Comparison

MOUND vs Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth

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

Head to head
About

MOUND

Create unique music by layering sounds and applying effects with intuitive touch controls. Explore chord progressions, sonic combinations, and evolving soundscapes.

Highlights
  • Collage soundscape sequencer
  • Four mix channels
  • 100+ soundfont instruments
  • Paint to drive effects
  • Euclidean sequencing
  • Choose key, scale, BPM, and sequence length
Features
Read full description

A collage soundscape sequencer. MOUND is a unique touch instrument (standalone and AUv3 instrument and MIDI included) that uses collage and paint to generate music. You get four layers of stamps to populate chord progressions automatically using euclidean sequencing, and up to 6 paintbrush effects to use your gestures for uninhibited sonic combinations. FEATURES - Four mix channels — chord channel, and three other voices to layer. - 100+ soundfont instruments - Paint to drive effects — use X/Y and hold to control effects - Evolve — mutate your canvas and hear new possibilities - Choose key and scale - Choose BPM and sequence length - FREE Cassette Effect and Granular Delay Free to play. Unlock the full SoundFont library, advanced EVOLVE theory settings, and the rest of the spray effects. Built by fourtrack.fm.

About

Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth

Shape the overtone series directly to create unique sounds. This additive synthesizer allows real-time manipulation of harmonics, LFOs, and envelopes. Explore sound design and synthesis on your device.

Highlights
  • Additive synthesis engine
  • Overtone series shaping
  • Live waveform and spectrum response
  • Modulation matrix with LFOs and envelopes
  • AUv3 support
  • On-device processing
Features
Read full description

BKS Harmonic is an additive synthesizer that builds sound from individual overtones, then gives you tools to shape, scan and filter them by harmony. Load it as an Audio Unit v3 inside AUM, GarageBand, Cubasis, Loopy Pro or any AUv3 host, or run it standalone. A TUNER THAT KNOWS ABOUT STRETCH Tune mode turns the scope into a tuner: it names the note it hears and shows how far sharp or flat it is in cents, with a ring that closes as you land on the pitch. It tunes against the stretch curve rather than equal temperament, so it follows a real instrument. Stretch shapes the overtones inside a note; Key Stretch makes the keyboard follow it, so octaves widen the way a piano's do. FOURTEEN TUNING SYSTEMS, AND A TEMPERAMENT EDITOR Equal and Just, five historical temperaments, and six from outside the European tradition including Maqam Rast, Turkish Rast, Slendro, Pelog and the Harmonic Series. The Temperament slider is a morph, not a switch: fully left is Just, fully right is whichever you chose. Twelve bars show any system as cents away from equal; drag one to make the tuning yours, then copy it out as plain text. Tunings save with the preset. FIVE HUNDRED SCALES Searchable by alternate name: malkauns, nikriz, bhupali and freygish find the right set. THE PARTIALS ARE THE INSTRUMENT The partials display shows every overtone in your sound, and four tools work on it directly. FOLD sweeps upper partials below the fundamental, redistributing energy across harmonic layers — not a filter. The OVERTONE SCAN steps a spotlight through individual partials with triangle, saw or random patterns, and can visit only partials in the active scale. The HARMONIC GATE reinforces partials whose pitch class matches your chord and suppresses the rest: capture a chord, follow MIDI, split the keyboard, or pick the notes on the gate's own keys. SCULPT draws the level and pan of every partial, slides the curve up the grid as a formant, and locks partials in place while the rest moves. THE HARMONIC VOCODER Pass live input or a sample through the synth as an effect. Your sound travels through a bank of tuned peaking bells rather than being replaced by filtered noise: open the Air and the source stays dry, tighten it and the bands resonate into it. Key Track is the mode switch: on it plays as an instrument, off it is a fixed filter you can sweep. Aimed at a sample, the bands track that sample's spectrum as it evolves. One level-matched Blend control crossfades it against the oscillators. PULSE-WIDTH MODULATION Set the core to a saw and Source 2 to a saw: the two ramps subtract, which is what a pulse wave is, and the phase between them sets the duty cycle. Modulate it and you have PWM. A preset in the Utility folder is ready to play. MODULATION A cog on almost every control, so the synth's own engine can drive nearly anything in the interface, including the display. Sources include velocity, envelopes, LFOs, how many notes you hold, how many oscillators sound, the synth's own output level, and Atmo, a shape driven by 84 years of barometric weather data from the Beat Kitchen Weather Sonification Project. Rates run from audio rate down to cycles that span years. THE SCOPE A stereoscope, oscilloscope, spectrum and a live per-partial display. Glow takes the trace from a hard line to a diffuse bloom, Colour sets the hue, Trace Speed and Dot set how it draws — and every one is a modulation target. Route velocity to Colour and the trace shifts as you play. LIVE INPUT A headphone button passes the side-chain straight to the output, so you can hear and see your input with nothing held: green when signal arrives, amber when a bus is connected but silent, red when nothing is. Resynth Speed locks a sample's playback speed to pitch, tape-style, or keeps them independent. Every control has a tooltip, presets work offline, and a harmony wheel follows what you play. One purchase, every update. Made by Beat Kitchen, a music production and teaching community.

Screenshots

MOUND3 screens
Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth4 screens

Verdict

The call

MOUND and Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth both sit at 4.8 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth's written reviews are positive against 67% of MOUND's. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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

Both are free to download. MOUND sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for MOUND against 4.8 for Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 12 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 67% of MOUND's written reviews are positive against 100% of Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MOUND ships an update every 5 days, Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth every 3 days. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
MOUND versus Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMOUNDBeat Kitchen Harmonic Synth
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (8 ratings)4.8 (12 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings812 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 daysEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size176 MB60 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerfourtrack.fm LLCBeat Kitchen LLC

Customer experience

MOUND

All ratings8 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral12.5%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral33.3%
Negative0.0%

Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth

All ratings12 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

MOUND

One-time1
  • MOUND Lifetime Unlock$4.99
1 purchases

Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth

One-time1
  • Full Unlock$14.99

Questions

Is MOUND free?
MOUND is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth free?
Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, MOUND or Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth?
Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth is rated higher. MOUND averages 4.8 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth averages 4.8 from 12 ratings.
Do MOUND or Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth have ads?
Neither MOUND nor Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MOUND or Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth?
MOUND ships an update every 5 days, and Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth every 3 days. Most recently, MOUND was updated on October 24, 2026 and Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth on October 24, 2026.

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