VKO1 vs A«iD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
VKO1
Create stunning, real-time visuals for your music performances without needing VJ experience. Load clips, sync to your BPM, and let the app handle the visuals hands-free with automated mixing and effects. Build custom reactive visuals using a node editor and import your own shaders.
- Automated beat-synced visual mixing
- Node editor for custom visual creation
- Import custom Metal shaders
- Real-time GPU-accelerated effects
- Multiple control options (iPhone, iPad, MIDI, gamepad)
- Music sync via tap tempo, MIDI clock, Ableton Link
- Downloadable visualizers from the store
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WHAT IS VKO1 (VisualKO) VKO1 is a visual performance app for iPad, iPhone, and Apple Silicon Mac — built for musicians and DJs who want stunning visuals without a dedicated VJ. Load your clips, set your BPM, and let it run. Made for performers You're playing. VKO1 stays locked to your music and keeps visuals moving — no babysitting required. Automix does the work MIX mode pulls from all 8 banks, auto-switches on the beat, and rotates effects automatically. A full visual set, hands-free. Build your own visuals The Node Editor lets you wire together generators, modifiers, and combiners into custom reactive visuals — no coding needed. Import your own Metal shaders or start from scratch. Browse the Store Download free and premium GPU visualizers — real-time Metal shaders that run directly on your device. No video files. No lag. Drop them straight into your set and go. Control from anywhere iPhone in your pocket, iPad on a stand, MIDI controller on your table, Bluetooth gamepad in your hand. AirPlay to the big screen — no cables. 51 real-time effects All BPM-synced, all GPU-accelerated via Metal. One knob controls everything playing. Stays in sync Tap tempo, MIDI clock, Ableton Link — four ways to lock visuals to your music.
A«iD
This app synthesizes video in real time, reacting to audio input. It offers a modular chain of effects to manipulate visuals, allowing for custom masks and intricate distortions. Create unique, psychedelic visual experiences inspired by vintage video synthesizers.
- Audio-reactive video synthesis
- Modular effects chain
- Customizable masks (SVG, PNG, PDF)
- Real-time feedback and distortion
- Color manipulation and remap
- CRT phosphor and DV tape emulation
- Edge detection and raster effects
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A«iD is an audio-reactive video synthesizer inspired by Eric Siegel's legendary EVS Electronic Video Synthesizer from the 1970s. ——— THE CHAIN ——— Modules process the video signal in real time. Stack them in any order, tap to open controls, drag to reorder, long-press to bypass. GEOMETRY SOURCE — Generate a synthetic shape and composite it over the signal. Circle, diamond, bar, cross, ring, triangle, hexagon — or load your own SVG, PNG, or PDF as a custom mask. Position, size, hue, and edge softness are all independently audio-modulatable. FEEDBACK — Route the processed signal back into itself. Pinch and rotate on the canvas to control zoom and spin in real time. KEYER — Unified luma and chroma key in a single module. Cut foreground from background by luminance or isolate a color as a matte. Tap the eyedropper to sample any color directly from the screen. Pairs visually with COMPOSITE in the chain — the signal knows where it's going. COMPOSITE — Layer the processed chain behind a clean camera cut using luma and chroma mattes simultaneously. COLOR MATRIX — Rotate, invert, and cross-channel the RGB color space. Strange colors guaranteed. HUE LFO — Oscillate the hue channel at tempo-synced rates. Psychedelic pulsing locked to the beat. PHOSPHOR DECAY — Emulate CRT phosphor persistence. Past frames linger like burned afterimages. BURN ECHO — Additive frame echo that saturates toward white. Motion leaves a scorched trail. DV TAPE — Analog dropout and compression artifacts from the era of consumer DV camcorders. HALATION — Film halation glow on bright areas. Warm blooming on highlights. CHROMA SMEAR — Horizontal chroma bleed and compression fringing. SCAN DISPLACE — Rutt/Etra-inspired raster displacement. Each scanline shifts horizontally by audio frequency content mapped to vertical position — bass warps the bottom, treble the top. The entire frame becomes a spectrum warp field. EDGE OUTLINE — Sobel edge detection with colored glow, inspired by Stephen Beck's Direct Video Synthesizer. Flat areas go dark; edges light up in the chosen hue and bloom outward. COLORMAP — Remap luminance to color. Five palettes: Thermal (heat vision), Psychedelic (full hue rotation, classic Siegel PCS), Phosphor (P1 green CRT), Ice, and Neon. Every pixel's brightness becomes a new color. RASTER BEND — Distort the scan lines. Warp the geometry of the image itself. MIRROR — Fold, flip, and tile the frame into kaleidoscopic symmetry. TILE — Repeat, scale, and rearrange the frame in a grid. POSTERIZE — Reduce color depth. Hard edges, flat planes, screen-print aesthetics. TRANSFORM — Rotate, scale, and reposition with full affine control. CHANNEL MIX — Blend and cross-route RGB channels independently. ENCODER — NTSC-style composite encoding. Color bleeding and luminance separation. ——— AUDIO REACTOR ——— Every knob can be wired to the live audio signal. A»iD listens constantly and extracts amplitude, bass, mid and treble bands, beat phase, BPM, onset triggers, and spectral centroid. Seven LFOs run at BPM subdivisions. Open the Patch Bay to wire any source to any parameter in any module. Stack multiple sources on one knob. Set amount and polarity per patch. ——— RANDOMIZE ——— Shake the device (or hit the die) to randomize the whole chain. Palette Lock freezes hue and saturation through dice rolls. Sleeper Mode locks each module's bypass state — sleeping modules stay asleep, active modules stay awake. Everything re-rolls around your intention. ——— SYNC & CONTROL ——— ABLETON LINK — Lock BPM and beat phase with Ableton Live, AUM, Loopy, and any Link-compatible app on your network. MIDI — Auto-learns CC from any wired or Bluetooth MIDI controller. Long-press any knob to assign. OSC — Receive /aid/ messages from TouchOSC or Max/MSP over Wi-Fi.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: A«iD at 100% against VKO1's 0%. A«iD also leads on price (Free vs $11.99) and in-app purchases (none vs 4). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads 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
A«iD is free to download; VKO1 costs $11.99 up front. VKO1 sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. A«iD asks for nothing beyond the download.
A«iD holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 3 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of VKO1's written reviews are positive against 100% of A«iD's.
VKO1 ships an update every 10 days, A«iD every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and September 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | VKO1 | A«iD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $11.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (5 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 45 MB | 68 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Juan Maguid | JOEL CHRISTOPHER RAKOWSKI |
Customer experience
VKO1
A«iD
In-app purchases
VKO1
- Phosphor Cult Shader Pack$1.99
- Computer Veld Pack$1.99
- Alchemist Sketchbook Pack$1.99
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- Daft Cyber Pack$1.99
A«iD
No in-app purchases








