Comparison

TC vs XPad

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

Head to head
About

TC

Experience unique sound synthesis through intuitive multi-touch gestures. This app offers a button-free performance environment where your touch movements generate all sounds. Discover diverse sonic landscapes and control instruments with taps, pulls, and stretches.

Highlights
  • Multi-touch performance environment
  • Gesture-based sound generation
  • No buttons, keys, or sliders
  • Downloadable patch packs
  • Transposition for key changes
  • Audiobus compatibility
Read full description

Explore unreal synthesis with the most unique performance control on iOS! TC-Performer presents a multi-touch performance environment unlike any other synthesizer. Simply touch the screen; there are no buttons, keys, or sliders to hit. The sounds are generated entirely by your touch movements. Each patch has a unique method of control. Pull, tap, drag, twist, and stretch your touches on the screen. There is no wrong way to play! Every instrument is a new landscape of sound creation. Pads, leads, effects, and indescribable oddities await. You can download more patches in packs inside the app. There is also a transposition section available to change the key of the patch to fit your song, and Audiobus compatibility to record via inter-app audio. Start exploring touch synthesis with TC-Performer!

About

XPad

This app provides professional pad sounds for keyboardists, aiming to replicate warm analog synth tones with advanced digital features. It offers intuitive glissando control, real-time sound morphing, and extensive MIDI compatibility for a dynamic playing experience.

Highlights
  • Modern pad sounds
  • Realistic glissando control
  • Tone Width morphing
  • Sensible sound controls
  • MIDI remote control
  • Extensive sound library search
Features
Read full description

XPad is a professional sound module app and Audio Unit v3 plugin with focus on modern pad sounds for iPad. Goal was to get the warm and vibrant sound of analogue synths onto the convenient platform of an iPad and combining those sounds with the benefits of state of the art digital features while still preserving that analogue tone and feeling. Glissando XPad introduces a new way that we were developing for our apps to achieve realistic large interval Glissando. You can glide a tone continuously e.g. from the lowest octave up to the highest octave and vice versa, in any desirable speed and without causing an artificial impression to the listener. We were also thinking about how to improve the usability aspects for playing Glissando in a much more intuitive & convenient way for a keyboard player, while still preserving the player's full control. Foremost this app allows you to mix Glissando with regular polyphonic notes (e.g. chords) simultaneously or switch between these playing styles quickly at any time without leaving your hands off the keyboard. For instance you might be playing and holding a chord with your right hand while playing a Glissando slide with your left hand and punching through the right hand's chord from an octave lower than the chord, up to some octave higher than the chord. Tone Width Replicating some analogue boutique pad synthesizers is nice, but what about having a huge stack of them? That's where "Tone Width" control comes into play. Especially the important pad sounds of this app allow you to morph the sound with the "Tone Width" knob in real-time steplessly between a very thin and clean sound up to a huge and fat tonal sound as if an army of pad synths was working under your finger tips. Sensible Control Controls for the individual sound aspects is good. But it should be in a sensible way. Nothing is hard wired here. Every sound of this app presents controls that make sense for the individual sound. All controls presented are always fine tuned to the individual elements of that sound. You can alter all controls remotely by MIDI e.g. with sliders at your keyboard. The most important controls for each sound are mapped to things that you are most likely using anyway at your keyboard. For instance all sounds use the Aftertouch information of your keyboard to bring more dynamic behaviour into the sound even while just holding some notes. And just grab your modulation wheel at your keyboard to bring in some more variance. Never Lost XPad offers up to 462 sounds, but don't worry, it never lets you down and always assists you finding just the sound you need in a glimpse. You can quickly search for sounds with any combination of several criteria like sound characteristics, articulations, controls and more. Connectivity Like all our apps, XPad is very easy to use and start with. Just connect your keyboard with your iPad and you are ready to go. And of course if needed, you can simply tweak the setup, e.g. use a Bluetooth MIDI wireless connection to your keyboard instead of a cabled one, restrict MIDI input to certain devices or apps, connect to other apps with Inter-App Audio or use the sounds of this app as Audio Unit v3 plugin directly in the DAW app of your choice. Recorder The app comes with a built-in MIDI recorder that allows you to quickly record your musical ideas. You can share them as audio files with other people or transfer them as MIDI files for further work e.g. on your Mac. Sound Sets XPad is divided into 14 optional sound sets of different sound categories and provide up to 462 sounds in total. Even though the app is focused on pad sounds, this is not all this app has to offer sound-wise. The "Atmo" pack for instance contains atmospheric sounds for generating very emotional sound bases and backgrounds e.g. for film and entertainment. The "Perc" sound set contains drums and percussive sounds. The "Silicon" sound set covers synthesizers also offside the pad field, and much more.

Screenshots

TC4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: TC at 4.6 against XPad's 3.8. TC also leads on review sentiment (78% vs 50%) and device support (3 vs 1). XPad's advantage is monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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

Both are free to download. TC sells 7 one-off in-app purchases and XPad sells 14 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

TC holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 42 and 24 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 78% of TC's written reviews are positive against 50% of XPad's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

TC ships an update every 5 weeks, XPad every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
TC versus XPad: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTCXPad
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (42 ratings) — better3.8 (24 ratings)
Positive reviews78.0% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings42 — better24
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksEvery 4 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPad
Requires iOS10.0 — better12.0
Further details — not scored
Size67 MB1.2 GB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBit ShapeChristian Schoenebeck d/b/a Crudebyte

Customer experience

TC

All ratings42 ratings
Positive90.5%
Neutral4.8%
Negative4.8%
Written reviews59 reviews
Positive78.0%
Neutral11.9%
Negative10.2%

XPad

All ratings23 ratings
Positive73.9%
Neutral4.3%
Negative21.7%
Written reviews12 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral16.7%
Negative33.3%

In-app purchases

7 purchases

TC

One-time7
  • Expansion Pack 1$0.99
  • Expansion Pack 2$0.99
  • Pad Pack 1$0.99
Show 4 more
  • Transposition$1.99
  • Core Pack$3.99
  • All Packs + Transposition$6.99
  • All Packs + Transposition$7.99
14 purchases

XPad

One-time14
  • Weirdo Sound Set$2.99
  • Pluck Sound Set$2.99
  • Metal Sound Set$3.99
Show 11 more
  • Bass Sound Set$3.99
  • Choir Sound Set$3.99
  • Altro Sound Set$3.99
  • Organ Sound Set$3.99
  • Percussive Sound Set$3.99
  • Silicon Sound Set$4.99
  • Vintage Sound Set$4.99
  • Atmo Sound Set$5.99
  • Space Sound Set$5.99
  • Nature Sound Set$5.99
  • Sequence Sound Set$5.99

Questions

Is TC free?
TC is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is XPad free?
XPad is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, TC or XPad?
TC is rated higher. TC averages 4.6 out of 5 from 42 ratings, while XPad averages 3.8 from 24 ratings.
Do TC or XPad have ads?
Neither TC nor XPad shows ads.
Which is updated more often, TC or XPad?
TC ships an update every 5 weeks, and XPad every 4 weeks. Most recently, TC was updated on October 24, 2026 and XPad on October 14, 2026.

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