AcidGroovebox vs 2099 Techno
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
AcidGroovebox
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A pocket acid machine. 303-style bass, drum machine, lead and sample pads: a techno or house track in seconds, with no ads and no connection. Tap the dice and the drums, bass and lead land in key, ready to be mangled. Never touched a synth before? Turn the knobs. You'll get it in 30 seconds. ACID BASS • Cutoff, resonance, env mod, decay, accent and glide • Waveforms: saw, square, triangle (pro), PWM (pro) • Step sequencer with slides, accents and note length DRUM MACHINE • 7 tracks: kick, snare, clap, hats, crash, ride • 3 velocity levels per step and swing • Live snare/clap rolls for fills • Double notes, your own samples and custom kits (pro) ACID LEAD • 3-oscillator paraphonic synth with a snappy filter • Notes per step, chords, harmonic colours and glide • Macros: bite, decay, drive, spread, air, volume LIVE FX • Hands-on filter on an X/Y matrix • Two assignable LFOs per instrument (pro) • Assignable reverb and delay (pro) • 12 or 32-step patterns, A/B switching (pro) SAMPLE PADS • 1 pad you can record with the phone mic (3 in pro) • 3 pads for loading your own sounds (6 in pro) • Dedicated reverb, delay and beat repeat for the pads (pro) YOUR TRACKS STAY YOURS • Save, load, export and import your sets • Bounce your loops to audio to share them • 100% offline: no account, no cloud WHY ACID GROOVEBOX • Zero ads. Actually zero. • No subscription: unlock Pro once, keep it forever • Everything runs on your phone, on a plane or at a festival Home-studio producer, 303 obsessive, techno head or just curious about beatmaking: Acid Groovebox turns an idea into a groove in seconds. Acid Groovebox is built by one independent developer, with no ads and no investors. If you want to support it: unlock Pro and tell your friends.
2099 Techno
This app generates unique electronic music tracks using chaotic mathematical principles. It offers multiple styles, virtual analog synthesis, and drum machines, with options for live play and MIDI export. All features are available for free.
- Generative track creation
- Virtual analog synth engine
- 909-style drum machine
- Chaos-driven melody and rhythm
- 8 distinct musical styles
- Live play and MIDI export
- Audio Unit integration
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2099 Techno writes complete tracks. Press generate and you get 76 bars with an intro, builds, two main sections, a breakdown and an outro, played by a virtual-analog engine and a 909-style drum machine. Bass, acid, stabs, pad, a lead line and the kit, through a dub delay, chorus and reverb. Nothing is sampled. Every note is made on the fly and no two tracks come out the same. The music comes from chaos maths. Three Lorenz attractors shape the melody, the rhythm and the mood. Three separate logistic maps run underneath the drums, the bass and the acid line, so they wander independently: turn the logistic control down and the hats and perc repeat every bar, turn it up and they never do. Chaos on its own is noise, so a small model filters it. It gets rewarded for consonant intervals and rehearses two hundred notes over the changes before it writes anything. The CHAOS / TASTE slider decides how much say each one gets. Eight styles, and they are properly different. Detroit rolls an off-beat bass under syncopated stabs. Dub Techno holds one chord for four bars and lets the delay do the work. Acid runs a 303 line with slides and accents. Hard pushes past 140 with a Reese bass and the drive up. Minimal takes most of it away. Every track is built from its seed. Write the seed down and you can have that exact track again, note for note, whenever you want it. 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, and the sixteen-step lane runs in time with the track and follows your host. Both play any part you like: bass, acid, stabs, pad or lead, through that part's sound and out on its MIDI channel. Choose which sections the lane plays in - just the breakdown, say - and preview it on its own without starting the track. Turn on RADIO and it keeps playing, picking a new key, mode, style, sound kit and tempo for each track. You also get: • 8 styles, 6 dark modes, 12 keys, tempo and density • Two-oscillator analog voice with sub, noise, resonant filter and glide • 22 presets and 9 sound kits, from Warehouse to Game Boy, plus random patch • Six-part mixer, dub delay, chorus, plate reverb and a global sweep filter • A PLAY panel: pads in the track's own key, and a 16-step lane with accent and slide, running in time with the track and only in the sections you pick • MIDI in, so your keyboard plays whichever part you have selected • MIDI export: six tracks, one per part • Live spectrum, waveform and a view of the chaos engine at work Two Audio Units, an instrument and a MIDI processor. Each part sends on its own MIDI channel, drums on 10, so one instance can drive six instruments. The MIDI version passes your keyboard through instead of swallowing it. Both follow your host's tempo and transport. 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.
Screenshots
Verdict
AcidGroovebox and 2099 Techno are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. AcidGroovebox sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and 2099 Techno sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
AcidGroovebox ships an update every 3 weeks, 2099 Techno every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | AcidGroovebox | 2099 Techno |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Maxime Bernard | Soft Brew Mobile |
In-app purchases
AcidGroovebox
- Unlock all Pro features !$7.99
2099 Techno
- AUv3 Unlock$2.99
Questions
Is AcidGroovebox free?
Is 2099 Techno free?
Do AcidGroovebox or 2099 Techno have ads?
Which is updated more often, AcidGroovebox or 2099 Techno?
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