Every feature, explained properly
The homepage skims past a lot. This page goes deep. It is written for musicians who have already downloaded SongScribe and want to understand exactly what it does and why it was built the way it was.
Sound Engine: Karplus-Strong Guitar Synthesis
The guitar sound in SongScribe is not a sample. There is no recording of a guitar string that gets triggered when you tap a chord. Instead, the sound is generated in real time from a physical model of how a string actually behaves when plucked.
The synthesis method is called Karplus-Strong, named for the researchers who formalized it. The core idea is that a plucked string can be modeled as a burst of noise that represents the pick attack, circulating through a short delay line with a carefully tuned feedback loop. The delay length determines pitch. The feedback shaping determines timbre and decay.
Why this matters: Sample-based playback loops the same recording every time you play the same note. Physical modeling never repeats. Strum velocity changes the attack character. Sympathetic resonance between strings is simulated, so open strings ring against fretted ones. Body resonance adds low-mid warmth that changes based on the chord voicing. No two strums are identical.
The result is not a perfect imitation of a real guitar. It is not trying to be. What it gives you is something that responds and breathes when you interact with it, which is far more useful for songwriting practice than a static audio file.
The Drum Machine: Humanized, Not Programmed
Most app drum machines give you a grid and ask you to place hits. SongScribe does not. The patterns are crafted, not assembled.
There are 13 patterns across rock, hip-hop and trap, breakbeat, ballad, reggae, and click. Each one was designed as a complete groove, not a series of individual hits. The humanization is baked directly into the pattern data.
Per-instrument swing variation: Hi-hats push slightly ahead of the beat with 1.2x timing variation. Kick stays locked with 0.3x variation. The snare sits in between. This replicates the way real drummers subdivide differently on different limbs.
Ghost notes: Ghost notes are explicitly coded at 0.25–0.3 velocity inside each pattern. They are not randomized. They are placed where a drummer would naturally play them, based on the feel of each groove.
4-bar fills: Every pattern has a fill baked into bar 4. The groove runs for three bars, then breaks on the fourth. It loops back into the downbeat of bar 1 cleanly.
Real-time micro-timing: At playback, each instrument gets ±6ms of timing humanization applied per hit. The offsets vary by instrument class and are recalculated on every pass. This prevents the mechanical snapping that makes programmed drums sound robotic.
The patterns are not user-programmable. That is a deliberate decision. A programmer's drum machine is a tool for producers. SongScribe's drum machine is for songwriters who need a rhythm section that sits in the background and feels right, so they can focus on the song.
On the roadmap: Custom MIDI loop import is planned. The goal is to let you bring your own grooves into SongScribe without losing the humanized playback infrastructure. No timeline for this yet.
25+ Alternate Tunings: Full System Recalculation
Alternate tunings in SongScribe are not a cosmetic feature. When you switch from standard tuning to DADGAD, the entire app recalculates.
- Every chord diagram redraws with correct fingering for that tuning
- Note names update to reflect the actual pitches being played
- The synthesized audio matches the tuning. This is not transposed standard tuning
- The CAGED system visualization recalculates for the new open string configuration
- You can switch tunings mid-song without leaving the editor
The library includes DADGAD, Open G, Open D, Open C, Open E, Drop D, Double Drop D, Nashville tuning, half-step down, whole-step down, and more than twenty additional configurations. Standard tuning for each instrument is always available as the baseline.
For slide players, open tunings, and anyone who writes in a non-standard configuration, this means the app is actually useful rather than requiring you to mentally transpose everything.
Six Instruments: Built from Their Actual Physics
Each instrument in SongScribe has its own physical model and its own set of constraints. They are not guitar with different tuning presets.
Guitar: Six strings, standard E-A-D-G-B-e. Full Karplus-Strong model with string-to-body coupling. All alternate tunings supported.
Ukulele: Four strings with re-entrant G: the g string is tuned a fourth higher than you would expect from pitch order, giving ukulele its characteristic open jangle. The model accounts for this correctly.
Banjo: The 5th string drone is part of the instrument. It rings through every pattern, as it does on a real banjo. Open G tuning is the default.
Bass: Four-string, one octave below guitar. Low-frequency string physics with appropriate decay.
Mandolin: Eight strings in four pairs, tuned G-D-A-E. The doubled strings create the mandolin's characteristic shimmer.
Piano: Steinway samples with proper velocity sensitivity and sustain response. The piano does not use the Karplus-Strong model. It uses sampled audio because piano acoustics are substantially more complex and sample playback is the right tool.
Chord voicings, CAGED positions, and the chord library all operate correctly for each instrument. The app knows which voicings are physically playable and surfaces those first.
CAGED System: Every Voicing on the Neck
The CAGED system is a framework for understanding chord shapes across the entire guitar neck. Every chord can be played in five positions, each derived from the shape of an open C, A, G, E, or D chord. Knowing all five positions means you can play any chord anywhere on the neck without shifting hand position drastically.
SongScribe shows all five CAGED positions for every chord in its library, for every instrument that has a fretboard. Tap any position to hear it voiced at that position in the active tuning. The diagrams are accurate to the current instrument and tuning. Switching to Open G recalculates every position.
