When you open Chorden for the first time, you are presented the “Browse” tab view by default. This screen lets you use 4 main ways to select a song: Files, Media library, SoundCloud and YouTube. You can see the 4 choices when you open the app and the “Browse” screen is shown.
The “Files” choice lets you browse all audio and video files that you have either on our device or stored in iCloud.
The “Media Library” choice lets you select a song from Apple’s media library app. You may notice that only a fraction of your playlists are visible. It’s because Chorden has access to only non-DRM* protected songs.
SoundCloud and YouTube choices let you browse freely SoundCloud or YouTube within a webview and navigate to your desired song. For YouTube on iOS, a single tap on a video will start the analysis. On MacOS/iPad you will have to tap the “Analyze” button at the lower right of the screen. For SoundCloud, you also tap the “Analyze” button at the lower right of the screen after navigating to a song.
Chorden has access to only non-DRM* protected songs since Chorden can’t have access to the audio track of DRM protected songs. A workaround is to play a song through your device speaker and then open Chorden to have it analyzed in real time along the song playback. In general, we strongly recommend using YouTube, SoundCloud or your files instead.
*DRM: Digital Rights Management
Chorden does not provide direct access to Spotify because Chorden has no access to Spotify audio data.
A first workaround is to find a matching YouTube video of the song you wish to open in Chorden. This can be done for you automatically as follows:
However this might not work on some songs from Spotify as a matching YouTube video might not exist.
Another workaround is to play a song through your device speaker and then open Chorden to have it analyzed in real time along the song playback.
Chorden does not provide direct access to Apple Music because Chorden does not have access to audio data of Apple Music songs. This is due to the fact that Apple Music audios are DRM* protected.
A workaround is to play a song through your device speaker and then open Chorden to have it analyzed in real time along the song playback. As this can be a little inconvenient, we recommend using YouTube or SoundCloud instead of Apple Music.
*DRM: Digital Rights Management
After selecting a song, tap the “…” button at the top left of the screen. Select “Instrument” in the menu that just appeared from the bottom. The instrument section view appears. Tap the icon of your desired instrument then the “Done” button at the bottom of the view.
After selecting a song, tap the “…” button at the top left of the screen. Select “Instrument” in the menu that just appeared from the bottom. The instrument section view appears. Select a string instrument such as guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin or bass. Tap the “Right-handed” button. Button title will switch to “Left-handed”. Tap the “Done” button at the bottom of the view.
After selecting a song, use segmented control at the top of the screen to switch between 4 view types.
You can transpose the audio, a.k.a. pitch shift, by using the “Pitch” button that you can find in the replay controls view on the lower right of the screen
If your selected instrument is the piano, use the “Transpose” button. If your selected instrument is a string instrument such as guitar / mandolin / banjo / ukulele / bass, use the “Capo” button.
You can change the speed of the audio by using the “Speed” button that you can find in the replay controls view on the lower right of the screen.
To define a loop over a section of the selected song, first tap the “Loop” button to set the start of the section. Navigate to the desired end of the section and tap the loop button again (which was renamed “Set end” button ). You can now tap the play button to play the loop. To clear the loop, tap the loop button again (renamed “Clear”).
After selecting a song, tap the button that has a mixer icon at the top of the screen. A popup appears and lets you download a source separation model if not done already. When the model has finished downloading, you can tap the “Separate mix” to separate the original audio into 4 stems: bass / drums / vocals / other. You can use replay controls at the left of each track to mute, solo, or change the volume of each stem.
Chorden allows export to standard formats only. You can export the audio as wav files. The chord transcription can be exported as PDF or printed directly. Either option is available by tapping the “…” button at the top of the screen.
Currently, Chorden does not support export to specific apps such as iRealPro.
After selecting a song, tap the “…” button at the top left of the screen. Select “Settings” in the menu that just appeared from the bottom. The settings section view appears. You can now choose to show or hide degrees, and also choose between Roman numerals, Nashville, or Simplified notation.
After selecting a song, tap the “…” button at the top left of the screen. Select “Settings” in the menu that just appeared from the bottom. The settings section view appears. You can then choose between the CDEFGA or Do Ré Mi Fa Sol La notations. German notation CDEFGAH (with B-> H, Bb -> B) is also available.
We are considering adding music notations from other languages, using for instance Musical Notation. Please feel free to contact us through the contact form to request a specific notation language.
Chorden does not support export to midi format. We are considering adding this feature in a future update.
After selecting a song, tap the “Lyrics ⨁” button around the top of the screen. Lyrics are obtained through a speech recognition model which requires some computation time, typically a few seconds. Please understand that lyrics may be approximative and might require manual edits to ensure 100% accuracy.
After selecting a song, you can either get the lyrics through a Chorden’s speech recognition model by tapping the “Lyrics ⨁”, or enter add lyrics manually through long press on the transcription -> Add lyrics.
Then tap the “…” button at the top left of the screen. Select “Export to PDF” in the menu that just appeared from the bottom of the screen. In the PDF view that appears, check the “Show lyrics” box.
Each song that you select in Chorden is automatically added to your history. You can see your full history by tapping the “See all >” button next to the “History” header on the Browse screen. However, history is currently limited to 100 songs.
