Melthaven vs Wreck
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Melthaven
This app provides a note-triggered phase shifter for guitarists, bassists, and synthesizers. It offers organic, rhythmic movement that syncs to your playing, with analog-modeled filters for diverse sonic textures. Enhance loops or create experimental sounds with its input-dependent modulation.
- Note-triggered phase shifting
- Analog-modeled OTA filters
- Responds to guitar and bass transients
- Enhances pre-recorded loops
- Input-dependent synth modulation
- Low-latency engine
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Melthaven is a note-triggered phase shifter built to give guitarists and bassists organic, rhythmic movement that syncs to their playing, rather than a fixed LFO. It's also highly suited for a number of synth basses and sounds with sharp attacks and fast decays. Its analog-modeled OTA filters provide deep resonance and character, ranging from wah-like effects to complex, shifting formant textures or even experimental tones, like bubbling or hard, slappy effects. For bright, harmonically dense signals – such as saturated or overdriven tones and synthetic sounds – the effect range also includes growls and glistening sweeps. FOCUSED ON BASS & GUITARS The effect was specially developed to respond to the frequency response and transient peaks of electric guitars and basses. Every pluck, pop, or pick attack re-triggers the phase sweep, effectively turning your rhythmic timing into the "engine" of the effect. USING LOOPS? BREAK THEM OPEN Add various resonant effects like growls, or vintage bark / quacks "after the fact." This unlocks a level of control usually lost the moment a loop is bounced. Instead of being stuck with locked-in sound design, you can now reshape the envelope of any pre-recorded sample, breathing new life into your loop library. FOR SYNTHS & SOUND DESIGN: INPUT DEPENDENT Soft signals like pads or heavy/layered effects can produce wild, unpredictable responses. While such use is outside the plugin's core design, the smoothing feature can tame these re-triggers, yielding a flow that can feel organic and physical in its instability when operating beyond the plugin’s transient-focused comfort zone. MOVING BEYOND ENVELOPE FILTERS The plugin uses low-latency note detection paired with its own envelope generator and LFO, allowing sculpting and even reshaping each note’s modulation profile or filter envelope. It even detects notes that hide under a consistent signal amplitude when using a traditional envelope follower. BASE FEATURES: - Built around a versatile preset from the Pro version to suit a wide variety of applications - Controls: feedback & panoramic position, attack & hold timings, LFO Rate - Smoothing: from envelope shaping to creating a weighted, fluid response, giving note sequences a sense of physical momentum - Low-latency engine: preserves natural playing feel when used as a real-time effect PRO FEATURES - Requires Pro Edition Upgrade (In‑App Purchase): - Additional envelope parameters, several envelope flavors with pre-mapped control subsets - Pro presets encompassing both strong and milder effects, including the quintessential rubber bass - Enhanced stereo phaser modes & internal stereo re-imaging modulator (for formant-like effects and more) - Vintage-style phaser feedback that can optionally build or ramp with each note onset (non-rampable in the base version) - Instant visual feedback via an audio scope with dual-channel envelopes overlaid on the input waveform TECHNICAL NOTES: - Place before creative effects (unless experimenting). It can be used before or after harmonic processing (saturation, amp sims) depending on your preference - Response may vary on sustained notes with shifting harmonic content - Not optimized for upright bass due to its reliance on sharp signal transients - Note detection involves statistical signal processing and confidence intervals. Weak transients and phantom notes could lead to a loss of output determinism, i.e. sensitivity to changes in certain project settings - While it offers multiple layers of real-time control, Melthaven operates primarily as an automatic effect; for full manual filter manipulation, please refer to RealPhase, a separate app PLEASE NOTE: • The Pro Edition Upgrade is offered as a one‑time In‑App Purchase • An AUv3-compatible host is required to use this app • Suported sampling rates: 44.1, 48, 96 kHz
Wreck
This audio effect app offers a suite of tools for digital sound degradation, including bitcrushing, sample rate reduction, and wavecycle mangling. Achieve everything from subtle sonic smearing to complete audio collapse with flexible controls and parallel processing options.
- Bit depth reduction (1-24 bit)
- Sample rate decimation
- Wavecycle mangling
- Drive and bias controls
- Pre and post filters
- AUv3 plugin support
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WRECK destroys audio in the most musical ways possible. Reduce bit depth down to 1-bit dust. Decimate the sample rate to dial frequencies. Smear jitter across the clock. Mangle wavecycles at the zero-crossing level. WRECK puts every form of digital degradation in one place. Clean destruction or full collapse — it's yours. — BITCRUSHER — Bit Depth from 24 down to 1. Dead Zone and Dither shape the quantization character. Quant Mode selects the rounding algorithm. — SAMPLE RATE REDUCER — Decimate the sample rate from full down to aliased chaos. Tempo sync locks it to your host BPM. Jitter adds clock instability. — CYCLE MANGLER — Operates on individual wavecycles. Amount controls how aggressively cycles are reshaped. Shape blends between cycles. Sens sets the zero-crossing detection threshold. — DRIVE SECTION — Drive pushes the signal. Bias offsets the waveform asymmetrically. Alias adds deliberate aliasing artifacts. Oversample when you need clean destruction instead. — FILTERS — Pre and post filters (cutoff + Q) bracket the destruction. Shape what goes in, shape what comes out. — MIX & OUTPUT — Dry/wet blend for parallel destruction. Output gain to compensate. — AUv3 PLUGIN — Run WRECK inside AUM, ApeMatrix, Audiobus, or any AUv3 host. Multiple instances, each with independent settings. — WORKS ON — iPhone and iPad, all modern screen sizes.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Wreck at none against Melthaven's 1. Wreck also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 6 weeks) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.0). Melthaven's advantage is price ($2.99 vs $3.99). On rating, ratings volume, 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
Melthaven costs $2.99 and Wreck $3.99 up front. Melthaven sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Wreck asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Melthaven against 5.0 for Wreck. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 2 respectively.
Melthaven ships an update every 6 weeks, Wreck weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Melthaven | Wreck |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 — better | $3.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | quantovox | Stephan Bolch |
Customer experience
Melthaven
Wreck
In-app purchases
Melthaven
- Melthaven Pro$4.99
Wreck
No in-app purchases







