FAQs – Frequently asked questions
Please find answers to several FAQs below. If you still need help, feel free to reach out to us at info@smartChord.de for assistance. We welcome your questions and feedback.
Chord name
There is no known bug. In most cases the user forgot to mute the strings which are not part of the chord.
Chords
Please go to the ‘Choose chord’ screen and change the filter to ‘All’ (funnel button beneath the table header ‘Type’). This will reveal all chord types defined in smartChord.
If you still miss a chord, create your own ‘custom chord’ in the ‘Choose chord’ screen or send a link where the missing chord is described to info@smartChord.de. We’ll add it within one week.
smartChord knows a lot of chord types. Sometimes the overview gets lost. To attain an overview you may use the ‘filter’ functionality to reduce the chord types to the most common or your favorite ones.
By assessing your individual skill-level (basic, intermediate, expert) a corresponding set of settings will be made. E.g. showing all chords and fingerings (expert) or just simple and most common ones (basic).
Please be aware, switching the skill level has an impact on the chord settings, because with a change of the skill level you also change the depending settings, e.g. number and difficulty of displayed chords and fingerings.
Circle of fifths
There is an option in the ‘Circle of fifths’ screen to simplify the chord names. If this ‘simplified mode’ is activated, the circle of fifths shows the musical symbols according to your settings in ‘General settings’-> ‘Symbols’ instead of the chords according to the music theory.
As the circle of fifths obeys the theory, it produces chords like ‘G##’. The ‘simplified mode’ shows them as ‘A’ instead.
Cloud
The ‘Song’ sync does ignore categories, as it is foreseen to sync songs with band mates and every band mate can have other categories. If we would add all categories of all other users, you would have probably too many of them. The other problem is the content of the categories. How could you get the items of new categories? There is just the selected item in the song. And what should happen if your band mate does have the same category, but more or other entries in his categories? Because of these unsolved questions, we decided to ignore categories in the ‘Song’ sync.
Imagine an “I can play this song” category. If we would sync the categories, your band mate would get it tagged “I can play this song”, even if he can’t play the song.
The same applies to favorites. Would you expect that your songs are tagged as favorite, just because your band mate loves this song? Favorites are in our opinion also personal settings and not meant to be shared.
The ‘smartChord’ sync is foreseen to sync the own devices and it also syncs the categories and favorites: https://youtu.be/OSqfxE42kUs
For us, it seems that a Chromebook is still not ready for all Android apps. They are still working on it. Please check if you have the latest version installed: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/177889
If it does not work, Use this workaround. Please install “Chrome for Android (BETA)” from the Play Store and use this for login.
General questions
smartChord does make backups automatically on the backup folder /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.smartchord.droid/files/backup. The folder ‘0’ can differ on each device. You can also create backups manually anytime in the ‘Backup’ feature. There you can also restore any backup. You can reach the ‘Backup’ feature by the menu on the ‘Home’ screen. You can use the ‘Share’ functionality in the ‘Backup’ feature to send a backup to a save place or to another device where you can restore it.
You can restore the state of one device to another with the following steps:
1. Go to the smartChord home screen of your old device.
2. Go the ‘Backup’ feature (by navigation menu in the left upper corner).
3. Create a new backup.
4. Send the backup file from the ‘Backup’ screen with the share
button to your new device.
Alternatively you can use an explorer and send the backup from the backup directory to the new device:
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.smartchord.droid/files/backup
5. Copy the backup file on the new device to the following directory:
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.smartchord.droid/files/backup
6. Go to the ‘Backup’ feature on the new device
7. Select the backup from the old device
8. Tap on the ‘Restore’ button to restore the backup
When you change the instrument or the tuning in the settings, it affects all the features like chords, scales, arpeggio, tuner or circle of fifths. But it does not affect all features. Some features like the songbook, chord progression or the fretboard trainer do store the tuning when the item is created. This means that you have the same tuning with the same chords and fingerings in a song, every time you open it. But you can change the tuning/instrument for a song or chord progression in the menu. Then the fingerings are changed too and the new tuning is stored in the item.
