homecrate vs Aether Synth
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
homecrate
This app combines a music player with a production studio, offering advanced playback features like algorithm-tuned shuffle and synced lyrics. It also includes a multi-track DAW with a synthesizer, drum machine, and guitar amp for music creation.
- Algorithm-tuned shuffle
- Synced lyrics and liner notes
- 8+8 track DAW
- Synthesizer and drum machine
- Guitar amp simulator
- AUv3 plugin hosting
- MIDI I/O and sync
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Learn the song. Tune up. Record it. Perform it. Film it. One app. Split any song into stems on your device, unlimited and offline. Play through a real NAM amp. Record 16 tracks. Run your desktop VST3 plugins from your Mac. Pro is $9.99, once. YOUR MUSIC. YOUR RULES. A player and a studio for people who have opinions about music. Not a streaming service. Not an algorithm watching you. Everything runs on your device. FREE, IN FULL A working 4-track studio with a master bus. A real amp with 10 NAM A2 profiles. Drum machine, synth, vocal chain, dynamic EQ with sidechain. Piano roll, step sequencer, automation lanes. MIDI hardware routing and clock sync. Timeline editing with split, crossfades and warp markers. Mixdown and share. A tuner with 50+ tunings, and a metronome. Your lossless library with synced lyrics and liner notes. No trial, no timer, no account. LEARN IT Stem Separation (Pro): Split any song into vocals, drums, bass, guitar and more, entirely on your device. No cloud, no account, no limits. Stems land on tracks ready to play along. Mute the guitar and take its place. Audio to MIDI (Pro): On-device pitch detection turns any clip into notes. Sing the melody, get the part. TUNE IT Tuner: Over 50 established tunings, free. Standards, drops, opens, modal, bass, lap steel and pedal steel. Instrument-aware string sets for 6/7/8-string guitar, 4/5-string bass, 6/8/10-string lap steel, E9/C6 pedal steel. The steel library is validated against John Ely's tunings list and the Papa Dafoe database. PLAY IT Guitar Amp: Neural Amp Modeler with dual profile morphing mapped to your playing dynamics. 10 profiles free; load any .nam or .wav IR with Pro. Synthesizer: Dual-oscillator synth. MPE, microtonal tuning, 6-voice unison. Drum Machine: 16-pad sampler with a multi-bar step sequencer. Vocal Chain: Pitch correction, compression, doubling, de-esser, delay, reverb. Dynamic EQ: Dynamic EQ and compressor with true cross-track sidechaining. Grain: Grain delay and reverb built to be played, not just poured over things. VST3 + AU Hosting (Pro): Run real desktop plugins in your project. A free Mac companion hosts the plugin; homecrate streams audio, MIDI and tempo both ways. Every parameter becomes an automatable lane. Mac required. AUv3 Host (Pro): 4 insert slots per track. Chord, arpeggiator and sequencer plugins drive your tracks, splittable across channels. RECORD IT 16 audio and 8 MIDI tracks with a master bus. Warp markers for timing correction. Slicing, crossfades, pinch-to-zoom timeline, automation with shape presets. Voice control and Music Chat for theory-informed MIDI. Live looper. Collaborative sessions where a bandmate's take lands clock-aligned on your timeline. PERFORM IT Visual Stream (Pro): Send your camera and effects to a projector through the Mac companion. More than one phone can stream at once. Gesture Control (Pro): Hand poses seen by the front camera become MIDI. Twist your hand to ride a filter without touching the screen. MIDI Rig Switching (Pro): Assign layer visibility and effect presets to your pedalboard. One pad flips the whole scene. FILM IT Video Capture (Pro): Film the take with your backing track in the mix. 70+ real-time GPU effects that stack as layers and react to what you play. Preserve Me and Preserve Instrument shields keep you and your guitar untouched while everything else burns. Custom Shader runs your own ISF or Shadertoy code. Media Overlay adds photo and video layers. Section markers switch the look at the chorus. KEEP IT Time your lyrics line by line and they travel into your library as synced lyrics. Spatial audio with a 3D mixer and APAC export on iOS 26. Mixdown to your library or share a whole project as one file. Plex sync. PRO IS $9.99. ONCE. Everything marked Pro above, plus tracks 5 to 16, preset saving everywhere, and custom NAM profiles and IRs. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. No subscription. No renewal. No account.
