ARPJAM Studio vs Loop Breaker

No sequence. No play button needed. An instrument that keeps going without you programming anything. Two generative engines invent phrases endlessly inside the scale and chord you choose. What you shape is not a song — it is a way of sounding. Move a control and the sound changes shape without ever stopping. Density, contour, filter, tape movement. It is built so that nothing you touch can break it. And you can play it. On the key pad or from a MIDI keyboard, right on top of the stream it is generating. What you play can be captured into the looper. Now your own sound can go in too. Record a bar into SAMPLE, the fifth machine, and chopping it up and rearranging it is the app's job. ■ Generate • Two independent arpeggio engines (waveform, filter, envelope, effects) • Eight arpeggio types, chord progressions, ten time signatures • BASS — a bass machine of its own (STEP / COMPLEXITY / OMIT / PATTERN) • Drum machine • Six LFOs, XY pad, performance FX ■ Slice (SAMPLE) • Record one bar from a mic or line input, with count-in and click • Record the app itself (ARP A / ARP B / drums), and overdub onto it • Load audio files — and the audio from a video file • Up to 32 slices, ordered by the same rules as the arps: direction, reverse, octave, probability, groove • STRETCH (on by default) — change tempo without changing pitch • Its own filter, envelope and delay / reverb sends ■ Play • On-screen key pad — always in scale • MIDI keyboard input (damper pedal, pitch bend, standard control changes) • One-bar looper that records how hard you played ■ Sound • Piano — three velocity layers, stereo, damper release • Electric piano — harmonics shift with how hard you strike • Kalimba, handpan and chime — struck metal, measured from the real instruments and synthesised • Waveforms (sine / triangle / saw / square) plus an acid filter • Delay, reverb, Glitch, Granular, overdrive • DRIFT / FLUTTER — tape movement on the synth voices and the live input alike • Concert pitch A=415–444 Hz ■ Connect • AUv3 plug-in — as an instrument and as an effect • Ableton Link, MIDI Clock, MIDI out • External audio input (line / microphone) • WAV recording and export One-time purchase. No subscription.

Loop Breaker is a gamified audio processing environment that periodically forces you to make choices about how your audio loops should change and how your compositions should unfold. This is primarily achieved through a modifier system; every few bars, a new modifier appears in a queue. You must decide which of your loops should be affected by the modifier. If you make no choice, Loop Breaker will decide for you. Change is the only constant. Modifiers include standard audio effects like reverb, delay, chorus, filters, granular delay, auto-pan, and tremolo. Each of these effects has multiple parameters that are set on the fly and include various onset times. Other modifiers effect loop playback: you can change the playback speed, reverse playback direction, time-stretch, re-pitch, move loop brackets via the parts system, and slice loops and then shuffle, arpeggiate, or repeat them. Modifiers stack. Within minutes, your loops will wander down their own paths and recombine to create something previously unimaginable. Loop Breaker also contains a robust probability system for controlling how likely it is that modifier types will appear in the queue and how likely it is that an individual loop will be targeted for modification, should you cede decision-making responsibilities to Loop Breaker. The probability system responds to MIDI CC messages, so you can dynamically change probability settings with MIDI controllers, automation lanes in your DAW, or via modulation sources. Loop Breaker also contains a preset system for saving and recalling modifier stacks. Take your explorations as far as you want, save a new preset, and then recall it later on, even between sessions. Like the pads and probability system, presets also can be controlled via MIDI. Still not enough exploratory madness for you? Record and resample the audio output and then re-apply it to a pad or process it further in your DAW. Loop Breaker works both as a standalone app and as a AUv3 plug-in. Loop Breaker knows that you have a hard drive full of 4-bar loops that you never turned into finished compositions. Loop Breaker wants to help. Loop Breaker wants to make sure you don't get stuck in a loop.