spool. vs FlipDeck
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
spool.
Create full songs on your phone with this pocket music studio. It offers a variety of sound engines, sampling capabilities, step sequencing, and a 4-track tape recorder for recording and mixing your music. Effects and MIDI controller support enhance the creative process.
- Multiple sound engines
- Sampling and sequencing
- 4-track tape recording
- Extensive effects rack
- MIDI controller support
- Step sequencer
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Make a whole song on your phone. Spool is a pocket music studio inspired by the joy of hardware grooveboxes — play, sample, sequence, and record to tape, all in one playful instrument. Fourteen sound engines. From punchy FM and fat subtractive Pulse to shimmering Cluster, plucked String, granular Cloud, the TALK vocoder, the WIDE stereo engine, THUMP bass, a Sampler, and two drum machines — each with its own animated, touchable visualizer and four hands-on controls. Sample anything. Record straight from the mic into the sampler or drum kits, trim it, and play it across the keyboard. Drums & beats. Build kits, chop a sample into a playable kit, and lock in grooves with the step sequencer. Playful sequencers. Pattern and arpeggiator to start; unlock Stream, Taps, and the bouncing-ball Gumball machine for happy accidents. Six minutes of 4-track tape. Record, overdub, varispeed (including reverse), scrub, and bounce your jam to a finished mixdown — export to WAV. Your tape is saved with your project. Effects & mixer. A deep rack — delay, spring reverb, drive, compressor, chorus, multimode filter, phaser, tremolo/auto-pan, beat-repeat stutter, and a pitch-shifter/harmonizer — many tempo-syncable. Plus a master EQ and brickwall limiter so it always sounds finished. Plays with your gear. Connect a USB or Bluetooth MIDI controller and play Spool like hardware. AUv3 plugin support is planned for a future update. Free to download and make music with a starter set of engines and sequencers. A single one-time Spool Pro purchase unlocks the full instrument — all engines, sampling, every effect and sequencer, unlimited projects, export, and MIDI. No subscription. Spool is an original, independent work by a solo developer — affiliated with no hardware maker.
FlipDeck
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Record your cat, a sneeze, a sound from a TikTok. FlipDeck trims it, chops it and puts it on pads you can play like an instrument. Then it turns your performance into a video you can post. MAKE A BEAT OUT OF ANYTHING • Hold an empty pad to record from the mic. Eight effects (bass boost, fuzz, robot, octave up and down, and more) are recorded straight into the sample. • Sample any video in your Photos, or import audio files. • Chop a loop into slices automatically, or tap along to set the cuts. • Split a song into drums, vocals, bass and other with on-device AI. PLAY IT • 64 pads in four banks, with volume, pitch, pan, envelopes, a 3-band EQ and choke groups on every pad. • Keys mode plays any sound across a scale. Twelve scales, any root. • A built-in synth with five waveforms, a resonant filter and envelopes. Every note is generated live. • Note repeat and an arpeggiator, locked to the tempo. • 16 touch FX strips for live performance: stutter, tape echo, filter sweeps, reverse and more. SEQUENCE IT • 32 patterns you can switch between on the beat or the bar. • Record live, draw in a step grid, or write melodies in a full piano roll with velocity. • Swing, probability, note length, tap tempo. MIX IT • Send pads to four buses, each with three effect slots: reverb, tempo-synced delay, filters, bitcrush, drive, compression and chorus. • Load your AUv3 effect plugins right into FlipDeck. SHARE IT • One tap records your performance and renders a vertical video with the pads lighting up in time. • Remix links: send a whole beat as a link. It opens on your friend's phone sounding exactly the same. • Flip of the Day: everyone gets the same kit each day. Post yours with #FlipOfTheDay. WORKS WITH YOUR SETUP • USB, Bluetooth and network MIDI controllers. • Use FlipDeck as an instrument plugin inside GarageBand, AUM, Cubasis and other hosts. • Export WAVs, per-pad stems, MIDI files, or a complete Ableton Live bundle. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no ads, no tracking. Your recordings never leave your phone unless you share them. FLIPDECK PRO (one-time purchase) Mixer effects, AUv3 plugin hosting, Ableton and MIDI export, AI stem separation and videos without the watermark. Everything you need to make beats is free. Privacy Policy: https://flipdeck.app/privacy Terms of Use: https://flipdeck.app/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
spool. and FlipDeck are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. spool. sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and FlipDeck sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | spool. | FlipDeck |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (7 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | — |
| Update frequency | — | Every 3 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 80 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kristopher Yang | Perry Hampton |
In-app purchases
spool.
- Spool Pro$9.99
FlipDeck
- FlipDeck Pro$9.99









