Comparison

Chords Weaver vs Contour

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

Head to head
About

Chords Weaver

Features
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Chords Weaver is a hands-on chord instrument you play by ear. Pick a note on the keyboard and it filters to the chords that fit. Choose one, and two pads open up: one shapes its voicing (spread, inversion, octave) while the other suggests where to go next, the right side resolving, the left adding tension. Build a progression on the timeline, and a live piano roll shows exactly what will play. Press play and the progression comes alive with arpeggios, block grooves and strums, each chord ringing in time. Turn on Drift and the voicings slowly wander on their own, so the loop keeps evolving. MORE - Rich arpeggios: ascent/descent, ternary grooves (waltz, shuffle, jig 6/8), a lilting 7/4, and sparse syncopated patterns (charleston, tresillo, offbeat, push). - MIDI Out to your synths, DAW or hardware, with a 24 PPQN clock. - Four scenes, copy and paste, and a "roll a matching bridge" helper. - Optional cloud save: sign in and your progressions follow you to every device. The app works fully offline. - Five languages: English, Français, Español, Русский, 日本語. Free to download. Weaving, voicings, playback and saving are all free. A one-time Pro unlock adds MIDI/WAV/text export and live MIDI-out. No ads, no subscriptions. Signing in is only for optional cloud sync.

About

Contour

This app is a unique musical instrument played by touch. It uses a visual interface where your finger's position determines the sound, offering a novel way to create drones, textures, and pads. It also functions as an AUv3 plugin for use in other music production apps.

Highlights
  • Touch-based sound generation
  • Perceptual distance mapping
  • Eleven distinct sound sheets
  • MIDI input and ribbon controller
  • AUv3 plugin support
  • Recording functionality (Pro)
  • Customizable sound sheets (Pro)
Features
Read full description

Contour is an instrument you play by walking. Four neural decoders sit at the corners of a square. Your finger somewhere in the middle is a blend of all four, and the square is drawn as a survey sheet. The contour lines are not decoration. They come from what those four decoders actually produce, laid out so that equal distances on screen are equal perceptual distances in sound. Cross a line and the sound has changed by a measured amount. THE SHEETS Eleven of them, each a different set of four corners, each chosen by measuring the whole library rather than by ear. They are grouped by what the measurement found: BRIGHT — HEHUAN, the brightest, where all four corners hold their own. CONTRAST — BEIYIDUAN, the widest corner spread at 8.2 times. BREATH — NENGGAO, the breathiest. DEPTH — MABO, the deepest at 53 dB. RANGE — YUSHAN, the widest at 66 semitones; JIAMING, the most focused at 17. They are named after Taiwan's high mountain traverses. PLAYING IT Touch the sheet to sound it. The ribbon underneath sets pitch, or send MIDI and play it from a keyboard. Press harder and the note opens up — the contact patch of your finger is the dynamic. Hold on empty ground to drop a mark you can come back to. The readout above the ribbon tells you where you are while you are there: brightness, noise, the grid reference, the frequency. IN A HOST Contour is also an AUv3 plug-in. It runs in AUM, GarageBand, Cubasis, Logic for iPad and anything else that hosts Audio Units, with the position automatable as two parameters and the sheet recallable with your session. The plug-in draws the same map the app does, laid out for the window a host gives it. WHAT IS FREE Three sheets — BEIYIDUAN, NENGGAO and YUSHAN — with the whole instrument: the map, the ribbon, MIDI, reverb, marks, and the plug-in. No time limit and no account. CONTOUR PRO A single purchase, once, unlocks: • All eleven sheets • Recording, straight to a file • The envelope panel — attack, decay, sustain, release • Composing sheets of your own from the library, 4,845 combinations of four corners, with the map baked for the pitches they share Requires iOS 16 or later. iPhone and iPad.

Screenshots

Chords Weaver4 screens
Contour4 screens

Verdict

The call

Chords Weaver and Contour are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Chords Weaver sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Contour sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chords Weaver ships an update every 5 days, Contour weekly. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Chords Weaver versus Contour: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChords WeaverContour
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Freemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size33 MB108 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLoup VuarnessonChih Han Lin

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Chords Weaver

One-time1
  • Chords Weaver Pro$5.99
1 purchases

Contour

One-time1
  • Contour Pro$3.99

Questions

Is Chords Weaver free?
Chords Weaver is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Contour free?
Contour is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Chords Weaver or Contour have ads?
Neither Chords Weaver nor Contour shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chords Weaver or Contour?
Chords Weaver ships an update every 5 days, and Contour weekly. Most recently, Chords Weaver was updated on October 25, 2026 and Contour on October 25, 2026.

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