Latch Tuner vs PolyrhythmLab
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Latch Tuner
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Know the note. Get the numbers. Back to the beat. Ordinary tuners are built for long, sustained notes. Play a one-shot through one and the needle jumps around during the attack, then goes blank before you can read it. Latch Tuner is built for how producers actually work: it skips the attack, measures the body of the sound, and holds the answer on screen after the sample has ended. How it works. You chopped a bass note from an old record and it's fighting your track. Insert Latch Tuner on the channel, trigger the pad once, and it reads: E3 −26.5 ¢ · 324.6 Hz · MIDI 64 Set TARGET to the note you actually want — say C3 — and it does the conversion for you: SEMI −4 · FINE +27 Those are the two numbers your sampler's pitch controls take. Type them in, retrigger, done. No looping the sample into a phone tuner, no guessing against a piano. Two modes. • LATCH — for one-shots, chops, plucks, vocal stabs and 808s. Transient-aware capture holds the reading until you clear it. Capture history keeps your last few results on screen, so you can work through a whole kit without writing anything down. • LIVE — stop switching apps to tune. A straightforward in-line tuner for guitar, synth and voice, docked in a corner of your session. It tells you when it isn't sure. A gliding 808 or a weak fundamental reads as low confidence rather than a confident wrong answer. A chord reads as its root, flagged rather than asserted. Noise and washed-out chops report no clear pitch, because there isn't one. Tap PLAY to hear a reference tone against the sample and decide with your ears — below ~80 Hz the tone adds an octave-up partial so you can hear it on a device speaker. Speaks sampler. Note name, cents, frequency and MIDI note number, plus the SEMI/FINE correction to your chosen target. Samplers disagree about octave numbers, so the readout shows its convention next to every answer — and a C3/C4 toggle matches it to yours. It can't silently put you an octave off. Adjustable reference pitch (440, 432, 442…). Runs where you work. An AUv3 audio effect — use it in AUM, Koala, GarageBand, or any other AUv3 host. Plus a standalone app that listens through the mic. Audio passes through untouched. One-time purchase. No subscription, no ads, no account. Everything is analyzed on-device; nothing is recorded or uploaded.
PolyrhythmLab
Create complex, evolving musical rhythms and dynamic visual performances. This app offers a unique polyrhythmic engine for sound layers and a live visual mixer with customizable effects and camera controls. Export audio, MIDI, or video of your creations.
- True polyrhythm engine with independent step/pulse counts per layer
- AUv3 plugin support for DAWs like GarageBand and Logic
- Live MIDI output for driving external synths
- Integrated VJ mixer with audio-reactive visuals and effects
- Song mode for arranging patterns into full tracks
- Save and reload groovebox patterns and VJ setups as presets
- Export audio, MIDI, and video recordings
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PolyrhythmLab is a groovebox built around true polyrhythms: every sound layer gets its own step count, pulse count, and rotation, so layers of different lengths interlock and drift in and out of phase instead of locking to one shared grid. NEW IN 2.0 — AUv3 PLUGIN Use PolyrhythmLab as a real instrument inside GarageBand, Logic, AUM, and any other AU-compatible host. Four independent polyrhythmic layers, each exposed as automatable parameters, real MIDI output so your performance actually records as a MIDI region, and its own compact control panel with a live pattern wheel, a randomizer, and optional sync to your session's tempo. NEW IN 2.0 — LIVE MIDI OUTPUT Send a real Note On/Off for every layer hit straight from the main app — one MIDI channel per layer, over a virtual MIDI connection — to drive another synth, app, or piece of hardware in real time, not just sync tempo. NEW IN 2.0 — CAST VJ MIX Send the VJ Mix visuals to a TV or projector over AirPlay or a wired adapter, while your device keeps the full set of live controls. Save and reload VJ Mix setups — visual styles, effects, camera moves, and their LFOs — as named presets, same as patterns. GROOVEBOX • Euclidean-style rhythm engine — set steps, pulses, and rotation per layer • Drums, glitch/textural one-shots, classic synth voices (piano, bell, pad, bass), and melodic synth patches • Per-layer filter, reverb, delay, pitch, and LFOs on every parameter • Randomize engine biased toward musical, playable combinations • Chord modes, scales, and modal note selection for melodic layers SONG MODE Arrange your saved patterns into sections and chain them into a full song. VJ MIX A live visual performance surface: blend two audio-reactive visualizations, layer on real-time color and shader effects — RGB split, kaleidoscope, pixelate, glow, trail — and a 3D camera with zoom, pan, orbit, and tilt, each with its own LFO. Randomize the whole look by hand, or hand it to an autonomous "robot" that keeps remixing itself. Record the performance in real time via ReplayKit, or export a styled video clip. PRESETS Save and reload both groovebox patterns and VJ Mix setups as named presets. EXPORT Render your patterns and songs to audio, or export them as MIDI. No account, no ads, no analytics. Everything is stored locally on your device.
Screenshots
Verdict
Latch Tuner and PolyrhythmLab 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
Latch Tuner costs $4.99 and PolyrhythmLab $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Latch Tuner ships an update every 3 weeks, PolyrhythmLab every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Latch Tuner | PolyrhythmLab |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | $4.99 |
| Rating | — | 1.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 1 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 4 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | — | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 401 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bruno Santos Marinho | Martin Adler |
In-app purchases
Latch Tuner
No in-app purchases
PolyrhythmLab
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Latch Tuner free?
Is PolyrhythmLab free?
Do Latch Tuner or PolyrhythmLab have ads?
Which is updated more often, Latch Tuner or PolyrhythmLab?
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