Aparillo 4+

Spooky good. No doubt it can crank out bright and bouncy too. I just haven't gotten there yet. Only half way through the manual, of which, I probably only truely understand about a quarter 🤪. Any effort by developers (all developers, not just Sugar) to provide 'Help' is always appreciated, however, I really wish they would start by "defining their terms" in detail. The Sugar Bytes videos for Aparillo rank among the best I've seen from music app developers for an affordable iOS synth. That said, I may grab one of those apps that supposedly slows down video and audio without affecting the pitch ;) and rewatch them. Have barely dented sampling the presets because there are so many settings I can tweak I'm constantly getting rabbit-holed (I know, a real first-world sort of problem). Have been running it for several days as an AUM instrument and it is solid, not a resource hog (iOS12.3), and really "plays well with others." All the key controls/settings are also available for MIDI tweaking. My guess is, if you like Cyborg or Factory then you are going to appreciate Aparillo as much or more (probably more). Aparillo is a long-play generative music gem.

I'm a pro iOS dev and serious amateur musician who owns nearly every iOS synth app.

While there are many great iOS synths, Aparillo truly sets itself apart as a top-5 synth on this platform:

- 12 filter types x 5 spatial settings (pre- or post-filter) = 120 filter configs
- an orbit setting that is like a love-child between Animoog and Jasuto on steroids
- intricate & truly useful displays inside each fader that show current effect level and waveform info (hard to put in words, you have to see it to believe)
- tons of extremely usable presets that can be tweaked to infinity
- best-in-class reverb & delay quality, could pass for Eventide

There are a few cons, which is understandable since it is version 1.0.3:
- not obvious how to show all the MIDI CC mappings or change them; some are a simple long press but others (like mod source assignment) don't have a clear way to toggle between settings
- some UI graphics are low-rez/look pixelated on iPad Pro 11" (2020)
- only one init patch (would be nice to have more templates)
- does not respond to MIDI program change messages

The app used to be compatible with most mobile daws but they paywalled all compatibility in a recent update ruining thousands of projects. If you’re going to make something free, you can’t change your mind later, that’s gross. And don’t give a response saying “oh but us developers need money”, that’s what donations are for.