ScaleGen vs Mix Bus Compressor
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ScaleGen
Generate and edit musical scales with intricate detail. Explore traditional and experimental tunings, audition your creations, and export them as MIDI files or to other applications. Ideal for composers and students seeking to expand their musical horizons.
- Generate and manipulate musical scales
- Detailed scale definition and editing
- Audition scales within the app
- Export as MIDI or to Gestrument
- Predefined scales from various traditions
- Explore microtonal and experimental tunings
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ScaleGen - the ultimate scale generator and editor! Generate and manipulate musical scales in any way you can imagine. You think you know what a scale is - think again. In ScaleGen you can do all that you would traditionally imagine when it comes to scales and pitch organisation, and then much, much more. Define or change scales in the most detailed and intricate way. Audition the scales you make from within the app or export it as a MIDI file or to our app Gestrument - the revolutionary gesture-instrument. This is the tool for anyone who wants to go beyond the traditional tonalities in whichever genre. ScaleGen comes with predefined scales of all kinds - from the traditional western scales and early music (Baroque/Renaissance) scales to asian scales from India, Indonesia and elsewhere as well as more conceptual scales based in the classical contemporary music. This is the ultimate tool for experimental composers in any genre as well as for musicians who want to explore new ways of thinking about music. The educational aspects of how pitches can be organised makes ScaleGen a must have for serious music students. But the directness of the app makes the learning both fun and artistically developing. What is a scale? For most people it is a collection of pitches within one octave, with equal temperament (all half tone steps equally long) or with microtonal intonation. That kind of scales are of course possible to make and edit in ScaleGen which gives you a keyboard with complete control of up to 24 pitches within one octave. But the most interesting things with ScaleGen is when you start to think of a scale as something more open. Consider these questions: What if your scale was different in every octave? Why must a scale always go from down to up? What if you could use a variation of the overtone series as a scale? How does it sound if you divide the octave in five steps instead of twelve? In ScaleGen we define a scale as any list of MIDI pitches that you can manipulate in many ways. You can start with a keyboard to input pitches, you can use the concept of the overtone series with multiplication of frequencies, you can define the number and size of the steps in the scale or you can import MIDI files and use them as scales. Then you can fine-tune your scale in a matrix with a number of tools. You can then try and play your scale directly in the app, using built-in sounds or control your favorite external synthesizer/app through MIDI. If you want to try and play on your newly created scales in another way we recommend you open them in the app Gestrument - the revolutionary gesture-instrument. But you can also save the scales as text, Scala, or MIDI files and open them in another program.
Mix Bus Compressor
This audio plugin offers ultra-transparent compression with exceptionally low harmonic distortion. Its unique design provides immediate response without adding latency or phase distortion, making it ideal for real-time audio processing. The scalable interface ensures a clear visual experience on all iOS devices.
- Ultra-low harmonic distortion
- Unique envelope follower
- Immediate response time
- No added latency
- No phase distortion
- Scalable user interface
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This compressor has the lowest total harmonic distortion of any plugin we have seen, including desktop units. At the heart of it is a unique envelope follower design that makes it possible to compress the signal without creating distortion harmonics. On the spectrum of compressor tone that ranges from "vintage analog" to "pristine digital", this plugin sits at the extreme end of low-noise digital clarity, but it is different from other low-noise digital designs because it doesn't use digital look-ahead. Therefore its response time is immediate, it adds no extra delay to the signal chain, and it works great for processing real-time performance effects. It uses no oversampling so there is no phase distortion or loss of high-frequency energy from anti-aliasing filters. It also uses no digital-style filters (FIR filters) and no digital look-ahead, so it adds no additional latency to the signal chain. Although it is not a model of an existing piece analog hardware, every component of its signal path is realizable in the analog domain. We think of it as a digital model of our ideal analog compressor: it could exist as an analog circuit but would be very expensive to build with physical analog electronic parts. The user interface is 100% scalable, designed specifically for iOS, so it looks beautiful at any screen size or orientation, from tiny portrait views in AUM on iPhone to the largest full-screen views on iPad Pro.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: ScaleGen at 4.7 against Mix Bus Compressor's 3.9. ScaleGen also leads on price ($3.99 vs $5.99). Mix Bus Compressor's advantage is update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 29 months) and device support (3 vs 1). On review sentiment, 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
ScaleGen costs $3.99 and Mix Bus Compressor $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
ScaleGen holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 12 and 8 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 71% of ScaleGen's written reviews are positive against 75% of Mix Bus Compressor's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
ScaleGen ships an update every 29 months, Mix Bus Compressor every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ScaleGen | Mix Bus Compressor |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $5.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (12 ratings) — better | 3.9 (8 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 70.6% of reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 12 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 29 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 — better | 10.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 25 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gestrument AB | Blue Mangoo Consulting Company Limited |
Customer experience
ScaleGen
Mix Bus Compressor
In-app purchases
ScaleGen
No in-app purchases
Mix Bus Compressor
No in-app purchases









