For example, if you want to practice a tune, simply pull up the chart, hit the note icon and you are presented with a pop-up which allows you to choose the style, tempo (also with tap tempo), number of times you want the song to repeat, number of bars to count in, a button to export the playalong file as a WAV or AAC (VERY cool) and a mixer to turn up, down or off the piano, guitar, bass, drums and reverb level. You can set your tempo, style and use sliders to change the volume of accompanying instruments. While it is easy enough to make a detailed chart on your iPad, the iPhone screen real-estate makes it a bit challenging so I would suggest doing it on the web or desktop editor.Ī recent addition to the app is a “Band-in-a-box” style play-along feature that is just plain amazing. The website also provides you with an online chart editor (to make your own through the site) or a downloadable (free) application for your Mac. There is a built in editor so you can make your own charts from within the app. Problem solved!Įssentially, it simply displays the chord chart to any tune pre-installed or any tune you wish to add.
In fact there is a sticky post in the jazz section of the forum which will automatically load 1,200 standards to the app when clicked from within the app. One of the beautiful things about this app is the app forum (which is accessible within the app) in which thousands of users had already uploaded charts they had made themselves as well as backups of their entire library so it is actually quite easy to just find the old Real Book charts in one file, which you can simply click and all of the contained charts will be loaded and stored for future use! Pretty cool.
But there is a work-around to this problem…