ChordFlow 4+

Songwriting Sketchpad

Dmitrii Klochkov

    • 4.6 • 130 Ratings
    • $9.99

Screenshots

Description

ChordFlow is a songwriting sketchpad that will help you create amazing chord progressions and melodies for your songs fast and easily.

HOW TO USE IT?

1. Create a chord progression.
2. Draw an arpeggio – a rythmic pattern for your chords.
3. Compose a melody.
4. Build a complete song adding more sections.
5. Save your song, share or export to your favourite DAW as a MIDI file.

CHORD PROGRESSION
- Create chord progression of any length using intuitive chord selector.
- Select a scale of your chord progression.
- The chord selector will show you which chords are matching the selected scale.
- Move chords around within chord progression using drag and drop gestures.
- Transpose the chord progression by rotating the key wheel (with the lock button unlocked). Or transpose the key of the scale while keeping the existing chords unchanged (with locked mode).
- See the notes of the selected chord and how the relate to the notes of the chord before and the one after the selected.

ARPEGGIO
- When you draw the arpeggio you are not specifying absolute notes but relative steps of the chords. When played, the pattern will be translated to the absolute notes depending on the currently played chord.
- Specify the length and rate of the arpeggio grid. Length defines the number of steps in the sequence and rate define the speed at which the sequence is played.
- Add up to 4 tracks to your arpeggio grid. Each track has it’s color, octave and number of parallel voices.
To edit a track you select it with the track selection button, and then choose the required tool.
- Draw complex curves spanning several rows and columns of the arpeggio grid with just one move with Dots tool
- Draw long horizontal lines with Line tool
- Move entire track along the grid using the Move tool
- Clear a region of the selected track with the Eraser tool
- Remove the selected track entirely using the Trash button
- Set Loop region to repeatedly play only the selected section of your arpeggio.
- Adjust notes velocities

MELODY
- Create up to 4 melody tracks.
- Melodies are edited in their own grid, which also has length and rate params as the arpeggio grid.
- Select the root note and the scale for the melody grid. You can also show and hide non-scale notes using the “Chromatic” switch.
- Melody grid features the same collection of drawing tool as the arpeggio grid does.
- While drawing your melody you will see which chords correspond to the specific steps and also which notes of the grid match the notes of the chords.
- You can also set a loop region as in the arpeggio grid view.
- Undo/Redo aslo works the same way as in arpeggio grid.

SONG STRUCTURE
- A song can contain unlimited number of sections
- Each section has its own chord progression, arpeggio and melody parts
- Add, remove, reorder, rename and clone sections
- Make quantized or immediate jumps between sections while playing.
- Set a song loop mode. Loop one section. Loop entire song. Or play whole song once.

CONNECTIVITY
- Control any CoreMIDI compatible app
- Control desktop synths through USB or Wi-Fi
- Control hardware synths
- Specify MIDI destination and channel for each track
- Use ChordFlow as MIDI or Audio sender in Audiobus (http://audiob.us/)
- Play in sync with other apps running on the same device or on other devices in same Wi-Fi network using a new technology, Ableton Link (http://www.ableton.com/link/)

SHARE/EXPORT
- Share your projects by AirDrop, Mail, Dropbox or any other app supporting sharing .
- Export to Standard MIDI file and open it in the DAW of your choice(Ableton Live, Logic, GarageBand, etc. )

What’s New

Version 2.5.2

Fixed the bug when the volume sliders would not work properly after a new song is created

Ratings and Reviews

4.6 out of 5
130 Ratings

130 Ratings

CascadeJay ,

Great composition tool!

This app is very useful for sketching out a song. There’s a slight learning curve but once you figure it out it’s easy to build your song parts with melody and harmony, without having to mess with a more complicated DAW like GarageBand. Most importantly tweaking your chords/notes is fast and easy which lets you iterate fast. And all the chords you need are available.
Some nice to have additions would be:
* Add a basic drum machine sequencer
* Allow the melody to reach lower notes (basically so you could create a bass line with it)
* A few more sounds
* Being able to use voices in amounts similar to the notes of the chord for arpeggiation (so 3 notes for a C chord, and 4 for a C7 for instance) without having to change voices.

Keep up the good work!

Bob and Sue ,

Try it!

This app is a joy to use, whether you want to quickly sketch out an idea, or carefully compose a full song. I can happily spend hours on it. The examples that come preloaded with the app make it really easy to get started.

It may be my imagination, but I am noticing some annoying little quirks like occasional tone and volume inconsistencies after the addition of the multi-timbral sound engine. I would also like it if in arpeggio mode, there was a way to check what the available notes are at any given time. Using that mode sometimes feels like trial and error. Being able to see the notes would make chord selection easier.

Addressing these two issues would bring the app back to 5 stars for me.

Developer Response ,

Hi, Thanks for the feedback! I will tune the internal sounds to make them more consistent with each other. I am also planing to add a simple mixer where you will be able to adjust each track's volume.

About note names in the arpeggio editor.
It would not be very difficult to implement it, but this means that the labels would be updated on the every chord change. And I have some worries that it will look somewhat fuzzy. So I can not guarantee I will add it, but I promise to experiment with it. Maybe it will not be so bad in the end :)

Best wishes,
Dmitry

Atm0spher1c ,

Inspirational

I understand basic music theory but my understanding of the theory behind chord progressions is limited. My limited understanding is that staying within a key can be musically limiting. I’ve been on the hunt for an app that allow you to put together progressions in a less limited, flexible way. ChordFlow provides an attractive, flexible, intuitive interface for sketching interesting chord progressions

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the feedback! You are absolutely right. It would be very limiting if the app only allowed you to choose chords from one particular scale. Instead, it only shows you in a not intrusive way which chords are closer to the selected scale and which are more remote. You can also change the scale with the chords locked to see how the current chord progression relates to the new scale. It is very helpful when creating modulations.

Glad you liked the app!

Best wishes,
Dmitry

App Privacy

The developer, Dmitrii Klochkov, has not provided details about its privacy practices and handling of data to Apple. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Supports

  • Family Sharing

    Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.

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