The fretboard trainer is different. You cannot change the tuning/instrument of a quiz. If you want to learn a new tuning/instrument, you have to create a new quiz.
You may hide features from the ‘Home’ screen using the menu popping up on a long-press. You can add all hidden features again by the ‘Add tools’ menu on the ‘Home’ screen.
The file explorer in the navigation menu of the home-screen starts in the base folder of the app. It allows the directory to be copied.
You can’t limit the access to the app folder in the cloud. This is because most users want to use another folder than the app folder as most of them have already a folder for their songs. This is the most flexible and convenient solution. Please use a network sniffer to check that we do NOT use or abuse your files.
Once created, a fretboard quiz can’t be changed, just played. But you can create a new exercise using the ‘Folder menu -> New’ and configure the new quiz, including instrument, fret range, tuning and chords
Open the Table of contents. Switch to the ‘multi select’ mode. Click the ‘Select all’ menu item. A toast shows the number of selected items.
Use the ‘Reorder’ menu on the ‘Home’ screen to reorder or remove the tools on the homescreen by drag’n’drop.
Normally the producer of your new device provides a tool to move the data from the old device to the new device (e.g. ‘Smart switch’ from Samsung). Also Google can do the job with the backup and restore feature.
And last but not least, smartChord has also different possibilities to synchronize data. If you want to do it with smartChord.
The best way is to copy a backup file
1. Go to smartChord on your old device
2. Send the backup file from the backup screen with the share
button to your new device. (You’ll get to the backup screen by the navigation menu in the left upper corner)
3. Copy a backup file to the backup folder on your new phone. The backup folder is something like /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.smartchord.droid/files/backup where ‘0’ can differ on your device.
4. Go to the the backup screen and restore the backup
Or you can use the synchronization:
1. Use the ‘Synchronize smartChord’ feature to store your content in the cloud
2. Add the Google Play account to the new phone. It’s the account with which you have bought smartChord or a s.mart app
3. Install smartChord on all s.mart apps you have bought on the new phone.
4. Use the ‘Synchronize smartChord’ feature on your new phone to restore your content from the cloud
Actually the products are detected immediately and the features are activated instantly.
If a bought product and its feature are not activated, please check the following:
Was your order successful? Is the amount debited?
Go to smartChord and check this: ‘Info’ -> ‘Your products’. It requests the latest information from Google and your purchased products are listed then.
Check the purchased products in the Google ‘Play Store’ -> ‘My Account’ -> ‘smartChord’ -> ‘Subscriptions’ or ‘Order History’
The screen overlay is originally a problem of Android 6. And it happens, if an app requests a permission. The tuner e.g. needs the audio permission.
The reason for this message:
This message appears when you’re running a floating app, and then start a newly installed one, which requests access rights. Floating apps include the chat heads of Facebook Messenger that can appear floating above other. One solution is to grand the permission before opening the tuner. Please go to ‘Info -> Permissions -> Permissions’ and grand the audio permission to smartChord.
We thought a lot about the help in smartChord. The handling of the app is described in the help, tips and the FAQ. And there is our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/smartChord.
The big open issue is the musical theory. But this is such a wide field with so much themes and topics. We skipped it as there are already so much good web sites where the musical theory is excellently explained.
The best advice would be to search the web for the topic you are interested in and use smartChord as a tool to support you.
There are a few tutorials about smartChord. It’s the best to search for smartChord on YouTube.
Updating it the same for every app. Normally the update goes automatically if you haven’t deactivated that feature in the Google Play Store.
You can activate the automatic update in the Play Store on your device. Go to the Play Store and there to smartChord (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.smartchord.droid). In the ‘⁝’ menu is the checkbox to activate/deactivate the automatic updates.
If you have deactivated the automatic updates, the Google Play Store shows an ‘update’ button if an update is available:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.smartchord.droid
Please see also Google’s help page for updating Android apps: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/113412
A purchased version of smartChord can be easily reinstalled or used on multiple devices. You don’t have to pay twice. Just install it on your devices. It is important to use the same Google Play account with which you have bought smartChord. If it was an in-app payment, that’s enough. If it was a separate s.mart app, just install it on your device. You can find your bought apps in the order history: https://play.google.com/store/account/orderhistory
You can check if everything is installed correctly:
‘Info’ -> ‘Your products’.
