Riffshed vs SUS4 Transcribe
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Riffshed
This app helps musicians improve their practice by focusing on deliberate repetition and structured work blocks. It includes a metronome, sheet music viewer, and links to music streaming services, all designed to enhance focused instrumental practice.
- Rep-based practice tracking
- Focus-block timer
- Built-in metronome
- Sheet music integration
- Links to streaming services
- Curated starter libraries
Read full descriptionHide full description
Riffshed is a practice journal for jazz musicians, built on the card system. See whether you're actually getting better — or just spending more time with the instrument. THREE PHASES. ONE CARD. Every exercise is a card that moves through three phases — Explore, Integrate, Master — each with its own color and rep counter. You decide when a card is ready to move forward; Riffshed remembers when it did and how long it stayed in each phase. REPS, NOT MINUTES A timer rewards sitting with the instrument. A rep counter rewards doing the work: running a phrase through twelve keys, taking a head clean. Minutes are still tracked — but reps are the unit you optimize. FOCUS BLOCKS A 20/5 focus cycle tuned for instrumental practice: twenty minutes on one card, five minutes of mandatory break. Both intervals are configurable; the open-ended mode drops the clock entirely for jams and lessons. START FROM ANYWHERE (new in 1.1) A Home Screen widget starts a session in one tap and shows today's minutes, your streak and the weekly goal. The live timer follows you to the Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island — pause and finish without unlocking; the session saves itself. Map practice to the Action Button, ask Siri, or add a Control Center switch. A METRONOME YOU'LL ACTUALLY USE Full-screen metronome with pendulum, subdivisions and swing. Configure click and accent per beat and per subdivision: silence the "and" of 2, accent any sixteenth, build polyrhythm grids. EVERYTHING LIVES IN THE CARD Notes, target tempo, separate rep counters per phase, PDF sheet music that opens full-screen (pages flip with a swipe while the metronome keeps playing), and one-tap links out to iReal Pro, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and more. SEE A YEAR OF WORK A calendar heatmap of your practice. Tap any day to see what you played, for how long, and which cards moved forward. CURATED LIBRARIES TO START Jazz Piano Fundamentals (67 cards ordered by difficulty) and iReal Pro — Essential Standards (30 standards with deep links) are pre-installed. Build your own libraries, or import a curriculum a teacher shared as a single file. YOUR DATA IS YOURS Fully offline. Full JSON backup including scores. Library export and import in one tap. No account, no ads. Free. Built for daily practice — for iPhone and iPad.
SUS4 Transcribe
Read full descriptionHide full description
Drop in an audio file and get its key, tempo, a chord for every bar and the melody as tab. Pick guitar, bass or piano first and the melody comes out as guitar or bass tab or a simple piano staff. Fully on-device: no cloud, no account. Transcription is single-line: it works best on a solo, a melody or a bass line. Correct any note, fix octave jumps, then export the result and keep working on it. • Key and tempo • A chord for each bar • Melody as guitar or bass tab, or a piano staff • Opens WAV, AIFF, MP3 and M4A • Export MIDI, MusicXML, PDF or text tab For players learning a solo from a recording, teachers writing out a part, and bands working out a cover. Everyone can transcribe the first 30 seconds of a file. Pro, or SUS4 All-Access across the whole range, takes that to 3 minutes. Made in the UK by working musicians. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Riffshed at none against SUS4 Transcribe's 10. Riffshed also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks). SUS4 Transcribe's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 vs 26.0). On price, 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
Both are free to download. SUS4 Transcribe sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $4.39 per month. Riffshed asks for nothing beyond the download.
Riffshed ships an update every 2 days, SUS4 Transcribe every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Riffshed | SUS4 Transcribe |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 28 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Anton Rozhkovskiy | ThePaulSmith |
In-app purchases
Riffshed
No in-app purchases
SUS4 Transcribe
- SUS4 All-Access7 Days trial$4.391 Month
- SUS4 All-Access7 Days trial$5.991 Month
- SUS4 All-Access7 Days trial$7.991 Month
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- SUS4 All-Access Annual7 Days trial$19.991 Year
- SUS4 All-Access Annual7 Days trial$26.991 Year
- SUS4 All-Access Annual7 Days trial$35.991 Year
- SUS4 All-Access Annual7 Days trial$51.991 Year
- SUS4 Transcribe Lifetime$54.99
- SUS4 Transcribe Lifetime$71.99
- SUS4 Transcribe Lifetime$103.99









