Comparison

BeatForge Studio vs ChordSmith

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

Head to head
About

BeatForge Studio

Features
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BeatForge is an AI-native music studio for iPhone. Describe a vibe and the AI drafts a full beat — drums, bass and melody, in key. Then it lands in a real studio you can actually produce in. MADE TO FINISH TRACKS • 17 on-device synth instruments — electric piano, supersaw, reese, choir, acid bass and more • A built-in sampler — record from the mic or import audio; multi-sample zones play in tune, with velocity layers, loop and reverse • 7 drum lanes + 4 melodic voices, with per-genre drum kits so every style hits different • A sequencer with per-note control — velocity, probability, ratchets and filter cutoff, triplets and 32nds, chromatic or scale-locked • A real mixer — per-channel level, tone, sidechain and sends, with a live LUFS meter • Master bus glue + limiter, then export a lossless 24-bit master, per-lane WAV stems, or MIDI PLAY IT AND SHIP IT • Song mode — chain sections into a full arrangement • Perform mode — trigger sections live • Set Builder — auto-order your tracks by key and energy, beatmatch and crossfade into one mixed set • Discover — hear what others made and remix it MADE ON YOUR PHONE Synthesis runs on-device, so the studio keeps working offline. You don't need an account to make music. The AI composer runs in the cloud. FREE TO MAKE MUSIC The whole studio is free. BeatForge Pro unlocks lossless and stem export, MIDI, watermark-free sharing and unlimited AI generations. You own everything you make. — BEATFORGE PRO SUBSCRIPTION BeatForge Pro is an auto-renewable subscription — Weekly, Monthly and Yearly plans (the Yearly plan includes a 7-day free trial). Prices are shown in-app in your local currency and charged to your Apple ID at purchase confirmation. Subscriptions auto-renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; manage or cancel anytime in your Apple ID settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://beatforge.music/terms Privacy Policy: https://beatforge.music/privacy

About

ChordSmith

Features
Read full description

Chordsmith is a chord finder, a chromatic tuner and a drum machine built for the same instrument — yours. Sixty of them, from six-string guitar and four-string bass through banjo, mandolin, ukulele, violin, cello and double bass, and on to the bouzouki, oud, guzheng, sitar, koto, nyckelharpa, balalaika, charango and kantele. CHORD FINDER Pick a chord and see how to play it on the instrument in your hands, in up to 100 voicings, ordered from the easiest shape upward. Change the tuning and the shapes change with it — every voicing is computed for the strings you actually have, not looked up in a table for standard tuning. DADGAD, drop D, open G and every other preset is one tap away. CHROMATIC TUNER Five displays to choose between: a sweep needle, a strobe for last-cent work, chromatic spokes, a continuous note strip, and one you will want to see for yourself. Every instrument carries its own tunings, drop and open included. Set your reference by ear as well as by number — play a note from a piano, a drone or another player's instrument and the app takes its pitch as the tonic, which is how you tune to an ensemble that is not at A=440. METRONOME AND DRUM MACHINE Ten kits — standard, click, electric, 808, Latin, cajón, djembe, darbuka, tabla and taiko — and twenty-seven feels, from straight eighths and a swung shuffle through son and rumba clave, bossa nova, the reggae one-drop, bembé, tresillo, maqsum and malfuf. Tap tempo, a BPM counter, compound and odd meters, and an accent pattern you edit, so 7/8 sounds like the 7/8 you are counting. CHORD DETECTION Play a chord and the app names it, tracks the key as you go, and keeps a running transcript of what it heard. The spectrum analyser runs on the room rather than on a preset, so it works with no instrument selected at all. NINE TUNING SYSTEMS Equal temperament, and the ones that came before it: Werckmeister III, quarter-comma meantone, Vallotti, Young II, Kirnberger III and Pythagorean, with a temperament octave for tuning a piano, harpsichord or clavichord by ear. Quarter-tones as 24-TET for maqam, and Thai equidistant 7-TET for the krachappi, the phin and the saw. SIXTY INSTRUMENTS Guitar in six, seven and eight strings and the Russian seven; bass in four, five and six; ukulele in three sizes; mandolin, five-string and tenor banjo, violin, viola, cello, double bass and the Hardanger fiddle; cavaquinho, viola caipira, vihuela, guitarrón, bajo sexto, cuatro, charango, bandurria and laúd; Greek bouzouki in tetrachordo and trichordo, the Irish bouzouki, Turkish and Arabic oud, bağlama, gambus; erhu, pipa, guqin, guzheng, koto, gayageum, shamisen, sanshin; sitar, tanpura, veena and the Carnatic violin; balalaika, domra, dombra, morin khuur, nyckelharpa, kantele; krachappi, phin, saw duang, saw u and the đàn ghi-ta phím lõm; piano, harpsichord and clavichord. BOUGHT ONCE Fourteen days to try everything, then one purchase, yours for good. No subscription, no account, no advertising. The tuner and the detector run entirely on your device — nothing you play is recorded, uploaded, or sent anywhere. The app works with no network connection at all, which matters more in a rehearsal room than it does in a shop.

Screenshots

BeatForge Studio4 screens
ChordSmith4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: BeatForge Studio at every 3 days against ChordSmith's fortnightly. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. BeatForge Studio sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per 7 days and ChordSmith sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BeatForge Studio ships an update every 3 days, ChordSmith fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 6, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference · 5 level
BeatForge Studio versus ChordSmith: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBeatForge StudioChordSmith
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB48 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperAnton ButserRemnant Workshop, Inc.

In-app purchases

3 purchases

BeatForge Studio

Subscriptions3
  • BeatForge Pro (Weekly)3 Days trial$3.997 Days
  • BeatForge Pro (Monthly)$6.991 Month
  • BeatForge Pro (Yearly)7 Days trial$39.991 Year
1 purchases

ChordSmith

One-time1
  • Lifetime$0.99

Questions

Is BeatForge Studio free?
BeatForge Studio is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is ChordSmith free?
ChordSmith is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do BeatForge Studio or ChordSmith have ads?
Neither BeatForge Studio nor ChordSmith shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BeatForge Studio or ChordSmith?
BeatForge Studio ships an update every 3 days, and ChordSmith fortnightly. Most recently, BeatForge Studio was updated on October 6, 2026 and ChordSmith on October 6, 2026.

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