The Steel Guitar Forum

Dennis Waltman wrote:Hmmm, Jazz Harmony must no long be available as I can't seem to locate it or the developer in the App Store.

Thanks, Dennis

Hmmm, I just found it in the appstore from my iPhone. I simply typed in "Jazz Harmony" and it was the first thing that came up.

Look HERE

Drumgenius is another great practice app...been using it for the past two months.

It has about 400 drum loops, from many styles of music. The loops sound great, can be slowed down or sped up, and have descriptions/discography references.

They're great to use with drones for intonation and scale practicing, to work on chord comping, or just to groove and improvise with.

It comes with 3 free loops, but if you pay $10 you get all 400 which is well worth it in my opinion.

I've found myself using this more than a metronome lately because I feel like I'm jamming with a drummer and it can make practicing more entertaining.

Anyone tried this app or using it?

The TE tuner is very cool.

Android users should be aware that I can't seem to get the same exact functionality where you play a series of notes and have it print the note it thinks it's seeing, as in the first screen shot. It works well on my iphone, but realize on android it just shows the waveform and the pitch line.

I realize lots of folks use the Amazing Slow Downer to slow the rate of a song without impacting the pitch.... Still if you are not aware it integrates with Spotify seamlessly.. this is a really cool feature.

-Jon

Just got the TE tuner. Very cool.

John McClung wrote:What a great thread, James! Thanks for taking the initiative to start this Wiki of useful music apps for steelers. I don't yet have an iPad; does TE Tuner work on my iPhone?

Hi John. Yes TE Tuner works on the iPhone. I have been using it for a couple of years.

Alex Cattaneo wrote:What do you all use for input/output with the iPad? I have the Peterson adapter but that only works as an input into the Ipad for tuning.

Great thread!

I just did a survey of audio interfaces that work with iOS, Mac and PC. I settled on Audient iD4. It is perfect for my needs: One mic and one line input, great sound, and bus powered. Portable enough for use with iPad on the go. For iPad I connect it as described in this video at 7:26:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjqn_UGmenQ

I got mine at Sweetwater.

I found this iOS app very useful:
Octave ($4.99), by Alex Wiltschko

I use it as a visual help when adjusting the eq on an amp or preamp with any instrument. You can use this with the iPad mic, or direct with an audio interface like the iD4.

The devloper of "TonalEnergy" is the developer of "ThumbJam" which has been around a long time and is very popular. It lets you control sampled instruments on the touchscreen but, at some point, a feature was added that lets you sing into the mic and control the pitch of the sample. I made the assumption that the same excellent pitch tracking engine used in "TonalEnergy" is also used in "ThumbJam". So, I forked over the $8.99 and spent all of last night playing very excellent samples of bowed strings (the cello is outstanding), organs, flutes, mellotrons, theremins and so on. I've experimented with midi pickups on a 6-string guitar before but this is somehow so much more expressive. With one $8.99 app you have a monophonic steel guitar synth.

You have to get it set up right with the attack, release, glide, octave, etc parameters. You also have to turn off the 'polyphonic' toggle as the audio input will really only let you play monophonically. Of course, some samples like pianos and drums don't work so well on steel as you can hear the note steps as you slide. However, some of the keyboard and fretted instruments have smooth transisition (mellotron, organs) and others have a smooth slide as long as you keep it no longer than a semitone or tone (mandolin, banjo). There are a lot of instruments included and more for free download (you gotta download the Turkish Ney and Mellotrons)

Here's a thought I just had for an intonation exercise using ThumbJam. One of the options is to have it "snap to note" which means you set the scale and when you slide from note to note the pitch will "auto-correct". If I set up ThumbJam and my clean steel at the same time, I could practice scales or melodies and hear how far off I am at every step and adjust. It would be a moving drone note. I'll be trying this tonight. Any thoughts on this?

Tom Dillon said: I found this iOS app very useful:
Octave ($4.99), by Alex Wiltschko

I got mine yesterday, came with a note from Apple that it's not supported by iOS 11 but I'm assuming that the developers will deal with that in an update.

I have been mucking with Auria Pro for recording and mixing and have been really impressed with it. It has tons of functionality that you would only expect from desktop software.

I have an extensive library of drum loops that I use to record my demos, but there is always a groove that I just can't find or the feel is not right. So I use DrumPerfect to build little 2 - 4 bar loops and just export them through Dropbox to my computer, where my DAW resides.

I have quite a few drum machine and sequencing apps, iMaschine, EasyBeats, GarageBand and more, but I don't use them.

Two other apps that I like are kind of esoteric, but I dig Time Guru and Twelve Tone. Twelve Tone is a composition tool with a focus on tone rows. Time Guru is a pretty elaborate metronome. Ear Sharpener for iPhone is a pretty fun ear training tool/challenge.

Bruce Bjork wrote:Anytune for iPad, Free version is awesome, Pro version is even better. Slow down, transcribe, loop sections. I use it every time I practiced.
https://anytune.us/

Riffstation is another that works fine as a browser, free, works on any browser. Search for a song and it picks it up via YouTube and plays tune back with the chords and you can transcribe tunes.

+1 for sure!

Bump in case anyone has anything new to add.....

These are a little more well-known, but still worth calling out by name:

forScore is a great sheet music/chord chart reader/organizer. iOS only I'm afraid, but it's easy to use, has a good auto-crop feature, you can pair audio tracks (with transposition!), and the organization works really well. You can turn the iPad landscape to get a 2-up page view; I use it with my 12.9" iPad Pro, and at that size it's even legible (at least for practicing)!

