Imogen Heap, Flux Pavilion and Exile are on Endlesss. The low buy-in is a massive plus and makes this an app you’ll want to keep coming back to.Īnother plus point is the talent on the platform. Its creator even describes it as WhatsApp for music, the idea being that it’s a conversation. It’s all about building on the ideas of the community. There’s never any pressure to create a full track. Endlesss (iOS)ĭesigned by Tim Exile, the mind behind Native Instruments’ The Finger and The Mouth, Endlesss encourages users to create short loops called rifffs, which they then offer up to the community. This is an iOS-only application, though we hope Arturia brings it to Android, as we were quite pleased with SparkLE when we reviewed it in 2013. You can also hook it up to a SparkLE controller and integrate it with Ableton Link. It boasts a 16-track mixer with effects that include a multiband compressor, EQ, chorus, reverb, delay and distortion. Shuffle and shift modes can be used to humanise patterns that might otherwise sound robotic, and performance effects cater for experimental grooves. Its sounds are based on some of the most well-loved drum machines and acoustic kits combined with Arturia’s first-class sound design.

Arturia iSpark (iOS)Īrturia’s iSpark features 40 drum kits and 640 instruments to play and sequence with. Those with limited storage will have to be careful not to overload on sounds as well, as they take up a lot of space.

You’ll need to make a few in-app purchases to get the best sounds, though there’s an offer at the moment that gives you Zenbeats Unlock for free. Unfortunately, despite its great intentions, it can be fiddly and almost has too many features. You can create multi-track projects and export them to your DAW, and use it alongside other apps with AUv3 support. The best free mobile apps for making music – at a glanceĪfter purchasing Stagelight, Roland rebranded the mini music-making station to Zenbeats and packed plenty of genuine vintage Roland synth and drum machine sounds into it. There are a few reasons for this though namely that Android lacks a standard protocol for MIDI and it’s difficult to create apps that are compatible with the hundreds, possibly thousands of phones that are running Android.ĭon’t worry though, some of the apps here that are available on Android will keep you busy for hours. You’ll notice that quite a few of these apps are only available on iOS.

READ MORE: Best freeware for music-making: Top free apps, DAWs, plug-ins, instruments and more.

Each one has a slightly different approach to creating tracks, so have a look through and see which one will best suit your needs. Here are some of our favourite free music-making apps for mobile devices.

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