Ensemble Composer vs Drumr Notate
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
Drumr Notate
Create and share drum music compositions quickly. This app offers a comprehensive set of notation tools for various drum instruments, allowing you to hear your music and export it as a PDF or MusicXML file. It integrates with a practice tool for enhanced learning.
- Compose drum music with detailed notation
- Multiple instrument palettes (Drum Kit, Marching Snare, Tenors, Bassline)
- Playback with built-in drum sounds
- Export scores as PDF and MusicXML
- Integrates with Drumr for interactive practice
- Keyboard shortcuts and intuitive interface
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Compose your own drum kit and drumline music, fast. Write your part, hear it back, and share or print a PDF. Try editing free for 7 days. No account required. Write It. Hear It. Share It. Compose - Note values from whole notes to 32nd notes - Tuplets — triplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, and ninelets - Dynamics from ppp to fff, crescendo and decrescendo hairpins, and score-wide Accent/Tap dynamics - Accents, marcatos, tenutos, flams, diddles, ghost notes, and open hi-hat markings - Add sticking and text to explain how the part should be played. - Per-measure tempo marks from 30 to 300 bpm and time signatures from 2/4 to 13/8 - Beams group themselves from the meter, compound meters included, with manual override - Rests consolidate automatically - Duplicate measures, repeat notes, and copy and paste to build patterns fast Four Complete Instrument Palettes More than 100 sound and technique combinations across four instruments. - Drum Kit — snare, bass drum, hi-hats, toms, and cymbals, plus cowbell, tambourine, clave, and gock block - Marching Snare — rimshots, cross-sticks, buzz and press rolls, backsticks, stick shots, stick clicks, ping shots, gock blocks, cowbell, and ribbon crasher - Marching Tenors — all six drums, with rim clicks, rimshots, buzz and press rolls, crossovers, stick shots, stick clicks, and skank - Marching Bassline — all five drums, with rim clicks, rimshots, buzz rolls, stick clicks, and unison hits Hear It Back Play your score with built-in authentic drum sounds — playback follows the tempo marks you write, from 30 to 300 bpm. Share It Share or print a PDF of your scores. Scores live in the Files app and iCloud Drive, and every score is a standard MusicXML file you can use in your notation workflow. Made for Speed Tap, drag, or use full hardware keyboard shortcuts. Drag a note and Notate previews the valid placements before you drop it. Appearance Choose Light, Dark, or System to match your device. Practice It in Drumr Tap Open in Drumr to turn your score into an interactive practice tool — follow along note-for-note, slow the tempo or use speed training to build stick control, loop the hard parts, get practice feedback, and see your progress. Requires a Drumr Premium subscription with a free 7-day trial. — Help/feedback: support.drumr.app Privacy: privacy.drumr.app Terms: terms.drumr.app Apple EULA: apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Drumr Notate at Free against Ensemble Composer's $14.99. Drumr Notate also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 2 months) and rating (5.0 vs 4.6). Ensemble Composer's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and ratings volume (275 vs 3). On 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
Drumr Notate is free to download; Ensemble Composer costs $14.99 up front. Drumr Notate sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Ensemble Composer asks for nothing beyond the download.
Drumr Notate holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ensemble Composer has 275 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 77% of Ensemble Composer's written reviews are positive against 100% of Drumr Notate's.
Ensemble Composer ships an update every 2 months, Drumr Notate daily. The most recent releases landed on September 13, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ensemble Composer | Drumr Notate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (275 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 77.4% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 275 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Best chart rank | #194 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 15 MB | 44 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | N. Wheeler | Drumr Inc. |
Customer experience
Ensemble Composer
Drumr Notate
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
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- 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
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- 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
Drumr Notate
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Ensemble Composer
No in-app purchases
Drumr Notate
- Monthly7 Days trial$6.991 Month
- Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year
Questions
Is Ensemble Composer free?
Is Drumr Notate free?
Which has better reviews, Ensemble Composer or Drumr Notate?
Do Ensemble Composer or Drumr Notate have ads?
Which is updated more often, Ensemble Composer or Drumr Notate?
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