SpellSynth Downloads & RevenueSpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth · App Store
SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth is #123 in Music Paid in Japan and charting in 1 of 30 countries we track.
Updated 11 Nov 2026 · rankings refresh through the day
DeveloperChih Han Lin
CategoryMusic
Price2.99 USD
Released
Rating★ 3.2 (11)
Version1.5.0
Age rating4+
First seen by us
25 Sep 2026
25 Sep 2026Installs (est.)1k+ worldwide
SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth update history & changes
Last change · 31 events since 22 Apr 2026Full timeline ↓📈Dropped out of every chart we track💰Price rise📈Charting in a new country✏️Description updated✏️Description updated📦Updated to version 1.5.0🌟Featuring lifted it to #48 (from outside the chart)🌟Featured by Apple🆕First spotted by AppInsider📦Version 1.4.0
Full timeline · 31 events
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth dropped out of every chart we trackLast seen 5 Nov
- 💰SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: price rise2.99 EUR → 5.99 EUR · DE
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth charting in a new countryPoland
- ✏️SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: description updated· GB
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100Top Paid · All Apps · AR
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth charting in a new countryArgentina
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100Top Paid · Music · DE
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth charting in a new country in 2 chartsGermany · France
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100Top Paid · Music · FR
- ✏️SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: description updated· JP
- ✏️SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: renamedSpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth → SpellSynth: レトロ音声シンセ · JP
- ✏️SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: app got bigger64 MB → 117 MB (+82%)
- 📦SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth updated to version 1.5.01.5.0 — Bonjour: The French Edition.
• SpellSynth speaks French. Pick Français under VOICE LANGUAGE in Settings and the voice, the words and the game screens all switch over.
• Built after the 1981 French edition of the spelling toy: ÉPELLE, MYSTÈRE and DIS-LE with 360+ French words, and an apostrophe key for words like L'ÉCOLE.
• Accents show on the display but are never typed — spell ÉCOLE as E-C-O-L-E, just like the original.
• The AUv3 speaks French too: set Language to Français, then type a word or put French words on the SEQ steps. Every vintage voice works in both languages.
• Bug fixes and stability improvements for the AUv3 plug-in.
Bug reports or feature requests welcome at [email protected] — Zhi… more - 🌟SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: featuring lifted it to #48 (from outside the chart)有料アプリランキング · JP
- 🌟SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth featured by Appleapps · JP
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100Top Grossing · Music · RU
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth charting in a new countryRussia
- 🌟SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth featured by Appleapps · JP
- 🌟SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth featured by Appleapps · JP
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100Top Paid · All Apps · JP
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth hit #1Top Paid · Music · JP
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100 in 3 chartsTop Paid · Music · CA · Top Grossing · Music · JP · Top Paid · Music · US
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth charting in a new country in 2 chartsCanada · United States
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth entered the top 100Top Paid · Music · JP
- 📈SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth charting in a new countryJapan
- 🆕SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth first spotted by AppInsider#90 in Top Paid · Music · United Kingdom
- 📦SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth version 1.4.01.4.0 — The Plug-in Speaks For Itself.
• Type any word into the AUv3 and it speaks. The plugin makes the voice itself now, so a word it has never heard comes out spoken instead of spelled letter by letter.
• Make a word in the plugin and it's waiting for you in the app, and the other way round — they keep one shared set of voices, so a word is only ever made once.
• Everything already made stays instant. Only a brand-new word takes a moment, and the display tells you while it works.
Bug reports or feature requests welcome at [email protected] — Zhi… more - 🆕SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: its developer released another app: Contour — Ambient Morph Synth
- 🆕SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: its developer released another app: PóTó Cam・台灣感性底片相機
- 🆕SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth: its developer released another app: Orbeat: Drum Machine
- 🆕SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth released on the App Store
Collected from the stores by AppInsider since we first spotted the app. Dates are when we saw each change.
Rating
3.2 ★
11 ratings
Measured
Best rank now
#123
Music PaidMeasured
New ratings a week
1.8
App Store, 4-week average
Measured
SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth at a glance
AI summary written from our chart and store data, 2026-09-29. It can be wrong: check the numbers above.
A retro-styled speech synthesis app that recreates the experience of 1970s spelling toys with vintage voice modes, sequencers, and educational games for music producers and nostalgia enthusiasts. The app has achieved a #1 ranking in the Japanese Music Paid category, indicating strong regional traction despite low overall rating volume.
Similar apps: Speak & Spell, Korg Gadget, GarageBand
SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth on the App Store
App details
App ID
6762822700
Publisher
Chih Han Lin
On the store since
Apr 2026
Under a year
Minimum OS
iOS 17.0+
iPhone XS and later
Devices
iPhone · iPad
Universal purchase
Content rating
4+
Languages
1
EN
Size
117 MB
Also listed in
Education
App privacy Measured
SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth declares it collects no data at all — the rarest and most private label on the App Store.
