CronSequitur vs 88 Synthwave

CronSequitur is a step sequencer with a grid layout that feels like real hardware, not a menu system with deeply nested functions you may never find. Some features require an in-app purchase: Standard (a one-time purchase) or Pro (a one-time purchase or an annual subscription). If you already own Standard, the one-time Pro purchase is offered to you as an upgrade. Every paid feature is listed below under the purchase it requires. Everything else described here is included without a purchase. Every step can carry more than a note. Program changes and control changes sit right alongside the note, not buried in a separate menu. A 2 to 64 step grid and full time-signature control mean odd meters and unusual pattern lengths aren't an afterthought, they're just supported. INCLUDED WITHOUT A PURCHASE • The step sequencer and step editor, with program changes and control changes on any step, 2 to 64 steps per pattern and full time-signature control • Sending MIDI to your external gear • The built-in synth • Unlimited presets • The metronome's audio click, beat indicator and count-in, and tap tempo • Exporting, importing and backing up your presets and songs in CronSequitur's own file format • Building and editing songs from your patterns, with sections, repeats and tempo changes • Full playback of the demo songs in the Library's Factory section • A preview of the first section of each song in My Songs, which holds the songs you build and your copies of demo songs (duplicating a demo song, or editing and saving it, makes a copy; the original stays in Factory). Full playback of these songs requires Pro (Song Playback, below). • Daylight mode, a high-contrast display for direct sun REQUIRES THE STANDARD IN-APP PURCHASE (ONE-TIME) • Virtual MIDI Output: send MIDI to other apps on the same device, no cables • Tags: tag your presets and filter your presets by tag • MIDI File Import & Export: standard MIDI files, to and from any DAW or device • Device Profiles: built-in and custom profiles that show your gear's own controls and labels • Screen Flash: a full-screen flash on each metronome beat • Metronome Haptics: a vibration on each metronome beat (iPhone only) • Tap Tempo Guard: TAP must be armed with one tap before it changes the tempo, so a stray touch mid-set does nothing REQUIRES THE PRO IN-APP PURCHASE (ONE-TIME, OR AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION) Pro includes everything in Standard, plus: • Song Playback: full playback of the songs in My Songs, start to finish, with every section, repeat and tempo change • Section Pads: jump to or loop any song section live • Audio Backing Tracks: import audio files to play along with your songs • Tempo-Locked Playback: backing tracks detect their tempo and stretch to match your song • Band Sync: live synchronization across devices on the same Wi-Fi network. Every device in the session needs Pro. • Section Audio Tracks: give each song section its own backing track Independently made in Maine. Fair pricing, no dark patterns, no surprises, built by a musician who wanted this to exist.

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.