Comparison

Bytebeat vs yawp

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

Head to head
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.

About

yawp

Create unique electronic music by drawing simple shapes that generate synthesized loops. Explore a variety of instruments and visualizers, and even control it with hardware. Share your creations as stereo mixes or individual stems.

Highlights
  • Draw hills to generate synthesized musical notes
  • Twenty-two unique synthesized voices
  • Offline functionality and instant loading
  • MIDI controller support for hardware integration
  • Export music as stereo mixes or individual stems
  • Record and chop external audio into instruments
  • Visualizers that react to the music
Features
Read full description

yawp is an instrument made of loops. Draw a hill over a voice's line and the machine sows the notes. Every voice is a loop with its own length, so the loops drift apart and come back — minimal techno and ambient fall out of that drift on their own. There is no wrong way to draw a hill. TWENTY-TWO VOICES, ALL SYNTHESIZED A felt kick, a brushed clap, delicate hats, a walking electric bass, a felt piano, soft minor chords, vocal chops cut from an imagined take, a tine piano whose long tails stack into chords nobody wrote, an octave organ, a tape-hungry wash, a pluck that scatters light, and more. No samples anywhere — the whole app is synthesized live, loads instantly, and works offline. EVERY VOICE UP CLOSE Tap the mark above a voice to open it. Its line, its notes, its sound, its wave, its envelope and an LFO each get their own page, and you change the sound by dragging its picture. Every voice has presets, and you can keep your own. THE DICE Tap the die and it deals the band one piece of music with a section in mind: an open groove, a thinned intro, a break, breakbeats shaped by the tempo, or the strict sixteenth hand. Hold it for a whole new song in one style: tempo, key and scale, who plays, the sound each voice wears and every loop. Keep what you like, redraw the rest. SCENES Watch the song as moving line art: a beacon on a plain, a sea behind glass, breathing tissue, a vessel of light. Swipe to the next one. Watching only — the music does the moving. PLAY IT FROM HARDWARE Plug in a MIDI controller: knobs ride the macros and the tempo, pads mute voices and launch your kept sets on the next bar, keys set the song's key or play notes into a loop. Four MIDI lanes play your own synths and drum machines, and yawp sends its clock. Ableton Link keeps yawp in time with other apps and devices on the same Wi-Fi. INSIDE OTHER APPS With yawp complete, yawp is also an AUv3 plugin for AUM, GarageBand, Logic and other hosts. Load it as an instrument with its own sound, or as a MIDI version that plays every loop as notes into your synths. HAND IT ON Keep sets with their band, mix and key. Share a set as the stereo mix, a stem for every voice and one MIDI file — 32 bars from the same downbeat, ready to drop into any DAW. AND · tap a step to pin or silence it · drag a loop's end to change its length — odd meters are the same gesture · record up to ten seconds of anything — the mic, a headset or an audio interface — and chop it into an instrument · retune the whole song like a tuner (yawp · key A) and choose its scale · mix with hairline faders, mute and solo · record up to ten minutes of the mix and keep the take Most voices and scenes are free. Packs of two voices are one-time purchases, never a subscription. yawp complete unlocks everything: every pack to come, the mixer's performance pads, the song's curves and the AUv3 plugin.

Screenshots

Bytebeat4 screens
yawp4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: yawp at 5.0 against Bytebeat's 4.3. yawp also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 67%) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). Bytebeat's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 7). On price, ratings volume, ads and device support 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. yawp sells 7 one-off in-app purchases. Bytebeat asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

yawp holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 4 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of Bytebeat's written reviews are positive against 100% of yawp's.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Bytebeat versus yawp: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBytebeatyawp
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (3 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings34 — better
Update frequency—Every 2 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperRyo TsudukihashiKuta Tsuchikawa

Customer experience

Bytebeat

All ratings3 ratings
Positive66.7%
Neutral33.3%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral33.3%
Negative0.0%

yawp

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Bytebeat

No in-app purchases

7 purchases

yawp

One-time7
  • wood$2.99
  • air$2.99
  • song$2.99
Show 4 more
  • windows$2.99
  • glass$2.99
  • fog$2.99
  • yawp complete$19.99

Questions

Is Bytebeat free?
Bytebeat is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is yawp free?
yawp is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Bytebeat or yawp?
yawp is rated higher. Bytebeat averages 4.3 out of 5 from 3 ratings, while yawp averages 5.0 from 4 ratings.
Do Bytebeat or yawp have ads?
Neither Bytebeat nor yawp shows ads.

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