QuickAdvice: iMusician PJS: Chords & Voice
iMusician PJS : Chords & Voice ($4.99) by Inspike s.r.l. is an iPad-only music recording app that is meant to help inspired songwriters capture their creations with ease. It is more organized than a pile of napkins and take-out menus with lyrics written on them and more interesting to use than that tape recorder you bought in 1982.
When you open the app for the first time there is a five minute tutorial that gives you a good overview of the included features. Once you have named your song, you can change the time signature, adjust the tempo, chose a key and pick either piano or guitar for your instrument. This main page alone gives you an idea of how complete the features are. There are eight time signature options ranging from the standard 4/4 time to 7/8 and 12/8 time. There are 15 key options in major and 15 in minor. The tempo ranges from 40 to 240 beats. Once you’ve chosen the main structure of the song, you can move into the editing phase. Here you can choose the chords you plan on using for your song. Depending on the key you chose, you are given those chords as options. You can add a chord’s properties as well. Drop your chosen chords into a chord doc and then move them into the timeline. You can copy and paste sections of your timeline if you have repeating parts and you can easily delete sections if you decide you want it to sound different.
The iMusician PJS: Chord & Voice app also has a recordable timeline, intended for voice, but you could add anything you like to the mix. After you’ve completed your song in the chord timeline, press the record button and the song will play while you sing (or add a shredding solo). There is a click track at the beginning of the song to help you prepare for the timing. You can even go back and change the key if you find out afterward that the notes are not in your range. The song will adjust for you.
Once you have completed the song, you can export it as a MIDI, PDF or MP3. However, I was unable to get my song to export, which may have been caused by not having enough extra space on my iPad.
There are two problems with this app. First, the guitar track sounds horrible. It reminds me of the guitar feature on a Casio SK keyboard; tinny and scratchy. The other problem, and this one is major, is that the app has glitches, freezes up, and crashes a lot. There are problems with the app that need to be corrected before I can recommend it. Imagine being two-thirds of the way through recording your song when the app freezes up on you. It is very frustrating. I’d rather just use my old tape recorder again.
Overall, the features included with this app, and the chord options available, make it a helpful tool for songwriters without a keyboard by their side. There are plenty of ways to create a beautiful song and the sound is clear. But at $4.99 it is too expensive to call a good buy, even after they get around to fixing the annoying freezing and crashing that happens constantly.
