BREAKBOLTBREAKBOLT · GUIDE
From one sound
to a finished beat.
This guide follows the order you make a beat in: load a sound, chop it, shape the pads, build a pattern, mix, resample, export. Every feature is covered on the way, along with why it works the way it does.
01FIND YOUR WAY AROUND
Two pages, one panel, and a beat already loaded
BreakBolt opens with a starter kit across all four banks, so there's something to tap straight away. Everything lives on two pages and one panel:
- PADS holds the source sound, its waveform with the cuts, and the 16 pads of the current bank. Tapping a pad plays it and selects it.
- STEPS holds the selected pad's 16 steps as a 4×4 page, with PLAY. ALL PADS opens every pad's row in one 16×16 grid with the full transport.
- MIX holds the master effects. It slides up over the page on a phone, so the pads stay reachable.
The header holds the tempo (− / +), the detected KEY, the REC light, and UNDO / REDO. There are 4 banks (A–D), so 64 pads in all.
The first flip
On first launch, FIRST FLIP IN 60 SECONDS walks you through a whole beat in six steps. Each card highlights the control it means and sits on the other half of the screen, so it never covers it. A step completes when you do it.
LOAD A SAMPLE. Import a file, or tap RECORD and record into the bank.
PLAY A SLICE. Tap a pad. Each one is a slice of that sample.
MAKE A PATTERN. Open STEPS and tap a cell.
SEE EVERY PAD. ALL PADS shows the whole bank at once, one row per pad.
SHAPE THE SOUND. MIX opens the effects for the whole beat.
EXPORT THE LOOP. Save it when the pattern is worth keeping.
Tips
After the walkthrough, a one-line TIP explains each of fifteen controls the first time you touch it: pad settings, chop modes, zoom, lock markers, USE BPM, scale lock, gate, swing, velocity, MET, RND, CLR, MIX, RECORD LIVE and EXPORT LOOP. GOT IT dismisses it for good. SKIP closes the walkthrough; Settings → SHOW FIRST FLIP brings it back, and Settings → TIPS switches tips off or shows them all again.
Why it opens on a kit
Many beat apps open on an empty project and a manual. BreakBolt opens on a playable kit, and the walkthrough has you make a beat with it, so you play something before you open a menu. Each tip appears once, the first time you touch its control.
02LOAD A SOUND
Five ways onto a pad
Mix them freely within one bank. The first fills the whole bank; the others touch one pad.
Whole bank
Chop a sample
RECORD or IMPORT, under the pads. One sound is sliced across all 16 pads of the current bank. Tap STOP to end a recording.
Empty pad
Record onto one pad
Long-press an empty pad to record a one-shot straight onto it.
Empty pad
Pick from the library
Tap an empty pad to browse the Sound Library and assign a sound to it.
Loaded pad
Replace what's there
Long-press a loaded pad and choose RECORD OVER THIS PAD or CHOOSE FROM LIBRARY.
Loaded pad
Resample your mix
RESAMPLE MIX TO THIS PAD records one bar of the live pattern, effects included, onto the pad. See Resample.
Good to know
Your files are copied in
Recorded and imported audio is copied into the app, so deleting the original from Files later can't break your project.
- RECORD and IMPORT replace the bank's auto-chopped pads. Pads you recorded onto or filled from the library are kept.
- With the metronome on (ALL PADS → MET), recording onto a pad counts in one bar first and starts on the downbeat. The bank RECORD button starts immediately.
- Imports are capped at 60 seconds. A longer file is chopped from its first minute, and BreakBolt says so.
03BROWSE THE LIBRARY
2,235 sounds, all included
The library holds 24 sounds built into the app, always available offline, plus 72 packs you download on demand from Apple's servers. Open it by tapping an empty pad, by choosing CHOOSE FROM LIBRARY on a loaded one, or from Settings → SOUND PACKS → MANAGE.
- One pack at a time. Downloading Cowbell Kit doesn't pull in the other percussion packs.
- Search across every pack, downloaded or not, and preview any sound with ▶ before USE assigns it.
- CANCEL stops a download; a stalled one gives up after a while and offers RETRY.
- REMOVE DOWNLOAD frees the space. Browsing back to the pack downloads it again.
The built-in melodic set is tuned: the mallets form one interval spread and the bells a C major chord, so they sit in tune with each other.
Why every pack is included
Selling sound packs one by one is common in this category. Here every pack is in the price, including packs added later, with no in-app purchases. Packs download individually so a phone with little space only stores what you use.
04CHOP IT
How a sample becomes sixteen pads
Choose under CHOP, just below the waveform. Switching re-chops immediately, and you can undo it.
EQUAL
Sixteen slices of identical length. Predictable, and works on anything.
