Yearly Archives: 2020

✅ Notepad:
▫ Option to improve audio recording quality
▫ Expandable and collapsible notes
▫ Support for copy & paste
▫ Audio player is now part of the toolbar
▫ Starts editing at the end of the note

✅ Create notes in the notepad with a link to your item from each ‘Folder’ menu. Use it for instance to document your ideas about certain items.
▫ Chord progression
▫ Fretboard Trainer
▫ Metronome
▫ Pattern
▫ Playground
▫ Practice
▫ Set list
▫ Songbook
▫ Tone generator

✅ Songbook:
▫ New directives to embed links to your item like chord progressions, notes, exercises, …
▫ Editor got menu items to create these links
▫ New color options to define the text and background colors for the {highlight:} directive
▫ Fix: Replace chord didn’t update the song text
▫ Fix: Switching player to ‘automatic’ shows the right player again

✅ Custom tunings with just two strings are allowed (could make sense with activated setting ‘Rootless chord voicings’)

✅ Favorite fingerings are always preferred during sorting

✅ Chord name fix: Range switched accidentally

✅ Other changes and fixes

▶ There is a new video that explains the fretboard trainer

❀ Special thanks to Dominik Janiec, Eric Snoddy, Glenn Homes, Josef Metzger, Martin Hägerås and Paul Aussem for their contribution to this version

⭐⭐⭐ Rootless chord voicings ⭐⭐⭐

▫ Consider the new option to allow rootless chord voicings if…

• you play instruments with fewer strings like a Cigar Box Guitar or a Ukulele
• you’re playing in a band and the bass player will play the root note
• you like this ‘jazzy’ sound

▫ Rootless chord voicings…

• ❗❗ are active by default for instruments with three or four strings
• are shown in the features ‘Chord’ and ‘Choose chord’ if the option is activated
• can be allowed by option in ‘Chord name’
• can be added to the fingering favorites
• are valid in the ‘Fretboard trainer’ if the option is activated
• are used in the ‘Songbook’ if the option is activated

⭐ Chord name
▫ Option to allow rootless chords
▫ Possibility to add rootless chord voicings to fingering favorites
▫ Replaced context menu with buttons in the toolbar
❗ New sort order of the chord name list

⭐ There is a new manual describing the handling of chords in smartChord

⭐ Drum machine:
▫ 311 drum patterns: You shared your drum patterns with us. We have collected them and made them available for download

✅ Songbook: New section in documentation ‘how to get the best fingerings‘

✅ Other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Rolf Puchtinger, Ron Beaver and Sébastien Streit for their contribution to this version

⭐ Songbook:

• Different ChordPro style delimiters to be able to see the chords more clearly: Brackets ‘[Am]’, spaces ‘ Am ‘ or underscores ‘_Am_’
• Predefined color schemes for normal and dark background (‘Songbook appearance -> Reset’ for existing users)
• Optimized scrolling if the intelligent line break isn’t active
• There is new documentation for the s.mart Songbook. It is worth a glance: https://smartchord.de/s-mart-songbook

⭐ Drum machine:

• 234 drum patterns: You shared your drum patterns with us. We have collected them and made them available for download
• Covers a lot of genres: Blues, Disco, Funk, Jazz, Pop, Reggae, Rock, …
• ‘Download’ button in the ‘Table of contents’ to download and import the drum pattern collection
• Preview in the ‘Table of contents’ of the drum machine makes it much easier to select an adequate drum pattern

▶ Our video shows how to use the drum machine:

✅ Table of Contents: More natural sort order especially if the item name contains numbers

✅ Speed trainer: Possibility to reduce the speed

✅ Fix: Select ‘cloud’ as ‘data source’ for song import

✅ Fix: Color scheme preview

✅ Other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Harry Fehlemann, Marilyn Leahy, Marius Bleeke, Serkan Gürses, Stepan Efremov, Tom Geldner and Troy Cox for their contribution to this version

There is a new documentation for the s.mart Songbook. It is worth a glance: https://smartchord.de/s-mart-songbook

⭐ Songbook: Options to get the whole song on one screen
▫ Multi column layout
◾ Option to present a song in 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns
◾ It is song specific and can differ from song to song
◾ Supports intelligent line break with zooming
◾ Needs Android 7 or newer