Declared label
Data Not Collected
As declared by the developer on the App Store — Apple requires every app to publish this label. We track changes over time.
SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth downloads
Worldwide, per day, and installs to date. The band is open; the exact number is free with an account.
How this is calculated
Apple publishes no download counts. App Store downloads come from chart positions and daily rating growth per country, calibrated on Google Play install counts; lifetime installs from ratings worldwide × installs per rating. Confidence is the chance the real number is within half to double ours.
Active users
All platforms, worldwide. Free with an account.
Stickiness (DAU / MAU)
how many monthly users open it on a given day
How this is calculated
Monthly users come from lifetime installs across every store, fitted on monthly active user figures companies publish; daily users = monthly × the typical daily/monthly ratio for the category. Confidence is the chance the real number is within half to double ours.
Where it ranks now
Every top chart it appears in across 30 countries.
| Country | Charts | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | MusicPaid | #123 |
Apps near SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth on the chart
Music Paid, around #123.
Ratings
App Store, worldwide.
Rating
3.2 ★
11 ratings
Measured
Ratings
11
Measured
Review momentum
ⓘ How we measure thisNew ratings a week
1.8
4-week average
Lifetime rating
4.5★
recent stars not readable yet: new ratings are a tiny share of the total
Review momentum
63/100
faster than 72% of Music apps
Review momentum (0-100) blends how fast the app collects ratings compared with other apps in its category (60%), whether that pace is speeding up (25%) and what recent raters give it (15%; recent stars well below lifetime pull it down). Ratings counts are read daily. A jump usually means a launch, a feature, ads or a new review prompt.
What users say about SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth
From the 6 most recent App Store reviews in the US.
Most users report that the app fails to pronounce words correctly, often spelling them out letter-by-letter or returning errors despite recent updates. While one reviewer praises the retro aesthetic and fixes, the majority find the core functionality incomplete and disappointing for music production.
Mostly negative (33% of recent reviews give 4–5 stars). The main complaints are about recent updates. Recent reviews are more positive than earlier ones.
Common complaints
- Updates: “An update claims to be able to say any word”
About SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth
SpellSynth is a playable love-letter to the 1978 spelling toy that taught a generation to read — rebuilt for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, in English and French, with five modes, a crunchy VFD display, and
three vintage voice characters across two decades of speech-synthesis history.
Tap a letter and it speaks. Type ANY word — your name, this week's vocabulary list — and SpellSynth speaks it back.
EVERY WORD SPEAKS
The 500+ bundled words across 20+ themes use a hand-recorded retro voice. Anything else — a name, your kid's spelling list — falls back to the system engine through your chosen voice, cached so the second tap is instant.
• FREE PLAY — type any word, a whole phrase, or a number and hear it spoken. Tap SPACE to build a sentence; it's read back word by word as the VFD cycles. Numbers ("2" becomes "two") and contractions ("don't") speak too. A GAP control tunes the pause between words (50–500 ms), and a RECENT row keeps this session.
• SEQ — a 16-step sequencer that speaks a word per step, locked to your tempo. Type four words, get a robot vocal loop. Put a single letter on a step and it says the letter name on the beat instead. FIT stretches each word to fill its step, so words pitch up as the tempo climbs.
• SPELL — SpellSynth says a word. You spell it. Three mistakes and you get the answer, then try a new one. HINT reveals a letter when you're stuck.
• MYSTERY WORD — the classic hidden-word game. You get the category and first letter free; pick letters until it reveals itself. Six wrong guesses ends it.
• SAY IT — listen-and-repeat practice. SpellSynth spells the word letter by letter, then says it whole. REPEAT to hear it again, NEXT for a new one.
• SHARE — render any word or phrase to a WAV and send it to Files, AirDrop, or your DAW.
EN FRANÇAIS
Pick Français in Settings and SpellSynth speaks French: 360+ words, French game screens and an apostrophe key, after the 1981 French edition. The AUv3 speaks French too.
THREE VINTAGE VOICES
Pick a voice character in Settings. Each one draws from a different era of speech-synthesis history, applied to every word you hear:
• 1968 ODYSSEY — calm, deep-baritone monotone with a deliberately slow cadence. Aesthetic homage to the late-60s sci-fi AI voices.
• 1978 LPC — the original Speak & Spell character. A 10-pole LPC vocoder driven by the actual TMS5220 chirp ROM, the same speech algorithm Texas Instruments shipped in the toy. Buzzy, granular, unmistakable.
• 1986 DECTALK STYLE — fixed-pitch impulse train through formants extracted from your input. Modelled on the Klatt-style synthesis that defined Hawking's iconic computer voice. Deliberate, monotone, emphatically computery.