HITS
Slices start on detected transients, spread across the whole sample, so every pad begins on a real hit. Best for drums. Falls back to an even chop if it can't find enough hits.
BEATS
Slices land on sixteenth notes at the detected tempo. Best for loops already in time. Falls back to an even chop when no tempo was found.
Move the cuts by hand
- Changing the chop mode discards hand-placed cuts.
- Pads you recorded onto or filled from the library are kept when you re-chop.
- The waveform draws what each pad really plays. A pad's trimmed start and end are faded inside its slice, and a pad holding its own sound has its whole slice faded.
- A bank filled pad by pad has no source to chop, so the waveform and CHOP row are hidden, and the status line counts the loaded pads.
Why it chops for you
Chopping by hand means placing sixteen markers by ear before anything is playable. HITS and BEATS do that first pass for you from the audio itself, so the kit plays the moment it loads, and the handles are there for the cuts you want to fix.
05LOCK KEY & TEMPO
Key and tempo, detected on load
After a whole-bank load, BreakBolt analyses the sample in the background. The key shows in the header, and the row above the pads offers two controls:
USE 120 BPM
Shows the tempo it found. Tap it to set the pattern to that tempo, so the beat and the sample line up. It can be undone, and tapped again any time to re-sync.
SCALE LOCK
While it's on, pitching a pad snaps to the nearest note in the detected key. The pad sheet shows LOCKED TO and the key. Turn it off for full chromatic control.
Why Scale Lock
Pitching chops is how a melody comes out of a sample, and it's where beginners drift out of key. Scale Lock keeps every pitched pad inside the sample's own key, so you can play melodies without knowing music theory.
06SHAPE EACH PAD
Seven settings on every pad
Tap to play. Pads never cut each other off: two at once layer, and re-hitting one restarts it. Each loaded pad shows a small waveform and its length. Long-press a loaded pad to open its settings.
TRIM: shorten one pad, leave the rest
TRIM shows the pad's own sound in detail, so even a 0.2-second hit fills the strip. Drag sideways to move S (start) or E (end). A drag takes whichever handle is nearer, so you don't have to hit the thin line. The faded parts don't play, and each cut gets a few milliseconds of fade so it never clicks.
- The readout shows the kept range, such as 0:00.081 – 0:00.303, and PLAYS 0:00.222.
- PLAY auditions the pad; RESET restores the full length.
- In the sequencer, GATE counts from the trimmed start.
- Giving the pad a new sound resets its trim. The trim is saved and undoable.
Why TRIM exists
Moving a cut on the waveform always changes two pads: one gets longer as the next gets shorter. TRIM is the other half: it cuts one pad without touching its neighbours, so you can tighten a snare's tail without shifting the hat after it.
Pads give a light haptic tap when played, following your iPhone's system haptics setting. With VoiceOver on, each pad reads out its number, its name, and whether it holds a sound.
07BUILD A PATTERN
Sixteen steps, one bar, two views
Tap a pad to select it, then open STEPS. Step 1 is top-left, reading across, so the four rows are the four beats. Tap a cell to turn it on; the bar inside a lit cell is that step's velocity. The playhead lights the step that's sounding.
One pad
STEPS FOR THIS PAD
The selected pad's 16 steps as a 4×4 page, big enough for thumbs. Pick another pad on PADS to program it.
Every pad
ALL PADS
Every pad's row in one 16×16 grid with the full transport. THIS PAD returns to the 4×4 page.
Transport
Groove
SWING
0–100%. Pushes every second sixteenth later, up to half a step, for a looser, shuffled feel. The playhead stays on the grid; only the sound moves.
GATE
How long a step may sound, from 5% of a step to the whole pad. Lower is tighter and choppier. Short gates fade out so they don't click. Long sounds need it near 100%.
VEL
Level for the selected pad's steps. Moving it sets every lit step of that pad and the level new steps get.
Why the audio clock
The sequencer is scheduled against the audio clock, not the screen, so the beat stays in time while you scroll, open panels, switch apps or lock the phone. All 64 pads stay live whichever bank is on screen, so one pattern drives every bank at once.
08MIX IT
One chain for the whole beat
Tap MIX at the top. Effects apply after all 64 pads are mixed, in this order: distortion, filter, delay, reverb, then a limiter so sixteen pads at once can't clip.
DISTORTION
0–100% grit and drive on the whole mix.
FILTER
Tap LP / HP to switch low-pass and high-pass. Cutoff sweeps 200 Hz to 20 kHz and reads OFF at whichever end is neutral.
DELAY
0–100%. SYNC sets the delay time as a note value (1/4, 1/8, 1/8T, 1/16) from the tempo, so repeats land on the beat. FREE keeps a fixed 0.25 s.
REVERB
0–100%, from a touch of room to a wash.
