What’s The Best New Mobile Music App Of 2015?

mobile-music-software

While 2015 has been a great year for new hardware synthesizers, its also been a big year for new mobile music software.

In fact, it’s starting to look like many developers are taking a ‘mobile first’ approach to developing music apps.

Here’s a round-up of some of the most important mobile music software introductions of 2015. We’ve focused primarily on apps for the Android & iOS platforms, because the combination of relatively inexpensive hardware and cheap software has made them the most popular mobile device platforms for music making.

What’s the best mobile music app of 2015? Here’s your chance to weigh in!

Pick what you think are the 3 best new mobile music applications of 2015:

We’ve included mobile music applications that were introduced or that received major updates in 2015.

After you’ve voted – leave a comment and share your thoughts on your favorite new mobile music apps of 2015!

Note: This poll will be open through the end of day, Dec 31, 2015.

Image: Seen From Space

33 thoughts on “What’s The Best New Mobile Music App Of 2015?”

  2. Patterning hands down, with Fugue Machine a close second. NB Auria Pro hasn’t been released yet and Ableton Link is still in beta.

    1. Patterning is ace but the midi clock timing on it is flakey so has no real world use outside of being a toy 🙁 maybe once a few updates are released 🙂

  3. Patterning is definitely an interesting approach to the drum machine, a thing I’m sure we are all very familiar with.
    It actually got me slightly interested in using my iPad for musical reasons.
    Which up until then I found useless, I’m hardware person.
    I don’t really like using my laptop unless it’s absolutely necessary.
    The touchscreen interface… It’s a step below the laptop I feel.
    It doesn’t lend itself to music making, at least in my opinion.
    I guess that’s why I’ve been buying up every good 4-track cassette machine I can find on eBay.

    1. If you use the Synthtopia site search at the top right of the page, you can find info an any of these apps.

      For each, there should be a link to either the manufacturer’s site or the appropriate app store.

    2. isnt the sense of this poll to decide on apps you like?
      if you read about them here for the first time, its obviously nothing you like so far 😉

  5. Unfortunately I only tried a few of them, but Borderlands 2.0 was truly a game changer for me.
    I vote Patterning as the most overrated app of 2015.

  7. Borderlands 2…Because making music with it shatters all preconceptions about what composition is supposed to be, the role time plays, and also it is just visually and graphically revolutionary. I know it is an older App, but the update for me makes it the most startling and new music creation toy I got to play with all year. No contest…except getting Alchemy on Logic Pro X…oops, wrong platform!

  8. Cyclop. IMO the most potent and versatile monosynth for IOS.
    Ableton Link looks very promising, but voting it The Best Music App of the year is downright rediculous as it is not an app, and its not even out yet.
    The fact that it has got a lot of votes indicates how much stable sync functionality is in demand though …

  11. Caustic 3 is not new but it’s still the best overall music app out there. Stable, low CPU load, versatile, works on Android and IOS (MacOS, Windows and Linux too!), and it’s free. Some of us are still using older iPads and newer apps are often very CPU-heavy… Caustic runs good even on older devices and it’s about as close to Reason-on-iPad as you can get. You can even run it directly off a USB drive with Windows (great for public computer use). Very cool.

  13. I gave my vote to Waldorf Attack Drums…which imho is THE DRUM MACHINE for iOS.

    Auria Pro and Ableton Link have “game change” potential, but still on the pipeline for a final opinion.

    Cyclope and Borderlands are my second choices.

  14. Patterning would be amazing if it actually slave sync to other gear. This great piece of software is useles because when synced to other apps or extermal gear the first bars are absolutely out of sync and about 20 points up in tempo. Several people asked the developer but no reply…

  16. Too tough a choice to pick just one. Ableton’s Link is a massive deal but it’s not an app, as such. Patterning, Soundscaper, the long awaited Borderlands 2.0, all Kymatika apps (Sector is especially excellent fun), Etc. etc. etc.
    Thank you to all the unbelievably talented, hard working, dedicated developers, without whom, iOS would be ‘just another tablet/phone’, instead of the best mobile/touch screen/fun platform for making music.

  19. I added it to “other” but I think midiSTEPs is my favorite iOS app this year.

    Ableton Link isn’t an iOS app! Also, Audiobus Remote should probably be on there.

  20. Didn’t see AnalogKit (released 2015)? Hands down my favorite app on the iPad! That one is for modular synth folk, it’s for music science projects.

  21. Why is it every time I vote I feel like I’m letting other favorites down. 🙂 I basically selected apps that I thought were new concepts or implementations rather than version increments that were great improvements on existing awesomeness. 😉

  22. Are you serious? Elastic Drums by Oliver Geschke is missing! How could you forget this innovative app, you can as well just select your favourite app yourself..

  23. Ableton Link is not an app. It’s built into the Audiobus SDK, which can be included free in any app. I have voted for other – ELASTIC DRUMS

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