Must Have Mac Apps For Musicians
Feb 19, 2018 Whether you play in a brass band or rock out on guitar, these are the best Windows 10 apps for musicians. Huge Amazon device sale! Shop all the discounts now. 10 must-have apps. Apr 22, 2020 With more than 2 million apps, that is a difficult question to answer. But if your question is, 'What are the apps I need right now?' We can help you out with that. Whether you are a social butterfly, a busy bee, or a music-loving songbird, there are a handful of must-have apps that are the basic starters for every new iPhone user.
- Must Have Mac Apps 2020
- Must Have Mac Apps For Musicians Windows 10
- Must Have Macbook Apps
- Must Have Mac Apps
- Must Have Mac Apps For Musicians 2017
Your iPhone or iPad aren't just there to satisfy your musical tastes via Apple Music. Sure,you could listen all day, but if you play an instrument, there are some awesome apps that can help make your music life easier and more interesting.
Here are my favorites!
GarageBand
Let's just get this out of the way to start, because it's kind of obvious. GarageBand comes standard on new iPhones and iPads, and if you have a device that was activated or purchased after September 1, 2014, it's free to download from the App Store.
GarageBand is where you can lay down your tracks, using real instruments or the built-in multitouch instruments, like piano, guitar, drums, and more. You can then use taps to trigger loops, edit cells, add effects, and much, MUCH more. When you're finished, you can share your creations via Facebook, email, and other platforms, or you can AirDrop the project to a Mac to keep working!
If you're at all into amateur recording, the GarageBand is a must-have.
- Free for newer devices, $4.99 otherwise - Download now
Yousician
Ever wanted to play guitar, bass, piano, or ukulele, but felt that lessons were too costly? Or, are you self-taught and now want some more formal training? Yousician is 'your personal music teacher', and it features over 1,500 missions and exercises for complete beginners or advanced musicians wanting to brush up on their skills.
Get Things, Get Done The apps are available on Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad. Check out our 15 day free trial of Things for Mac. Getting things done software mac. Things is a task management app for macOS, iPadOS, iOS, and watchOS made by Cultured Code, a software startup based in Stuttgart, Germany.It first released for Mac as an alpha that went out in late 2007 to 12,000 people and quickly gained popularity. The following July, when the App Store launched, it was among the first 552 apps available for iPhone. It was then released alongside the iPad in.
Using your iPhone or iPad's microphone, Yousician listens to you while you play and gives you instant feedback on your performance, helping you progress and get better every step of the way.
No matter what stage of musicianship you're at, there's something Yousician can help you with. The app is free to download, but to get the full effect, you'll have to subscribe for as low as $19.99 a month. When you think about what you'd spend per lesson, that's pretty damn good!
- Free, with subscription - Download now
forScore
If you're constantly printing sheet music off the internet, chances are you have a piano bench filled with papers or a music stand that's bending under the weight and sobbing gently. Sheet music is readily available online and often free, so it's easy to go overboard. So stop the presses.
forScore is a digital sheet music reader for iPad that can import PDF files and act as your digital sheet music library. It can also connect to cloud storage services like Dropbox to make importing and exporting even easier.
forScore will also turn pages for you, organize your library, and let you edit your music — it's all under your control.
- $9.99 - Download now
Tempo
No matter how good your internal clock is, we could all benefit from using a metronome now and then (as a fantastic drummer, I can freely admit this). There are many free metronomes out there, but many aren't consistent in terms of time-keeping or bpm, while Tempo is just about perfect. It doesn't only help you keep time either; you can create setlists that are stored for later so you don't have to go back and program everything again, and you can track the number of bars played how time your practice. There are 35 time signatures to choose from, including compound and complex meters, and you can customize accents and play with a bunch of other features at tempos from 10 to 800 bpm.
There is a lite version, but you definitely don't get all the sweet features.
- $3.99 - Download now
GuitarToolkit
If you're a guitar player looking for an awesome all-in-one app, then check out GuitarToolkit, since it has a tuner, metronome, chords, and scales.
The best part is that the app doesn't just support 6-string guitars; it'll also work with 7- and 12-string guitars, 4-, 5-, and 6-string basses, banjo, mandolin, and ukulele.
