Melthaven vs Midiary
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
Midiary
This app allows musicians to edit and refine MIDI files by extracting and applying groove information, adjusting note parameters, and inspecting file structure. It preserves the original file while offering robust editing and auditioning capabilities.
- Groove extraction and application
- Note pitch, velocity, and timing adjustment
- Offline MIDI file editing
- Undo/redo functionality
- File inspection and auditioning
- Export MIDI and CSV formats
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NEW IN 5.0 — PLAY, PRACTISE AND CONVERT - Instrument voices: every part plays with a voice chosen by its General MIDI program family (piano, organ, guitar, bass, strings, brass, winds, synths) and channel 10 plays a drum kit. The voices are Midiary's own sounds; they sketch the arrangement rather than reproduce a General MIDI sound set. - Practice & mix: mute or solo any part, change speed from 25% to 200% without changing pitch, shift the key up or down 12 semitones for singers, and loop any range of bars. - Play to MIDI gear: send the file to a USB or Bluetooth MIDI keyboard, module or interface, with its own program changes. SysEx is sent only if you turn it on. - Key and chords: an estimated key and a chord for every bar, with a shareable chord chart. Tap a bar to play from it. - Lyrics and karaoke: lyric events and .kar files follow playback line by line. - File tools: convert format 1 to format 0 for keyboards, arrangers and player pianos, or split a file into one track per channel for your DAW. Set or scale the tempo, change resolution, set a channel's General MIDI instrument, rename, move or delete tracks. Every change is verified and undoable. - Extract: copy a range of bars and the parts you choose into a new MIDI file, with tempo and sounds set up at its start. - Audio export: render M4A or WAV with the current mix, key and speed — a practice backing track in seconds. - Bars and beats throughout: event list, note list, piano roll grid and a playhead. - Open MIDI files from Files, Mail or other apps, use Shortcuts actions (file info, format conversion, transpose, tempo), and iPad keyboard shortcuts. Midiary is an offline studio for Standard MIDI Files on iPhone and iPad. Your imported original always stays intact. MAKE MUSICAL CORRECTIONS Select tracks and channels, transpose, adjust velocity, or move note starts toward straight and triplet grids with variable strength. Drum protection keeps channel 10 out of batch edits. EDIT THE EXACT NOTE Search by pitch, filter and page through long files. Change a note's pitch, velocity, start and duration. Review the actual changes before saving; ambiguous overlaps and unsafe edits are blocked with an explanation. GROOVE BENCH Extract the timing and velocity feel of a passage and apply it to another part with separate timing and dynamics strengths. Up to 64 templates are kept on the device. KEEP THE ORIGINAL Imported MIDI bytes stay unchanged. Edits save locally with undo and redo that survive closing the app, up to 20 steps within 48 MB. Restore the original as an undoable step. Damaged sessions are preserved for recovery. INSPECT THE FILE Tracks with their instruments, channels and note ranges; tempo map; time and key signatures; markers; structural findings; a channel-coloured piano roll; and an event desk with bar, time and tick. Metrical and SMPTE timing and format 2 sequences are supported. EXPORT YOUR WORK Share the untouched original, the edited MIDI, a cleaned copy with missing End-of-Track events added and hanging notes closed, an event CSV, or rendered audio. Start with your own .mid, .midi or .kar file, or open the bundled piano sample or the band sample with lyrics. Imports support up to 8 MB, 1,024 tracks and 100,000 events. Playback runs in the foreground. No account, subscription, in-app purchase, advertising or tracking. Files and editing sessions stay on your device unless you export or share them. Midiary does not record from the microphone. Bluetooth is used only if you open Bluetooth MIDI pairing.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Midiary at none against Melthaven's 1. Midiary also leads on update cadence (every 9 days vs every 6 weeks). 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 Midiary $3.99 up front. Melthaven sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Midiary 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 Midiary. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 2 respectively.
Melthaven ships an update every 6 weeks, Midiary every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Melthaven | Midiary |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 — better | $3.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | quantovox | Robert Corbin |
Customer experience
Melthaven
Midiary
In-app purchases
Melthaven
- Melthaven Pro$4.99
Midiary
No in-app purchases









