Capo 3 for Mac came out a few months ago. Today SuperMegaUltraGroovy have released a new app, Capo Touch for iOS along with Capo 3.1 for Mac. Capo Touch aims to help you learn how to play songs on your iOS device. It analyzes songs and tells you what chords are played where and there are a variety of string instrument options. Capo 3.1 for Mac brings iCloud sync and a new icon. Capo has existed on iOS before, but Capo Touch is a completely new app and not just some watered down Mac app port. It looks gorgeous and works brilliantly.
Capo Touch has adapted the Capo interface for touch really well. It feels great to use and the controls are all accessible easily. Waveforms look stunning and every little interface element looks plain awesome. Capo Touch utlilizes some native elements, but the typography and colours used really make it shine. The app imports your on device iTunes library and lets you browse by album, artist or song. It takes a few seconds to populate the list depending on how big your on device library is. It took about 5 seconds to go through about 4000 songs on my iPhone 5. There’s a light and thin play button next to song names that lets you sample the song before creating a project. Tapping a song will create a project for it. This brings up the main project view that is split up into 3 sections. It takes a few seconds to analyze the song before giving you full control over the project. The top section has the song name and lets you access the project settings. The waveform section in the middle shows you the chords with finger positions. You can pan across a song while it is playing. The chord boxes shown below the waveform are tappable while the song is paused. Tapping the chord name above the box will let you choose another chord or change the play position of the chord. The controls section at the bottom is swipeable. The first set of controls lets you highlight sections of the song, lists the bar and beat number, adjust the temp by dragging a slider, and pause or play the song. The tempo adjustment works great but I would have really liked the slider to snap to 100% instead of making me waste time slowly dragging it around the 100% position. The second set of controls lets you change the song pitch with a slider, toggle the metronome, and identify the chord for the current position. Some of the controls are hidden and can be accessed by tapping and holding buttons. Tapping and holding the play button reveals a loop option.
The project settings screen lets you control the Effects settings, Beats settings, and Notes settings. Equalizer controls, audio settings and voice reduction (this works surprisingly well) are in the Effects section. The Notes section gives you control over the instrument type, its tuning and capo position. Metronome controls are available in the Beats section of the project settings.
The attention to detail overall is amazing. I love how the reading for the sliders will automatically move to the other side when your finger is dragging over it. Capo Touch is a great music tool for your iOS device. It even syncs projects over iCloud to Capo 3.1 for Mac. Capo Touch is available on the App Store as a universal app for $4.99 at 50% at launch. Capo 3.1 for Mac is also discounted to $14.99 during the launch period.