Comparison

Ensemble Composer vs Music Notator

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Compose drumline music
  • Realistic recorded drum sounds
  • Play along and practice
  • Share and edit compositions
  • Support for any time signature
  • Customizable rhythms
Features
Read full description

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

About

Music Notator

Create and edit musical scores, including melodies, lead sheets with chords and lyrics, and full arrangements. Access your compositions online and on any device with an internet connection.

Highlights
  • Write melodies, lead sheets, and full scores
  • Intuitive touch-based note entry and editing
  • Virtual keyboard for note input
  • Chord and lyric insertion
  • Export scores as PDF
  • 19 score templates
  • MIDI playback with 128 instruments
Features
Read full description

Write down melodies, lead sheets with chords and lyrics, arrangements, and full blown scores with the brand new scorio Music Notator app. Follow your inspiration - on a bench in the park, in a bar, in the subway, wherever you have internet access. Enjoy the comfortable and intuitive Music Notator App. Enter and edit music intuitively with the tips of your fingers. Short touches select notation elements, long touches let you insert new notes into melodies and chords. Edit notes by moving them with your fingers. Fast scrolling, zooming, page turning and orientation change give you quick and comfortable access to every little detail and a perfect overview. Edit lyrics, chords and modify the score structure with the dialog area on the right side of the app. scorio Music Notator App works hand in hand with scorio notation portal on the web and requires an internet connection. When you write and save a score within the app you will also find it online in your scorio account. After saving, you can edit your compositions in any web browser, even outside the app on your PC or Mac. Yes, even on a friend's laptop. App features include: - Insert and edit notes and other notation elements - Virtual Keyboard for entering notes - Insert and edit chord and fret symbols - Display and edit lyrics - Export scores as high quality PDF files - Select from 19 score templates - Edit score structure (add/delete staves) - Transpose scores - Automatic part extraction - MIDI play back with 128 selectable MIDI instruments - Load scores from the scorio database - Publish your scores - Continue to work on the scores in your account on PC, Mac and other tablet devices

Screenshots

Ensemble Composer4 screens
Music Notator4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Ensemble Composer at 77% against Music Notator's 10%. Ensemble Composer also leads on rating (4.6 vs 1.7) and ratings volume (276 vs 7). Music Notator's advantage is price ($8.99 vs $14.99) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 17.6). On update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Ensemble Composer costs $14.99 and Music Notator $8.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Ensemble Composer holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 1.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ensemble Composer has 276 ratings behind it against 7, 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 10% of Music Notator's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Ensemble Composer versus Music Notator: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterEnsemble ComposerMusic Notator
Price$14.99$8.99 — better
Rating4.6 (276 ratings) — better1.7 (7 ratings)
Positive reviews77.4% of reviews — better10.3% of reviews
Number of ratings276 — better7
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.69.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size15 MB113 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperN. Wheelerscorio GmbH

Customer experience

Ensemble Composer

All ratings275 ratings
Positive90.5%
Neutral2.2%
Negative7.3%
Written reviews84 reviews
Positive77.4%
Neutral7.1%
Negative15.5%

Music Notator

All ratings7 ratings
Positive14.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative85.7%
Written reviews39 reviews
Positive10.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative89.7%

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 more
  • 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 more
  • 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

Music Notator

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Ensemble Composer

No in-app purchases

None

Music Notator

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Ensemble Composer free?
Ensemble Composer costs $14.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Music Notator free?
Music Notator costs $8.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Ensemble Composer or Music Notator?
Ensemble Composer is rated higher. Ensemble Composer averages 4.6 out of 5 from 276 ratings, while Music Notator averages 1.7 from 7 ratings.
Do Ensemble Composer or Music Notator have ads?
Neither Ensemble Composer nor Music Notator shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Ensemble Composer or Music Notator?
Ensemble Composer ships an update every 2 months, and Music Notator every 2 months. Most recently, Ensemble Composer was updated on October 29, 2026 and Music Notator on October 22, 2026.

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