The 10 Best New Mobile Music Apps Of 2014

korg-gadget

We’re continuing our round up of the best 0f 2014 with a look at the 10 best new mobile music apps of 2014.

z3ta-synthesizer-iosMobile music software was another category where there was an embarrassment of riches in terms of new apps, primarily on iOS. On Android, Caustic 3 remains one of the best examples of the platform’s potentials, while on iOS, it would be easy to get jaded by the steady stream of great new apps.

Based on trends towards the end of 2014, we expect to see developers giving Android more love in the new year, but for iOS to remain the dominant mobile music making platform for the near future.

Here is our take on the 10 best new mobile music making apps of 2014:

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The 10 Best New Mobile Music Apps Of 2014

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It was tough narrowing the list down to just 10 apps. Here are some of the other notable introductions of 2014:

What do you think of the state of mobile music making apps in 2014? And what was your favorite new mobile music app of the year?

37 thoughts on “The 10 Best New Mobile Music Apps Of 2014”

  1. Great list. But ZMORS modular is surprisingly getting very little love. Audulus definitely deserves all the kudos it gets and more… but ZMORS is freakin awesome as well!

  2. Yes, Audulus and ZMORS are great. If you’re going to count new versions of apps (e.g. Audiobus 2, Lemur 5) then I think Cubasis 1.8 should have made the list! Adding automation, MIDI CC controls, etc. was an enormous update. I also think VirSyn’s full Tera synth should have at least been considered, too. Strom should also get some love.

  3. As a single music creation tool the best release this year has to be Korg Gadget. In fact I’d argue it’s the best music app on iPad full stop. Nothing else allows creation of entire tracks so quickly and with such excellent audio quality. Bye bye Monomachine…

    1. Might want to add it is multi platform, ios, android and windows (which is free) , plus hugh forum backing it, downside is a bunch of loops available for it but on google play.
      By the ways caustic can used linearly ( non loop sequencer)

    2. My only complaints about gadget are … There is still no direct sampling, there is still no bussing or sidechaining, i cant edit the main reverb, no midifile is spit out on the big render, its hard to grab and move notes, in landscape mode there is hardly any view of sequencer window, the scale etc doesnt effect the midicontroller at all leaving you to play on screen only, editing samples is hit or miss and clippy in both abu dhabi and bilboa, some of the gadgets are a bit useless but thy were free, the sequencer is pretty hardcore terrible to mess with especially with no easy way to transpose whole passages without dragging, so to say it has a few things to go before i would take it to war against beatmaker2, and beatmaker3 is underway and will be out soon. Is gadget fun? Definitely! Is it “the one” definitely not.

  4. I’ve been more productive with Caustic than any other app including Gadget. And it’s only $10. More capability than you might think. Check out the tutorials on YouTube. The dev (just one guy) is a genius.

  5. Thanks for giving iOS music making some love. That’s a decent top 10 list, although mine would be a bit different, so I suppose I should put a list together. 🙂

    Definitely missing from the top 10 is TC-Data, which is a major game-changer. The other notable omissions are Egoist, Flux:FX, Ondes, and csSpectral

  7. I’d say Z3TA is my fave of the list, but Caustic is just amazing. Love love love it!! I still prefer Alchemy for loops and Audulus for modular, but Z3TA and Caustic rule.

      1. I believe they did fix it. I’m running iOS 8 on an iPad Air and I downloaded it about three weeks ago. It’s been working fine for me. Perhaps try a delete and reinstall? Admittedly, I don’t use midi a lot but everything I’ve done so far has worked. The audio is pristine.

  8. SpringSound. The best physical modeling synthesis app. A really different approach. Really new. Radical sounds. A must to have for arpeggiated and animated sequences.

    1. I completely agree. Though I really love LaPlace for making “instrument” sounds that are organic and musical sounding. SpringSound is a sound-design playground. So much potential from delicate and meditative to ear shredding and terrifying.

  13. All those apps are excellent, but I have to say Gadget is my favorite. I personally think it’s the best music app for the iPad to date. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoy using it. Kudos to Korg!

  14. There were quite a few apps that came late in the year that were fantastic, elastic drums, photophore, fm4, flux:fx, sparkle, voice rack fx, module etc. Overall though a solid list, I’d have trouble just picking 20, been a great year for music apps.

  15. Audulus for the iPhone is pretty cool, but very complex at the same time. I haven’t had much of a chance to really delve into it much. My favorite app of ’14 has been Novation’s Launchpad. Sure, it only provides for music loop and one-shot playback, but it’s a lot of fun to mix the parts and record them. I love the fx as well.

  17. How can this list be taken seriously even the slightest bit when Cubasis isnt on it, when FL Studio isnt on it, When Garage Band isnt on it, When SampleTank isnt on it??????????? I CALL BULLSH*T ON THIS ARTICLE, THIS LIST NEEDS TO BE RE-DONE BY SOMEONE THAT KNOWS MORE THEN JUST A QUICK GOOGLE SEARCH

    1. Saint Heretic – you might have misunderstood what a ‘best of 2014’ list is.

      Cubasis came out in 2012.

      GarageBand has been out for like 5 years.

      Sampletank came out last year.

      Not sure about FL Studio, but I think it’s been out a couple of years, too.

    2. Sampletank is aweful, when you are playing music and suddenly getting nagged to death by spam screens, and garageband of all apps is pne of the sorriest apps on the ios platform…both of these apps are terrible in actual use, and limitations, and getting files in and out…garageband could be so much better but apple takes the buy a daw computer stance like everyone else on that boat!

  18. iProphet is a decent synth but top ten? No. In too many sounds there are clicks when you press the keys and there are clicks even as the sound is evolving. It has some very nice sounds in it but these clicks make some of these sounds unusable for recording. Now, I understand that all the sounds don’t have these clicks but enough of them do have them meaning this app isn’t quite ready for prime time, and certainly not worth a mention in a top 10 list.

  19. I know this is a synth site, but BIAS is a 2014 app and the release of one of the best Guitar Amp sims on the planet on iOS is pretty big, can’t believe it wasn’t included. Can understand Flux:FX as it was released so late, but it should be looked at in 2015.

  21. Could you make it a bit easier to see right away which is for iOS and which is for Android?

    If someone isn’t using Apple, it would save a lot of time to mark it in some obvious way.

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