FrankenJazz vs midi
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side β with what reviewers say about each.
FrankenJazz
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Write a jazz progression, hear it immediately, and study what makes the changes connect. FrankenJazz is a private lead-sheet and harmony workshop for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Enter chord symbols in a compact chart, choose a key and tempo, then play the form with a responsive chord-tone piano. The app reads Roman-numeral context, traces guide-tone movement, and lets you compare five practical voicing families. Use the bundled progression library as a starting point or build your own. Change the key, tempo, groove, instrument, and voicing while the chart remains editable. Playback includes seeking and looping for close listening and practice. When the chart is ready, export a FrankenJazz document, plain text, or a standard MIDI file. Local recovery protects the current session if the app closes unexpectedly. FrankenJazz works without an account or network connection. It includes no telemetry, advertising, sample downloads, or cloud processing.
midi
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midi-sink models a tray of water with ink floating on it. Every gesture is an exact, area-preserving transformation of the whole sheet β Aubrey Jaffer's mathematical marbling β so the rings stay crisp after a thousand strokes. Two modes. MARBLE MODE is the tray under your hands: tap for a drop, drag to comb, twist two fingers for a vortex, pinch to fold, draw with the Pencil and a wake follows the tip. Plug in a MIDI instrument and it plays into the same water: an MPE controller's strike, pressure, glide and slide become drop, feed, comb and hue; a wind controller draws a single calligraphic line; any keyboard plays drops on the circle of fifths. PLAY MODE turns the iPad into an MPE instrument. A pitch lattice β chromatic grid, JankΓ³ or piano grid β sits under your fingers; every touch is a joystick (sideways bends in semitones, push to feed ink, pull back to stir). The Apple Pencil plays legato across the keys with real force as velocity, its barrel roll deepens vibrato and the Pencil Pro's squeeze is the sustain pedal. A floating strip carries pitch, mod, two assignable wheels and sustain on the MPE master channel. The stream goes out over a virtual CoreMIDI source (also to a USB-tethered Mac), the MIDI network session and Bluetooth LE MIDI, so any DAW or synth records a standard MPE performance while the water paints it. Made for MPE controllers β ROLI Piano and Seaboard, Expressive E Osmose β the ROLI Airwave's gesture CCs, wind controllers (Roland Aerophone, Odisei Travel Sax) and classic keyboards. midi-sink makes no sound of its own: it is a visualizer and a controller. Free software (AGPL-3.0). Collects nothing.
Screenshots
Verdict
FrankenJazz and midi are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters β price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them β neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | FrankenJazz | midi |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | β | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac β better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.0 β better |
| Further details β not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jeffrey Emanuel | Vibetuned |
In-app purchases
FrankenJazz
No in-app purchases
midi
No in-app purchases