Your purchased products are listed there.
You’ll get help and tips for each screen by the ‘…’ menu in the upper right corner. There is also a FAQ section in the ‘Info’ which clarifies frequently asked questions. And there is our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/smartChord. If there are still problems, please write an email to info@smartChord.de
We want to make smartChord the best and most popular music app worldwide. To achieve this great goal, we have to go new ways. We follow the concept of a huge toolbox where the tools are very well integrated into each other. We made smartChord the central app with all the functionality and all the data.
As not every user needs every functionality, we made smaller packages for various purposes. The packages are represented by our plugins – the s.mart apps like the s.mart Mandolin. The s.mart apps just unlock functionality – but they need smartChord.
Your benefits:
⭐ smartChord as the central app, contains every functionality and data
⭐ The UNLIMITED provides includes also future features and apps automatically. You’ll never get asked to buy a new app or feature.
⭐ smartChord and thus every s.mart app is improved at least two times a month
⭐ The tools complement each other or build on each other
⭐ Uniform concept and user interface
⭐ Share the data between the tools
⭐ No need to update multiple apps
⭐ Very small memory footprint on your device
⭐ Early access to new features
⭐ Quick bug-fixes
smartChord does NOT need access to photos or to any personal information on your phone!
– The ‘audio record’ permission is essential for the tuner
– The ‘vibrate’ permission is needed to signal, that time is up (timer) or pitch is met (tuner)
– The ‘wake lock’ permission is needed to prevent sleep mode while the metronome is playing
– The ‘external storage’ permission is essential to import or export stored items like songs
– The ‘network access’ permission is needed for the internet search for songs (and maybe ads in the future)
There is a possibility to withdraw permissions with Android 6 or higher. Please check: ‘Info’ -> ‘Permissions’ -> ‘Permissions’
Instrument
When you change the instrument or the tuning in the settings, it affects all the features like chords, scales, arpeggio, tuner or circle of fifths. But it does not affect all features. Some features like the songbook, chord progression or the fretboard trainer do store the tuning when the item is created. This means that you have the same tuning with the same chords and fingerings in a song, every time you open it. But you can change the tuning/instrument for a song or chord progression in the menu. Then the fingerings are changed too and the new tuning is stored in the item.
The fretboard trainer is different. You cannot change the tuning/instrument of a quiz. If you want to learn a new tuning/instrument, you have to create a new quiz.
Once created, a fretboard quiz can’t be changed, just played. But you can create a new exercise using the ‘Folder menu -> New’ and configure the new quiz, including instrument, fret range, tuning and chords
smartChort supports Viola Caipira. But it is not an independent instrument at the moment. But there are 18 tunings for Viola Caipira added to instrument Viola.
Metronome
Unfortunately there can be a lag. The timing of the metronome is bad on some devices (mostly Nexus). This is because we use the Android ‘SoundPool’, an Android
provided component for sound generation. It is quite unreliable and flawed on various on this very devices. Please see:
https://androidbycode.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/nexus-lollipop-soundpool-load-not-so-sweet
This has a negative effect on functions such as the metronome. We have planned to switch to a new solution to generate the sounds.
Other devices/systems
The ‘Song’ sync does ignore categories, as it is foreseen to sync songs with band mates and every band mate can have other categories. If we would add all categories of all other users, you would have probably too many of them. The other problem is the content of the categories. How could you get the items of new categories? There is just the selected item in the song. And what should happen if your band mate does have the same category, but more or other entries in his categories? Because of these unsolved questions, we decided to ignore categories in the ‘Song’ sync.
Imagine an “I can play this song” category. If we would sync the categories, your band mate would get it tagged “I can play this song”, even if he can’t play the song.
The same applies to favorites. Would you expect that your songs are tagged as favorite, just because your band mate loves this song? Favorites are in our opinion also personal settings and not meant to be shared.
