NFM's App Store listing states that the synth is in maintenance mode, receiving only critical bug fixes, and recommends Mela as a more flexible and actively developed alternative. Version 1.2.2 shipped in April 2025. Nothing has followed it.
That is an unusually direct thing for a developer to write about a product still on sale. It is also fair, because the feature NFM was best known for now exists inside the app that listing points you to.
Matrix borrowed the idea openly. Mela's newest routing module arranges submodules into nodes and lets you route audio between them at independent levels, which is the same premise as NFM's algorithm grid with the operators swapped for anything you like.
Every operator carries its own Output, Pan, and self-feedback amount. It also carries Coarse and Fine controls that set the ratio between the note pitch and the oscillator frequency, plus a Fixed mode for a constant frequency regardless of what you play, and a Noise mode.
Mela's FM Operator has none of that. No ratio, no fixed frequency switch, no noise setting. Pitch arrives as a signal from elsewhere in the patch, so a three-to-two relationship between two operators gets built in the pitch chain rather than dialed in on the operator.
NFM also wires up the parts most players expect an instrument to have. Each operator gets its own envelope with adjustable curves, an LFO depth, velocity sensitivity, key tracking, and a velocity control over envelope times. Monophonic, polyphonic, legato, and glide modes are built in, alongside distortion, delay, and flanger.
In Mela, you add each of those as a module. That is the trade-off in one sentence. It does mean the ceiling is higher, and polyphony has run to sixteen voices since the 7.12 update rather than being fixed by the instrument's design.
The result is more capable and slower. You can modulate those pitch relationships in Mela, which NFM's numeric ratio fields will never let you do. You will also spend an evening building what NFM gives you in four taps.
An iPad that stopped receiving system updates somewhere in the middle runs one of these apps and not the other. No amount of feature comparison changes that.
Size and price point the same. NFM is a three-megabyte download at $4.99 with no in-app purchases at all, and it has been running a steep discount recently. Mela costs nothing to install, but Matrix sits inside Collection 5 at $24.99.
For someone who wants six-operator FM and nothing else, that gap is hard to argue past. Drawing your own operator routing is the shared feature, and NFM sells it for five dollars.
A user raised exactly this after the release, asking for stored algorithms in the style of hardware FM boxes. The developer's answer was a partial preset system that would save only chosen parameters, such as Matrix routing levels, without disturbing the operator settings underneath. That would let you flip between algorithms while a patch is running.
It is a proposal, not a feature. Today, changing the routing shape means loading a different patch or moving the levels by hand.
What Matrix has instead is indifference to what you put in it. NFM's six slots hold operators and only operators. A Matrix node holds any submodule Mela has, so a filter can sit in the feedback path between two carriers, or a delay can occupy node D while an oscillator rings against it in node E.
That difference is the whole reason both apps still make sense. One is a finished instrument with a fixed shape, a low price, and support for hardware several years past its last system update. The other is a construction set where FM is one of many things the same grid happens to do.
That is an unusually direct thing for a developer to write about a product still on sale. It is also fair, because the feature NFM was best known for now exists inside the app that listing points you to.
Matrix borrowed the idea openly. Mela's newest routing module arranges submodules into nodes and lets you route audio between them at independent levels, which is the same premise as NFM's algorithm grid with the operators swapped for anything you like.
Six operators with ratios beat seven nodes without them
NFM's grid is denser than it looks. Tap an operator button, then drag vertically to set how much it modulates each of the others. One modulator can hit any number of carriers at once, and it can send signal back to earlier operators as feedback.Every operator carries its own Output, Pan, and self-feedback amount. It also carries Coarse and Fine controls that set the ratio between the note pitch and the oscillator frequency, plus a Fixed mode for a constant frequency regardless of what you play, and a Noise mode.
Mela's FM Operator has none of that. No ratio, no fixed frequency switch, no noise setting. Pitch arrives as a signal from elsewhere in the patch, so a three-to-two relationship between two operators gets built in the pitch chain rather than dialed in on the operator.
NFM also wires up the parts most players expect an instrument to have. Each operator gets its own envelope with adjustable curves, an LFO depth, velocity sensitivity, key tracking, and a velocity control over envelope times. Monophonic, polyphonic, legato, and glide modes are built in, alongside distortion, delay, and flanger.
In Mela, you add each of those as a module. That is the trade-off in one sentence. It does mean the ceiling is higher, and polyphony has run to sixteen voices since the 7.12 update rather than being fixed by the instrument's design.
The result is more capable and slower. You can modulate those pitch relationships in Mela, which NFM's numeric ratio fields will never let you do. You will also spend an evening building what NFM gives you in four taps.
NFM runs on iPads Mela no longer supports
This is the part that settles the argument for a lot of people. NFM requires iPadOS 14, macOS 11 on an Apple Silicon Mac, or visionOS 1. Mela's current version asks for iOS or iPadOS 18, macOS 15, or visionOS 2.An iPad that stopped receiving system updates somewhere in the middle runs one of these apps and not the other. No amount of feature comparison changes that.
Size and price point the same. NFM is a three-megabyte download at $4.99 with no in-app purchases at all, and it has been running a steep discount recently. Mela costs nothing to install, but Matrix sits inside Collection 5 at $24.99.
For someone who wants six-operator FM and nothing else, that gap is hard to argue past. Drawing your own operator routing is the shared feature, and NFM sells it for five dollars.
Recalling an algorithm still means recalling a patch
NFM keeps its algorithm inside its presets, so loading a sound loads the routing with it. Mela has no equivalent yet for Matrix alone.A user raised exactly this after the release, asking for stored algorithms in the style of hardware FM boxes. The developer's answer was a partial preset system that would save only chosen parameters, such as Matrix routing levels, without disturbing the operator settings underneath. That would let you flip between algorithms while a patch is running.
It is a proposal, not a feature. Today, changing the routing shape means loading a different patch or moving the levels by hand.
What Matrix has instead is indifference to what you put in it. NFM's six slots hold operators and only operators. A Matrix node holds any submodule Mela has, so a filter can sit in the feedback path between two carriers, or a delay can occupy node D while an oscillator rings against it in node E.
That difference is the whole reason both apps still make sense. One is a finished instrument with a fixed shape, a low price, and support for hardware several years past its last system update. The other is a construction set where FM is one of many things the same grid happens to do.
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