Our Verdict
When not testing Macs and Mac peripherals in the Macworld Lab , I ’m a work musician . One of my bands , TheAmazing Embarrassonic Human Karaoke Machine , is basically a cover version band without a singer . With more than 500 call in our repertoire , some have called us professional song learners . ( Some have called us other things , but what do they know ? ) That ’s why I was excited to see thatSuperMegaUltraGroovy , which makes a Mac product calledCapo , has fare out with a version of its song - learning software for the iPhone and iPod spot .
act Along : Once you ’ve imported a song from your euphony library into Capo , the app loops selections of the song so you may learn how to make for it . you could also adjust the pitch and velocity of playback .
Capofor iPhone helps you hear how to act as the music salt away on your iOS machine . The $ 20 app allow for user to spell Song from their iTunes library and keep in line them in ways that save both time and effort in the learning process . written matter - protected songs are n’t support , but iTunes Plus files are .
Play Along: Once you’ve imported a song from your music library into Capo, the app loops selections of the song so you can learn how to play it. You can also adjust the pitch and speed of playback.
Once you ’ve imported a Indian file , you could peck section of the song to loop . This simple - sound feature film can save a ton of time and effort when hear to learn a guitar solo or hard passage . Prior to Capo , you ’d find the department you ’d want to learn , closet free rein , grab your instrument and dally along . When the section had pass off , you ’d have to put down your instrumental role , stop the swordplay - back , navigate back to the beginning of the section and repeat . When looping a section , you drop more clock time learning and less clock time mother around with the dominance .
But wait , Capo ’s get an even cooler trick — it provide you to decelerate down songs , or sections of songs , to one - poop of the original speeding without affecting tar . There are labeled speed at 1/4 , 1/2 , 3/4 and 1X the original pacing ; as you put your digit on one of them , a float carte pops up letting you refine your tempo choice , by single percentage points , from 25 percent of full amphetamine to 100 pct of full amphetamine . envision how helpful it would be to have the solo fromCrazy Trainslowed down to a more manageable half - clip pace and then be able to slowly increase the playback speed as you master it .
If you ’d care to adjust the pitch up or down , you may do that , too . you could even combine the speed and pitch adjustments — exchange the auction pitch up to a chipmunk - the likes of +5 while slow down the pacing to a sludgy 25 percentage of the original . I ca n’t imagine how this could help anyone , but it does auditory sensation kind of awful .
I consort into a hemipteron with Capo when I seek to import a DRM - protect song single file . The app started mistake unprotected files as having DRM protection . I contacted SuperMegaUltraGroovy ; the 1.0.2 version of the app with this bug fix include is now usable at the App Store .
Capo for iPhone is n’t cheap . This is a premium software , and I ’m not just talking about its $ 20 price tag . It ’s prosperous to use , pleasing to depend at , and as helpful as all get out . So why would you pay $ 20 for this product when other iOS apps , like AmpliTube 2.0 , include tempo adjustment and looping ability , along with transcription , stompbox effects , a guitar radio set , metronome and more for the same price ? Because an app like AmpliTube may be overkill for many exploiter . Also , Capo ’s song import process is much faster and its substance abuser user interface is clean , more intuitive , and easier to navigate and pick up . Sure , I wish the app be a bit less , but if you believe that time is money , then Capo for iPhone will prove to be a bargain for professional Song dynasty scholar everywhere .
[ James Galbraith is director of Macworld Lab . ]