The ‘smartChord’ sync is foreseen to sync the own devices and it also syncs the categories and favorites: https://youtu.be/OSqfxE42kUs
There are three ways to edit the songs of your songbook:
- Edit your songs directly on your device. No need to be online.There is a video that shows you how: https://youtu.be/QGxaxAS6Dwk
- Edit the songs comfortably in the browser of your computer.There is another video that shows you how: https://youtu.be/19JVc76ExkY
- Synchronize your songs with your cloud. Edit them in your cloud and start the synchronization again
You can use smartChord on a Fire phone, but you have to install Google Play on a Fire phone. Please see how to do this:
https://techmogulchannel.com/tutorial-install-google-play-store-to-amazon-fire-phone
Unfortunately there is no version for the iPad or iPhone. It’s on our todo list, but with very low priority. Sorry.
Yes you can. Casting your Android screen lets you mirror your Android device to the TV so you can enjoy your content exactly as you see it on your mobile device – only bigger.
Please see: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6059461?hl=en
Normally the producer of your new device provides a tool to move the data from the old device to the new device (e.g. ‘Smart switch’ from Samsung). Also Google can do the job with the backup and restore feature.
And last but not least, smartChord has also different possibilities to synchronize data. If you want to do it with smartChord.
The best way is to copy a backup file
1. Go to smartChord on your old device
2. Send the backup file from the backup screen with the share
button to your new device. (You’ll get to the backup screen by the navigation menu in the left upper corner)
3. Copy a backup file to the backup folder on your new phone. The backup folder is something like /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.smartchord.droid/files/backup where ‘0’ can differ on your device.
4. Go to the the backup screen and restore the backup
Or you can use the synchronization:
1. Use the ‘Synchronize smartChord’ feature to store your content in the cloud
2. Add the Google Play account to the new phone. It’s the account with which you have bought smartChord or a s.mart app
3. Install smartChord on all s.mart apps you have bought on the new phone.
4. Use the ‘Synchronize smartChord’ feature on your new phone to restore your content from the cloud
A purchased version of smartChord can be easily reinstalled or used on multiple devices. You don’t have to pay twice. Just install it on your devices. It is important to use the same Google Play account with which you have bought smartChord. If it was an in-app payment, that’s enough. If it was a separate s.mart app, just install it on your device. You can find your bought apps in the order history: https://play.google.com/store/account/orderhistory
You can check if everything is installed correctly:
‘Info’ -> ‘Your products’.
Your purchased products are listed there.
Payment
Actually the products are detected immediately and the features are activated instantly.
If a bought product and its feature are not activated, please check the following:
Was your order successful? Is the amount debited?
Go to smartChord and check this: ‘Info’ -> ‘Your products’. It requests the latest information from Google and your purchased products are listed then.
Check the purchased products in the Google ‘Play Store’ -> ‘My Account’ -> ‘smartChord’ -> ‘Subscriptions’ or ‘Order History’
As you can imagine a lot of work was done in creating and developing smartChord. And it will need much more effort to improve and expand it. Buying the s.mart PLUS UNLIMITED version is the best way to say thanks to the developers, to provide the basis for future development and to do something good to yourself. The PLUS UNLIMITED has got about 25 more instruments and it includes all future chargeable functions and s.mart apps for a lifetime.
Practice
The practice icon appears on the home screen, only if you have created at least one exercise. You can create exercises on the Arpeggio, Pattern and Scale screen.
If you have yourself removed the ‘Practice’ icon from the Home screen, you can restore it from the ‘All Tools’ screen which can be opened by the ‘All Tools’ menu on the home screen.
Set list
Songbook
The ‘Song’ sync does ignore categories, as it is foreseen to sync songs with band mates and every band mate can have other categories. If we would add all categories of all other users, you would have probably too many of them. The other problem is the content of the categories. How could you get the items of new categories? There is just the selected item in the song. And what should happen if your band mate does have the same category, but more or other entries in his categories? Because of these unsolved questions, we decided to ignore categories in the ‘Song’ sync.
