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the one piece of guitar software i can't find for mac

V

vieoray

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 18, 2005
128
0
i switched from windows about a year ago and have been looking on and off since then for a piece of software i used and can't find anything comparable for my mac. maybe someone here can help.

i play guitar and sometimes learn songs i enjoy listening to. sometimes songs will have a chord or note in them that is hard to pick out by ear, so on windows i would use a program called AP Tuner to identify the chord/note. the program was basically a chromatic tuner, but i could select an option within it to "record what you hear" and instead of using the microphone to pick up sound (like you would tuning your guitar) it would hear stuff played with winamp or iTunes. it would then display the main chord progression of the song as the song played.

there are many, many chromatic tuners for the mac, but i have found all of them to be pretty crappy. even when using them for what they're really for (tuning a guitar) they are horribly off.

so what im asking is does anyone know of an application for my mac that will display chords/notes for me as i play the song, say in iTunes? when i first saw the new version of garageband, i thought it would be able to do it, but it doesn't. it displays notes, but only using the microphone and it too is sadly not very accurate.

thanks.
 
so let me get this straight....

...your ear isn't good enough to pick out a note in a melody, but it is good enough to determine that other chromatic tuners out there are "horribly off".

Also, if there's a program out there that will "display the chord progressions (in real time) WHILE a tune is playing in iTunes", I'll switch TO windows. (First thing I'd do is play some Ives - no, I'd start with Stravinsky and just watch the program blow up!)

I know you came to the board today looking for help. But I hate it when people whine and blame the mac for something when clearly, the mac is not the issue here. Are you trying to tune your guitar? Open your ears - they must be prettty darn sensitive to be more precise than those "horribly off" chromatic tuners for the mac.

And since we're forced to use windows boxes here at school (next month's professional development topic: troubleshooting your computer!), I'm going to download that tuner and check out some of the advanced capabilities to be found therin. Can't wait! Oh - and while I'm at it, I think I'll check the calibration on some of those horrible chromatic tuners for the mac with the strobe here in the music department. I'll let you know what I find out, OK? In the meantime.....

E, A, D, G, B, E



Have a nice day!
MFK
 
wow, aren't you a jerk.

at no point did i "blame the mac" for anything. why would i blame a computer i love?

i have been playing guitar for four years. i'm self taught and using a tuner to help me figure out how to play songs has helped me to train my ear, but i still need help at times. yep, there is a program in windows that can listen to a song as you play it and you can look at the display and determine, with trial and error, what chord is being played. its especially handy when trying to figure out a song that uses a capo, or figuring out what kind of alternate tuning is being used.

most tuners i have tried on the mac aren't very good. i can tune my electric or acoustic with my boss chromatic pedal (or...shock, by ear! yes, i can tune a guitar by ear, your majesty musical professor with advanced equipment in the music department!) and then confirm the tuning with a software tuner on the computer and it will be totally off. garageband is the only one i have found to be completely accurate.

forgive me for trying to find out if something i used in windows can also be used on a mac. have a nice day indeed, MFK.
 
Hi

I've had a quick search, and come up with these two applications that may be useful:

Guitar Shed

Guitar Vision

Guitar Shed costs $18 - not a lot if it turns out to be useful.
Guitar Vision Player is free, songs are $4.95 each - they are in gvs format and show you the chords and how to play them.

As for just a simple tuner - have you tried Freaky Tuner?

Sorry if these aren't exactly what you are after, but its the best that I could find.
If you have Virtual PC, you could always try running AP Tuner under that.
 
Q: "How many guitarists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"


A: "7. On to do it, and 6 to sit back and say 'I could do it better than that!'.


:D
 
I guess while I am at it I should tell you my other favourite musician jokes:


Q: "What did the drummer get on his IQ test?"

A: "Drool."




Q: "Did you hear about the bass player who locked his keys in his car?"

A: "It took them 3 hours to get the drummer out!"
 
more musician jokes...

Q: How do you get to piccolos to play in tune?
A: Shoot one.

Q: How do trumpet players greet each other?
A: Hi. I'm better than you.

Q: What did the trombonist say when he got to the gig?
A: Would you like fries with that?

Q: What's the difference between a bari sax and a lawnmower?
A: You can tune a lawnmower.

Q: What's the difference between a flute player and a seamstress?
A: A seamstress tucks up the frills....

Q: What nationality are most drummers?
A: Russian.

And then there's the joke with the really long set up that ends like this: "it was the bottom of the ninth (symphony), the bases (basses) were loaded, and the score (conductor's, of course) was tied..... but it really isn't worth the bandwidth.

Continue having a nice day.

MFK
 
vieoray said:
i switched from windows about a year ago and have been looking on and off since then for a piece of software i used and can't find anything comparable for my mac. maybe someone here can help.

i play guitar and sometimes learn songs i enjoy listening to. sometimes songs will have a chord or note in them that is hard to pick out by ear, so on windows i would use a program called AP Tuner to identify the chord/note. the program was basically a chromatic tuner, but i could select an option within it to "record what you hear" and instead of using the microphone to pick up sound (like you would tuning your guitar) it would hear stuff played with winamp or iTunes. it would then display the main chord progression of the song as the song played.

there are many, many chromatic tuners for the mac, but i have found all of them to be pretty crappy. even when using them for what they're really for (tuning a guitar) they are horribly off.

so what im asking is does anyone know of an application for my mac that will display chords/notes for me as i play the song, say in iTunes? when i first saw the new version of garageband, i thought it would be able to do it, but it doesn't. it displays notes, but only using the microphone and it too is sadly not very accurate.

thanks.
Click to expand...

You haven't mentioned which programs that you tried (that you found to be 'pretty crappy'). I don't know what you've found to be unsatisfactory. I am not a musician, but I saw a pretty amazing suite of musical applications demonstrated at a Mac Users Group meeting---Sibelius 3. Google it, and I wish you luck with your endeavors. By the way, it isn't cheap.
 
some thoughts

I remember back in the old days..

Opcode Studio Vision (now discontinued) could transcribe music but only single notes, not entire chords.

But here is a cool app to check out

http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/6740


Amazing Slow Downer X 2.7.4
"If you're a musician who likes to learn new songs and techniques by listening to the same piece of music over and over but wish that the music could be played a little slower, then you'll enjoy Amazing Slow Downer for Mac. This PowerPC program reads music directly from your CD-ROM drive and slows it down between 1% and 400% using a "time-stretching" method which does not change the pitch, regardless of the speed!

Most programs of this sort require you to record the music first. Not with the Amazing Slow Downer. It processes the music in real time - just insert the CD and press the play button. You may also play MP3, AIFF and Wave files.

Other features include increasing the music speed up to twice the normal rate, pitch adjustments in semi-tones at full or lower speed, and more."

Let us know if it works for you.
 
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