Koala Sampler • Beat Maker

Before I start, I would like to say that I absolutely love this app. The fact that a mobile application is capable of doing 90% of what a 500$+ drum machine can do is absolutely unbelievable. I can tell that care and love was put into the development of this amazing app. I love the community surrounding the app, and most importantly, the things I have been able to achieve thanks to this app. Koala has truly become a daily routine to my everyday life as I continue to learn how to produce and finger drum, and even if one day I decide to get an actual drum machine, I will still remember that this is where I started. I have basically had no problems while using this app with a very smooth ui and a pretty nifty set of features. However, I only run into one problem, which is my request. I would love to see a bpm detection feature added to the Samurai Edition, a feature that is capable of detecting the bpm of any sample that is dragged into a project, similar to popular daws such as Ableton. In my opinion, this will be a game changer for the app and practically replace the use of a DAW almost fully, and if not, work perfectly hand and hand with one. Again, thank you (the developers) for making this amazing app that allows me to better myself in beatmaking and further mark myself in the drum machine culture. I hope you can read this!

This is the best multisampler app I’ve tried so far on iOS by far. The features here rival those of some of the best hardware samplers with only a couple of minor limitations. You can sequence full tracks within the app pretty easily, the entire workflow from getting and manipulating samples to sequencing and exporting the song is pretty straightforward and the stems extraction feature is only seen in one other sampler I know of so far which is only available on pc/Mac so this is cutting edge sampling capability for a mobile software. As a producer/engineer that started his journey early 90’s on an Ensoniq Eps16+ I miss having the ability to quickly chop samples and build kits, I use GarageBand iOS for recording on the go but the main features missing fom GarageBand iOS are available by using this apps Auv3 version as a plugin or dumping sequences thru IAA and both methods work pretty well I must say. There are 2 main features I’d like to see added that would make it a more comprehensive sampler, those being the ability to layer sounds nondestructively (currently you have to resample) and the ability to map key zones for sampled instruments. There are a few other tweaks if I were to nitpick but I rated it 5 stars anyway because this app is beyond awesome for what it does and I’m sure feature improvements will be equally dazzling.

Amazingly designed app. Incredibly fun and inspiring to work with. And the extra (very reasonably priced) add-ons greatly increase functionality. I’ve only had this app for a couple days and I already have multiple projects going. That said, I have run into multiple bugs during the short time that I’ve been playing around with this app, including one in which the audio can suddenly become incredibly loud and distorted. No fun if you’re wearing headphones.. Also, I have to deduct one star because I feel the the app could benefit from a couple basic features. As someone who works with a lot of ambient, drone-type samples, I believe the sample editor desperately needs some sort of loop crossfade functionality. Also, simple LP/HP filters would go a long way. All in all, a very powerful and fun app. Would highly recommend to anyone. Will update my review when the bugs are inevitably ironed out. Update: After some bug fixes and the recent inclusion of sample crossfade functionality, I can now say that this app is pure perfection. Amazing job by the developer!