Pretty good product. But for learning a song (especially learning the backing) the option of having the melody playing too (with adjustable volume) would make this more of a one stop shop. Even if it didn’t have any visual reference / tab for the melody.
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Yeah, Strum Machine is not designed to help you learn the melody… there are other resources for that. Would it be awesome to have melody playback in Strum Machine itself? Definitely! But unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen, for a couple of reasons. First, it would be an immense undertaking, both in terms of building the necessary features and getting the melodies in the app. But more importantly, there are legal issues; unlike chord progressions, melodies are protected under copyright and cannot be reproduced without permission, and licensing all these melodies is a can of worms I don’t want to open yet.
For now, I’m focusing on making Strum Machine the best rhythmic backup player possible, which is already a full-time job that I’ll likely be focused on for at least the next few years. For learning the melody or learning new songs, other resources like videos, recordings, written music, and/or a slow-downer app are more appropriate.
If you just want to be able to remind yourself of how a tune goes, Strum Machine has a References area where you can paste in a link to a reference recording (e.g. a YouTube video) and then be able to play it in a pop-up window when you have the song open.
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Luke, thanks for the information about References! I just linked a Carter Family version to my song. Great how it shows up in a small box over the Strum Machine chords but the box can be moved around or even go full screen . It even removed the ads!
I didn’t realize it removed the ads, but that’s cool! YouTube must skip them on videos embedded in other websites.