Chiptunes Pro vs BitClip
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chiptunes Pro
Create retro-style music by wiring together virtual electronic components. No prior electronics knowledge is required to build drum beats, basslines, and melodies. Enjoy a unique blend of circuit design and music creation.
- Create retro music with chips
- Wire together circuits
- Lay down drum beats, basslines, and tunes
- No electronics knowledge needed
- Audiobus support for live streaming
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Winner of the "Most technically impressive" award in the Ray Wenderlich Readers' App Awards 2014! “I never knew how Chiptunes actually worked before playing around with this app. Very cool and definitely got me in a retro vibe!” – Ray Wenderlich “A crazy mashup of circuit design and music making: Wire together circuits to lay down some cool jams.” – Nick Lockwood “SPICE meets garage band.” – Erik Kerber Chiptunes Pro lets you make retro music the way it should be made - with chips! Build your circuit to lay down drum beats, basslines, and tunes. No knowledge of electronics needed! Chiptunes Pro includes all the components that are available in the free Chiptunes app, including those that are only available as in-app purchases. Chiptunes Pro also includes Audiobus support: stream live audio directly to other Audiobus-compatible apps. See http://audiob.us for more information.
BitClip
This audio effect plugin combines bit-crushing and soft-clipping for lo-fi distortion. It mimics vintage hardware sounds with adjustable bit-depth and gain, offering subtle degradation to gnarly distortion with low CPU usage.
- Bit-crushing effect
- Soft-clipping distortion
- Warm mode for vintage hardware sound
- Adjustable bit-depth (4-16 Bit)
- Variable gain for distortion
- Low CPU usage
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BitClip Bit Crusher / Soft Clipper Plugin (AUv3) BitClip is an audio effect plugin that can run standalone, or in any AU compatible host application such as Logic or GarageBand. Overview BitClip combines bit-crushing and soft-clipping to create lo-fi distortion effects. From subtle, retro degradation, to gnarly diode-emulated distortion, BitClip can deliver, with a very low CPU cost! In "Warm" mode, BitClip's DSP has been tuned to mimic the sound of actual hardware, instead of just performing a simple bit-crush calculation. As a result, some of the higher frequencies normally associated with the effect are attenuated. Both effects work well in tandem, especially when trying to bring the character of old hardware samplers and drum machines to sounds that would otherwise be too "pristine". Parameters Active - Set to Off for bypass / no processing. Warm mode adds a bit of vintage character to the processing, attenuating some high frequencies, although this is not a simple LPF. Bright mode essentially bypasses the Warm mode processing with no added tonal colouration. Out - Sets the output level. This can be used to attenuate the overall volume of the effect. For example, you can smash the Gain going into the clipper, then back-off the Out level so the track doesn't dominate your mix. At the maximum setting, no attenuation is applied. Crush - Toggles bit-crushing On or Off. Depth - Sets the desired bit-depth of the crushing from 16 Bit down to 4 Bit in 1 Bit intervals. In vintage hardware, devices would often be 8 or 12 Bit, whereas BitClip allows you to explore unusual values in-between. For example, 5 Bit provides much more clarity than 4 Bit, but can still sound satisfyingly crunchy! Clip - Toggles soft-clipping On or Off. Gain - Sets the gain applied to the signal going into the soft-clipper. Depending on the level of the incoming signal, lower settings may not sound obvious, but clipping will still occur, creating a subtle distortion effect and preventing any signal through that's over 0dB. With up to 48dB of gain on tap, BitClip can drive pretty much anything into nasty diode-like distortion! For more info and support please visit: www.waverley-instruments.com/robjackson
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Chiptunes Pro at Free against BitClip's $1.99. Chiptunes Pro also leads on iOS requirement (7.0 vs 12.0). BitClip's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 3.8) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 months). On 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
Chiptunes Pro is free to download; BitClip costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
BitClip holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 4 respectively.
Chiptunes Pro ships an update every 3 months, BitClip every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chiptunes Pro | BitClip |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $1.99 |
| Rating | 3.8 (6 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 80.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 12.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Simon Booth | Rob Jackson |
Customer experience
Chiptunes Pro
BitClip
In-app purchases
Chiptunes Pro
No in-app purchases
BitClip
No in-app purchases