This is particularly useful for worship musicians and gigging guitarists who need to lock in with a capo position, or for anyone working through the neck systematically. The piano view shows the equivalent voicing across the keyboard rather than fretboard positions.
MIDI Footswitch: Hands-Free Live Performance
During a live performance, reaching for your phone to turn a page is conspicuous and interrupts the connection with the audience. MIDI footswitch support exists to solve exactly that problem.
Any MIDI footswitch that communicates over Bluetooth MIDI or USB MIDI will work. Devices tested include the AirTurn BT500, PageFlip Cicada, and iRig BlueTurn, though any class-compliant MIDI controller sending standard note or CC messages is compatible. No special configuration is required for supported devices.
- Map footswitch buttons to page turn forward and backward
- Jump to a specific section within a song
- Navigate between songs in a setlist
- No need to touch the phone during a performance
The mapping is done once in settings. Once configured, the footswitch connects automatically when it is in range and the app is open.
Multi-Track Recording: Built Into the Song
The recorder in SongScribe is not a separate tool you open and then have to correlate with your song afterward. It lives inside the song editor. When you record, the take is attached to that song and stays with it.
You can record directly while playing the SongScribe drum machine or metronome in the background, then layer overdubs on top of existing takes. Each take gets a waveform view. You can trim the start and end points and play back from any position.
On privacy: The microphone is only active when you explicitly start a recording. Audio is stored only on your device, inside the app container, associated with the song. No audio is ever uploaded, processed on a server, or shared with any third party. The microphone permission is used for recording; it is not used for anything else.
The goal is to capture ideas before they disappear, in the context where they belong. A rough demo of the verse melody stays attached to the verse of that song, not in a separate folder somewhere you will not find it again.
Chord Library: Every Shape, Every Instrument
Tap any chord in a song and you get every fingering option for that chord, for the active instrument, in the active tuning. The library covers voicings, inversions, slash chords, and extensions.
Voicings are sorted by playability: the most common fingerings for your instrument and hand position are shown first. Less common extensions and altered voicings are available further in the list. Every voicing is playable: you can tap any shape to hear it.
The chord library adjusts correctly when you switch instruments. A G chord on guitar, ukulele, and banjo have completely different fingerings because the string configuration is different. The app knows this.
Harmony Engine and Key Detection
As you write a chord progression in SongScribe, the harmony engine reads it in real time and identifies the key. It then surfaces chord suggestions based on what it finds.
The suggestions are organized by relationship to the key: diatonic chords (chords that naturally belong to the key), borrowed chords from parallel modes, and common passing chords. Scale degrees are shown beneath each chord so you can see its function in the progression: I, IV, V, ii, vi, and so on.
This is not AI-generated music. It is music theory applied to what you have already written. The suggestions are starting points, not prescriptions. The engine is most useful when you are stuck on a bridge, looking for a chord that resolves somewhere unexpected.
Import and Export
SongScribe is not a closed system. Songs can come in from multiple formats and go out in multiple formats, because musicians use multiple tools and not everyone you perform with will use the same app.
Import: ChordPro files, plain text with bracket-style chord notation (e.g. [G] before each chord), PDF files, and direct paste-and-parse from the clipboard. PDF import includes optional OCR for scanned or image-based pages, useful for converting a physical sheet or a photographed chord chart.
Export: PDF in two layouts: a rehearsal layout with large font and wide margins, and a print layout designed for reading from paper. ChordPro export produces a file that any other ChordPro-compatible app can open. Plain text export produces a clean, readable file that anyone can open without special software.
The export system is designed specifically for situations where you need to share a song with bandmates who do not use SongScribe. The PDF output is formatted to be immediately readable, not a raw data dump.
Performance Mode
Performance mode removes everything except the song. No toolbar. No editing controls. No notifications. Just lyrics and chords in large, readable text against a clean background.
Auto-scroll moves the song at a speed you control. You can set it once and let it run, or adjust it mid-song. Font size scales automatically based on how far away from the screen you are likely to be, a setting designed for musicians who place their phone on a music stand or lectern.
Performance mode works entirely offline. There is no login screen, no connectivity check, no banner asking you to rate the app. It opens your song and gets out of the way.
Offline-First and Privacy
Everything in SongScribe lives on your device. Your songs, your recordings, your setlists, your chord edits. None of it requires a network connection to function.
- No account required. No email address. No password.
- The app functions fully on first launch with no sign-in step.
- iCloud backup is available and opt-in: not mandatory, not on by default.
- WebDAV backup is available for users who prefer self-hosted or non-Apple cloud storage.
- There is no analytics on your songwriting activity. The app does not track which songs you open, how long you spend editing, or what chords you use.
- Microphone audio is processed locally in real time during recording. It is never uploaded, never analyzed remotely, and never stored outside your device's local storage.
The offline-first architecture is not a marketing position. It started as a practical necessity: the app was built by a busker who lost his set because of a cellular dead zone. It stayed offline-first because it is the right design for an instrument.
On the Roadmap
These are things we are genuinely thinking about building. No dates. No promises. "On the roadmap" means it has been seriously considered and is likely to happen, not that it has been scheduled or committed to.
SongScribe is free to download. Unlock all features with a one-time purchase.
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