Curiosity: Drambo vs Mela vs Audulus

Tentype

Wondering if anyone can speak to:

• sound quality
• Ease of use
• Versatility

Just curiosity here. I only know Drambo.

audiblevideo

Mela is modular like Drambo but not as hmmmmm… “versatile”. Mela has modules that can sequence, alter midi, audio modules that have lfos, waveform manipulation, and audio filters and fx. However, it is not as granular as Drambo, meaning building up from the smallest components. Audulus DEFINITELY can match Drambo in that component category and maybe exceed it.

Drambo has the honors when it comes to how you can use it, as it can be both a host and an AU both midi and FX. I don’t think either Mela or Audulus can be a host?

ALL of them have great sound quality. I would say Audulus is “harder” but is completely mitigated by all the prebuilt creations, as well as well presented tutorials from those involved in creating them.

Drambo has a giant community as well. People have created entire classic synths with it, pedal like fx, and lots of sequencers. As a note Drambo tries to help you when you’re patching by attaching the most common connections for you.

Just my opinion, but you could NOT go wrong with any of them. If you’re really interested visit the respective forums, or search the rest of this forum.

None of the get bad mouthed

espiegel123

@Tentype said:
Wondering if anyone can speak to:

• sound quality
• Ease of use
• Versatility

Just curiosity here. I only know Drambo.

I can't speak to Mela -- but Drambo and Audulus are totally different beasts for different uses-cases although there is overlap.

First thing to know: you can download Audulus and patches made for it for free. Download things that people have made for it and watch videos to get a sense of what people do with it. It has a serious learning curve and is capable of much that nothing else can do on iOS.

Drambo has more stuff ready to go out of the box and has elements like a sequencer and stem recorder and looper/sampler modules.

Audulus' great strength is in designing implementing effects and oscillators and synths not readily done in other apps. You can put the knobs and slider where you want them.

I really don't see them as Drambo and Audulus as having enough in common to think of them as a one or the other decision.

I've posted videos of a number of my Audulus projects and none of them would have been very feasible in Drambo...and most of what I use Drambo for would not be feasible in Audulus.

espiegel123

I've posted a number of Audulus patches on patchstorage.com

My projects don't even scratch the surface of what one can do.

rs2000

I agree with @espiegel123 here, they're very different apps with different patching concepts, different kinds of modules and different levels of knowledge required for building good patches.

When it comes to ease of use, I've seen no app that can be compared to Drambo. As deep as it can be, usability and sound quality have always been a major focus in app development and still, people who haven't got familiar with designing synth sounds or effects before will need some time to learn the ins and outs of modular synthesis, even more so with Audulus and its more flexible but also more atomic kind of modules.

Everything that Mela offers can be done in both Audulus and Drambo.
Drambo will add sequencing and song arrangement, both an elektron style step sequencer with p-locks and a piano roll, flexible handling of polyphony, easy preset management, MIDI control and a modular UI that lets you choose what part to focus on.
Drambo is also the only app of the three that will still run on an older iPhone 6 or iPad Mini 2/Mini 3. And it does so with respectable performance.

Only Mela offers a dedicated UI though which presents its functionality in a way that helps you get around the app easily which is true for most other synths as well.
So I would say that Mela wins for ease of use while the modulars win for flexibility and most likely also sound quality if you put enough effort in your design.

HotStrange

@rs2000 said:
I agree with @espiegel123 here, they're very different apps with different patching concepts, different kinds of modules and different levels of knowledge required for building good patches.

When it comes to ease of use, I've seen no app that can be compared to Drambo. As deep as it can be, usability and sound quality have always been a major focus in app development and still, people who haven't got familiar with designing synth sounds or effects before will need some time to learn the ins and outs of modular synthesis, even more so with Audulus and its more flexible but also more atomic kind of modules.

Everything that Mela offers can be done in both Audulus and Drambo.
Drambo will add sequencing and song arrangement, both an elektron style step sequencer with p-locks and a piano roll, flexible handling of polyphony, easy preset management, MIDI control and a modular UI that lets you choose what part to focus on.
Drambo is also the only app of the three that will still run on an older iPhone 6 or iPad Mini 2/Mini 3. And it does so with respectable performance.

Only Mela offers a dedicated UI though which presents its functionality in a way that helps you get around the app easily which is true for most other synths as well.
So I would say that Mela wins for ease of use while the modulars win for flexibility and most likely also sound quality if you put enough effort in your design.

I would say (imo) Mela is the best sounding of the 3 actually. Also would note that ease of use also transfers to using it as an effect and midi generator as well.

All 3 are great in their own ways but Audulus is…a lot. I’ve still barely scratched the surface of even started to. Need to find some good tutorials.

chaocrator

not an Audulus user, but using both Drambo and Mela.

Drambo is my main sequencer.

but for other jobs, e.g. building a synth patch or a MIDI processor that i'll reuse elsewhere, i use Mela much more frequently because usually it's just quicker.

Drambo is certainly deeper and can do a lot more, but that's also the reason why it's a total overkill for simpler tasks.

also, both can run on macOS (on Silicon Macs), but Mela is made with this scenario in mind, and Drambo is not, so has some quirks when runs on desktop.

Lorichs

What are the quirks of Drambo on desktop @chaocrator ?
I’m curious because i’m strongly considering buying a macbook pro but i will definitely still use Drambo as a plugin both as a synth, drum machine, midiFX, audioFX.

chaocrator

@Lorichs said:
I’m curious because i’m strongly considering buying a macbook pro but i will definitely still use Drambo as a plugin both as a synth, drum machine, midiFX, audioFX.

guess what? i bought 2020 Mac Mini to be able to run Drambo on desktop as well.

@Lorichs said:
What are the quirks of Drambo on desktop @chaocrator ?

nothing critical – but.
you certainly need to setup xGestures on macOS, otherwise some parts of Drambo's UI won't respond.
and some functions on desktop are not that immediate as on iPad because of that.

Lorichs

Thanks @chaocrator

Is there a wiki explaining these gestures?
I only found this on the web

solncekreeze

Does Mela have a midi learn analog? Maybe some kind of modulator performs this function?

Nikolozi

@solncekreeze said:
Does Mela have a midi learn analog? Maybe some kind of modulator performs this function?

There's the MIDI Source module which takes MIDI CC (or Note-on/off/Wheel) and can modulate any parameter in Mela.

solncekreeze

@Nikolozi said:

@solncekreeze said:
Does Mela have a midi learn analog? Maybe some kind of modulator performs this function?

There's the MIDI Source module which takes MIDI CC (or Note-on/off/Wheel) and can modulate any parameter in Mela.

Thank you very much. It's good.