FingerDrumPad vs RasterFX
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
FingerDrumPad
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Become a drummer, just with your fingertips. Plug in headphones and leave the bulky drum kit behind. Play real drums silently, even late at night. FingerDrumPad is a second drum kit that fits in the palm of your hand. ■ Total freedom in pad shape and placement Pads are free-form polygons with 3 to 10 vertices, placeable anywhere on screen. Make the kick large and round, the snare wide and horizontal, the hi-hat small and compact. Create as many original kits as you like, tailored to your own hands. ■ A practice mode that accelerates your progress Every hit is judged in real time. Detailed feedback — Perfect / Good / Early / Late — plus combos, scores, and ranks (S–D) turns daily practice into something you'll look forward to. Your timing habits are visualized as a heatmap, with per-pad statistics and a "pad to focus on next" suggestion. Daily streaks and weekly summaries keep your motivation going. Includes 100+ charts across 10 genres — rock, pop, funk, jazz, Latin, reggae, and more. Start free with the Basic charts. ■ A step sequencer that builds patterns and exports to your DAW Assemble rhythm patterns on 16th- and 32nd-note grids. Odd time signatures like 3/4, 5/4, and 7/4 are supported too. Send your patterns to Practice mode to play them, or export them as MIDI files to take into your DAW. ■ Expand your sound endlessly Load your favorite SF2 SoundFont and use it as an entire kit. Sounds matching the GM standard get the right colors and names automatically, so a brand-new kit takes seconds. Assign any AUv3 instrument plugin to a pad to turn FingerDrumPad into the ultimate touch instrument. A built-in scanner detects which notes actually produce sound, so you'll never guess which note to pick. ■ Packed with thoughtful details ・Multi-touch for both hands at once, plus choke by holding a cymbal pad ・Touch velocity that senses how hard you hit (with per-finger calibration) ・Haptic feedback you can feel with every hit ・Metronome supporting 40–200 BPM and 1–12 beats per measure ・Ensemble mode that plays along to songs from your music library (change playback speed from 50–100% while preserving pitch) ・An interactive tutorial so you'll never feel lost ・Custom drum maps you can register for MIDI modules like Roland and Yamaha ・In-app help via the "?" button on every screen ■ Private by design Crash reporting is off by default. Nothing is sent unless you explicitly opt in. Your practice history and settings stay on your device. ■ Unlock everything with Pro A single one-time purchase lifts the limits on kits and patterns you can save, and unlocks all 100+ charts across 10 genres, SF2 SoundFont import, and AUv3 plugins. No subscription. Plug in your headphones and start drumming with your fingertips today.
RasterFX
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Make any sound move. RasterFX is a playable modular multi-effects processor for iPhone and iPad. Use it standalone with a microphone, an imported audio file or built-in signals — or load it as an AUv3 audio effect in AUM, GarageBand, Logic Pro for iPad, Loopy Pro, Cubasis and other Audio Unit hosts. BUILD YOUR EFFECT CHAIN Choose from Filter, Delay, Drive, Reverb, Grain, Repeat, Motion and Dynamics. Arrange up to six plates in series or split them into parallel A/B paths. Reorder the chain and the sound changes with it. MODULATE ANY CONTROL Patch LFOs, envelope followers, random and chaos sources, step sequencers, MIDI, macros, the XY pad or device tilt to any control. Create up to 16 modulation lines, with live arcs showing exactly how the sound is moving. PERFORM THE PATCH Morph between four snapshots on the XY pad. Turn eight macros. Hold four momentary throws for stutter, sweep, reverse and freeze. RasterFX is built to be played with one hand, not programmed and left alone. GENERATE, LOCK, EVOLVE Nudge a patch, reshape it or roll a new one. Lock the parts you want to keep, undo any result and save the seeds worth returning to. Evolve lets the patch drift over time while staying anchored to the sound you chose. SEE WHAT YOU HEAR Every effect has its own live visualizer. The CRT and halftone interface makes filters, delay taps, grains, dynamics and modulation visible without turning the screen into a wall of meters. RECORD THE RESULT Record the processed output to WAV, rename takes and share them from the app. FREE TO START. PRO ONCE. Free includes all eight effects, all modulation sources, every factory preset, three plates, four modulation lines and 60-second recordings. No ads, account, watermark or reduced audio quality. RasterFX Pro is a one-time purchase — not a subscription. It unlocks six plates, 16 modulation lines, split routing, XY snapshot morphing, Evolve, A/B compare, unlimited recording length and your own saved presets. Your saved sound always plays back exactly as created, even if it uses Pro features; Free limits editing, never playback. Made for headphones, late at night.
Screenshots
Verdict
FingerDrumPad and RasterFX are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
Both are free to download. FingerDrumPad sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and RasterFX sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | FingerDrumPad | RasterFX |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Toshihide Nakamura | Chih Han Lin |
In-app purchases
FingerDrumPad
- Unlock Pro$9.99
RasterFX
- RasterFX Pro$3.99









