Comparison

Gliss vs 88 Synthwave

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

Head to head
About

Gliss

Features
Read full description

Gliss is a touch instrument that sings. Two lines of light run across the screen. Slide a finger along one and the pitch follows continuously, like a voice or a bow, never stepping from key to key. Press lower on the line and the note swells; lift toward it and it fades to a breath. GRAVITY Each note of the scale is a well. Turn gravity down and the lines are fretless: every pitch in between is yours. Turn it up and your finger is gently pulled into tune: slide freely, land exactly. All the way up, it locks. FLEX The pitch follows your finger on an elastic. Loose, and it lags behind with a slow, singing portamento. Tight, and it snaps. SOUNDS 24 sounds built around a singing core: strings, voices, winds, leads, basses, pads, plucks and a few oddities, like a cello that sings, a choir, a horn in the fog. A slow orbital vibrato settles in once the note has been held, the way a singer's does. Shape any sound with tone, texture, subharmonic mixture, formant, filter and envelope. 28 TUNINGS Western modes, blues, Arabic maqam with true quarter tones, Turkish makam, Persian dastgah, klezmer, Southeast Asian scales, just intonation, 19 and 31 equal temperaments. Neutral intervals can be shaded from Egypt to Syria. MORE THAN TWO FINGERS • Chords: one finger can play a fifth, a triad, a seventh or an octave, always inside the scale • Arpeggiator: up, down, up and back, random, locked to tempo • Looper: record, overdub, loop, clear • Lanes: give each line its own sound, chord and octave • Tilt the device to bend and open the filter • Flick a note and it slides away, bounces and fades. Touch it to catch it IN YOUR HOST (AUv3) Gliss is also an AUv3 instrument for AUM, Loopy Pro, GarageBand, Logic and every host that loads Audio Units. Play its two lines with your fingers inside the host, or from a keyboard, an MPE controller or a MIDI track: every note lands on a line and gravity pulls it into your tuning. Ten parameters to automate, factory presets, and the whole instrument saved with your project. FREE, THEN PRO AND STUDIO Gliss is free to play: the whole gesture, three sounds (VOIX, PLUIE NOIRE, KOTO LUNE) and three tunings (major, minor and maqam Rast), in the app and in your host. Two one-time purchases, each on its own: GLISS PRO for the app unlocks all 24 sounds and their settings, all 28 tunings, chords, the arpeggiator, the looper, lanes, tilt and effects. GLISS STUDIO for your host unlocks every sound and tuning in the AUv3 plugin, with MIDI and MPE in and automation. No subscription. Designed for iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo: landscape on a phone, any way you hold a large screen, the bars on the flat half and the settings on the raised half when it is folded. Dark, with nothing on screen that is not sound. No account. No ads. No tracking. Gliss collects nothing; your settings stay on your device.

About

88 Synthwave

This application automatically generates complete synthwave tracks with intros, verses, choruses, and outros. It utilizes chaotic mathematical models for melody and rhythm generation, offering a variety of styles and customizable soundscapes. Users can also play along with the generated music.

Highlights
  • Automatic track generation
  • Chaos-driven melody and rhythm
  • 11 distinct synthwave styles
  • Customizable sound design
  • Playable interface
  • MIDI export
  • Radio mode for continuous playback
Features
Read full description

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.

Screenshots

Gliss4 screens
88 Synthwave4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: 88 Synthwave at every 2 weeks against Gliss's every 5 weeks. 88 Synthwave also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

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. Gliss sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and 88 Synthwave sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Gliss ships an update every 5 weeks, 88 Synthwave every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Gliss versus 88 Synthwave: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGliss88 Synthwave
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (5 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—5 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size2 MB17 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThinksparkSoft Brew Mobile

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Gliss

One-time2
  • GLISS STUDIO$12.99
  • GLISS PRO$12.99
1 purchases

88 Synthwave

One-time1
  • AUv3 Unlock$2.99

Questions

Is Gliss free?
Gliss is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is 88 Synthwave free?
88 Synthwave is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Gliss or 88 Synthwave have ads?
Neither Gliss nor 88 Synthwave shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Gliss or 88 Synthwave?
Gliss ships an update every 5 weeks, and 88 Synthwave every 2 weeks. Most recently, Gliss was updated on October 31, 2026 and 88 Synthwave on November 10, 2026.

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