Pitea vs iCathedral Organ
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pitea
Play the Piteå School of Music pipe organ sample set on your iOS or macOS device using MIDI keyboards and pedals. This app provides access to a high-quality, large sample set for musicians.
- Pipe organ sample set
- MIDI keyboard support
- MIDI pedal support
- iOS and macOS compatible
- Large sample download
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This app makes the Piteå School of Music pipe organ sample set available for playing with MIDI keyboards and a MIDI pedal connected to your iOS or macOS device. The sample set was released by Lars Palo under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license, see http://www.familjenpalo.se/vpo/download . For more information about the app and the underlying Napo framework, please visit the support page http://polaron.de/Pitea/ , the Napo documentation at http://polaron.de/Napo/ and in particular the user manual at http://polaron.de/Napo/manual . *** For your attention *** This app is a huge download of about 1.5 GB. Make sure there is enough free SSD space on your device.
iCathedral Organ
Experience the rich sound of a cathedral pipe organ with this virtual instrument app. Connect external MIDI keyboards or use the on-screen interface to play and record music. Customize sounds and utilize advanced features for professional music production.
- Virtual cathedral pipe organ sound
- MIDI keyboard connectivity (Bluetooth/USB)
- On-screen piano keyboard
- Sound customization and presets
- MIDI recording and playback
- Audio Unit v3, Audiobus, IAA support
- Integrated reverb effect
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Play with the sound of an entire cathedral organ, created by award-winning sound designer Kurt Ader! This app is designed as professional sound module for your iPad by connecting external MIDI keyboard(s) using Bluetooth MIDI, or using the Apple USB adapter or another adapter supported by Apple.¹ Watch and listen to the demo video on our product website! This app supports Audio Unit v3, Audiobus and Inter-App Audio for audio & MIDI connections from/to other audio apps, as well as Bluetooth LE MIDI ! iCathedral Organ generates the sound of a lovely and color rich pipe organ of a real cathedral. All individual organ stops of such a pipe organ were recorded to resemble this sound as realistic as possible. You can fully adjust all individual organ stops to create your own sounds and save them as your personal sound presets. Or simply select one of the factory presets to play impressive organ sounds right from the start. The sounds of this app were created by Kurt Ader, winner of the NAMM 2015 "Best Sound Designer of the Year" award. General Features: • 28 individual organ stops, each one controllable simultaniously in real-time. • Polyphony up to several hundred stereo voices.² • Configurable audio latency down to 1 ms. • Low latency disk streaming. • Integrated cathedral reverb effect. • App can keep running in the background, so you can play on your keyboard while e.g. using Safari or another app to display scores or surfing the Internet. • Master Tune, Scale Tuning & Hermode Tuning. • Provides Audio Unit v3 plugin version of this app, which allows it to be used as virtual instrument directly within third-party multi-track DAW apps (requires iOS 9.3 or higher). • Audiobus support. • Supports Apple's "IAA" system for audio & MIDI streaming between other apps. • Virtual on-screen piano keyboard, scalable & scrollable. MIDI Player / Recorder: • Record, save and load your songs in standard MIDI file format. • Share your songs easily as audio file. • Unlimited amount of tracks. • Unlimited recording and playback length. • Open MIDI (.mid) files directly from other apps (i.e. from Safari, Mail). • Download or upload MIDI files with iTunes. • Load your favorite songs as MIDI files from the Internet, and watch at the virtual keyboard how to play it. • Metronome. • Use the "Tempo Zoom" dial knob to i.e. slow down playback at any time and learn your favorite songs more easily. There is no in-app purchase in this app. So all sounds and all app features are immediately available to you as one buy. ¹ For more information about adapters and connecting external MIDI keyboards: https://doc.crudebyte.com/iOS/External_MIDI_devices/ ² Some sound presets are using several voices per note. Polyphony depends on the exact device model being used. You find a polyphony table on our product website. Anti-Spy Commitment: We take your privacy very seriously. None of our apps contain so called „spy” behaviors and we committed ourself to a very high privacy standard. For more information about our privacy commitment, read our „Privacy Policy for Mobile Apps”.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: iCathedral Organ at $14.99 against Pitea's $29.00. iCathedral Organ also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 7 months). Pitea's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 3.7) and review sentiment (92% vs 55%). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Pitea costs $29.00 and iCathedral Organ $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Pitea holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 15 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 92% of Pitea's written reviews are positive against 55% of iCathedral Organ's.
Pitea ships an update every 7 months, iCathedral Organ every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 7, 2026 and September 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pitea | iCathedral Organ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29.00 | $14.99 — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (6 ratings) — better | 3.7 (15 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 92.0% of reviews — better | 54.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6 | 15 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.5.6 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.2 GB | 1.0 GB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Markus Sigg | Christian Schoenebeck d/b/a Crudebyte |
Customer experience
Pitea
iCathedral Organ
In-app purchases
Pitea
No in-app purchases
iCathedral Organ
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Pitea free?
Is iCathedral Organ free?
Which has better reviews, Pitea or iCathedral Organ?
Do Pitea or iCathedral Organ have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pitea or iCathedral Organ?
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