James mentioned it in passing, but iRealPro is another great chord chart app. This one is iOS/Android. No sheet music, but decent backing tracks depending on music genre (the app is jazz-focused). Think simplified BIAB.

iGigBook (iOS only) is handy if you have a lot of PDFs of Real Books/Fake Books (again, more jazz-adjacent). I'm not as crazy about this one because the interface is pretty obtuse, the documentation isn't fantastic, and the developer/support is a little cantankerous (I probably would be too if I had to deal with musicians all day ). But once you get it working it's handy for finding charts. Just search for a song (All the Things You Are for example), and it will give a list of which books it's in, tap one, then swipe between them to find the one you prefer. I usually use this in tandem with my computer and forScore (if time allows). Search for the best chart in iGigBook, find the PDF on my computer, print to PDF that one song, then throw that in forScore.

James Mayer wrote:

Jon Light wrote:Thanks.

No problem. I'm curious what you think of Android music apps. I read somewhere that the reason why there are so few audio apps for Android is that the operating system has unresolved audio latency issues. I looked into it because I noticed that modelers, live DJ tools, multi-trackers, etc are so numerous for IOS and so limited or non-existent for Android.....despite there being a larger Android user base.

I'm wondering how well the TonalEnergy analysis will work if there's latency.

This latency is why Peterson says they won't be adding sweetners to their Android Strobosoft app. Don't understand how it has no problems with the standard tuning (no sweetening), but does have a problem with sweeteners. But that's way above my pay grade.

Bruce Bjork wrote:Anytune for iPad, Free version is awesome, Pro version is even better. Slow down, transcribe, loop sections. I use it every time I practiced.
https://anytune.us/

Another vote here for AnytunePro+. My most used app on my iPad.

If into a software based looper, take a look at Quantiloop.
http://quantiloop.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quantil ... 13359?mt=8

Dennis Waltman wrote:James,

I can't seem to identify which Jazz Harmony app you have in the screenshot when I search to App Store.

Thanks, DW

This one is back on the appstore from the same developer. Looks like it's a new version and isn't free ($3.99).

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/jazz-harmony-pro/id1337639339

I'm not sure where else to post this, so I'll bump this thread. If you connect an audio device to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, DO NOT upgrade to iOS 13 if you can help it.

My main way of practicing at home is to plug my guitar into a Line 6 Sonic Port and connect that via lightning cable to my iPhone. The Sonic Port works with a Line 6 app called Mobile Pod which has some of their amp simulations, including a Fender Twin type thing that works well enough. This all allows me to practice in the apartment without disturbing neighbors.

Without thinking, I updated my phone to iOS 13 a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly the Sonic Port stopped working. I filed a ticket with Line 6, and they responded by pointing me to this link:

https://line6.com/support/page/kb/mobil ... s-13-r925/

Short version: Apple removed some audio driver from iOS 13, which is the cause of the problem. And Line 6 is saying "We have no control over when or if Apple will fix this." It wouldn't be surprising if they never fix it. Think about how they killed off Firewire, and then changed from the old iPod connector to the lightning cable. They just do this kind of thing whenever they want and don't seem to care if it sends their business partners and customers scrambling.

I am working around this by borrowing an iPhone from a friend who hadn't upgraded the iOS yet. It's got a smaller screen, with a lot of cracks in it, but it'll get me by until I figure something else out.[/url]

I'm using a Sonoma WireWorks GuitarJack interface and have no issues after upgrading to IOS 13. I'm betting Apogee Jam would have no issue.

Thanks for bumping this excellent thread. I’m a big fan of both iRealPro and Steel Sidekick. I also recently discovered a very user friendly song accompaniment app called Session Band http://www.sessionbandapp.com/SessionBand.html which I now use as often as iReal. It doesn’t do charts as far as I know. I use it mainly as a looper.

Thanks to Stephen for raising the iPad I/O issue. I will be looking into a suitable lightning cable adapter very soon.

I use iRealb and polynome every day.

https://polynome.net/

I can highly recommend 1Chart for creating and organizing charts using the Nashville Number System. It's quite robust with a lot of features, and the developer is hard at work on another major update.

A little pricey (~$20 US) but worth it. Has night mode for use on stage, too. I haven't found a song I couldn't chart with it yet.

https://www.1chartapp.com/

James Mayer wrote:I'm using a Sonoma WireWorks GuitarJack interface and have no issues after upgrading to IOS 13. I'm betting Apogee Jam would have not issue.

Sure enough, Apogee is proudly announcing that their stuff still works with 13:

https://apogeedigital.com/blog/ios-13-c ... ity-info-2

I have a friend who works at Line 6 and he told me that there's tons of audio stuff out there that's not working with 13, but perhaps he's unaware that there's other stuff that isn't having a problem.

I'd been doing fine for a long time with the Sonic Port and the Mobile Pod app, but seeing as there's no timetable for that to be fixed, I'm pondering other strategies. At the moment I'm making do with an old iPhone SE that a friend sent me. The small screen is all cracked (hence his willingness to part with it), so it's not a good long-term solution.

I actually already have an Apogee Duet. So maybe I'm going to look at a Milkman The Amp and run that into the Duet, and then the Duet goes into the iPhone 7+, and then hopefully I can continue making good use of the TE Tuner, the iStrobosoft, the Harmonic Dog multitrack app, and so on. Honestly, that Milkman probably sounds a lot better than any of the amp simulations anyway. Just gotta get the funds together.

BUMP. Anything new out there? I'm getting a new iPad and I see there are, at least, several new amp modeler apps out there (Overloud and GE Labs).

How are you connecting guitar or steel to the iPad these days- I m hoping to get one for the holidays so am new to the connection side of this thanks.

Steve

I’m getting the new iPad Air and it has a USB-C connection instead of Lightning, so my old Sonoma Guitarjack would need an adapter. Time to upgrade. I’m currently looking at the Motu M2 and the Audient EVO 4 as my next interface.