Using GuitarToolkit's chord sheets, you can create and save chord progressions, and you can even create drum patterns to play along with - it's a songwriter's dream! There are some in-app purchases that'll let you unlock everything in the app, but the basic $2.99 will suffice if you don't want to spend much more.
- $2.99, with in-app purchases - Download now
DM1
If you're not a drummer (or are one) and want to make some sweet, digital beats on your iPad, then check out DM1, hailed by Lifewire as one of the best drum machines around for iOS. You can tap out beats and figure out rhythms without worrying about being an amazing drummer (like me) — the app automatically quantizes things for you just in case you're a little off.
The step sequencer is probably the coolest feature, since you can tap to turn off certain parts of the beat you've created, potentially resulting in a different, unexpected beat altogether! You can also mix your drum kits on the fly, add effects, and compose songs from your beats by laying them on a timeline. When you're done, export to Dropbox, Soundcloud, and other cloud storage services, as well as Facebook, email, and your iTunes Shared folder.
- $4.99 - Download now
Animoog
If the digital drums of DM1 aren't your thing or if you're looking for a great partner app, then you should definitely check out the synth app, Animoog. This is the ultimate digital synth for iPad, and the price tag reflects it ($29.99), so you'll probably want to be pretty serious about it before diving in.
Animoog takes its sounds from Moog Synthesizer's massive library of synth sounds so that you can create and mold sounds as you would on a real synth. This is a feature-heavy app, and you'll want to know what you doing going in, since it's not just simple sample playback. You'll be able to control polyphonic modulation, pitch shifting, delay, timbre, delay, and much more, adding effects and really sculpting sounds like the Art Vandelay of synth.
You can also record and play live over your recordings, editing and overdubbing all the way. If you're into piano and synth and creating your own sounds, in a very involved setting, then give Animoog a try.
- $29.99 - Download now
Guitar Tuna
Because the iPhone is the perfect size to be a tuner, why would you ever bring one with you? Guitar Tuna is one of the best free tuners around and works very well (it's made by Yousician and they know their stuff). It'll work with just about any string instrument, including bass, cello, ukulele, balalaika, sitar, fiddle, and many, many more.
There are over 100 tunings available, as well as awesome features, like background noise cancellation (for tuning in noisy areas), a metronome, chord learning games, and more. My favorite part is that the chord library is all free and has just about every chord you can think of. You just select the chord name and then drag a slider to make it major, minor, suspended, whatever. It's awesome.
- Free, with in-app purchases - Download now
Capo touch
Learning music by ear is an innate talent, but even the most talented folks need some help now and then. Shortcut to close mac app. And if you have trouble playing by ear, this is the app that'll help you change all that. Capo scans your music and extracts the chords so you can start to recognize chords by ear, and it also helps get those that you miss or just aren't quite sounding right.
Capo can also slow down and speed up your tunes, so if you're having trouble getting a particularly tricky solo, you can play it over and over again at the speed that works for you. There are so many more features — too many to name here, in fact, like a metronome, the ability to add a virtual capo and change the key, and perhaps the most useful feature, instrument isolation, allowing you to hear just the vocals or just a particular instrument.
If you're trying to learn any tune at all, then your iPhone or iPad is at a loss without Capo touch. It's like magic!
- $9.99 - Download now
Must Have Mac Apps 2020
Striking a chord
Are you a musician? What's your favorite app and how does it help you make sweet, sweet music? Let us know in the comments below!
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My heartThis timelapse of macOS 10.0 through 10.15 is a nostalgic wonder
The very first version of macOS, or Mac OS X as it was known, arrived almost 20 years ago. This video takes us through every major update the Mac has seen since in one amazing timelapse.
It’s a fine time to be an iOS musician. There are a ton of great apps out there that can help you refine your craft and even perform live music in new and interesting ways.
I recently wrote about how I play guitar live at church using a xSonic xTone interface and Bias FX on my iPad, but there are many other high-quality iOS apps available to musicians. Whether you are looking to digitally replace a large sheet music library, write songs on the go, get some help practicing difficult musical passages, or just need a little help staying in tune, these apps have you covered.
iReal
iReal Pro is an app to help musicians of all levels master their art. It’s part songbook and part digital backup band, allowing you to import (or create) easy-to-read song charts and then select backing instruments that you can play along with.
