Comparison

Gravity Machine vs The Orb

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

Head to head
About

Gravity Machine

Create music by manipulating a miniature solar system. Fling orbs that bounce off walls, generating notes based on physics and chosen scales. Customize worlds, sounds, and tunings for unique generative compositions.

Highlights
  • Generative music creation
  • Physics-based orb interactions
  • Customizable scales and tunings
  • Multiple world shapes
  • AUv3 and standalone modes
  • MIDI output
Features
Read full description

A tiny solar system that plays piano. Four orbs, a gravity well, and walls that ring like bells. Fling an orb and it falls, ricochets, and plays notes. Where it hits a wall decides what it plays; the physics decide when. You don't write the music. You build a small world and curate what it sings. Gravity is a touch instrument first. Grab an orb and it follows your finger; let go and the throw becomes its velocity. Drag the gravity well and every orbit in the room bends. Set Pulse and the well breathes in time with the tempo, so chaos starts keeping a schedule. EVERYTHING LANDS IN KEY Every impact point along the boundary maps to a note of the current scale, low at one end, high at the other. Pick from 16 scales and 11 tuning systems (12-TET, just intonation, maqam, shruti and more). The scale strip along the bottom is a key-change timeline: tap a segment, change the key, and the whole world modulates on the bar. EIGHT WORLDS TO BOUNCE IN Rectangle, circle, triangle, hexagon, pentagon, octagon, diamond, star. Sharp corners ricochet hard and play jagged. Round shapes glide and play smooth. SOUND A 16-voice pluck engine through a double-bass body and reverb. Octave, key range, quantize from 1/32 to 1/2, orb-to-orb collisions on or off. Presets to start from, themes for the visuals. AUv3 AND STANDALONE Use Gravity full-screen as a standalone instrument, or load it as an AUv3 in GarageBand, AUM, Logic Pro, Cubasis, Loopy Pro and any other Audio Unit host. Each orb has its own MIDI channel, so Gravity can drive other instruments in your host. ONE PRICE No account, no ads, no in-app purchases, no data collected. Buy it once and it's yours. The same engine ships as a VST3 and AU plugin for Windows and macOS at touchmachines.com.

About

The Orb

Features
Read full description

The Orb is a formant filter plugin that simulates the characteristics of the human voice. Featuring a set of three band pass filters, The Orb can transform any sound into a vowel-like formant-filtered sound. With the three LFOs you can modulate the Vowel, the Emphasis/Resonance of the formants, and the Drift, which can shift up or down the frequencies of each formant. You can also create your own set of vowels by changing the name and frequency for each vowel/formant.

Screenshots

Gravity Machine1 screens
The Orb1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: The Orb at $7.99 against Gravity Machine's $9.99. On ads, in-app purchases, device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Gravity Machine costs $9.99 and The Orb $7.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Gravity Machine versus The Orb: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGravity MachineThe Orb
Price$9.99$7.99 — better
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.014.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size12 MB15 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTouchmachinesAudioThing Ltd.

In-app purchases

None

Gravity Machine

No in-app purchases

None

The Orb

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Gravity Machine free?
Gravity Machine costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is The Orb free?
The Orb costs $7.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Gravity Machine or The Orb have ads?
Neither Gravity Machine nor The Orb shows ads.

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