Octal: Pocket Synth
RYAN JAMES,GALANG ELLIS Music iPhoneiPadiPod touch
Octal: Pocket Synth is a free Music app for iPhone and iPad by RYAN JAMES,GALANG ELLIS. Rated 5.0/5 from 2 ratings. Requires iOS 26.0.
- Rating
- 5.0
- 2 ratings
- Price
- Free
- on the App Store
- Size
- 36 MB
- Age 4+
- Updated
- Oct 22
- 2026 · v1.2.0
Screenshots
About Octal: Pocket Synth
Octal turns your phone into an instrument. The eight buttons play chords or notes that always go together, so whatever you press sounds like music. The bead under your other thumb changes their mood or behavior as you play. MAKE A LOOP Press record and play a few bars. Open the wheel, pick drums or a bass, and play over the top. Swipe over to the Loop Deck to see your loop and change it bar by bar. TURN LOOPS INTO A SONG Pinch the Loop Deck and chain your loops into a song. SOUNDS Synths, keys, drum kits, textures and acoustic instruments, a tap away on the wheel. NEVER LOSE AN EDIT Every edit is kept. The history tool lets you wind back to any of them. SHARE IT Send the mix as an audio file, or send the loop or song itself to a friend who has Octal. Making music in Octal is free, with four saved loops and one song. THE FULL VERSION One purchase, no subscription. MIDI and stems to finish your song in a DAW, MIDI out to play other synths, the bead lab to make and keep sounds of your own, and as many loops and songs as you like. PRIVACY Octal collects no data. The microphone is only on while you record a sound or play a Vocoder.
What’s new
Version 1.2.0 · Updated October 22, 2026
• Real instruments: 30 new beads play recordings of real instruments. Grand and upright pianos, four electric pianos, guitars, basses, alto and tenor sax, a muted trumpet in Mute's place, horn stabs, strings, pizzicato, harp, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and four drum kits with brushes and hand percussion. • Four new palettes are built on them, and Daybreak, Timber, Velvet and Haze now play them too. A few synth beads that sounded almost the same as another are gone; loops you made with them still play them. • Hold your phone upright and Octal turns with it. Back, Record and Play sit between the bead and the buttons, and the Loop Deck and Song Deck have their own upright layouts. With Portrait Orientation Lock on, Octal stays upright; turn the lock off in Control Center to play it sideways. • On iPhone Duo, the shut phone turns upright too, with Back, Record and Play in a column under the camera. Open it held sideways and it splits down the fold: the bead and buttons on one half, the Loop Deck on the other. A deck you have out on the outer screen stays where it is when you open the phone. • The Song Deck has undo: Back takes back the song's last change, and holding Back shows the song's history, so you can go back to any step. • Exporting a loop no longer crashes Octal. The audio file, the MIDI file and the zip with every stem are written again.
App privacy
The developer, RYAN JAMES,GALANG ELLIS, reported these privacy practices to Apple.
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Alternatives to Octal: Pocket Synth
Looking for apps like Octal: Pocket Synth? Here are 6 similar apps on the App Store. The highest rated is ORPHEUS: Music Synthesizer (5.0/5), and all 6 are free to download.
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ORPHEUS: Music Synthesizer
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88 Synthwave: Retro Synth
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yawp — drifting loops
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midi-sink
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FrankenJazz
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SQIA: Organic Music Sequencer
| App | Rating | Price | Last updated | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octal: Pocket Synth | 5.0 / 5 (2 ratings) | Free | October 22, 2026 | |
| ORPHEUS: Music Synthesizer | 5.0 / 5 (1) | Free | Oct 13, 2026 | Compare |
| 88 Synthwave: Retro Synth | 5.0 / 5 (4) | Free | Oct 20, 2026 | Compare |
| yawp — drifting loops | 5.0 / 5 (4) | Free | Oct 17, 2026 | Compare |
| midi-sink | – | Free | Oct 22, 2026 | Compare |
| FrankenJazz | – | Free | Oct 13, 2026 | Compare |
| SQIA: Organic Music Sequencer | – | Free | Oct 14, 2026 | Compare |