Beatbook vs MS

A drum machine with nothing in it until you beatbox into it. Beatbook is a pocket loop station with one twist: every pad starts completely empty. There's no stock drum kit hiding underneath. Hold a pad, make a sound with your mouth (or your desk, or your dog), and that's your kick. Hold another — that's your snare. In under two minutes you've built a kit out of nothing but your own voice. Record your own sounds. Sixteen pads, all empty on first launch. Press and hold to record, release to stop — no menus, no settings, just hold and make noise. Re-record any pad any time. One row can even hold a longer take, for anyone who wants to hum a hook instead of tapping a beat. Loop it, layer it. Hit record for a one-bar count-in, then tap out a 4-bar beat that loops right back on itself — tight and quantized by default, or turn snap off and keep your own exact timing. Keep hitting record to stack layer on layer: kick pass, then hats, then a vocal stab on top. Perform it live. Four row-mute checkboxes sit right next to the grid — one touch kills a whole row mid-loop, instantly, with zero glitch. Cut the bass, build the tension, slam it back in on the downbeat. It's built for that tension-and-release move live loopers love, not just for programming a beat and walking away. Keep it or share it. Every beat autosaves — there's no save button, because you can't lose your work. Park a few different beats in the tape deck's save slots, come back to any of them, or export a loop straight to Messages or Mail so a friend can hear it. Made a beat you love? It's one tap away from someone else's ears. Sketched, not skinned. Every line on screen looks hand-drawn in pencil on ruled notebook paper — because beatboxing into your phone in a quiet corner of a study hall is exactly the vibe this app is for. No ads. No stock sounds. No account. Just you, a mic, and an empty grid waiting to be filled.

MS-12 is a 16-pad sampler and step sequencer built around the sound of classic 12-bit hardware. Sample anything through the microphone, trim it, and play it straight from the pads. The sample rate and bit depth engine gives you the gritty, saturated character early digital samplers were loved for — not a filter placed on top, but the sound of the conversion itself. SAMPLING • Record from the built-in mic, a USB or Lightning interface, or line input • Resample the app's own output to bounce layers down • Threshold recording starts the moment sound arrives • Stereo or mono (L/R) capture SOUND • Adjustable sample rate (8–44.1 kHz) and bit depth (4–32 bit) • Presets for classic 12-bit voicings • Ring modulator, compressor, punch and saturation per pad EDITING • Trim, fade in and out, normalize, reverse, gain, silence • Time stretch • Auto slice by transient detection, or set slice points live with the pads • Split a stereo sample into separate mono left and right samples SEQUENCER • Step sequencer with velocity and tune per step • Real-time recording with selectable quantize • Up to 4 bars per pattern • Note Repeat • Song Mode chains patterns into a full track PLAYBACK AND MIXING • Volume and pan per pad, mute and solo • Mute groups so pads cut each other off, like a real drum machine • Pad Link to trigger several pads at once • Multi Level and Multi Pitch to spread one sample across the grid • 13 effects: tape echo, delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo/pan, distortion, overdrive, fuzz, wah, isolator and a 4-band EQ EXPORT • Bounce a pattern to a WAV file • Save projects on the device and reopen them later FREE VERSION MS-12 is free to try, and the sound engine is not held back — nothing about the audio is degraded in the free version. You get Bank A (16 pads), one 1-bar pattern, two effects, and microphone sampling up to 10 seconds per pad. A single one-time purchase unlocks everything: all four banks (64 pads), unlimited patterns up to 4 bars, Song Mode, all 13 effects, unlimited sampling time, loading your own audio files, project save and load, and WAV export. Anything you made before buying carries straight over. No subscription. No ads. No account required.