Capo - Learn Music by Ear 4+

awesome audio technology

I’m a composer and love to ad lib compositions, knowing someday day i will have to slog thru the process of listening to chord progressions, analyzing, and writing them down. ugh! that 90% of Creativity can be a bit of a deterrent. This app is awesome at picking out subtle jazz chords. and, if its wrong, the corrections are ez. I believe it lacks a Lead Sheet option. If so, that would be great in future versions. Seems strange, all this advanced technology, and you still have to manually list the chords. Otherwise, the app has a lot options for adjustments to bars, speeds, keys, chord names, etc. that make composition and play along a piece of cake.

Developer Response ,

Thanks so much for this review of Capo. Glad to hear you're finding it so useful. We do hope to have a lead sheet option in the future.

Best app for learning Jazz solos and Irish tunes from recordings.

As an amateur musician, I’ve found Capo to be the best App out there for learning Jazz solos and the intricate ornamentation of Irish tunes. It provides the cleanest “slow-down” of any of the apps that I’ve tried. The flexibility of its looping and other playback features makes it much easier to breakdown complicated riffs. It’s ability to sort out the key and chord changes is truly remarkable; while not infallible, this provides a great starting point for piecing together transcriptions for both chord and melody instruments. The interface is clean and very well thought out. This becomes even more obvious the longer you use Capo, since its many capabilities do require some patience to learn/uncover. I could go on and on.

The developers are solid and seem committed to a quality product for the long term, as evidenced by the updates that have been deployed since Capo’s inception (check out their newsletter to get a sense of what their team is about). At $10 a YEAR, this app is way worth it!

One suggestion. I’d love there to be an option to have the identified/edited chords automatically sound out, while the original recording rolls along in the background - rather than having to tap each and every chord symbol at the appropriate moments.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for your thorough review of Capo touch and the feature suggestion.

Ihopeyougobroke

Subscription services are lucrative for developers, I guess. But, for the user I have to decide which apps to subscribe to (if any) and which ones I have to quit using because I can’t afford a subscription for every app I use. I don’t mind buying an app at all, but having to pay an annual fee is just beyond my means. And so, I will switch my slow-down app to something else other than Capo because they, at some point, will go to the next version (x.x or Y.x or whatever) and I will be left in the dust having to subscribe again to enjoy some minor tweak of the app. If every developer ends up with subscription requirements I will just have to abandon my support for them all. How many $50, $20, $75, $20, $40, $20, $25 services can you afford? For me it’s not many and so I just stop using an app that thinks their product should charge me a monthly or annual fee to use it!! There are plenty of alternatives out there. The smart developer should appreciate their customer’s PURCHASE of an app, like I did with Capo years ago, to support their further development of the app. They should take into consideration that users will have to decide which apps to keep or which apps to abandon. The less used apps I have will be the first to go. And, Capo falls into that category as there are many alternatives that don’t require a subscription fee after purchase.