Groovebox - Beat Synth Studio

Legit, it’s super good! -kid angeles

This app is amazing the level of my Music production has drastically increased I can’t thank the owners and devs more for creating this app I’m so eternally grateful thanks really

Using this one for a few years and really enjoy it But Desperately needs flexibility with piano roll and playing. The sound sets are often updated but it feels like they’re just pushing these out instead of crucial updates to the actual workflow, just basic things other apps have. Which takes away from the experience. - pre count before recording - having to set bars before recording is frustrating instead of more fluidity with automatic loop bracing once you’ve laid down an idea - clunky piano roll, you can’t set the scale lock in the piano roll but can in the project, it doesn’t add up. Would honestly pay for these updates

Oh dip

Love it but it’s too much to transfer to Launchpad after buying hardware. I’ll change review when it’s done.

I come back to this for quick and satisfying creation on my phone and pad. Easy to work with - most things are automated and then you can tweak to your heart’s content. Sounds great and what you create can be exported in a mix or as stems to your DAW. It’s a pretty straightforward path to something that sounds exceptional.

This app is a great idea generator, it can generate starter loops for you to work off of. I’ve been having tons of fun playing around with. Time can just disappear when I’m using it! Sounds really top-notch and the add-on purchases are inexpensive and worthwhile. I’ve tried tons of music apps and this one really stands out. Update: another thing about this app: it’s one of the best-sounding soft synths I’ve worked with, and I’ve tried most all the big ones, on mobile and desktop. Falcon, HALion, Reaktor, Diva, V Collection, Animoog, the IceWorks synths, BLEASS, are among some I own and use regularly and this little app can hang with them. I don’t know why it sounds so good, it just does. A lot of soft synths only sound good with good monitors or headphones, but this one sounds good on a phone speaker. It lets me sketch whenever, wherever, with great, “final mix” quality sounds. It doesn’t do everything and there are a few features I really wish it had (song mode, ie chaining section being the major one) but I’ll tell you a secret: it’s very very difficult to make desktop music software work well with tons of features, and it’s pretty much impossible to make a mobile music app with a ton of different features and use cases. Especially for mobile, music apps really have to focus on doing a handful of things well, and not try to do everything. As much as I love Logic Pro, it tries to do everything on mobile and comes close to succeeding but it’s pretty unwieldy for use as a beatmaker/groovebox/sketchpad. This app advertises itself as a groovebox/beatmaker, not a DAW, so in fairness I have to keep that in mind.

Going in and adjusting the individual volume to off it’s just so archaic in 2024

Easy to use and lots of flexibility as long as you dont mind that you’ll never be able to use an odd time signature. You are forced to always have four beats per bar and the number of bars in a loop has to be a power of two for some reason (2, 4, 8 etc). Why no 12 bar parts? However I do very much appreciate that you can divide a beat into triplets though, that’s VERY nice; that has the benefit that you can then swing the beat in a triplet with the swing slider, so you can make a track in 6/8 sound natural. Not many drum machines make that so easy. Please just give us the ability to change the beats per bar!! Currently, time signatures like 9/8 or 5/4 or 7/8 etc are all impossible. There’s a whole universe of music that isn’t in 4/4!

I like Groovebox because the layout and simplicity of the app makes it so easy to create a good song sketch (for electronic music). Unfortunately, the app is missing features that would make it an amazing and complete sketch tool. For me, the biggest issue is the lack of MIDI out. If I could sketch a song in Groovebox, start with stock sounds - then set each track to a MIDI channel out to hardware or another DAW…this would be my main sketching tool. Other cons? - Very limited piano roll (It can’t be split by a specific note value) - No AU version - No audio channel outputs - Automation is mysterious and limited. (Can’t map to a controller? Is it using CC’s?) - Can’t record audio loops. (Which would be fantastic for developing vocals, adding guitar or something else) It seems like the dev has not intention of adding to this app; so, I’m looking at other apps, but this is good for someone new to music production.