▫ Compact song view mode
◾ New ‘Mode’ presents the song in ChordPro style, where the chords are in the same line of the lyrics

▫ Buttons for ‘Info’, ‘Line break’, … are staying visible in ‘Just chords’ or ‘Lyrics’ mode
❗ Fix: DropBox synchronisation
❗ Fix: Update the song when changing the mode

✅ Simple ‘drum kit’ to jam around. Just for fun 🙂
▫ Use up to 16 percussion instruments in parallel
▫ Choose between more than 40 percussion instruments
▫ Create multiple drum kits and sync them between your devices

✅ Drum machine:
▫ Possibility to use the same instrument with different volume or velocity
▫ Button to get a drum kit for the drums in the drum machine

✅ Metronome: New lower limit of 4 BPM

✅ Other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Eugene Mih, Henk Oostrom, Jose Climent, Lee Lawrence and Mike Mountain for their contribution to this version

✅ Optimized gallery and grid sizes for chords, scales and arpeggios

✅ Optimized printout for chords, scales and arpeggios

❗ Scale freeze: Workaround for Android bug on some devices

❀ Special thanks to Fernando G. Rojjas, Neil Stretton, Santi Chacon and Wayne Minor for their contribution to this version

⭐ Changes in appearance of chords, scales, arpeggios and the circle of fifths
▫ New option to apply the color scheme either to intervals or notes. With the new option, you can get always the same color for the same note
▫ New option to show semitones on the fretboard smaller. This helps your orientation on the fretboard a lot
▫ Consistent coloring according the chord and scale formula

⭐ Three new arpeggio pattern modes:
▫ 2 notes per string pattern
▫ 3 notes per string pattern
▫ 4 notes per string pattern

❗ Now there is just one general setting for what kind of information is shown on the fretboard. It’s the same for chords, scales and arpeggios

❗ New setting groups ‘Name settings’ and ‘Appearance’. Some settings have been moved to the new groups

✅ Scale and Arpeggio with improved usability and optimized pattern overview

✅ Synchronize categories

✅ Piano: Option to show color scheme together with the note name

❗ Scale: Fixed patterns with fret range bigger than 12

❗ Scale: Fixed update screen after scale change

❗ Arpeggio: Fix for more complex chords like 13sus4

✅ Fix: Keep categories when synchronizing songs or set lists

✅ Many other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Christoph Lanz, Henk Oostrom, Leo Müller, Liam Gotch and Santi Chacon for their contribution to this version

⭐⭐⭐ Categories to classify and filter your items like songs or drum patterns
▫ Create and maintain your own categories
▫ Assign the categories to your items
▫ Filter your items by one or more categories
▫ Each item type may have different categories
▫ A category can be used in multiple item types
▫ Category ‘Genre’ is predefined but changeable
▶ Our video shows how to use categories: https://youtu.be/XBHYoUeMKA4

⭐ New set list export:
▫ Option to export as text or HTML
▫ Option to include the whole songs or just the lyrics
▫ Option to include ‘table of content’
▫ Option to include notes
▫ Export as text can be used e.g. to share it with your audience or to copy it into the clipboard
▫ Export as HTML can be used to open it in a browser to print it or create a PDF file

✅ New set list import

✅ Notepad
▫ Accepts shared texts and adds it as a note
▫ Copy a note to the clipboard

✅ Fix Songbook: Crashed on some old devices

✅ Fix Share: Allows to overwrite existing items

✅ A lot of other minor changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Barth Harrington, Chris Elstrodt, Emory Keller, John de Jong and Martin Porubsky for their contribution to this version.

✅ Individual ‘Auto save’ option for the different items like songs or notes

✅ Drum machine: Improved handling

✅ Set list: Improved search handling

✅ New chord types

✅ Fix: Edit song online

✅ Fix: Renaming of items

✅ Other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Claudio Dossetti, Emory Keller, Henk Oostrom, Manfred Thyssen, Marc van Westerlaak, Marius Bleeke, Martin P. Daniels and Steve Marshall for their contribution to this version.

❗ Fix Drum Machine: Replacing instruments didn’t work anymore
❀ Special thanks to Thomasa Velin and Zdenek Musil for their contribution to this version.

