Ensemble Composer vs DrumToolz
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ensemble Composer
Create custom drumline music with realistic recorded sounds. Compose street beats, stand jams, or entire musical books. Play along, practice, share, and edit your compositions.
- Compose drumline music
- Realistic recorded drum sounds
- Play along and practice
- Share and edit compositions
- Support for any time signature
- Customizable rhythms
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A whole drumline in the palm of your hand! Compose a street beat, a stand jam, or even your whole book. Play along, practice, share, and edit. With amazing real recorded drum sounds and the ability to create any rhythm over any time signature, this is the real deal. Compose and play along with the actual battery drum line sounds of the Paul Rennick 2012 Santa Clara Vanguard, as recorded by bass tech Brian Lowe - tuned the way they sounded on finals night. Best used with Headphones About Telephonic Amusements: Nicholas Wheeler, software engineer, marched Sky Ryders, Velvet Knights, and UNT - taught at Pioneer and UNT; David Croy, designer, marched Sky Ryders and tech’ed under Paul Rennick at Sky, VK, and has provided visual consulting for UNT and Dynasty Drums. Like us at https://www.facebook.com/DrumlineApps
DrumToolz
Compose and practice drum cadences and beats on your mobile device. This app allows manual input of exercises, generation of new ideas, and practice of rudiments. Share your creations and learn from a community of drummers.
- Compose drum cadences and beats
- Manual exercise input
- Generate new rhythmic ideas
- Editable music score
- Practice snare rudiments
- Library of dynamic exercises
- Social profile and sharing
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Compose cadences on the go! Choose from snares, tenors, bass drums, cymbals, and even drumset if you want. In a league of its own, DrumToolz also lets you manually input exercises for drum set, marching snare, tenors, and bass drums while generating new creative ideas using what you input, all shown on an editable music score. You can also upload your beats to your social profile, play what other users are playing, save rhythms, practice snare drum rudiments, and learn from a full library of dynamic exercises for both snare drum and drumset! It's perfect for all skill levels, from beginner to extremely advanced, drum wizards. Works great for sharing drum cadences with your drumline. Isolate individual snare, tenors, etc. parts. Practice the simplest to the most complex of beats and rhythms. If you can think of it, you can input it and practice it! Anything from beginner rock beats, to the most complex of jazz beats and fills. Lastly, top off the notes with ornaments: stickings, accents, flams, diddles, and cheese. Input up to 50 measures. When practicing drum set beats, choose from a ride cymbal, hihat, hihat foot, kick drum, snare drum, and three toms. Input everything from whole notes to thirtysecond notes and tuplets. Also, for tenors, choose from four tenors and a spock. Bass drums - five bass drums. Marching snare - a realistic marching snare and a ping sound. Generate new ideas (modifications) using beats that you input into the score. Choose from several modification methods: Add, Shuffle, Substitute, Permutate, Repeat, and Random. Modify individual parts of the beat (ex: kick drum only) or the entire beat if desired. Custom snare exercises. Choose the time sig, subdivisons, tuplets, stickings, accents, flams, diddles, cheese, drags. Save the beat in the score for later practice, keeping the modifications if desired. If the modifications are kept, this turns the beat into an endless, dynamic exercise! Each time you generate an exercise, it uses the modifications to give you an entirely new beat. String together saved rhythms and practice them as one exercise, perfect for practicing beats followed by a drum fill. Upload your beats to your profile. Find and follow other drummers in the social network. Learn from them as you see and practice what they have uploaded to their profile. Share your beats through PDF links and files. Also, share your entire score with a link that pre-populates the score into the app. Learn from a full library of dynamic drum set and snare drum exercises, essential and hybrid rudiments included. For highlighted rhythms, shuffle around groups of notes, stickings, accents, flams, diddles, and cheese.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: DrumToolz at Free against Ensemble Composer's $14.99. DrumToolz also leads on iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.6). Ensemble Composer's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 4.2) and review sentiment (77% vs 58%). On ratings volume, update cadence, 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
DrumToolz is free to download; Ensemble Composer costs $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Ensemble Composer holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 275 and 270 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 77% of Ensemble Composer's written reviews are positive against 58% of DrumToolz's.
