AmenBeats vs SimpleSampler

AmenBeats is a real drum machine built for kids — with a full studio hiding behind a grown-up gate. KID MODE: ONE SCREEN, BIG BUTTONS A focused instrument with big controls and a row of picture buttons for choosing beats. Open it and the row spins like a slot machine and lands on a groove, ready to play. Kids can: • Pick from playful beats — Boom Bap, Rock, Disco, Marchin', Shuffle, Techno, Reggae, Waltz — and eight legendary breaks • Tap the grid to add and remove drum hits, on a 4, 8, 12, or 16-step canvas • Bash the four drums live — Open Hat, Closed Hat, Snare, Kick — right from the grid • Flip power switches: SWING for groove, WILD to loosen it up, FILL! for a snare roll, DROP! to cut the beat out and slam it back • Speed up and slow down with big plus and minus buttons • Spin the wheel any time for a surprise beat SAVE A BEAT. SAVE THE WHOLE SHOW. Everything a kid plays is quietly recorded — the beat, the tempo changes, every live tap. One button saves the entire performance, however long it ran, and one tap plays it back exactly as it happened. Their beats and shows sit in their own list, ready to hear again. GROWN-UPS SET THE RULES Kid Setup tailors the app to each child: • Choose exactly which beats and famous breaks they can reach • Set the tempo range they can dial between • Cap the volume • Turn on mute and solo for older kids learning how a kit fits together • Set up more than one child, each with their own beats, limits, and saved work Kid Mode stays put. A six-digit parent PIN protects access to the studio. Set up your PIN before the first Kid session and save your private recovery code. Tap the lock to unlock; hold it for help. Your PIN and recovery code stay on that device. THE GROWN-UP STUDIO Behind the gate is a proper 16-step, 4-voice sequencer: • Eight study templates of the most sampled breaks ever recorded: the Amen break, the Funky Drummer, Apache, Think, Impeach, When the Levee Breaks, Cold Sweat, and the Big Beat • Tap any step through on, stomp (accent), and ghost — stomps add punch, ghost notes add the feel that makes a break breathe • Tempo from 40 to 220 BPM, swing, and per-voice mute and solo • Humanize and per-voice lay-back for a relaxed, human pocket • Save your grooves and chain them into a looping song, each pattern held for as many bars as you like MIDI AND ABLETON, SET UP BY A GROWN-UP The studio talks to real gear, and every bit of it is configured on the parent side — never in the child's reach: • Send MIDI on GM channel 10 so your pattern drives a drum rack in Ableton Live or any DAW • Export any pattern as a Standard MIDI clip and drag it straight into a session • Import a .mid clip back onto the grid • Sync tempo with Live and other Link-enabled apps over Ableton Link SAFE BY DESIGN No account. No sign-in. No ads. No in-app purchases. No analytics, no tracking, and no servers — AmenBeats collects nothing, and everything a child makes stays on the device. Every drum sound is synthesized as the app runs, so nothing is ever downloaded and the app stays tiny. It plays through the speaker even with the ring switch set to silent. Free.

SimpleSampler turns any sound into an instrument. Record a piano note, a clap, your voice or a glass you tap with a spoon. The app detects the pitch and puts the sound on a keyboard, so you can play it across several octaves right away. RECORDING Press record and the app shows you what it hears before the take starts. The recording begins with your first sound, not with the button press, so there is no silence or click at the start. If you don't like the take, cancel it and nothing is saved. KEYBOARD AND DRUM PADS The keyboard shows two octaves at a time and scrolls. It is fully multitouch, so chords and glissandos work. Eight drum pads hold eight different samples for beats. Pitch and length are independent: higher notes last as long as lower ones. If you prefer the classic tape sound, where higher also means faster, switch it on with one tap. LOOP STATION Tap a loop slot, play something and tap again to close the loop. Every new layer stays in time with the first one. You can also record a loop straight from the microphone. Your loops are still there the next time you open the app. RECORD YOUR SONG One button records everything you play: keyboard, pads and loops. It records what the app outputs, not what the microphone picks up, so the result is clean. Share it via AirDrop, Messages or any other app. PORTRAIT AND LANDSCAPE On iPhone, hold it upright to record and edit samples and turn it sideways to play. On iPad you get pads and keyboard on one screen. No account, no subscription, no tracking. Your recordings stay on your device unless you share them.