Every effects move can be undone, and one drag is one undo step. Sweeping the filter while the loop plays is one of the quickest ways to build tension.
09RESAMPLE & GO AGAIN
Turn the whole loop into one sound
Long-press a pad → RESAMPLE MIX TO THIS PAD. BreakBolt plays one full bar of your pattern, records everything playing (all four banks, with the master effects) and puts the result on that pad. Pads you tap during that bar are recorded too. A loop that was playing keeps playing.
That pad can then be trimmed, pitched, reversed and sequenced like any other. Put it on a step, pitch it up, trim it to its first hit, and the old loop becomes a new part.
- The button is disabled while the pattern is empty, since there'd be nothing to record. The line under it says so.
- A resampled pad is a full bar long. Raise GATE if it cuts off in the sequencer.
Why one bar
One bar of sixteen steps is a deliberate limit. Resampling is how you get past it: bounce, then play the bounce. Each bounce frees the grid for the next layer.
10GET IT OUT
Three ways out
At the bottom of the screen. Each opens the iOS share sheet: AirDrop, Files, Messages, or straight into another app.
EXPORT LOOP
One bar as a WAV, aligned to the downbeat and cut to an exact frame count, so it loops cleanly in a DAW. Then SHARE AUDIO. Disabled while the pattern is empty.
RECORD LIVE
Records the master output while you play, for as long as you like. Tap STOP to finish.
MAKE VIDEO
A vertical MP4 of the last export or take with a BreakBolt title card, sized for short-form video. Then SHARE VIDEO.
Files are WAV rather than Apple's CAF, so they open anywhere, including Windows, Android and every DAW. They're named with the kind, tempo and time, like BreakBolt Loop 100BPM 2026-10-17 1432.wav.
Why the export is exact
A loop that's a few milliseconds long or short drifts after a few repeats in a DAW. The export is exactly one bar to the sample, starting on the downbeat, so it lines up on the first try.
11KEEP SEVERAL PROJECTS
As many projects as you like
Open Settings → PROJECT → MANAGE. Each project has its own four banks, its own pattern, and its own copies of every sample, so working on one never affects another.
- Tap a project to open it. The one you were in is saved first.
- NEW PROJECT starts an empty one.
- ••• on a row offers Rename, Duplicate and Delete. Duplicating copies the samples too, so the copy survives if you delete the original.
BreakBolt reopens whichever project you had open last.
The one thing you can't undo
Deleting a project deletes its samples, including recordings that exist nowhere else. BreakBolt asks first.
CLEAR BANK
Empties the bank you're looking at, and its rows in the pattern. Asks first, and can be undone.
CLEAR ALL
Empties all four banks and the whole pattern. Asks first, and can be undone.
12UNDO & SAFETY
Autosave, undo and recovery
- UNDO / REDO cover loading samples, chopping and moving cuts, every pad setting including trims, pattern edits, swing, gate and velocity, tempo, and effects, with 50 steps of history.
- There's no save button. The project saves itself continuously, and again whenever the app goes to the background.
- Crash recovery is automatic. The app reopens as you left it.
- Background audio: your loop keeps playing when you switch apps or lock the screen.
- Interruptions: a phone call, an alarm, or another app taking over audio stops the transport cleanly; PLAY or a pad tap brings the sound back. Unplugging headphones or connecting Bluetooth mid-pattern is handled too.
Why it stays on the device
Everything runs on the device: no account, no sign-in, no cloud, no tracking. Your recordings leave the phone only when you share them.
13SETTINGS
The gear icon, top right
Project
Which project is open, MANAGE to switch or create one, CLEAR BANK, CLEAR ALL, and SHOW FIRST FLIP to replay the walkthrough.
Appearance
LIGHT, DARK, or SYSTEM, which follows your device setting.
Layout
TABBED keeps PADS and STEPS as separate pages. UNIFIED stacks them on one scrolling page. Phone layouts only.
Tips
ON or OFF for the one-time tips, and SHOW ALL TIPS AGAIN.
Starter kit
The 64 sounds bundled across banks A–D that a new install opens with.
Sound library
MANAGE to browse, download or remove packs. See Browse the library.
14ON IPAD
The page, plus an inspector beside it
With the extra width, the page you're on fills the main column and an inspector sits beside it: the selected slice on PADS (waveform, start / end / length, SNAP ZERO-X, gain), or the selected pad on STEPS (sample, length at the current gate, pitch). The MIX panel opens as a further sidebar instead of over the page, and pad size is capped so sixteen pads stay pad-sized.
All four orientations work. On a narrow iPad, such as a mini in portrait or any iPad in a narrow Split View, there isn't room for the inspector, so you get the phone layout. Phone layouts adapt to every iPhone size.
15TROUBLESHOOTING