Comparison

StrumTune vs Bytebeat

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

StrumTune

Features
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StrumTune tunes your guitar, bass, ukulele and more — accurately, and completely free. No ads. No subscriptions. No accounts. Nothing is collected, and the app never connects to the internet. TUNE ANY STRING Play a string and StrumTune names it, shows how far off you are in cents, and turns green the moment it lands. The needle settles quickly, so you spend less time watching the screen and more time playing. CHROMATIC MODE Not every note is an open string. With a capo on, on a fretted note, or with an instrument that has no preset, chromatic mode reads any of the twelve semitones instead of forcing your note onto the nearest string. MANUAL MODE Prefer to tune by ear? Tap a string to hear a clean reference tone and match it. Works even without microphone access. 9 INSTRUMENTS, 25 TUNINGS Guitar (Standard, Drop D, Drop C, Half Step Down, Full Step Down, Open G, Open D, Open E, Open C, DADGAD), 7-string guitar, bass, 5-string bass, ukulele, mandolin, banjo, violin and cello. YOUR OWN TUNINGS Set any note on any string, save it under a name, and it is waiting for you next time. Edit or delete it whenever you like. BUILT-IN METRONOME 30 to 240 BPM, time signatures 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 6/8, tap tempo and an accented downbeat. The click is scheduled sample-accurately, so the tempo never drifts. MADE FOR PLAYERS - Left-handed mode mirrors the fretboard - Reference pitch adjustable from 430 to 450 Hz for orchestras and period instruments - Note names as C D E or Do Re Mi - The screen stays awake while you tune - Your instrument and tuning are remembered between sessions Everything listed above is included. There is no paid tier and nothing to unlock.

About

Bytebeat

Transform mathematical formulas into unique music by writing code. Edit your creations in real-time while they play, visualize the sound waves, and explore various modes for different audio outputs. Export your generated music to WAV format.

Highlights
  • Formula-based music generation
  • Real-time editing during playback
  • Waveform visualization
  • Multiple audio modes (Bytebeat, Signed, Floatbeat)
  • Export to WAV format
  • Includes 29 preset formulas
Features
Read full description

t*(42&t>>10) That one line is the whole song. Bytebeat turns a formula straight into sound. It evaluates your expression while t counts up from zero, one step at a time, and writes the result out as the waveform. No synthesizer, no audio files, no samples. The formula is the music. ■ Edit while it plays - Rewrite the formula without stopping playback. t keeps running - Change a single character and the song becomes something else - A keypad holding only the characters that appear in bytebeat formulas, so one tap is one character ■ See the waveform - An oscilloscope draws the samples that are actually playing - Traces are aligned to the rising edge, so the wave stays still instead of scrolling - Instruction count and stack depth are shown too ■ 29 famous formulas - Includes the one-liners from the experiments viznut published in 2011 - Save the ones you like to favorites with your own names ■ Three modes - Bytebeat: result & 255 mapped to 0...255, the way the original sounded - Signed: treated as signed 8-bit - Floatbeat: the result used directly as a -1...1 waveform, where sin and cos come alive ■ Change the speed of t - 500 to 48000 Hz. The original bytebeat ran at 8000 Hz - Slower runs lower, faster runs higher ■ Export to WAV - 8-bit, 8000 Hz, mono, which is exactly what bytebeat is - 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute or 3 minutes ■ What you can write - The variable t, and the constants PI and E - Arithmetic, bitwise operators, shifts, comparison, logic, the ternary operator - sin cos tan asin acos atan abs floor ceil round sqrt exp log sign int pow min max atan2 mod - Everything is computed in Double and rounded to 32-bit integers only for bitwise operations and shifts. This matches JavaScript's ToInt32, so formulas you find on the web play as they are ■ No connection - No account to create - No ads, no tracking - The app never connects to the internet. It works on a plane Many of the presets come from the experiments Ville-Matias Heikkila (viznut) published in 2011.

Screenshots

StrumTune4 screens
Bytebeat4 screens

Verdict

The call

StrumTune and Bytebeat 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
StrumTune versus Bytebeat: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterStrumTuneBytebeat
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size2 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCafo KajmerRyo Tsudukihashi

In-app purchases

None

StrumTune

No in-app purchases

None

Bytebeat

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is StrumTune free?
StrumTune is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Bytebeat free?
Bytebeat is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do StrumTune or Bytebeat have ads?
Neither StrumTune nor Bytebeat shows ads.

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