⭐ Songbook now with an integrated Drum Machine
▫ Integrated drum machine to play the drum patterns for the musical accompaniment
▫ Minimized drum pattern view
▫ Individual drum pattern and BPM for each song
▫ New button to switch between the four possible players:
◾ Audio player
◾ Drum machine player
◾ Metronome
◾ YouTube player
▫ You can use the players also if they are hidden
▫ Option to select the player automatically
▫ Extended menu to add, change or remove a drum pattern
❗ The Metronome is now one of the players and can be controlled as the other ones

⭐ Drum machine
▫ Run the Drum Machine in the background to have it in other smartChord features or apps

✅ A lot of other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Dean Eisen, Rick Johnson, Tim Schäfer and Winfried Schneider for their contribution to this version.

⭐⭐⭐ Drum machine ⭐⭐⭐
▫ Use up to 16 percussion instruments in parallel to create your drum patterns
▫ Use them for the musical accompaniment for your songs
▫ Use the Drum machine as rhythm trainer
▫ Choose between more than 40 percussion instruments
▫ Share your drum patterns with your friends, other musicians or students
▫ Sync your drum patterns between your devices
▫ Use the speed trainer to increase your speed
▫ Use the timer to control your practice time

✅ Piano:
▫ Optimized multi touch handling
▫ Option to move the visible range by octaves or single keys
▫ Option to show just active note names
▫ Option to highlight ‘C4’
▫ One additional key in each key range to play the complete octave even on the smallest range

✅ Notepad editor:
▫ Menu item added to insert a link to a saved drum pattern
▫ Button to pause the spoken note

✅ Fixed: Some links where not clickable anymore e.g. in the Notepad

✅ Lot of other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Andre Messerschmidt, Bernhard Kumpf, Leonardo Frassetto, Sandeep Kowdley, Steven Vargas, Tobias Schulte and Victor Osaka for their contribution to this version.

⭐ Pretty nice piano to jam around. Just for fun 🙂
▫ Switch between more than 120 instrument sounds
▫ Adjust number of visible keys
▫ Slider view to move quickly between the octaves

✅ Synchronization: Option to allow deletion of song and set list files in the cloud, if the songs or set lists are deleted in smartChord

✅ New color scheme

✅ Fix tuner 5-string Banjo: Note name of the 5th peg was wrong

✅ Other changes and fixes

❀ Special thanks to Ewa Wisniewski, Henk Oostrom, Ismael Venegas Castelló and Mick Burke for their contribution to this version.

⭐ Songbook improvements:
▫ Allows song info section also in full screen mode
▫ ‘Back to start’ starts with a delay if defined
▫ Smoother zooming
▫ Extra lines removed after TABs
▫ Direct link to the current ‘Set list’ via navigation menu
▫ Support for large online song imports via ‘s.mart Online Songbook Importer’ (http://www.smartchord.de/song/import)

⭐ Picking patterns
▫ Find picking patterns easier: filter the huge list (429) by entering a pattern finger sequence
▫ Favor picking patterns also in the picking pattern dialog

✅ Set list: Direct link to the current song of the ‘Songbook’ via navigation menu

✅ Scales: Option to choose scales with or without tonic

✅ Tuner: Tune your instrument with the capo set

✅ Tuning is shown everywhere with capo position if capo is set

✅ Possibility to translate tips and hints

✅ Chord progression, Fretboard quiz, Practice: Screen keeps on bright (no dimming anymore)

✅ New picking patterns:
▫ PP 4/4 405 v2
▫ PP 4/4 405 v2 r
▫ PP 4/4 405 v2 r ab
▫ PP 4/4 424 v5
▫ PP 4/4 467 v2
▫ PP 4/4 492
▫ PP 4/4 493
▫ PP 4/4 494
▫ PP 4/4 495
▫ PP 4/4 496
▫ PP 4/4 497
▫ PP 4/4 498
▫ PP 6/8 636
▫ PP 6/8 637

✅ Fixes Songbook:
▫ Conversion of German musical nomenclature for lines in ChordPro inline chord notation
▫ Remove whitespaces from song name on online import
▫ Show in ‘Playground’

✅ Other changes and fixes

⭐ Preparation for Android 11 privacy improvements

❀ Special thanks to Henk Oostrom, Ian Hiscoe, Karlheinz Mackel, Martin Porubsky and Richard G. Riley for their contribution to this version.