What way to celebrate the new year than with some of the best apps to up your musician game? Here are 20 Best Apps for Musicians in 2020 – IOS AND ANDROID. Of course IOS has wayyyyy more apps and better designed, but still Android isn’t left behind. You will love this!
Thank me later.
1) ForScore
forScore is an iOS application that eliminates the need for stacks upon stacks of sheet music, helping musicians and bands clear away the paper clutter taking up valuable space. Providing electronic sheet music for guitars, drums, bass and other instruments, forScore includes a huge library of songs across many different genres. Best of all, any songs/sheet music not included in the library can be instantly downloaded, enabling bands to consolidate their entire musical repertoire into the palm of their hand.
2. Musyc: Free
Musyc is all about using the touch interface to make music. It allows you to draw shapes on the screen and listen to your musical creation while “viewing sounds” bouncing around the screen. It can be very useful for getting out of creative ruts or just having fun! Please note that Musyc is not compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3 and iPod touch 4.
3. BeatMaker 3 – IOS only
INTUA’s BeatMaker 3 offers a sequencer, a drum machine, a “craft your own instrument” feature with 128 banks of 128 pads, and a mixer, as well as all sorts of other features. The number of instrument tracks available is limited by the user’s hardware, but every track and every pad has it’s own channel with unlimited effects and up to 8 sends.
4. Backtrax – IOS only
Backtrax allows the user to play backing tracks on stage from an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Among its many features, the app includes a progress bar and countdown timer to let musicians know how long the track has to finish and it also stops after every song automatically to avoid embarrassment when onstage.
5. Songwriter’s pad – IOS and Android
Specifically designed for songwriters, the Songwriter’s Pad offers musicians a tool to make the process of songwriting more organised. The app not only allows the user to record snippets of the song but also comes with a ‘get ideas’ button, which brings up a selection of rhymes, thesaurus, phrases and words. The app also lets the songwriter layer up multiple tracks of recordings.
It also helps you develop these ideas with several helpful little tools, like the “Mood” button that generates new phrases to help with the writer’s block.
Download on Google Play and Download on IOS
6. Garageband: Free for IOS
GarageBand transforms your iPhone or iPad into a portable recording studio and features a host of useful tools and features for producing music.
Features
- Simple and Powerful
- Allows sound recording straight from your phone
- Hundreds of instrument included
GarageBand comes standard on new iPhones and iPads, and if you have an old device, it’s free to download from the App Store.
7. Metronome – IOS and Android
Great for practicing on the move, you can use the tap tempo function to find the speed of what you’re listening to, or pre-select a speed and choose from 8 metronome sounds.
It’s free.
Download on Android and Download on IOS
8. FL Studio Mobile – IOS and Android
FL Studio Mobile is the portable version of (you’ve guessed it) FL Studio. It lets you bring some (but certainly not all) of FL’s functionality on the road at little-to-no cost — and then transfer your work seamlessly to the desktop app. Unlike GarageBand, FL Studio Mobile is multi-platform.
9. Road Trip – IOS Only
The Road Trip app is an invaluable tool for up and coming bands touring small towns and intimate venues Road Trip helps traveling bands track their fuel economy and costs; map out the quickest and most direct route between venues; manage maintenance tasks and costs; and track mileage statistics.
10. Band Mule
Band Mule is the app that brings your band together and provides a private space for sharing information. Chats, schedules, setlists, and ideas: you can collaborate on all of it with Band Mule.
Features
- Calendar
- Private Chat
- Shared set-lists
11. Cleartune
Tuning your instruments can be a laborious and meticulous process. However, with Cleartune—the most sophisticated and easy-to-use chromatic instrument tuner available today—this process can be measurably streamlined. Unlike mechanical and hardware-based analog tuners, Cleartune is incredibly responsive, with the ability to fine tune and calibrate instruments in minute increments.
12. Yousician – Learn Guitar, Piano, Bass & Ukelele
Yousician is your personal tutor in digital form and has already had more than 10 million downloads. Whether you’re hoping to master the guitar, piano or ukelele, the app listens to you play before providing real-time feedback on key areas such as accuracy and timing.
Using step-by-step tutorials, gameplay to track progress, and hundreds of exercises and videos, you can learn to sight-read, strum and sing quickly and easily.
The app is free to download, but to get the full effect, you’ll have to subscribe for as low as $19.99 a month.
Download Yousician on Google Play and the App Store.
13. GuitarToolkit
If you’re a guitar player looking for an awesome all-in-one app, then check out GuitarToolkit, since it has a tuner, metronome, chords, and scales.
The best part is that the app doesn’t just support 6-string guitars; it’ll also work with 7- and 12-string guitars, 4-, 5-, and 6-string basses, banjo, mandolin, and ukulele.
