Koala Sampler • Beat Maker

Searched a long time to just edit and chop a Splice sample and quickly export the raw and sliced file. This is the one! Works great and intuitive to do this on a iPad instead of a computer.

I genuinely can’t believe how happy I am with this app. I use it on a 2025 iPad Pro with an Arturia minilab 3 midi controller, and I fell in love with making music again. No pc in my chain, just iPad and controller into a dock, dock into my dac, and I’m away without messing about with windows and impacting my current setup. It’s crazy how portable this is, and way cheaper than an akai setup. Only thing I’d like is, the ability to midi bind scrolling samples or navigating folders etc. (If that’s a thing, I haven’t found it yet). Seriously if you’re like me and want to have fun making music via sampling and looping, without a music degree or damaging your brain learning ableton, this is the way. Cheap, crazy simple and intuitive without missing important features, it’s a really non destructive additive workflow too. Seriously guys, well done! Now if you can add the scrolling via controller, I’d send you a kiss

The time stretching is an unrivalled option for iOS music making, but it is a paid option. Without it, you will not get a great experience (on a phone that is)
This is because the ui seems to have been made with an iPad exclusively in mind. On a phone, it’s resized but not scaled. The gestures and touch input are tailored to an iPad, which makes editing samples, using the keyboard roll and the sequencer a real pain to use.
For the stuff the free option offers, I would look towards anything else because it’s probably better at that. If you buy the time stretching option, you are still getting your moneys worth.

I’ve bought it the other day and kids and I loved it.
What I did run into was:
- lack of undo/redo option
Note for other users: For adding individual files instead of a folder you have to choose at step 2 the cloud icon (instead of 'add location') and then select on my iPad and follow all other steps the same way and then I'm able to play a sample and choose 'load' (of an individual track/sample and then add a a sample and play it. For a folder use the other option.

This my go to app for sampling and making nice tunes and Marek made me buy the 404 MKII.

As a software alternative for the SP-404 it already had 4 stars for me, but it went to 5 with the recent update. Now it also integrates with Roland’s hardware. From competitor to companion… a collaboration where the user wins, great work!

A fantastic tool!
There is no undo? A minor swipe can erase a sample. Happened again yesterday.

Having tons of fun with Koala! Simple and fast with samples, sampling anything, jamming stuff and using it with AUM to play and record. Well worth the price, also get the add ons!

Still trying to figure out the sequencer and performances but I got it to have a sampleplayer and this works great. Would be nice however to give names or colors to the pads. More easy to know where wich sample is. Hans

Love this app . What I really
Like to see on this is individual holds on the performance effects.

That would be great if i could add/remove notes in a grid like sequencer.
After a few weeks of use , i think the samples goes off in pitch or speed after a while. A loop i recorded in 85bpm and playing perfectly in first few days , now started to go off in beat. I chcked sample’s pitch as well as the pitch effect in perform mode. They are both off. Don’t know why this happens but makes the app unreliable

Like the app, but interaction with AudiOShare fails each time. Hope they’ll fix that.
Buscrates brought me here. Really enjoying Koala. Highly recommended!

Koala is a fun and effective app for making music. It has a very clean and fast workflow. It helps me to experiment and approach music making in a playful way. By recording sounds with the microphone effects or by resampling with the performance effects, you can create an unlimited ammount of interesting sounds from recordings made with everyday objects. The sequencer lets you quickly build and develop loops.
The developer (who is active on the Audiobus
Forum) is open for suggestions and has already announced an upcoming update which will allow sample import via AudiOShare. I have no doubt he will also add other extras in future updates.
If you, like me, have a tendency to get lost in all the options that DAW‘s have and would like to concentrate on making music without thinking to much, I highly recommend Koala. It is easy to use and uncluttered, yet offers the right tools to experiment and develop your ideas in an intuitive way without thinking to much.
Great app and amazing value for the money!

Think of it like a simple sampler like an Roland sp 202/303. With some limitations, but lots of creativity. Samples can be played in scale. Output can be resampled. Bought it on day one release, more features are coming. Dev is active on the Audiobus forum.