Topline vs Udio

Topline is Abbey Road Studios’ multitrack recording app for songwriters who want to capture music ideas. A project can contain up to three audio layers, with lyrics, notes, tags and pictures available to keep material together. Import audio from Mail, iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox; projects can also sync to those cloud services. Tags and a map feature help organize projects and identify where recordings were made. Users can export projects as M4A on iOS or MP3 on Android and share them by email. The help information also describes sharing a project WAV through the phone’s file-sharing system, and records audio at 44.1 kHz. iOS-specific tools include reverb with nine impulse responses, a mixer panel, Bluetooth headphone support and automatic mono-to-stereo conversion for imported tracks. Topline is free for personal, non-commercial use. Its terms require users to be at least 18 to accept them and download the app.

Udio generates songs from prompts describing a style, mood or theme, and each prompt produces two songs. Listed clip lengths are 32 seconds or 2 minutes 10 seconds. The Create page provides sliders and fields for refining tracks, experimenting and generating variations. Its library has search, filters, favorites, playlists and a trash bin for recovering deleted songs, while the player can share songs. Udio offers vocal generation and audio upload, but audio downloads—including stems—are disabled. Paid subscribers can upload audio for extending, inpainting, remixing, stylizing or editing in a waveform-focused Session editor; uploaders must own the rights, and commercial or copyrighted tracks are not allowed. The service is available on the web and iOS. The iPhone app supports track extension but not uploading, remixing, inpainting, styling or title-based song search; Udio says there is no Android app. Free service includes 10 daily and 100 monthly credits. Standard costs $10.00 per month, and Pro costs $30.00 per month.