Touch Notation vs Vinyl Record
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Touch Notation
Create musical scores with intuitive touch gestures. Draw notes, add expressions, and play back your compositions with 30 instrument voices. Export your work in various formats.
- Handwritten notation input
- 30 built-in instrument voices
- Tempo and dynamics control
- Page layout functions
- Transpose feature
- Multiple export formats (PDF, SMF, MusicXML)
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Touch Notation is a powerful musical score creation app that allows anyone to enjoy writing music using touch gestures. In Japan, Touch Notation was selected as one of the ‘App Store Best of 2014’ apps, and held the No.1 spot in the iPad Paid App index for music apps for over two weeks. Up until now, musical score creation software has relied upon dragging individual notes from a palette onto staves. By contrast, Touch Notation allows musicians to draw directly onto the score using a finger or touch pen, and have their work immediately appear as beautifully written notation, then played back using the app’s 30 built-in instrument voices. - A wide-range of functions accessible from a cleanly designed, intuitive user interface. - Ability to enter musical expressions for adjusting tempo and dynamics. - Layout functions such as page breaks. - Convenient transpose feature for raising/lowering the pitch of the entire score. - Output scores using Air Print, or save to Dropbox in PDF, SMF, MusicXML, and ScoreMaker formats. Touch Notation allows the following musical symbols to be entered by hand: - Note, Rest (including dotted and double-dotted), Long Rest, Beam, Tuplet (Triplet) - Grace Note - Accidental, Tie, Slur - Accent, Staccato, Tenuto, Fermata - Trill, sfz, Arpeggio, Pedal, Senza - Metronome symbol - Crescendo, Decrescendo - Dynamics symbols (ppp~fff) - Octave symbol - Repeat brackets - Repeat marks (D.C./Fine/D.S./Segno/Coda/to Coda) - Clefs (Treble Clef/Bass Clef/C Clef/Percussion Clef) - Key signature - Time signature - Bar lines (repeat marks) - Abbreviation Lyrics and other musical expressions (‘Dolce’, ‘Tranquillo’, etc.) can be added using text input, while comments and memos can also be written freehand directly onto the score. * Drum notation is supported, but other types such as rhythm notation and tab notation are not supported. * Older devices may experience stuttering when playing complicated scores with many simultaneous notes.
Vinyl Record
Experience your music library with a visual vinyl player emulator. Choose from various record patterns and colors to personalize your listening experience. This app requires music to be present in your Apple Music library.
- Plays music from Apple Music
- Animated vinyl record display
- Customizable record patterns
- Color customization for records
- No advertising
- No in-app purchases
- No tracking
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Vinyl records are back Vinyl Record is a vinyl player emulator for vinyl lovers It plays your music from the Apple Music app and shows an animated vinyl record. You have all your songs from your iPhone in the library ready. You have countless records with many patterns, for each pattern you can set any color no advertising! no in app purchases! no tracking! Have fun with the App! THIS APP ONLY WORKS IF YOU HAVE MUSIC IN THE APPLE MUSIC APP!!!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Vinyl Record at 100% against Touch Notation's 45%. Vinyl Record also leads on rating (4.5 vs 2.9) and in-app purchases (none vs 10). Touch Notation's advantage is ratings volume (21 vs 2) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.2). On ads, monetization model 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
Touch Notation costs $9.99 and Vinyl Record $3.99 up front. Touch Notation sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Vinyl Record asks for nothing beyond the download.
Vinyl Record holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 2.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Touch Notation has 21 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 45% of Touch Notation's written reviews are positive against 100% of Vinyl Record's.
Touch Notation ships an update every 3 months, Vinyl Record fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Touch Notation | Vinyl Record |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | $3.99 — better |
| Rating | 2.9 (21 ratings) | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 44.6% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 21 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 15.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 112 MB | 21 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | Alexander Rutkowskij |
Customer experience
Touch Notation
Vinyl Record
In-app purchases
Touch Notation
- Sound Set: Piano$0.49
- Sound Set: Guitar/Bass 1$0.49
- Sound Set: Strings$0.49
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- Sound Set: Brass/Woodwind$0.49
- Sound Set: Bell/Mallet$0.49
- Sound Set: Vocal/Others$0.49
- Core MIDI Output$1.99
- Handwritten Font$1.99
- Sound Set: Full$2.99
- Chord Name & Automatic Accompaniment$3.99
Vinyl Record
No in-app purchases