Using GuitarToolkit’s chord sheets, you can create and save chord progressions, and you can even create drum patterns to play along with – it’s a songwriter’s dream! There are some in-app purchases that’ll let you unlock everything in the app, but the basic $2.99 will suffice if you don’t want to spend much more.
14. Guitar Tuna – Free, with in-app purchases
Guitar Tuna is one of the best free tuners around and works very well (it’s made by Yousician and they know their stuff). It’ll work with just about any string instrument, including bass, cello, ukulele, balalaika, sitar, fiddle, and many, many more.
There are over 100 tunings available, as well as awesome features, like background noise cancellation (for tuning in noisy areas), a metronome, chord learning games, and more. My favorite part is that the chord library is all free and has just about every chord you can think of. You just select the chord name and then drag a slider to make it major, minor, suspended, whatever.
15. iReal Pro
iReal Pro offers an easy-to-use tool to help musicians of all levels master their art. Our app simulates a real-sounding band that can accompany you as you practice, and also lets you collect chord charts from your favorite songs for reference.
The app was developed to be a great practice tool, allowing you to create and collect chord charts, and jam along with a real sounding band. In fact, you can choose from over 50 different styles of accompaniment! One of Time Magazine’s “50 Best Inventions of 2010”, the app also allows you to record yourself jamming along, and offers 50 exercises for practicing common chord progressions.
“…It’s the perfect technology for a practicing musician: high-quality digital audio, mixable, transposable into any key and completely mobile. Now every aspiring musician has a backup band in their pocket.” – Tim Westergren, Pandora founder.
Available for IOS and ANDROID.
16. DM1 for iPhone
Turn your iPhone into a vintage drum machine with DM1 for iPhone.
DM1 for iPhone lets you unleash your musical creativity by making beats with 99 high-quality electronic drum kits. The app features five main parts: the Step Sequencer, where you can turn steps on and off for beats and rhythms; the Drum Pads, where you can freely record beats with automatic quantization; the Mixer, where you can tweak the mixing of your drum kits with volume, pitch, sample length, drum kit per channel, mute, and solo; FX Trackpads, which allow you to distort, module, and transform your music; and Song Composer, where you can drag and drop patterns onto a timeline.
DM1 for iPhone combines all of these modes into a hyper-realistic interface with graphic design by Jonas Eriksson, making use of 71 electronic and 28 vintage drum kits, all mastered at Fingerlab’s studio.
Once you’re done with your song, you can export it directly to SoundCloud, or post it on Facebook, upload to Dropbox, and more.
18. Perfect Ear – Ear Trainer
This free application for IOS allows you to develop your musical skills in rhythm, chords, keys, chord progression, tune instruments such as a guitar or have a clear understanding of intervals, scales and chords.
Available for IOS and ANDROID.
19. Suggester – IOS only
Suggester is a tool to assist in the creation of songs and chord progressions. This app will help you find chords that work together. It is efficient and fun; use it to build musical phrases that will carry emotion through tension and release.
Select chords for their harmonic function. The app makes full use of the roman numeral notation.
Simply touch a chord to hear how it sound like. Press the play button to hear the chord progression sequentially and adjust the playback speed.
Key features:
You can trigger chords through the MIDI input.
Available instruments: Instruments: Piano, Electric Piano, Strings, Guitar.
Extremely useful in jam sessions.
Compatible with AudioBus 3.
Compatible with Ableton Link.
Optimized for Retina Display.
and finally,
20. Chordify
Chordify is your #1 platform for chords. We help musicians of all levels to learn and play the music they love. Chordify gives you the chords for any song and aligns them to the music in a simple to use player.
So, there you have it. A very comprehensive list of best IOS and Android apps for musicians in 2020. I use about 5 listed, so you know it’s absolutely legit.
Honorable Mentions
- Music Memos: Music Memos is the easiest way for songwriters to capture and organize new musical ideas. Use your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to record acoustic guitar, piano, voice, or any musical instrument as high-quality, uncompressed audio. Then name, tag and rate your ideas to start building a library of all your favorite new song parts and riffs. Music Memos automatically detects your tempo, rhythmic feel and chords and lets you instantly hear your musical idea accompanied by a rhythm section with realistic drums and bass.
- Four Track: The FourTrack multitrack audio recorder app is a songwriting and practice tool for singers, guitar players, piano players and other musicians who want to capture musical ideas and record songs on their iPhone and iPod touch. Plug in a microphone, arm a track, record, and repeat.
- HUM: Hum is everything for a songwriter. Everything. Download here.
Recommended reading:
- Best Live Chat Plugins For WordPress
- Best Note Taking Apps of 2018 – maybe 2019!
- 10 Instagram Apps for Instagrammers and Influencers
- 5 Best of the best Invoice Apps of 2019
