Author here - one of the most notable facts about the app is that it's made entirely in Godot Game Engine! I think it's great for apps like this because it makes it especialy easy to iterate on GUI designs such as this one.
Feel free to ask me anything about Chord Chart Memo, or my experience with Godot.
I enjoyed your write up, and was surprised to read that it was built in Godot, which I'd only ever considered for games, but of course it makes sense that games are simply a kind of app.
Love that you employ the circle of 5ths in the keyboard, whereas a more naive approach might've been to just ascend stepwise from C.
Any plans for an iOS version? Does Godot make it easy to port to other platforms?
Thanks a lot! Yeah, when I had the idea for the circle of fifths keyboard, I knew I just had to build it because it has so many benefits compared to the naive approach, especially when thinking "harmonically".
Yes, there are plans for an iOS version! Godot has native support for iOS, so it should be pretty much plug-and-play. I haven't done it yet because of the developer fee that Apple charges, and because I am mainly an Android user myself. If there is enough interest though, I'm sure my partner would let me borrow her Macbook & iPad in order to bring this out though :)
Yes I have considered support for roman numeral notation! It would not be too hard to put the keyboard into a mode where roman numerals are displayed for the note keys & chart itself.
Chord Chart Memo is much cheaper than iReal Pro, and it is laser-focused on making it as easy as possible to enter your own charts. Most apps on the market are designed for playing charts made by other people - Chord Chart Memo aims to serve musicians and songwriters working on original music which might not have a widely available chart online.
Chord Chart Memo is also specifically designed with the stage in mind: charts load quickly & work entirely offline.
Because it isn't clear from the launch page: can it play sounds? I'm wondering if it can "audition" chords so that I can get a double-check on whether I'm picking the right one. I'm a musician who mostly plays by ear and improvisation, and I sometimes have to spend an annoying amount of time figuring out the correct name of a chord if I want to write it down for another musician to play. (a feature that showed which notes made up each chord, maybe behind a long press or something, would also be handy for this)
No sounds just yet - but that is a planned feature. The sounds of the chords will play every time a chord is input, and upon tapping any given chord, for feedbock.
Interesting suggestion about showing the note names that make up each chord! The data will definitely be in the app when sounds are added, I'll have to think about adding that.
A share button is pretty high on the priority list, as that's what musicians in bands would need the most.
As for libraries of charts, there are many other apps that do that very well already! I wanted to focus on fast editing of charts for musicians writing original songs, who are not really served that well by other apps at the moment.
Feel free to ask me anything about Chord Chart Memo, or my experience with Godot.
I enjoyed your write up, and was surprised to read that it was built in Godot, which I'd only ever considered for games, but of course it makes sense that games are simply a kind of app.
Love that you employ the circle of 5ths in the keyboard, whereas a more naive approach might've been to just ascend stepwise from C.
Any plans for an iOS version? Does Godot make it easy to port to other platforms?
The Godot editor is built in Godot [0]
[0] https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.5/getting_started/introduc...
Yes, there are plans for an iOS version! Godot has native support for iOS, so it should be pretty much plug-and-play. I haven't done it yet because of the developer fee that Apple charges, and because I am mainly an Android user myself. If there is enough interest though, I'm sure my partner would let me borrow her Macbook & iPad in order to bring this out though :)
Would you concider addinf support for numbers only. Generally for my use case I actually only use numbers and not specific chords... I IV V vii etc
Chord Chart Memo is also specifically designed with the stage in mind: charts load quickly & work entirely offline.
Because it isn't clear from the launch page: can it play sounds? I'm wondering if it can "audition" chords so that I can get a double-check on whether I'm picking the right one. I'm a musician who mostly plays by ear and improvisation, and I sometimes have to spend an annoying amount of time figuring out the correct name of a chord if I want to write it down for another musician to play. (a feature that showed which notes made up each chord, maybe behind a long press or something, would also be handy for this)
Interesting suggestion about showing the note names that make up each chord! The data will definitely be in the app when sounds are added, I'll have to think about adding that.
As for libraries of charts, there are many other apps that do that very well already! I wanted to focus on fast editing of charts for musicians writing original songs, who are not really served that well by other apps at the moment.