The chord charts are all stored in a digital library, allowing you to access thousands of chord charts from your iPad. You can create your own chord charts and easily share them with others, but the real value of iReal Pro for musicians is in the backing tracks. You can select any chord chart and change the style, and the backing instruments will adapt instantly. For musicians looking to develop their chops in different styles they may not normally be able to try with other live musicians, this is a great way to stretch your abilities. You can change tempos and key signatures easily, and there’s even a practice mode for learning tough passages. Just select a passage you want to loop, and practice mode will repeat it over and over, gradually increasing the tempo each time.
iReal Pro is available as a universal iOS app for $13.99. There is also a Mac version available for $19.99.
forScore
forScore is an iPhone and iPad app designed to help you organize your sheet music. It allows you to import sheet music as PDFs, and even purchase content from within the app through services like Noteflight and MusicNotes. The big advantage of using forScore is that you don’t have to carry around a ton of sheet music anymore. As someone who used to always carry hundreds of pages of sheet music with me to orchestra practice, I’m a big fan of keeping everything stored digitally. I always have my iPad with me anyway, so not having to carry music around is great.
But forScore does more than just store PDF files. It intelligently solves some of the major problems classical musicians face when playing off of sheet music — like having to stop and turn the page. ForScore gives you the ability to do “half-page turns” so you can see the bottom half of one page and the top half of another, and works with Bluetooth page turners like PageFlip and AirTurn. It even has built-in audio tools like a metronome, pitch pipe, and tuner. The design is beautiful, and it even has Dark Mode and support for iOS 13 features.
forScore is available as a universal iOS app for $14.99.
Perfect Tempo
Perfect Tempo is an app that does one thing, and does it well — it allows you to modify the speed of songs you’re trying to learn without changing the pitch.
The thing that makes Perfect Tempo so powerful is the integration with Apple Music. I used to run into this limitation using other apps in the past. As a guitarist who occasionally wants to learn how to play a solo I hear in a professional recording, I’d get frustrated when trying to import a song to slow it down and be told I couldn’t do so. But with Perfect Tempo, you can speed up or slow down any song in the Apple Music library.
You can repeat the entire song or select a specific section to make practice easier, and you can even control tempo, volume, and repeat from your Apple Watch. It’s also a great app for dancers who want to practice a routine at a slower pace to learn complicated steps.
Perfect Tempo is available as a universal iOS app for $4.99.
Must Have Mac Apps For Musicians Windows 10
Music Memos
Music Memos is a free app that is actually made by Apple to be a musical scratchpad for musicians to quickly get their ideas down. Just open the app and hit record. Once you have your idea down, Music Memos will analyze the audio and suggest chords for what you played. It’s optimized for acoustic guitar and piano, but you can use it for other instruments as well (though your results may vary).
Once you have your audio recorded and the chords are identified, you can add a virtual drummer and bass player with the tap of a button. Unlike iReal Pro which gives you the band and it’s your job to play along with it, Music Memos attempts to insert a band behind what you’ve recorded. It doesn’t always do a perfect job of lining everything up with what you’re playing, but it is pretty cool to record something quick and instantly add a virtual backing band.
Music Memos is available as a universal iOS app and is free.
Tonaly
Tonaly was known as Ultimate Circle of Fifths until recently, and is a songwriting and practice tool that is built on the famous circle of fifths model that will instantly be recognizable to students of music theory. If you’re new to music theory, don’t worry — you don’t need to know any music theory in order to use the app. Just scroll the wheel to select your key, and the app will show you the other chords that are in that key. This makes it a great tool for songwriters who are trying to find that perfect chord for a song. You can add chords to a progression below the circle of fifths as you go, expand the drawer on the bottom to see the chords on a keyboard or fretboard, and even tap the play button to hear what it sounds like on the virtual instrument you have selected.
It’s also a great practice tool for musicians who want to develop their chops. In addition to helping you become familiar with the chords in the circle of fifths, there’s also a Scales mode that makes it easy to practice any scale in any key. There’s a couple of scales included like major ionian and minor dorian, but you can unlock more than 80 different scales with a $2.99 in-app purchase.
