Comparison

Handstrudel vs Contour

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

Head to head
About

Handstrudel

Features
Read full description

HandStrudel turns your hands into a musical instrument. Using your iPhone's camera and real-time hand tracking, every gesture becomes sound. PLAY THREE WAYS • Melodic Mode — wave your hands to control pitch, filter, reverb, and more • Grid Mode — pinch to play notes on a visual grid, hold to sustain, slide between notes • Drum Mode — pinch to trigger drums across 6 lanes: kick, snare, hi-hat, crash, ride, tom MUSIC THEORY BUILT IN • Pick any key (C through B) and scale (Major, Minor, Dorian, Pentatonic, Blues) • Chord mode plays full triads • Circle of fifths navigation with hand position SOUND DESIGN • 4 waveforms: saw, square, triangle, sine • Dual drum tracks with independent BPM • XY pad controls drum intensity and complexity • Lock any parameter to manual control RECORD & SHARE • 7-second screen recording with one tap • Share directly to Instagram Stories or Reels • Camera filters: Warm, Cool, Vivid, Noir, Vintage, Neon, and more • Motion trails show your hand paths in neon glow BUILD COMPOSITIONS • Record loops in grid or drum mode • Layer multiple loops on top of each other • Loops auto-play and repeat • Export audio as M4A JAM WITH FRIENDS • SharePlay support — jam together on FaceTime • Everyone hears each other's notes in real-time 4 FREE PRESETS • Dreamy — floaty reverb & delay • Gritty — crunchy distortion • Bouncy — playful filter bounce • Chill — slow & spacious Plus premium presets, drum kits, and filters available as in-app purchases. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Contour

This app is a unique musical instrument played by touch. It uses a visual interface where your finger's position determines the sound, offering a novel way to create drones, textures, and pads. It also functions as an AUv3 plugin for use in other music production apps.

Highlights
  • Touch-based sound generation
  • Perceptual distance mapping
  • Eleven distinct sound sheets
  • MIDI input and ribbon controller
  • AUv3 plugin support
  • Recording functionality (Pro)
  • Customizable sound sheets (Pro)
Features
Read full description

Contour is an instrument you play by walking. Four neural decoders sit at the corners of a square. Your finger somewhere in the middle is a blend of all four, and the square is drawn as a survey sheet. The contour lines are not decoration. They come from what those four decoders actually produce, laid out so that equal distances on screen are equal perceptual distances in sound. Cross a line and the sound has changed by a measured amount. THE SHEETS Eleven of them, each a different set of four corners, each chosen by measuring the whole library rather than by ear. They are grouped by what the measurement found: BRIGHT — HEHUAN, the brightest, where all four corners hold their own. CONTRAST — BEIYIDUAN, the widest corner spread at 8.2 times. BREATH — NENGGAO, the breathiest. DEPTH — MABO, the deepest at 53 dB. RANGE — YUSHAN, the widest at 66 semitones; JIAMING, the most focused at 17. They are named after Taiwan's high mountain traverses. PLAYING IT Touch the sheet to sound it. The ribbon underneath sets pitch, or send MIDI and play it from a keyboard. Press harder and the note opens up — the contact patch of your finger is the dynamic. Hold on empty ground to drop a mark you can come back to. The readout above the ribbon tells you where you are while you are there: brightness, noise, the grid reference, the frequency. IN A HOST Contour is also an AUv3 plug-in. It runs in AUM, GarageBand, Cubasis, Logic for iPad and anything else that hosts Audio Units, with the position automatable as two parameters and the sheet recallable with your session. The plug-in draws the same map the app does, laid out for the window a host gives it. WHAT IS FREE Three sheets — BEIYIDUAN, NENGGAO and YUSHAN — with the whole instrument: the map, the ribbon, MIDI, reverb, marks, and the plug-in. No time limit and no account. CONTOUR PRO A single purchase, once, unlocks: • All eleven sheets • Recording, straight to a file • The envelope panel — attack, decay, sustain, release • Composing sheets of your own from the library, 4,845 combinations of four corners, with the map baked for the pitches they share Requires iOS 16 or later. iPhone and iPad.

Screenshots

Handstrudel4 screens
Contour4 screens

Verdict

The call

Handstrudel and Contour are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

Both are free to download. Handstrudel sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Contour sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Handstrudel versus Contour: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHandstrudelContour
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequency—Weekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Freemium
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS16.016.0
Further details — not scored
Size76 MB108 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperKhalil HughesChih Han Lin

In-app purchases

7 purchases

Handstrudel

Subscriptions2
  • HandStrudel+$2.991 Month
  • HandStrudel+ (Annual)$19.991 Year
One-time5
  • 808 Drum Kit$0.99
  • Electronic Drum Kit$0.99
  • Party Pack$1.99
Show 2 more
  • Studio Preset Pack$1.99
  • Pro Upgrade$4.99
1 purchases

Contour

One-time1
  • Contour Pro$3.99

Questions

Is Handstrudel free?
Handstrudel is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Contour free?
Contour is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Handstrudel or Contour have ads?
Neither Handstrudel nor Contour shows ads.

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