COMPA 1.4 — From the Sound You Hear to the Part You Play

COMPA 1.4 is out. It reached the App Store on October 4, and the big features from the preview are available now. Existing owners get the update at no extra charge.

The thread through this release is what happens between hearing a sound and making something with it. A phrase might start in another app, in a recording, or on the gear beside you. Getting it into the session should leave you ready to play.

Give the sound somewhere to go

The new capture workflow can send supported app or web-player audio into CHOMP, Clips, Arrange, Takes or Quota DS. On iOS/iPadOS 27, you can hold a pad for a quick sample or keep a recording running while switching to the source. Audition it, then go back for another piece. Optional video capture can keep the picture attached too.

That is useful because the first thing you capture is rarely the finished part. You might want one sentence, a small sound inside it, or the moment just before the obvious one. The capture path gives that material a home inside the session. Source restrictions and system permissions still apply.

Read it, cut it, play it

Quota DS brings the transcript-sampling idea into COMPA: find the words, audition the phrase, refine the cut, and send it to a pad. The transcript stays with its source so you can return later and find another moment.

The DJ decks take the same material in a different direction. Put it on a platter, find cue points, loop it, change its pace, and record what you do with it. Pad Scratch keeps that approach close to an individual CHOMP sample. A sound can become a performed take and then another sample in the same project.

A bassline of its own

There is also something new to play without finding a source first: RD303, Raw Dog 303.

The bassline synth is included with COMPA, with a 128-step sequencer, pattern library and generation, modulation, stereo effects, and note/knob automation recording. You can play it inside COMPA or load its included AUv3 in a compatible music app. There is no separate unlock.

RD303 deserves its own story, and I’ll give its other platform releases their own announcements when they are ready. Here, it is part of what you get with COMPA 1.4 today.

October 5: following up on the first reports

Two quick hotfixes are already in Apple’s review queue. 1.4.1 addresses crackling when the SP-404 MKII is used as the audio output during Clips or DJ playback. A second CHOMP fix addresses a click when a new chromatic-keyboard note starts before the previous note has finished.

Those fixes are submitted, not yet confirmed available. I hope they will arrive in the next day or two; the review timing is up to Apple. The main 1.4 release and its features are already live.

Thank you for the reports that make the next fix concrete: which device was connected, what was playing, and what happened just before the problem. Send those details, along with your app version, to support@getquota.app.

Read the complete 1.4 release notes · Get COMPA