Comparison

Pocket Looper vs TempoScope

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

Head to head
About

Pocket Looper

Features
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The phrase you just played becomes a loop. Pocket Looper is a loop station built for one thing: practising guitar and bass. Tap the big button in the middle to start recording. Tap it again and the phrase loops. Tap once more and you are overdubbing on top of it. That single button is the whole interface. ONE BUTTON FOR EVERYTHING Record, overdub, stop, resume. Every state change happens on the centre button, so you can drive it the way you would stomp a pedal on the floor. You never have to hunt for a small control while your hands are on the instrument. SEE WHAT YOU ARE LAYERING Your loop is drawn as a waveform with a playhead showing exactly where the playback is. You can see which beat you are overdubbing onto, which makes it much easier to come in on time. Undo and redo let you take back a bad take instantly. BE YOUR OWN BACKING BAND Record a chord progression, let it loop, and practise your solo over it. You get accompanied repetition without booking a rehearsal room or waiting for a band. It works just as well for writing riffs and for singer-songwriter practice. BUILT FOR DRILLING (PREMIUM) - Slow practice: drop the speed to 0.5x while keeping the original pitch, so you can take a fast lick apart and rebuild it - A-B section loop: mark A and B on the waveform and repeat only that stretch - Save and recall loops: name a phrase and come back to it tomorrow - Export your recordings to other apps - All in-app ads removed TEN LANGUAGES The interface follows your device language automatically: English, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean. WHO IT IS FOR - Guitarists and bassists who drill the same phrase every day - Players who want to build their own backing track and improvise over it - Anyone who would rather just record and layer than learn a large app first Premium is a one-time purchase. There is no subscription and no expiry. The free tier lets you record and overdub loops of up to 30 seconds. https://tenmais.jp/?lang=en

About

TempoScope

Features
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Hold your phone up to the music and it finds the tempo and key in real time. Drop in an audio file and it pulls tempo, key, and the chord progression in one pass. ā–  Free Ā· Live detection — tempo (BPM) and key from the microphone, as it plays Ā· Delay and reverb times — milliseconds worked out from the detected BPM. Straight, dotted, triplet Ā· The whole metronome — 30-300 BPM, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 12/8 Ā· Bar maps — lay out a song that changes tempo or meter partway through and play it straight through. Section looping included Ā· Six sounds — electronic beep, tick-tock, wood block, cowbell, claves, rimshot Ā· Subdivisions — eighths, triplets, sixteenths, swing eighths, dotted eighth + sixteenth, sextuplets, 3:2 polyrhythm Ā· 59 drum style presets with a pattern grid Ā· Haptic beats (iPhone) Ā· Background playback — keeps clicking while you read a score or with the screen locked Ā· Record to MIDI — record your playing to the click and it writes the notes down as a piano roll (iPhone and iPad, reference only) ā–  Pro (one-time lifetime purchase, not a subscription) Ā· Full-song analysis — free covers the first 60 seconds Ā· Save and revisit your analyses Ā· Setlist — put your songs in show order and on stage you only press Next. Tempo, meter, and drum pattern all switch together. Practice mode lets you save the tempo you settle on straight back to the song. Ā· Playback detection — leave it listening and it finds where songs change, splitting them into a list. Saving the song playing right now by hand is free for the first three Ā· Export MIDI — save a Record to MIDI result as a MIDI file, ready to drop into your DAW ā–  About accuracy Measured against 13 tracks with known answers: tempo was right on 13, key on 12. That is a small sample, so treat it as a guide. Chord detection is well below that and is a reference aid only — it goes wrong most often on ballads with dense harmony. Check it yourself with the free 60 seconds before you decide. Record to MIDI is a reference aid too. In one test — 14 bars of a straight 8-beat drum groove, recorded at a live venue with an iPhone on the music stand — it got the kick and snare right in 13 of 14 bars and caught 43 of 56 hi-hat hits. Recording and viewing the result are free, so try it on your own playing first. ā–  No internet needed All analysis runs on your device. No account, no server, no ads. Audio from the microphone never leaves your device. The only recording kept is the last one you make yourself in Record to MIDI, and it stays on your device too. ā–  Made for Ā· Sound engineers who need a song's tempo fast, on site Ā· Mixing engineers who need delay and reverb times that match the BPM Ā· Performers who change tempo song by song through a set Ā· Drummers practising triplets and polyrhythms

Screenshots

Pocket Looper4 screens
TempoScope4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: TempoScope at none against Pocket Looper's shown. Pocket Looper's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Pocket Looper sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and TempoScope sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pocket Looper ships an update every 6 days, TempoScope weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences Ā· 4 level
Pocket Looper versus TempoScope: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPocket LooperTempoScope
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 6 days — betterWeekly
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size25 MB15 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperKenichi AndoHYO SEOP LEE

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Pocket Looper

One-time1
  • Premium Unlock$2.99
1 purchases

TempoScope

One-time1
  • TempoScope Pro$2.99

Questions

Is Pocket Looper free?
Pocket Looper is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is TempoScope free?
TempoScope is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Pocket Looper or TempoScope have ads?
Pocket Looper shows ads; TempoScope does not.
Which is updated more often, Pocket Looper or TempoScope?
Pocket Looper ships an update every 6 days, and TempoScope weekly. Most recently, Pocket Looper was updated on November 6, 2026 and TempoScope on November 8, 2026.

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