Roostbox vs M/S Processor 2
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Roostbox
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Roostbox is a groovebox that looks like a retro arcade cabinet and plays like one. It makes techno and other electronic music live, by hand: fly a ship through a beat, ride the faders, flick the stick, and every gesture you make is recorded and loops with the beat. It is a different way to play electronic music live. There is no step grid to program and no timeline to edit. Everything on screen is a control, you play it with two thumbs, and the loop keeps what you played. Two kits are in the box, and everything is free: both kits, the whole performance surface and the AUv3 plugin. No purchase, no account, no ads. Play it standalone on iPhone or iPad, or load it as an instrument inside AUM, Loopy Pro, Cubasis, Drambo or Logic Pro for iPad. TWO KITS IN THE BOX SPACE: fly a ship through a beat. Where the ship goes picks the groove: four-on-the-floor, backbeat, offbeat, broken, sixteenths. The cockpit page holds the mixer, a stick for filter and grit, overdrive, pump, tape, delay, reverb, crush and a DJ filter. A 303-style acid bass and a drum synth make the sound. PLIVKA: a four-track techno box. Kick, bass, snare and hat, each with a pattern control and a hit control, laid out over five pages: Rhythm, Sound, Perform, FX and Mix. The bass line is a Turing machine that mutates as much or as little as you let it. UNDER THE HOOD - Euclidean rhythm generators, a Turing machine sequencer and a trigger sequencer drive the patterns. - A drum synth and a 303-style acid bass synth make the sound. No samples. - Every fader move is recorded as motion and loops with the beat. Undo and redo if you change your mind. - Scenes: snapshot the whole kit and switch on the next sixteenth, beat, bar or pattern. - Master effects: delay and reverb sends, filter, crush, tape, compressor, sidechain pump and a limiter. - MIDI learn: map any control to a hardware controller. - Landscape only. Made for two thumbs. AUv3 The plugin is the same instrument as the app, with the same two kits, and it is free. It follows the host tempo and transport. Jam in the standalone app; record into your DAW with the plugin. WHAT 1.0 IS Two kits, built to be played. Building your own kits is not part of this version. Roostbox is made by one person. If something is broken, tell me: reach.freefall.studio@gmail.com
M/S Processor 2
This app allows you to manipulate the mid and side components of a stereo audio signal. You can adjust their levels, mute them, or flip their polarity before recombining them. It functions as an Audio Unit (AUv3) within music production hosts or as a standalone application.
- Mid/side stereo signal splitting
- Independent level control for mid and side
- Mute and polarity flip for mid/side
- Inline, decode, and encode modes
- Automation support
- Adaptable layout for various screen sizes
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Your stereo image, in two parts. M/S Processor 2 splits a stereo signal into its mid (what both sides share) and its side (what sets them apart), lets you turn each up or down, mute it or flip its polarity, and puts them back together. Rebuilt from the ground up, it runs as an Audio Unit (AUv3) inside GarageBand, AUM, Logic Pro and any other host, and on its own with an audio interface. THREE WAYS IN AND OUT • Inline: left and right in, left and right out. Widen a mix, narrow it, or bring a centered voice forward. • Decode: record with a mid/side microphone pair, a cardioid facing the source and a figure-8 across it, and hear it as left and right while you play. • Encode: turn left and right into mid and side for the effects that come after it, and decode them back at the end of the chain. EVERY PART UNDER YOUR HAND • A fader for the mid and one for the side, from −48 to +24 dB, each over its own meter. • Mute and polarity for each, and a link that moves both gains together. • Swap left and right before anything else, and bypass to compare. • Input and output meters named by what they carry, L and R or M and S, with held peaks and clip indicators. • Every control can be automated from your host. • A notice when the input is mono, which leaves the side with nothing to work on. MADE FOR EVERY SCREEN M/S Processor 2 lays itself out for the space it's given: an iPhone upright or sideways, an iPad, iPhone Duo folded or open, and a plugin slot in a host, from GarageBand's compact strip to a whole panel. QUIET BY DEFAULT On its own, the app starts with its output muted, so a microphone never feeds back through the speaker next to it. A LONG STORY Alan Blumlein described mid/side recording in his 1931 stereo patent, and engineers have relied on it ever since. M/S Processor first came to the iPad in 2013; this is its second life. From Monolith DSP. Terms of Use: https://monolith-dsp.com/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://monolith-dsp.com/privacy/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: M/S Processor 2 at 5.0 against Roostbox's 4.5. Roostbox's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price, ratings volume, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
M/S Processor 2 holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.
| Parameter | Roostbox | M/S Processor 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 71 MB | 44 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ARTEM VOVSIA | Ruben Nine Blanco |
In-app purchases
Roostbox
No in-app purchases
M/S Processor 2
No in-app purchases









