloscope • Up to 8 channels simultaneously from USB audio interfaces • 1-2-5 standard time/division (10 microseconds to 500 ms) • Configurable voltage/division with auto-scale • Rising and falling edge trigger with adjustable level • Auto and Normal trigger modes • Per-channel color, vertical offset, and on/off • Phosphor persistence with adjustable decay • Glow effect with intensity control • Three background themes — Classic, Space, Shockwave • Metal-accelerated rendering CONNECTIVITY • USB MIDI — plug in your hardware controllers and synths • USB audio interfaces — multi-channel input for the oscilloscope • Network MIDI / Bluetooth MIDI compatible • Companion iPhone app — record video while iPad captures audio over Wi-Fi (Bonjour) DESIGNED FOR PERFORMANCE • Sub-millisecond sequencer timing • Lock-free audio buffers for glitch-free capture • Optimized for iPad landscape — full immersive UI • Per-app settings for every channel, every parameter, persistent across sessions Whether you're sketching ideas in the studio, performing live, debugging a Eurorack patch, or learning synthesis, this app brings keyboard, sequencer, and oscilloscope into a single, fast, focused interface. No ads. No subscriptions. No accounts. Just plug in and play.

Screenshots

midigarden3 screens
MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope3 screens

Verdict

The call

midigarden and MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
midigarden versus MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametermidigardenMIDI Controller/Oscilloscope
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperWilliam SharkeyCollective Vision, LLC.

In-app purchases

None

midigarden

No in-app purchases

None

MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is midigarden free?
midigarden is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope free?
MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do midigarden or MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope have ads?
Neither midigarden nor MIDI Controller/Oscilloscope shows ads.

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