Comparison

WAIL vs OttavaBassa

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

Head to head
About

WAIL

Transform unstable feedback into a powerful, playable instrument. This app offers direct control over harsh drones, soaring screams, and aggressive textures with an intuitive interface and real-time visual feedback.

Highlights
  • Dynamic XY Pads for tactile control
  • Dedicated Performance Knobs for precise adjustments
  • Real-time oscilloscope waveform display
  • MIDI keyboard and sequencer support
  • AUv3 integration with host sync
  • Standalone app functionality
Read full description

WAIL - Industrial Feedback Synthesiser, Drone and AUV3 FX Turn unstable feedback into a playable instrument. WAIL forces a self-resonating signal into submission, generating harsh drones, soaring screams, and aggressive textures that traditional synths refuse to touch. Built for zero menu-diving and pure performance, WAIL delivers raw, uncompromised noise control in a single intuitive screen. TAME THE NOISE: 4 Dynamic XY Pads: Instant tactile control over Feedback/Filter, Bite/Space, Ring/Fold, and Comb/Sub. Dedicated Performance Knobs: Master, Spread, Grind, and Tune, with dual-axis Coarse/Fine tuning designed for precise, subtle adjustments mid-performance. Real-Time Visuals: Built-in integrated oscilloscope displays waveform stability and feedback saturation as you play. Drone or MIDI Triggered: Play as an evolving drone, or connect a MIDI keyboard or sequencer. AUv3 FX: Load WAIL as an effect in your host and run any track through its feedback engine. Push a drum loop, a vocal, or a synth line into full self-resonating collapse, or layer WAIL's own drone on top of what you send in. Seamless AUv3 Integration: Full host transport sync, preset save/recall, and universal MIDI CC learn across all 12 parameters. Universal Support: Formatted natively for both iPad and iPhone as an AUv3 plugin or Standalone app. 12 parameters. 4 XY pads. One feedback loop trying to escape. Sound demo here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z18IcVSqtwY Crafted by NOIDED Industries, Rochdale, England

About

OttavaBassa

Read full description

OttavaBassa has been designed for guitarists looking for a simple all-in-one plugin solution for making their guitar sound like a bass. This means you could use your standard guitar to play bass lines on recordings and during live performances. OttavaBassa is an “Octaver” effect that takes your incoming note and transposes it down by one octave putting your instrument into the range of a bass guitar. In addition to the octave-down effect itself, OttavaBassa also includes a simple EQ voiced for controlling the important low and high bass guitar frequencies, as well as built-in effects for drive, compression, stereo chorus and a simple speaker cab filter. “Ottava bassa” is a music theory direction that literally translates as “low octave” or “octave below”. It is commonly abbreviated as “8vb”, hence the icon. OttavaBassa is an AUv3 effects plugin that can run standalone, or in any AUv3 compatible host such as Logic Pro, GarageBand or AUM. OttavaBassa currently runs on iPadOS / iOS (iPad & iPhone) and macOS (Intel & Silicon) and is available as a Universal Purchase from the Apple App Store. If you’re planning on using OttavaBassa on Mac / desktop, please ensure that your favourite DAW / host supports AUv3 (not just AU). PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY! OttavaBassa has been designed specifically for use with guitar. This means that pitches below the low E string (82.4Hz) will not be handled well. Sorry bass players! OttavaBassa will perform at its best when it is given single notes played reasonably cleanly and accurately. It is not a monophonic pitch generator in the true sense, but multiple input notes (aka chords) might result in “warbles” in the processed signal. OttavaBassa uses a pitch detection method that will introduce audio latency, i.e. a delay between input and output. Please note this is not to be confused with audio interface latency, so you cannot “fix” this by changing buffer sizes or sample rates in your host app. Currently OttavaBassa has a latency of around 25ms. So whether OttavaBassa will work for you, depends largely on your playing style and whether you can live with the inherent latency. My personal perspective: I would never make a plugin I wouldn’t use myself. In fact I made OttavaBassa because I needed an Octaver for my own iPad-based live guitar setup, and I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. I find that OttavaBassa sounds good to me, and feels responsive enough in the context of a live performance, adding bass lines to guitar loops for example. I wouldn’t do a gig without it! I thought hard about making OttavaBassa publicly available because I’ve seen many Octaver plugins get terrible reviews from folks who don’t really understand that the latency and tracking limitations can’t really be magicked away with clever coding! While I am aware of more sophisticated pitch shifting DSP advances that significantly reduce latency especially, I believe this comes at a CPU cost. So while OttavaBassa does use a less sophisticated pitch detection method than “state of the art”, this does mean it’s pretty light on CPU (i.e. around 6% running on an M1 iPad in AUM). And of course, just because it was designed for guitar, doesn’t mean OttavaBassa won’t work on other audio sources - it can sound pretty scary on vocals for example! Just be mindful of the limitations mentioned above regarding pitch range and tracking, e.g., maybe don’t put an entire mix through it and expect amazing results! Thanks for reading to the end :-) -Rob

Screenshots

WAIL4 screens
OttavaBassa1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: OttavaBassa at $3.99 against WAIL's $9.99. OttavaBassa also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). On 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

WAIL costs $9.99 and OttavaBassa $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
WAIL versus OttavaBassa: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterWAILOttavaBassa
Price$9.99$3.99 — better
Rating5.0 (8 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS15.613.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size27 MB18 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAnthony MoranRob Jackson

In-app purchases

None

WAIL

No in-app purchases

None

OttavaBassa

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is WAIL free?
WAIL costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is OttavaBassa free?
OttavaBassa costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do WAIL or OttavaBassa have ads?
Neither WAIL nor OttavaBassa shows ads.

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