Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth vs Piano Keyboard Pro

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.

Piano Keyboard Pro turns your iPhone or iPad into an 88-key piano. Learn 206 songs with falling notes and a Wait mode that lets you play one note at a time. Every sound is made on your device: nothing to download, works offline, and notes sound the instant you touch a key. KEY FEATURES ■ A full 88-key piano Play all 88 keys from A0 to C8. Drag the mini keyboard map to jump to any range, and show 7 to 52 white keys on screen. ■ Five layouts One row, two rows, face-to-face, split and layered. Face-to-face flips the top row so two people can play a duet. Split and layer add a second sound, such as bass on the left and piano on the right. ■ Multi-touch, glissando, dynamics and pedal Play chords, slide for a glissando, and press nearer the front of a key to play louder. Tap the pedal to latch it or hold it to sustain. ■ 37 instrument sounds Grand, bright, felt and honky-tonk pianos, electric piano, harpsichord, music box, marimba, vibraphone, koto, guitars, harp, organs, accordion, strings, brass, flute, 8-bit and more, with room or hall reverb. ■ 206 practice songs in six genres Classical, Japanese songs, songs of the world, children's songs, Christmas carols and hymns, including Für Elise, Canon in D, Turkish March, Gymnopédie and Silent Night. All melodies are in the public domain. Filter by genre and level. ■ Falling notes, Wait mode and Listen The key to press lights up as notes fall. Wait mode pauses until you hit the right key, so you can learn without reading sheet music. Listen plays the song and lights the keys. Set the speed from 40% to 100%. ■ Scores and stars See accuracy and mistakes as you play, earn one to three stars, and keep your best result for each song. ■ Note names, chords and scales Label keys with C D E, Do Re Mi or German names, see the chord you're holding (C, Am7, G/B and more), highlight 14 scales, and use color-coded keys for kids. ■ Record without a microphone Recording captures your performance itself, so there's no background noise and no microphone access. Export WAV or M4A to share or save to Files. Deleted recordings stay in the trash for 30 days. ■ USB and Bluetooth MIDI keyboards Plug in a USB MIDI keyboard (an adapter may be needed), or connect a Bluetooth one inside the app. Sustain, pitch bend and modulation work, and practice songs follow your keyboard. ■ Metronome 30–300 BPM. Touch and hold to set the time signature, accent and volume, or tap in a tempo. ■ Low-latency sound Choose Fastest, Fast or Stable response. The buffer adjusts itself if sound breaks up, a sound check screen shows the delay, and the app warns you about Bluetooth lag. ■ Transpose and tuning Transpose ±12 semitones and tune A4 from 415 to 466 Hz. ■ Display Portrait or landscape, dark mode, iPad and 40 languages. PREMIUM (ONE-TIME IN-APP PURCHASE) ■ Synthesizer 94 presets, two oscillators with FM and unison, four filter types, two envelopes, two LFOs, effects, an arpeggiator, XY pad, scale grid, pitch and mod wheels, and your own presets. ■ Drum machine Five kits (Studio, 808, 909, Lo-fi, Percussion) and 16 pads. Step sequencer up to 64 steps with eight patterns, swing, song mode, per-step velocity, probability and ratchets, 12 rhythm templates and undo. Export loops as WAV and load your own sounds onto pads. ■ Overdub and MIDI files Layer piano, synth and drums over a recording, and export or import MIDI files. ■ Temperaments and themes Six tunings, including just intonation, plus app and keyboard color themes. PRICING The piano, all 37 sounds, the practice songs, recording and export, MIDI keyboards and the metronome are free. The features listed under Premium require a one-time in-app purchase that you keep for good. It is not a subscription. The purchase screen only appears when you open a Premium feature. PERMISSIONS Recording does not use the microphone. Bluetooth permission is requested only when you search for a Bluetooth MIDI keyboard.