Marimba, Xylophone, Vibraphone

Review by eFreeware

Mallet percussion is awkward to keep at hand. A marimba takes up a corner of a room, a vibraphone needs a frame and a motor, and even a glockenspiel is a case you have to carry. Anyone who wants to keep their hands moving between rehearsals usually ends up tapping a table instead.

Marimba, Xylophone, Vibraphone is an Android app from the developer sonOS that turns a phone or tablet into a set of struck instruments. It covers five of them: marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, glockenspiel and tubular bells. The app is free, it carries ads, and it has no in-app purchases. It has been on Google Play since March 2019, has passed 500,000 installs, and holds a 4.8 average from 2,909 ratings.

Five instruments on one screen

The premise is straightforward. Each instrument is a set of bars or plates you strike with a yarn mallet, and the app models the range of each one rather than giving every instrument the same keyboard. The marimba and vibraphone run from C3 to F6, which puts the marimba's lower register within reach. The xylophone sits higher, from G4 to C8. The glockenspiel spans C4 to F7, and the tubular bell goes higher still, from C5 to F8. That spread matters if you play more than one of these instruments, because the same written passage will sit under your hands differently on each.

The roll feature is the detail I find most interesting. On a real marimba or vibraphone, a sustained note is produced by repeated strokes, and the app includes a roll gesture for that. The vibraphone's motor-driven tremolo is what defines the instrument, so a roll is a way to suggest that shimmer without a motor.

The developer has kept adding to the instrument list over time. Tubular bells arrived in version 2.3, and later updates mention a note name mode and an audio setting that lets you choose between best latency and best performance. That last option tells you the developer is aware that touch response is the whole experience here; how quickly a tap becomes a note is the difference between playing and poking at a screen.

How a playing session works

There are several ways to approach the keyboard. Full mode gives you both hands, left and right, across the bars. If you are working on one hand at a time, you can set it to right hand only. A third option pairs your right hand with an automatic or piano-style left hand, which is useful when you want to hear the full texture of a piece while you concentrate on one part.

Real Time mode is the one that behaves like an instrument: you strike, you hear. Auto-play is a preview mode, so the app can run through a piece for you before you attempt it. Between the two, you can listen first and then take over.

Practice material comes from a song library that includes both offline and online songs, and the app is updated with more of them regularly. Each song can be slowed down, transposed and given reverb. Slowing a passage without changing its pitch is the standard way to learn a difficult run, and transposing means a piece written for one instrument can be moved into a range that suits another.

Recording, sharing and ringtones

The app can record what you play, play it back, and share the result with other people. For anyone learning a piece, hearing a take back is a useful check on timing, and sharing it is a way to show progress without asking someone to stand next to you while you practice.

Your speed and transposition settings carry over when you save a ringtone as a .wav file. That is a small extra, but a deliberate one: a few bars of marimba or glockenspiel makes a distinctive tone for incoming calls, and the app gives you the tools to shape it before you save it.

The interface is adjustable and offers multiple views, which suggests the developer has thought about how differently people hold a phone or tablet while playing. A layout that works for two-handed playing on a tablet is not the same as one that works for a quick melody on a phone, and having some control over that is more important here than in most music apps.

What it costs, and the ads

The app is free to install. It contains ads, and there are no in-app purchases, so nothing inside the app is gated behind a payment.

That is a reasonable arrangement for an instrument simulator, though ads are part of the experience.

The install figures and rating suggest the arrangement has worked for a lot of people.

Updates that show where the effort goes

The recent changelog reads like a list of small, sensible fixes rather than headline features. Version 2.6 improves the sound. Version 2.5 works on the interface, performance and speed. Version 2.4.2 and 2.4.1 address bugs and performance, with 2.4.1 adding the audio setting for latency or performance. Version 2.4 is described as a big performance improvement, and 2.3.1 continues in the same vein.

The two changes that stand out are the ones that add capability rather than polish. Version 2.3 brought tubular bells into the app, expanding the instrument set to five. Version 2.1.1 added note name mode, which puts the name of each note on the bars, and improved the .wav export.

For a free app with ads, this pattern is encouraging. Sound quality, latency and stability are exactly the things that matter in a percussion simulator, and the developer keeps returning to them. The most recent update is dated March 2026, which tells you the app is still being worked on.

A mallet instrument for a phone or tablet

The appeal here is specific. If you play marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, glockenspiel or tubular bells, or you are learning one of them, this gives you a way to practice the notes and the hand patterns without the instrument in front of you. The ranges are faithful to the real instruments, the roll gesture covers sustained strokes, and the practice songs can be slowed and transposed to suit your level and your instrument.

If you are a composer or arranger, the recording and export tools are the practical part. You can sketch a line, hear it back, and save it as a .wav file, all without leaving the app.

If you are simply curious about mallet percussion, the free download makes it an easy thing to try.

A strong choice for mallet players without their instrument

I would recommend Marimba, Xylophone, Vibraphone to anyone who plays one of these five instruments and wants a way to keep their hands and ears working when the real thing is not available. The range settings, the roll feature, the practice songs with speed and transpose controls, and the recording and .wav export tools add up to a complete practice companion rather than a novelty.

The recent updates have concentrated on sound, latency and performance, which are the right priorities for an instrument simulator, and the app is still being maintained years after its March 2019 release.

The one thing to accept going in is that this is a simulation. It will not replace a real marimba or vibraphone for touch and resonance, and it does not try to. What it does is give you the notes, the ranges and the practice tools in a form you can carry, and for a lot of players that is exactly the gap worth filling.

What's new in version 2.6

[2.6] Improve sound - Fix bug [2.5] Improve UI, performance, speed, ... - Fix bug [2.4.2] Fix bug and improve performance [2.4.1] New feature: Audio Setting (Best Latency or Best Performance) - Fix bug [2.4] Big improve performance [2.3.1] Improve performance and fix bugs [2.3] New instrument: Tubular Bell (also called Orchestral Bells or Orchestral Chimes) - Improve and Optimize - Fix bug [2.1.1] New feature: Note name mode - Improve Export .wav - Fix bug