Ensemble Composer ships an update every 2 months, DrumToolz monthly. Both last shipped on October 12, 2026.
| Parameter | Ensemble Composer | DrumToolz |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (275 ratings) — better | 4.2 (270 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 77.4% of reviews — better | 58.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 275 — better | 270 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #182 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 15 MB | 93 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | N. Wheeler | Jared Simon |
Customer experience
Ensemble Composer
DrumToolz
User reviews
Ensemble Composer
From 275 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎵 Authentic drum sounds and audio quality (older versions)
- ✍️ Intuitive composition interface for writing cadences
- 📱 All-in-one drumline app combining multiple sections
- 💾 Export functionality to sheet music and audio formats
- 🎯 Useful for educators and students to practice rhythms
Room to improve
- 🐛 Severe audio quality degradation after recent update
- 🐛 Choppy scrolling and laggy performance
- 🐛 Audio stuttering and cutting off during playback
- 🐛 Files not saving or disappearing after updates
- 🐛 Backward compatibility issues with legacy files
DrumToolz
From 270 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for writing music
- 👍 Helpful for drumline
- 👍 Easy to use
- 👍 Good sounds
- 👍 Good for practice
Room to improve
- 🐛 Tutorial not helpful
- 🐛 Hard to find features
- 🐛 UI issues
- 🐛 App crashes frequently
- 🐛 Saves progress poorly
Bugs and requests
Ensemble Composer
Reported bugs
16 issues- New update prevents opening older files
- Audio stutters and cuts off in faster rhythms
- Triplet rolls don't sound even
- Bass drum subdivisions not working
- Tenor section drums moved to incorrect positions
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Scroll feature is choppy and laggy
- Rhythmic accuracy issues
- Cymbal sounds bleed into each other
- App crashes with certain subdivisions
- Polyrhythm and odd time signature issues
- Saving functionality fails intermittently
- Split feature freezes and causes progress loss
- Files duplicate unexpectedly
- Export format incorrect (.mxl instead of .xml)
- Tempo synchronization issues
- App crashes on startup
Requested features
16 requests- Revert snare sounds to pre-update quality
- Multiple sound option choices for drums
- Hi-hat option for cymbals
- Single tenor drum section option
- Separate tempos within drum sections
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Undo/redo functionality
- Auto-save feature
- iCloud or cloud backup support
- Different drum tuning options
- Legato and staccato buzz options
- Smoother and longer buzz roll sounds
- Sixtet tenor configuration option
- Video export/share functionality
- In-depth tutorial documentation
- Accent dynamics improvements
- Rim click sounds for tenors
DrumToolz
Reported bugs
13 issues- App crashes and deletes progress
- App won't open
- Repeat function doesn't stop
- Repeat save fails
- Accents, diddles, flams added automatically
Show 8 moreShow fewer
- Buzz roll cannot be removed
- Font camouflages in dark mode
- App crashes when opening after saving
- App crashes when opening
- App crashes when adding notes
- App crashes after saving
- App crashes when trying to reopen
- App crashes a lot
Requested features
15 requests- Turn off metronome
- Add rum shot for snare
- Add rim shots for other drums
- Add triplets, fivelets, sixlets
- Add dynamics (forte, piano)
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- Cymbals sizzle option
- Add buzz roll for snares
- Add diddle feature
- More measures
- Add bass drum notes
- Add open hi-hat sound
- Improve UI for tuplet measurement
- Improve UI for measure change
- Ability to hear multiple instruments simultaneously
- Fix replace button for bass drums
In-app purchases
Ensemble Composer
No in-app purchases
DrumToolz
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Ensemble Composer free?
Is DrumToolz free?
Which has better reviews, Ensemble Composer or DrumToolz?
Do Ensemble Composer or DrumToolz have ads?
Which is updated more often, Ensemble Composer or DrumToolz?
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