Tonaly is available as a universal iOS app for $4.99.
GuitarTuna
What’s the difference between a guitar and a fish? You can’t tuna fish.
GuitarTuna is a free app made by Yousician (a great app in it’s own right for learning how to play) that helps you keep your instrument in tune. Just pluck a string on your instrument and GuitarTuna will detect the sound using the microphone on your device, giving you instant visual feedback without any cables. I’ve had mixed results with iPhone tuners in the past, but GuitarTuna boasts award-winning audio recognition technology that guarantees “an insanely accurate tuning result.” I’m not sure how to measure whether it lives up to that claim, but in my experience it is pretty good.
And even though the name says GuitarTuna, it also works with a lot of different stringed instruments, including:
- guitar
- ukelele
- bass
- violin
- mandolin
- cello
- and much more
The app is free to download, but the premium version is pretty pricey ($4.99/month for all tunings, chords, instruments, etc.). As a basic free tuner, it’s great.
GuitarTuna is available as a universal iOS app for free.
TonalEnergy Tuner
If you want a better tuner and are willing to pay a few bucks as a one-time purchase, the TonalEnergy Tuner is currently at the top of the App Store music charts and does a great job. It gives you visual feedback through a circle in the middle that becomes a green smiley face once you are actually in tune. It offers support for a large pitch range, and even allows you to modify reference point for tuning from the standard A = 440 Hz.
The app also gives you a powerful metronome with lots of tempo patterns and subdivision options, and the analysis tab gives you instant feedback to help you practice. Using the Target Tuner or Pitch Tracker features can help you create rewarding and attainable goals during a rehearsal or when working alone. It even offers Shortcuts support and an Ableton Link feature that allows you to play in-time with other Link-enabled apps on the same network.
TE Tuner is available as a universal iOS app for $3.99.
Just Press Record
Just Press Record is made by the same developer as Perfect Tempo, and is an audio transcription app. It’s a mobile recorder that gives you one-tap recording ability (even from your Apple Watch) and syncs your recordings across iCloud. Think of it like Voice Memos on steroids.
The major feature of Just Press Record is the built-in transcription. Just like accessing a voicemail on your iPhone, the transcription is displayed below the recording title. Once you record your audio, you can edit the transcription to fix anything it messed up and you can even edit the recording and remove any sections you don’t need.
Just Press Record is available as a universal iOS app for $4.99. If you decide to purchase Perfect Tempo and Just Press Record, there is a musician bundle available on the App Store that can save you a few bucks.
Hum
One of the problems I used to run into as a songwriter was having audio ideas in one app and lyric ideas in another. Hum is the iPhone app that fixed that problem for me by combining note-taking and audio recording into a single app for capturing and organizing your songwriting ideas. Just create a new “hum” and type out your lyrics, then tap the record button to capture the melody line that goes with it. All your song pieces are stored together, making it much easier to go back and develop them later.
Hum is a beautifully designed app that is easy to use, but it does quite a bit. You can attach metadata to your song ideas like key, tuning and mood, and attach recordings to your lyrics so you can work on them at the same time. You can sync your hums via Dropbox, and toggle a recording countdown if you prefer a little space at the beginning of your recording.
Hum is available as an iPhone app for $2.99
Capo Touch
Capo Touch is a phenomenal app that analyzes a song file and detects the chords, key, and tempo of the song. From there, you can slow the song down to practice a difficult section you’re trying to learn, transpose the key on the fly, isolate or eliminate instruments or vocals, and much, much more.
Must Have Macbook Apps
The only knock on Capo Touch is that you have to purchase songs you want to learn from iTunes instead of accessing them from your Apple Music library. So while Capo Touch is much more powerful than Perfect Tempo and does a lot of additional things, if you just want to slow down a section of a song so you can learn how to play it, then Perfect Tempo is probably a better option.
Must Have Mac Apps
Capo Touch is available as a universal iOS app for free, though there is a fairly expensive in-app purchase of $19.99/year to unlock all features.
Must Have Mac Apps For Musicians 2017
Our Must-Have, Most Used Productivity Apps
We spend an inordinate amount of time sorting through hundreds of apps to find the very best. We put together a short list of our must-have, most-used apps for increasing productivity.