Useful iPhone/iPod apps for bass players

[Duke21]

1) Amplitube, (has it all)
2) Ampkit
3) GK App
4) GarageBand
5) Progression (writing tabs/ score)
6) Tabtoolkit (reading score/ tabs)
7) Dropbox

[Michael Eisenman]

Originally Posted by AntonLargiader

...I just got an iPad and am figuring out how to best use it. Easiest (and cheapest!) is to just make PDF chord charts and then display them with the PDF reader, or else just load the individual PDFs that I already have.

Anton, if you work a lot with PDFs, have a look at ForScore. You can add your own and arrange them into set lists. You can annotate the pages and crop them to maximize usage of the smallish iPad screen. The page turning is very fast, and it also supports Bluetooth foot switches for page turns. It's a great app and is continually being improved. After iStroboTune, it's my most-used music app.

P.S. Are you the Beemer guy? I've seen your name around for a long time.

[AntonLargiader]

Thanks. My impulse control faded for a moment and I bought iRB anyway, and I think I like it. Simple, editable chord presentation. The playback feature is just a bonus but I don't see myself using that for old-time stuff. However, I will probably also view PDFs (or set the iPad up for someone else in our group to view them) so maybe I'll look for a solution there also.

Yes - I'm the Beemer guy! www.largiader.com
But old-time music is a new project: www.largiader.com/music

[Phil Smith]

Originally Posted by AntonLargiader

Question about iReal B (the new name for iRealBook) and iGigBook. It seems to me that iRB stores and processes a bunch of separate chord charts, whereas iGB loads and indexes separate PDF books that the user supplies. Is this about right? If so, where do the PDF books come from?

I just got an iPad and am figuring out how to best use it. Easiest (and cheapest!) is to just make PDF chord charts and then display them with the PDF reader, or else just load the individual PDFs that I already have.

You the user provide the PDF books and iGigBook provides the index to the books that allows you to search through all of the books to find a tune by song title or composer.

iGigBook also has an index for over 1200 transposable chord charts. This index is for a special transposing book available for download at Jazz 1200 Chord Charts that only works with the app. This transposing pdf has the same charts available to the iReal B app.

[Bassman12593]

Originally Posted by Phil Smith

You the user provide the PDF books and iGigBook provides the index to the books that allows you to search through all of the books to find a tune by song title or composer.

iGigBook also has an index for over 1200 transposable chord charts. This index is for a special transposing book available for download at Jazz 1200 Chord Charts that only works with the app. This transposing pdf has the same charts available to the iReal B app.

you forgot to mention the part where igigbook sporadically decides it's indexes are out of date and needs to download them again even though nothing has changed and if you don't have wifi (usually the case at gigs) then oh well, too bad, no indexed real books for you.

Make it so that if wifi is unavailable, the books revert to the last index. please.

[Phil Smith]

Originally Posted by Bassman12593

you forgot to mention the part where igigbook sporadically decides it's indexes are out of date and needs to download them again even though nothing has changed and if you don't have wifi (usually the case at gigs) then oh well, too bad, no indexed real books for you.

Make it so that if wifi is unavailable, the books revert to the last index. please.

There isn't anything in the app that checks whether or not indexes are out of date. I have had one user report a similar issue, but maybe you're that user? iGigBook has it's own forum here that handles tech support issues and I don't want to take up bandwidth here for that.

[macheted01]

I really like the GK app by pocketlabworks. There is two versions. A free one and one for $4.99. I just have the free one and it is pretty cool. Not sure what the difference is between the two. You need iRiffport or something similar to hook your guitar up. Great tool for learning songs that are on your ipod.

[what the pluck]

Check out scale master. It's a good free app with drones.

[Chainsaw Willie]

Originally Posted by macheted01

I really like the GK app by pocketlabworks. There is two versions. A free one and one for $4.99. I just have the free one and it is pretty cool. Not sure what the difference is between the two. You need iRiffport or something similar to hook your guitar up. Great tool for learning songs that are on your ipod.

Yeah, I like the GK app for iPod touch. some of the other guitar amp sims make it hard to play along with music on the iPod. They make you import the song into the app, or it cannot be done at all. GK just looks at songs loaded on the ipod and lets you brows and select with no importing.

Also the GK app has a very easy to set loop so you can play certain sections over and over. And you can also slow the speed of the song without lowering the pitch as well as transpose the song into another pitch without changing the speed. It IS a great tool for figuring out songs.

There are a few different bass/ipod interfaces so you can plug the bass into the ipod and listen on headphones.
iRiffPort is about $100
apogee jam $100
amplitube irig $40
peavey amkit link $30

I have the inexpensive peavey ampkit link and it seems to work fine.

[MostlyBass]

Originally Posted by ChefGus4u2

I have a 5 strings bass and, I want to know if the Peterson iStroboSoft works well with basses and the low B. does anybody knows about it?

Planet Waves/D'Addario's TuneUp app tracks my extension notes extremely well.

[NicholasF]

There's the must have iReal app I know its on Android and would imagine its on iphone. Idk if it was said or not, good thread though