Hokusai 3 and Hokusai for Mac
Just over fifteen years since we launched Hokusai, we’re proud to release Hokusai 3… and launch Hokusai for Mac!
Hokusai 3 is our biggest ever update to Hokusai (maybe to any of our apps), and Hokusai for Mac is not the iPad app run through a Mac compatibility layer, but an all-new app written from the ground up for macOS.
Hokusai 3 and Hokusai for Mac feature a beautiful, colourful new design that feels fresh and modern, but retains Hokusai’s familiar uncluttered layout:
Packed With Features
In this update (and new app), we’re adding many of the most popular feature requests:
You can now add Markers to your projects, jump to them, quickly select audio from one marker to the next, and even export all the regions to separate audio files with a single action.
You can now export in .mp3, as well as .wav and .m4a.
Audio can now be recorded, edited and exported at 48 kHz as well as 44.1 kHz (with compatible audio hardware).
You can now record up to 8 channels at a time (with compatible audio hardware).
Projects can be stored in iCloud Drive and synced automatically between devices. You can, of course, use your Mac projects on iPhone and iPad, and vice-versa. Presets and Favourites also sync.
On compatible devices that have enough memory, you can continue importing, exporting and processing audio while switching to other apps.
Level meters also now include a “recent peak” marker, and can be hovered over/held to show the actual values (decibels or percentage).
You can also show the levels and peaks of the Final Mix (all the tracks mixed together).
You can solo tracks (as well as muting them).
On iOS, deleted projects are moved to a “trashcan”-like area for 30 days. You can, of course, delete them earlier than that, if you need the space back!
In the iOS Projects list — and the new macOS Welcome window — instead of showing the projects as just a wall of names, you’ll find previews of your projects’ waveforms.
There are also a lot of new ways to customise Hokusai for your needs:
You can pick a colour scheme, and colour-code individual tracks.
There are some enhancements to how the effects (and other commands) settings appear (providing your screen or window is large enough):
You can set the Inspector (the place where the effects and other related commands live) to always be visible, typically pinned to the right-hand side of the screen/window.
It can also appear at the bottom edge, if you’re using a device/window in “portrait” orientation.
Either way, you can continue to scroll, zoom, move the Play Head or adjust the selection in the main editor while the effects settings are open.
It’s also searchable, can show your most recently used effects in a scrolling carousel at the top of the list, and each effect has a button that opens the User Guide to the section for that effect for a quick reminder.
The track sidebar can be shrunk down to a narrow view, or popped out into a new floating view.
There are new settings to turn different kinds of snapping on or off, pick up audio automatically when dragging selections, select all audio on a track when double-tapping/clicking, and more.
And on both macOS and iPad OS, you’ll find extensive support for the main menu bar across the top of the screen.
There’s a bunch more stuff, including a new Auto Noise Reduction effect and a graphic Equaliser with up to 8 bands. For a detailed list, check the “What’s New” section of the Hokusai 3 User Guide — which has also been enhanced, with new search facilities and a glossary that, as well as being available to browse, can also pop up a definition wherever a glossary term is used.
Upgrading from Hokusai 2?
If you purchased Hokusai 2 Pro (or Hokusai 1 Pro, or any of the other upgrades from the early days of the app), those purchases are still supported in Hokusai 3 for iPhone or iPad. You won’t lose out by upgrading, and you’ll also benefit from some of the new enhancements.
To take full advantage of everything Hokusai 3/Hokusai for Mac has to offer, you’ll need Hokusai 3 Pro.
Hokusai for Mac is an all-new app — old iOS-only purchases do not apply to it.
If you do upgrade to Hokusai 3 Pro, whether you do so from iOS or Mac, it will unlock for all your compatible devices, desktop or mobile. And not just yours: Hokusai 3 Pro supports Family Sharing.
If you prefer not to upgrade to Hokusai 3 Pro, you can continue using Hokusai on iPhone and iPad, with your existing features, and we’ve done our best to ensure that the experience will feel as much like Hokusai 2 as possible — but quite a bit nicer.
There are some changes we needed to make, mainly due to a combination of evolving technology, to support new features, and for compatibility with macOS:
In Hokusai 2, you could scroll off the end of the project “forever”. In Hokusai 3, it will stop when you reach about 50% beyond the end of the project. This does not limit how long your project can be: As you add new audio to the end, you can scroll further and further.
For example, if you start with a 1 hour project, you’ll be able to scroll to 1h 30m. If you fill up that extra 30m with audio (so your project is now 1h 30m long), you’ll then be able to scroll to 2h 15m.
This stops people accidentally scrolling off forever into the infinite void, as well as making it easier for people using scrollbars (on macOS or iPad OS) to navigate their projects — while still supporting projects as long as you need.
In Hokusai 2, when you tap the Import button, it opens a list of recently-imported files, with buttons to import from other places. In Hokusai 3 for iOS, it pops open a menu to pick where you want to import files from (Hokusai 3 for Mac always browses for files).
In Hokusai 2, the Project Menu looked like a document with a wrench/spanner on it, and if you tapped on the project’s name, you could rename it. In Hokusai 3 for iOS, these are combined: Tap on the project’s name to open the Project Menu, which includes a rename command.
A small number of keyboard shortcuts are different now. On iPhone or iPad, you can change back to the old shortcuts, but we recommend learning the new ones for Mac compatibility.
In Hokusai 2, the selection menu had a “More…” command that would open the effects list, and a “Favourites” command that would open the favourites list. In Hokusai 3, there’s a single “Effects…” command, which will open whichever one you used last.
To favourite or unfavourite an effect, you can either use the Favourite “star” button inside the effect’s settings screen (as in Hokusai 2), or you can open the context menu for the effect in the effects/favourites list.
In Hokusai 2, all projects used the same settings for exporting audio. Now, you can choose different export settings for each one, in the Project Settings. You can still use the main Hokusai Settings to choose what the default should be for new projects, so if you have one export format you prefer, you can just “set it and forget it”. But if you change the default, it won’t change the behaviour of existing projects.
Hokusai 3 for iOS requires and iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or later, and Hokusai for Mac requires an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 26 or later.
Questions?
The first place to check is the new Customer Support panel inside the app! It has searchable list of questions and answers, sometimes with step-by-step instructions, or quick links to the relevant bits of the User Guide.
If you still have questions or concerns, the Customer Support panel also has a button to contact us!