• DEFAULT — clean system speech, no extra processing, for when you just want clear pronunciation.
PLAY WITH A MIDI KEYBOARD
Connect a USB, Bluetooth, or Network MIDI keyboard and the keypad plays from real keys. MIDI notes 60–85 (C4–C#6) trigger letters A–Z.
BUNDLED AUDIO UNIT (AUv3)
SpellSynth ships an AUv3 instru
three vintage voice characters across two decades of speech-synthesis history.
Tap a letter and it speaks. Type ANY word — your name, this week's vocabulary list — and SpellSynth speaks it back.
EVERY WORD SPEAKS
The 500+ bundled words across 20+ themes use a hand-recorded retro voice. Anything else — a name, your kid's spelling list — falls back to the system engine through your chosen voice, cached so the second tap is instant.
• FREE PLAY — type any word, a whole phrase, or a number and hear it spoken. Tap SPACE to build a sentence; it's read back word by word as the VFD cycles. Numbers ("2" becomes "two") and contractions ("don't") speak too. A GAP control tunes the pause between words (50–500 ms), and a RECENT row keeps this session.
• SEQ — a 16-step sequencer that speaks a word per step, locked to your tempo. Type four words, get a robot vocal loop. Put a single letter on a step and it says the letter name on the beat instead. FIT stretches each word to fill its step, so words pitch up as the tempo climbs.
• SPELL — SpellSynth says a word. You spell it. Three mistakes and you get the answer, then try a new one. HINT reveals a letter when you're stuck.
• MYSTERY WORD — the classic hidden-word game. You get the category and first letter free; pick letters until it reveals itself. Six wrong guesses ends it.
• SAY IT — listen-and-repeat practice. SpellSynth spells the word letter by letter, then says it whole. REPEAT to hear it again, NEXT for a new one.
• SHARE — render any word or phrase to a WAV and send it to Files, AirDrop, or your DAW.
EN FRANÇAIS
Pick Français in Settings and SpellSynth speaks French: 360+ words, French game screens and an apostrophe key, after the 1981 French edition. The AUv3 speaks French too.
THREE VINTAGE VOICES
Pick a voice character in Settings. Each one draws from a different era of speech-synthesis history, applied to every word you hear:
• 1968 ODYSSEY — calm, deep-baritone monotone with a deliberately slow cadence. Aesthetic homage to the late-60s sci-fi AI voices.
• 1978 LPC — the original Speak & Spell character. A 10-pole LPC vocoder driven by the actual TMS5220 chirp ROM, the same speech algorithm Texas Instruments shipped in the toy. Buzzy, granular, unmistakable.
• 1986 DECTALK STYLE — fixed-pitch impulse train through formants extracted from your input. Modelled on the Klatt-style synthesis that defined Hawking's iconic computer voice. Deliberate, monotone, emphatically computery.
• DEFAULT — clean system speech, no extra processing, for when you just want clear pronunciation.
PLAY WITH A MIDI KEYBOARD
Connect a USB, Bluetooth, or Network MIDI keyboard and the keypad plays from real keys. MIDI notes 60–85 (C4–C#6) trigger letters A–Z.
BUNDLED AUDIO UNIT (AUv3)
SpellSynth ships an AUv3 instru
Latest updates
1.5.0
1.5.0 — Bonjour: The French Edition.
• SpellSynth speaks French. Pick Français under VOICE LANGUAGE in Settings and the voice, the words and the game screens all switch over.
• Built after the 1981 French edition of the spelling toy: ÉPELLE, MYSTÈRE and DIS-LE with 360+ French words, and an apostrophe key for words like L'ÉCOLE.
• Accents show on the display but are never typed — spell ÉCOLE as E-C-O-L-E, just like the original.
• The AUv3 speaks French too: set Language to Français, then type a word or put French words on the SEQ steps. Every vintage voice works in both languages.
• Bug fixes and stability improvements for the AUv3 plug-in.
Bug reports or feature requests welcome at [email protected] — Zhi
1.4.0
1.4.0 — The Plug-in Speaks For Itself.
• Type any word into the AUv3 and it speaks. The plugin makes the voice itself now, so a word it has never heard comes out spoken instead of spelled letter by letter.
• Make a word in the plugin and it's waiting for you in the app, and the other way round — they keep one shared set of voices, so a word is only ever made once.
• Everything already made stays instant. Only a brand-new word takes a moment, and the display tells you while it works.
Bug reports or feature requests welcome at [email protected] — Zhi
Store changes
What SpellSynth: Retro Vocal Synth changed on its store page: name, icon, screenshots, price, size, languages, requirements.
Price rise
500.00 JPY → 800.00 JPY
Price rise 
2.99 EUR → 5.99 EUR
Description updated
