ChordFlow has been around for just under a year now, and in that time it’s had a regular set of updates. This is a really significant update and I think it’ll help ChordFlow get recognised as a serious sketch pad for mobile musicians.
Back in the early days of mobile music mobile apps were often seen as just sketchpads that you could perhaps take on further on a desktop computer. Obviously we’ve moved on from that situation, but musical sketchpads are still valid and very useful depending on your own personal workflow. ChordFlow pitches itself as just that, and with this update it becomes a much more powerful and useful sketchpad.
Here’s what’s new in version 2.3:
New multi-timbral sound engine and new sounds
The previous version of ChordFlow had just a very simple and mono-timbral sound engine and only had the one internal sound, which wasn’t really conducive to use as a musical sketchpad. With this update, ChordFlow gets a whole new multi-timbral sound engine with 25 build-in sounds. Each of the app’s 8 tracks can be assigned any of the new internal sounds.
The new available sounds include:
- Grand Piano
- Electric Piano
- Electric Piano FM
- Vibraphone
- Marimba
- Rock Organ
- Pipe Organ
- Accordion
- Acoustic Bass
- Slap bass
- Synth Bass
- Pizzicato String
- Harp
- Strings
- Strings Slow
- Choir
- Synth Voice
- Trumpet
- Brass section
- Oboe
- Flute
- Square lead
- Saw lead
- Solo vox
- Polysynth
It’s not a bad set of sounds, and certainly a big improvement from the original position for the app, but I’d really like to see some actual synthesis in here, and I’m hopeful that the app is going to move in that direction with subsequent updates.
Ability to pre-hear chords
When you’re in the chord sequence editor view while the sequencer is not playing, if you select a chord or change the selected chord, the chord will be played shortly. This new feature allows you to quickly examine the chords in your sequence without need to play the full sequence.
Export all sections as a single MIDI file
You can now choose whether to export the entire song into one MIDI file or into multiple MIDI files, one per each song’s section.
Support iPhone X
Interface layout is now adjusted propertly for the iPhone X screen. Not so important to me, but will be to some I’m sure.
ChordFlow costs $9.99 on the app store