Nimbus Synth vs 88 Synthwave
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Nimbus Synth
Read full descriptionHide full description
Nimbus Synth is an ambient instrument you play by moving. No keys, no piano roll, no menus to learn. Tilt your phone, drag a finger across the screen, and slow, evolving drones grow out of the motion. Every gesture shapes the sound in real time. SIX VOICES Layer up to six ambient timbres: Sub Drone, Warm Pad, Glass, Air, Metallic, Cello Dark, each with its own character, sculpted through tilt and touch. ALWAYS IN KEY Seven scale modes and note-exclusion keep whatever you play in tune with itself. No wrong notes. LOOP AND LAYER Record a phrase, loop it, and keep playing on top. Quantize to tempo, add a metronome with time signatures and subdivisions, and build a piece one layer at a time. SAVE YOUR IDEAS Keep a library of recordings and slot presets to return to later. NIMBUS SYNTH PRO A one-time unlock, no subscription: • Unlimited saved ideas and presets • Export recordings as WAV and MIDI (free tier exports MP3) • MIDI Out: send what you play live to a DAW or hardware synth over Network MIDI Made for headphones, a quiet room, and a phone in your hand.
88 Synthwave
This application automatically generates complete synthwave tracks with intros, verses, choruses, and outros. It utilizes chaotic mathematical models for melody and rhythm generation, offering a variety of styles and customizable soundscapes. Users can also play along with the generated music.
- Automatic track generation
- Chaos-driven melody and rhythm
- 11 distinct synthwave styles
- Customizable sound design
- Playable interface
- MIDI export
- Radio mode for continuous playback
Read full descriptionHide full description
88 Synthwave writes complete synthwave tracks and plays them on its own synths. Press write and you get the whole track: an intro, verses, builds with a riser and a snare roll, choruses with the hook lifted over a pumping mix, a breakdown, solo or bridge in the middle, a final chorus an octave up, and an ending. That can be the arp left running, a fade, or one hit and silence. Everything is synthesized, so there is nothing to download. An analog-style polysynth with up to five detuned oscillators per voice, where no two notes are quite in tune, plays the pads, saw leads, arps and basses. A four-operator FM engine plays the bells, electric piano, brass and sax. Four classic drum machines sit behind a gated-room reverb and a sidechain pump. The tracks come from chaos maths. A Lorenz attractor draws the melody and the hook's rhythm, and a logistic map picks which steps the arpeggiator plays and where the ghost notes fall. Chaos on its own is noise, so a small model filters it: it is rewarded for consonant intervals and learns as it writes. The CHAOS / TASTE slider decides how much say each one gets. There are eleven styles, and each one sets its own scale, drum machine, rack and effects: Outrun, Night Drive, Darksynth, Dreamwave, Disco, Synthpop, Cyberpunk, Horror Synth, Space Disco, Miami Nights and Vaporwave. Tick STYLE LOADS RACK and each style brings its own sound. The sound is half the record. There are four channels (bass, pads and stabs, arp and keys, lead), each with a preamp or amp, a tone stack and a speaker: a studio monitor, a guitar cabinet, a bass cabinet or a car door. Eight one-click racks set a whole sound at once. The effects are the production: sidechain pump, gated room, chorus, tape, bit crush, phaser, width and tape hiss, with a plate, a hall, a spring and a tempo-synced delay on the master. Every track is built from its seed. Write the seed down and you can have that exact track again, note for note. A seed from the browser version rebuilds the same track here. You can play over it, too. The pads are the notes of the track's key rather than a piano keyboard, so nothing you touch is wrong. The sixteen-step lane stays in key when the writer picks a new track, and it follows your host. Both play any of 22 voices through that voice's own channel and out on its MIDI channel. Turn on RADIO and it keeps playing, picking a new style, key, scale and tempo for every track. You also get: • 11 styles, 21 scales, 12 keys, tempo and density • 22 voices: pads, leads, brass, FM bells and keys, arps and basses • 4 drum machines, 14 channel voicings, 6 speakers, 8 racks and 8 effects • Seven-part mixer with a meter on every part • MIDI in, so your keyboard plays whichever voice you have selected • Export a MIDI file, a WAV mix, or stems, one WAV per part (in the app; in a host you record the audio there) • A note and a MIDI channel for every drum and every riser and impact • UI scale, so the panel is not tiny on a big iPad • Live spectrum and waveform, and the chaos engine drawn as it runs There are two Audio Units, an instrument and a MIDI processor. Each part sends on its own MIDI channel and every drum has its own note and channel, so one instance can drive a whole rack of synths. The MIDI version passes your keyboard through. Both follow your host's tempo and transport, and one install registers both. The app is free and nothing in it is held back. Using the Audio Units inside other apps is a one-time purchase, and each AUv3 session plays for two minutes first so you can try them properly. No account, no ads, no subscription. Works offline.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Nimbus Synth at weekly against 88 Synthwave's every 2 weeks. 88 Synthwave's advantage is device support (4 vs 2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. Nimbus Synth sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and 88 Synthwave sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Nimbus Synth ships an update weekly, 88 Synthwave every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on November 10, 2026.
| Parameter | Nimbus Synth | 88 Synthwave |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 38 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ondre Studios, LDA | Soft Brew Mobile |
In-app purchases
Nimbus Synth
- Nimbus Synth Pro$6.99
88 Synthwave
- AUv3 Unlock$2.99