Aether Synth
This music creation app offers a professional synthesizer engine with dual-layer sound design and rhythmic motion. It can be used as a standalone workstation or as an AUv3 instrument within compatible iOS hosts for recording and production.
- AUv3 instrument support
- Standalone synth workstation
- Dual preset layering
- Melodic and drum sequencers
- Sampler tools
- Multitrack audio workspace
- Arpeggiator and motion controls
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Aether Synth is an AUv3 synthesizer, sequencer and sampler for iPhone and iPad, built for creating expressive sounds that move. Start with a sound, combine two sounds into something new, introduce motion, build a pattern, capture a sample, or simply play. Aether brings synthesis, sequencing, sampling and performance together in one instrument designed to keep ideas moving. CREATE YOUR OWN SOUND Build rich synth patches for pads, basses, leads, textures, atmospheres and evolving sounds. Aether is designed to make sound creation immediate. Shape a patch directly, explore presets for inspiration, or use Random Sound to discover combinations you might not have reached manually. The result can become a finished sound or the starting point for something completely different. DUAL — TWO SOUNDS BECOME ONE Dual lets you combine two independent sounds into a new composite instrument. Choose a sound for A. Choose another for B. Blend between them and shape the result. The two sides can complement each other, contrast with each other, or create something that neither patch produces alone. Save your favorite Blends and return to them later. MAKE SOUNDS MOVE Aether is built around motion as part of the instrument. Use Motion and Random Motion to animate sound over time and create patches that evolve rather than remain static. Movement can be subtle and organic or become a major rhythmic part of the sound. This makes Aether especially suited to evolving pads, shifting textures, rhythmic sounds and patches that respond like performances rather than snapshots. SEQUENCE IDEAS Turn sounds into patterns with Aether's built-in sequencer. Create melodic and rhythmic phrases, experiment with different rates and musical feels, and develop ideas without leaving the instrument. The arpeggiator provides another immediate way to transform held notes and chords into movement, while tempo synchronization keeps rhythmic material locked to the music. SAMPLING Capture and work with audio directly inside Aether. Use sampling alongside synthesis to bring recorded material into the same creative environment as your patches, patterns and performances. A sample can become part of a larger musical idea instead of living in a separate workflow. PERFORM Aether is designed to be played. Use the keyboard and performance controls to shape sounds in real time, then connect a MIDI controller when you want a more traditional playing experience. Velocity, sustain and expressive controls allow patches to respond dynamically instead of behaving like static presets. DISCOVER INSTEAD OF SEARCHING Sometimes you know exactly what sound you want. Sometimes you don't. Random Sound and Random Motion make exploration part of the workflow. Generate a new direction, keep what works, reshape it, combine it with another sound in Dual, and continue from there. The goal is not randomness for its own sake. It is getting from a blank idea to something musically useful quickly. STANDALONE OR AUV3 Use Aether as a standalone instrument on iPhone and iPad, or load it as an AUv3 instrument inside compatible hosts and DAWs. That means the same sound-design environment can work as an instrument on its own or become part of a larger mobile production setup. BUILT FOR MUSICIANS Aether brings together: • Synthesizer sound design • Dual layered instruments and saved Blends • Motion and evolving sound • Random Sound and Random Motion • Preset exploration • Sequencing • Arpeggiation • Sampling • Performance controls • MIDI • Standalone operation • AUv3 plugin support Whether you're designing an evolving ambient texture, building a bass or lead, creating a rhythmic patch, experimenting with layered sounds, or starting a new musical idea from scratch, Aether is designed to keep the distance between inspiration and sound as short as possible. Create a sound. Make it move. Turn it into music.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: homecrate at Free against Aether Synth's $2.99. homecrate also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 67%) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). Aether Synth's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (9 vs 2). On update cadence, ads and iOS requirement 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
homecrate is free to download; Aether Synth costs $2.99 up front. homecrate sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Aether Synth asks for nothing beyond the download.
homecrate holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 9 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of homecrate's written reviews are positive against 67% of Aether Synth's.
homecrate ships an update weekly, Aether Synth every 6 days. Both last shipped on October 2, 2026.
| Parameter | homecrate | Aether Synth |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | 4.7 (9 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 66.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 9 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 120 MB | 33 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | anthony burchell | Jacob Kirk |
Customer experience
homecrate
Aether Synth
In-app purchases
homecrate
- homecrate - Pro$9.99
Aether Synth
No in-app purchases