If you want to save a song, you should add it to a playlist. Tap the “…” button at the top left of the screen. Tap “Save to playlists” in the menu that just appeared from the bottom. Select one or more playlists, or create a new one with the “+ New playlist” button.
Finally tap the “Save” button at the bottom of the view.
You can retrieve a saved song anytime by tapping the “Saved songs” tab on the bottom tab bar of Chorden’s main view.
Tap the vertical 3 dots button at the right side of the song cell. Tap the red button named “Delete” at the bottom of the view. If the case the red button is named “Delete everywhere”, it means that the song will also be removed from the playlists it was saved in.
First, navigate to your saved songs by tapping the “Saved songs” tab on Chorden’s main view (the “Browse” tab that is selected by default when you open the app). From the “Saved songs” view, navigate to your desired song. Tap the vertical 3 dots button at the right side of the song cell.
You can then edit the selected playlists by selecting / deselecting them and then tap the “Save” button at the bottom. Alternatively you can tap the red button named “Delete everywhere”, it means that the song will also be removed from all the playlists it was saved in and hence completely removed from your device.
From Chorden’s main view (the “Browse” tab), select the “Saved songs” tab located on the bottom tab bar. The “Saved songs” view will show all your playlists. Select your desired playlist.
Tap the “…” button at the top right of the screen and select “Edit playlist” in the menu that appears from the bottom. You are then presented with a view to either rename the playlist or delete.
Yes, Chorden allows you to add, remove and edit lyrics.
To add some lyrics manually, do a long press on the transcription view, anywhere on the waveform or on the grid view, and select “Add lyrics”.
To edit or remove a lyrics segment, do a long press on a lyrics segment. You can then use side arrows to resize the segment or translate it with a drag gesture, or simply edit the text. Tap the trash icon to delete the segment.
Chorden is free to download from the App Store and Google Play Store. You can then use Chorden for free as much as you want and enjoy beats / chords / positions transcriptions of your favorite songs with very high accuracy. The free version includes basic features that are great for beginners and casual users. Advanced features require a Pro version subscription.
The complete list of Pro features is the following:
The PDF export looks similar to Chorden’s interleaved beats+chords view. You can choose to also display lyrics and/or chords.
Chorden is free to download and use in its basic version. Within Chorden, you can unlock pro features through a subscription to Chorden Pro.
Chorden Pro provides either a monthly-based or yearly-based subscription. The price depends on your App Store country. For instance, in the US, Canada, Japan, Western Europe, the monthly price is ~9 EUR/USD monthly or 69 EUR/USD yearly. In other countries, the app is generally a little cheaper.
We are doing our best to keep the price as low as possible. However, we have to redistribute money to copyright holders on a monthly basis for each Chorden Pro user. Hence we are unable to lower the current price as the app would not be profitable anymore.
If you do not need access to YouTube or SoundCloud, you can try Chorden’s sister app called MusicMemos (see What is the MusicMemos app?) which is almost identical but much cheaper: MusicMemos
You can cancel your subscription through your Apple account settings in the Settings app. The standard procedure is described at the following link: https://support.apple.com/HT202039
The process for obtaining a refund is handled entirely by Apple. You can request a refund through the standard procedure described at the following link: https://support.apple.com/HT204084
Unfortunately we are not able to offer discounts as a significant chunk of the app revenue goes to copyright holders. Lowering the price further would prevent the app from being profitable.
Chorden does not store any account information. You may notice that there is no login screen in Chorden. Your user data is retrieved and sync across iOS / iPadOS / MacOS devices through your Apple account and iCloud. Same goes for your purchase information, which you can consult in your account settings https://support.apple.com/HT204088
Purchases and subscriptions from the separate Android app do not transfer to Chorden. Chorden Pro must be purchased separately through the App Store.
Chorden is available on M chip family Macs, i.e. Mac computers with Apple silicon, including for instance the M1/M2/M3 MacBook Air/Pro, the M1 iMac and the M1/M2 Mac Studio. To download Chorden, go to the App Store -> Search for “Chorden” -> “iPhone and iPad Apps”. Alternatively, click the following link https://apps.apple.com/app/id1446177109 from your Mac.
Chorden does not have a native Windows app. You can use screen mirroring to display your iPhone or iPad screen on your PC.
We do not provide access to Chorden technology through any API*. We solely utilize our algorithms within the Chorden app and MusicMemos app.
*API: Application Programming Interface
We are very extremely happy whenever someone finds the app useful to its musical journey. The most straightforward way to help us is to give a review on the App Store or on the Play Store
First make sure that your internet connection works. You may also try an alternate wifi or 4G/5G network.
If you see this error, it means that your device has trouble decrypting Chorden’s models for chords and beats recognition. We are in touch with Apple engineers to figure out the origin of this issue. Also it seems that rebooting your device might fix this issue.
MusicMemos is currently almost identical to Chorden, but comes without SoundCloud or YouTube integrations. As a consequence we have been able to lower the price and even propose an affordable one-time purchase option. MusicMemos is available on iOS / iPadOS / MacOS at https://apps.apple.com/app/id6446246814
MusicMemos is currently almost identical to Chorden, but comes without SoundCloud or YouTube integrations. In the future, we plan to release a few features in MusicMemos tailored for composers who need a song writing assistant.
Feel free to reach out to us through our contact form.