Clockworks vs Drum Rack
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Clockworks
Create complex polyrhythms visually by layering geometric shapes on a clockface. Explore diverse instruments, scales, and effects to generate intricate musical patterns without needing music theory knowledge. Export your creations as MIDI, audio, or sheet music.
- Visual polyrhythm creation
- Layered shape system
- 10 sampled instruments
- Built-in drum kits
- Dozens of scales
- Scene-based arrangement
- Export to MIDI, WAV, PDF
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Clockworks turns rhythm into geometry. Build polyrhythms by layering rotating shapes on a clockface — each shape's sides become evenly-spaced beats, so a triangle and a pentagon played together weave intricate cross-rhythms with zero math. • Layer multiple shapes, each its own voice • 10 instruments — sampled piano, e-piano, guitars, plus synth keys, organ, marimba, vibes and more • Built-in drum kits with a step sequencer • Dozens of scales across many categories for instant melodic results • Scene-based arrangement to evolve your loop over time • Pro FX: 3-band EQ and BPM-synced echo • Export to MIDI, audio (WAV), or sheet music PDF No theory required — just add shapes and listen.
Drum Rack
Create unique drum sounds from scratch using synthesis. Design pitch envelopes, sequence beats with advanced timing options, and export your creations as WAV or MIDI files. Explore genre presets and patterns to kickstart your music production.
- Synthesized drum voices
- Customizable pitch envelopes
- 32-step sequencer
- Advanced timing and ratchets
- Genre presets and patterns
- WAV and MIDI export
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Drum Rack builds every sound from scratch. There are no samples in this app — the kick, snare, hats, clap and toms are synthesised as you play them, which is why a kick can drop from 200 Hz to 49 Hz along a curve you draw with your finger. WHAT IT DOES Seven synthesised voices — kick, snare, closed hat, open hat, clap, low tom and high tom — each with its own controls. Draw the pitch envelope of the kick and the snare by hand: drag a point, add a point, bend the curve between two points. Watch the rendered waveform change as you go. A 32-step sequencer with per-step velocity, timing nudge and ratchets, so a single step can hold a roll of up to eight hits. Time signatures from 3/4 to 7/4, grids from 1/8 to 1/32 including triplets. Swing that knows it does not belong on a triplet grid. Eighteen genre presets, from house and techno to jungle, boom bap and reggaeton. Each one loads a full kit and a pattern to start from. Export a loop of 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars as a WAV file, cut sample-exact on the bar so it loops seamlessly in any DAW or looper, or export the pattern as MIDI. The MIDI carries velocity, nudge, ratchets and time signature, and lands on the General MIDI drum map — drop it on a drum rack in your own DAW and it plays on your own kit. WHAT IT DOES NOT DO No account. No sign-in. No advertising. No analytics. No tracking. Your patterns stay on your device. Nothing is uploaded. FROM THE LAB Drum Rack is part of Lumlux Art Lab, a set of free browser tools for people who make music. The same drum machine runs on the website, so you can try it before installing anything. Made in Antwerp by FDR-Sound.
Screenshots
Verdict
Clockworks and Drum Rack are too close to call on the numbers: across 8 compared parameters — price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Clockworks against 5.0 for Drum Rack. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 3 respectively.
| Parameter | Clockworks | Drum Rack |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | — | Every 9 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 40 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Dylan Cantor | Frank De Rop |
Customer experience
Clockworks
Drum Rack
In-app purchases
Clockworks
No in-app purchases
Drum Rack
No in-app purchases