Imagine an “I can play this song” category. If we would sync the categories, your band mate would get it tagged “I can play this song”, even if he can’t play the song.
The same applies to favorites. Would you expect that your songs are tagged as favorite, just because your band mate loves this song? Favorites are in our opinion also personal settings and not meant to be shared.
The ‘smartChord’ sync is foreseen to sync the own devices and it also syncs the categories and favorites: https://youtu.be/OSqfxE42kUs
There are three ways to edit the songs of your songbook:
- Edit your songs directly on your device. No need to be online.There is a video that shows you how: https://youtu.be/QGxaxAS6Dwk
- Edit the songs comfortably in the browser of your computer.There is another video that shows you how: https://youtu.be/19JVc76ExkY
- Synchronize your songs with your cloud. Edit them in your cloud and start the synchronization again
Open the Table of contents. Switch to the ‘multi select’ mode. Click the ‘Select all’ menu item. A toast shows the number of selected items.
The internet search for songs does work on most websites. But not all are supported. smartChord can’t detect a song in the following cases:
– a website does not provide songs or lyrics as plain text. PDF files or images are not supported.
– the song text isn’t distinguishable from the other text on that page. But in this case there is a workaround:
— Copy the text from the web page
— Go back to the songbook
— Create a new song
— Edit the song text
— Paste the copied text into the ‘Edit’ screen
You can use the ‘Set list’ to organize your songs and lyrics for performance or practice. Please see our video on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/WgMssWHg_9
The ‘Table of content’ has a full text search function. You can search für every information in the songs. The most comfortable way to maintain these information is by the menu ‘…’ -> ‘Edit’ -> ‘Edit song information’ in the Songbook.
It’s possible to synchronize your songs with your cloud (Google or DropBox). It allows to synchronize the songs between multiple Android devices or edit the songs text files conveniently from your desktop or notebook.
There are at least four ways to exchange songs between devices:
1. You can synchronize the content of smartChord between your devices. There is a menu item ‘Synchronize’ on the home screen. This is the most comfortable way.
2. You can synchronize your songs with your cloud (Google or DropBox). It allows to synchronize the songs between multiple Android devices. You can also take advantage of the possibility to edit the songs (these are just plain text files) conveniently on your desktop or notebook.
3. You can export your songs to single files. You can optionally edit these files and import them again on the same or another device.
4. You can share single songs or even multiple songs at once. This is possible in the songbook ‘Table of content’. There is a ‘Share’ button.
When transposing, the original song (-text) is not changed, only the chords are transposed and the transposed chords are displayed. However, a ‘transpose’ directive (e.g. {x_sccrd_tr:2}) is added to the song text. So if you look at song in the editor or the smartChord Online Editor, you will see the song in its original key but with the ‘transpose’ directive. If you open the song with smartChord, it will appear transposed.
But there is a possibility to leave the song in transposed version and save it as it is visible. For a transposed song there is a menu item ‘Transpose -> Keep transposed’. It replaces the original text by the transposed text.
The songbook is empty because of license issues and the question: which songs should the songbook contain! Everybody would expect different songs. The solution is the internet. There are excellent resources. smartChord finds your songs out there.
Just use ‘Folder’ menu -> ‘New’ -> ‘Internet search’.
You can also google for a tab file collection and import them. Please see also our video for the import: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGM0XnuwtC8
Transposer
Assume, that you have a song in ‘C’ and you need it two semitones higher:
– Move the lower ruler ‘C’ direct under the ‘C’ of the upper ruler
– Move the lower ruler two semitones to the left: Result is ‘D’
– Look at your song and replace the note of every chord by the note of the lower ruler direct below.
– If there is a Fm in your song, replace it by Gm
Tuner
The screen overlay is originally a problem of Android 6. And it happens, if an app requests a permission. The tuner e.g. needs the audio permission.
The reason for this message:
This message appears when you’re running a floating app, and then start a newly installed one, which requests access rights. Floating apps include the chat heads of Facebook Messenger that can appear floating above other. One solution is to grand the permission before opening the tuner. Please go to ‘Info -> Permissions -> Permissions’ and grand the audio permission to smartChord.