Strum Machine - Backing Tracks

Lots of under-the-hood changes to pave the way for future features coming this year, including more strumming patterns and instrument abilities.

A huge update to the band settings and guitar capabilities, eight months in the making! Band settings menu updates: • Redesigned menu that is easier to read and navigate • More prominent Presets button for quick access to band presets • Improved rhythm pattern visualizations that mirror what you hear as you customize the settings • Volume/pan sliders now affect the current song immediately – for global settings, continue using the Audio/Mix panel Guitar - All boom-chuck–based strums updates: • Choose between hearing alternating bass notes or the root note only • Add automatic leading notes: transitional notes before chord changes (guitar only for now, bass coming soon) • Add automatic guitar bass runs, picked based on the chord progression and your preferences • Change the strum to be more boom-heavy or chuck-heavy • Specify the "voicing" to use (chord shape, capo position, drop-D or standard tuning, etc.) Guitar - Boom chuck with upstrokes updates: • Make the pattern more strum-heavy (think Jimmy Martin) or pick-heavy (think cross-picking) • Change the feel of the strum with a new "2D slider" control – see and hear your changes immediately as you drag the slider around Guitar - Syncopated boom-chuck strum updates: • Revamped syncopated (D DU UDU) strumming pattern that is more configurable and works better in more situations Guitar - Dampened strumming patterns updates: • A new "in-between" option for onbeats: a "short strum" that only plays 2 or 3 strings • Adjustable sustain duration for dampened strums, anywhere from full sustain (no dampening) to almost no sustain (dampened immediately) – moderate sustain sounds great with slower ballads, for example • Adjustable backbeat emphasis (softer onbeats and louder offbeats) Standup bass instrument updates: • Choose which octaves you'd like to hear the bass use: low, middle, or high (plus a "mix" option that currently needs work) • Disable root-fifth alternation and hear the bass "pedal" the root note instead • Fine-tune the amount of sustain you want to hear from the bass On my to-do list for the future: - Add many more built-in presets and styles to reduce the need for fine-tuned customization in common genres - Add more mandolin strumming patterns to match the guitar offerings - Add leading notes and chord walk-ins to the bass - Add walking bass (four notes per measure) for jazz/swing genres - Continue adding more strumming patterns to the guitar, such as a syncopated waltz strum, a simpler DUDDUD jig strum, and many more - Add more jazz/swing chords - ...and more, depending on what folks want to see! As always, please let us know about any issues you encounter, or if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement. Thanks!

A huge update to the band settings and guitar capabilities, eight months in the making! (Plus iOS 17 improvements.) Band settings menu updates: • Redesigned menu that is easier to read and navigate • More prominent Presets button for quick access to band presets • Improved rhythm pattern visualizations that mirror what you hear as you customize the settings • Volume/pan sliders now affect the current song immediately – for global settings, continue using the Audio/Mix panel Guitar - All boom-chuck–based strums updates: • Choose between hearing alternating bass notes or the root note only • Add automatic leading notes: transitional notes before chord changes (guitar only for now, bass coming soon) • Add automatic guitar bass runs, picked based on the chord progression and your preferences • Change the strum to be more boom-heavy or chuck-heavy • Specify the "voicing" to use (chord shape, capo position, drop-D or standard tuning, etc.) Guitar - Boom chuck with upstrokes updates: • Make the pattern more strum-heavy (think Jimmy Martin) or pick-heavy (think cross-picking) • Change the feel of the strum with a new "2D slider" control – see and hear your changes immediately as you drag the slider around Guitar - Syncopated boom-chuck strum updates: • Revamped syncopated (D DU UDU) strumming pattern that is more configurable and works better in more situations Guitar - Dampened strumming patterns updates: • A new "in-between" option for onbeats: a "short strum" that only plays 2 or 3 strings • Adjustable sustain duration for dampened strums, anywhere from full sustain (no dampening) to almost no sustain (dampened immediately) – moderate sustain sounds great with slower ballads, for example • Adjustable backbeat emphasis (softer onbeats and louder offbeats) Standup bass instrument updates: • Choose which octaves you'd like to hear the bass use: low, middle, or high (plus a "mix" option that currently needs work) • Disable root-fifth alternation and hear the bass "pedal" the root note instead • Fine-tune the amount of sustain you want to hear from the bass On my to-do list for the future: - Add many more built-in presets and styles to reduce the need for fine-tuned customization in common genres - Add more mandolin strumming patterns to match the guitar offerings - Add leading notes and chord walk-ins to the bass - Add walking bass (four notes per measure) for jazz/swing genres - Continue adding more strumming patterns to the guitar, such as a syncopated waltz strum, a simpler DUDDUD jig strum, and many more - Add more jazz/swing chords - ...and more, depending on what folks want to see! As always, please let us know about any issues you encounter, or if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement. Thanks!

A small update that makes links to the Strum Machine website open in the app.

We've redesigned the editing interface from the ground up to be smoother and easier to use, with new features like number-chords in the editor and a whole slew of new extended/jazz chords you can use in your charts!

Minor improvements, plus an experimental (opt-in) metronome feature. Learn more by going to the top-left menu, then tapping About / Version History.

Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the app to immediately close upon opening, if it had not been used for awhile. For more information on past updates to Strum Machine, open the app and then go to the top-left menu > About / Version History.

Band Settings 3.0 update! Expanded preset library, improvements to the interface, new abilities for the mandolin (chop dryness and rhythm accents) and standup bass (four-notes-per-bar walking bass lines), plus bug fixes and improvements.

Some new features in the editor like beat pushes, codas, and mid-song time signature changes, plus lots of work under the hood to keep Strum Machine running smoothly.

Tweaks to the audio engine to improve behavior around other audio-playing apps. Last update: Some new features in the editor like beat pushes, codas, and mid-song time signature changes, plus lots of work under the hood to keep Strum Machine running smoothly.

Bug fixes and minor improvements in this update. See Version History in the top-left menu in Strum Machine to read about other features that have been added/updated recently!

Bug fixes and minor improvements in this update. See Version History in the top-left menu in Strum Machine to read about other features that have been added/updated recently!

New opt-in audio engine available under Advanced Settings in this update. See Version History in the top-left menu in Strum Machine to read about other features that have been added/updated recently!

Removing the new audio engine for now as there were a couple reports of the app crashing when opening it. Will add it back after more testing and fixing.

Changed version of bundled FMOD audio engine, in the hopes that it will resolve certain infrequent issues that some users were experiencing. (If you have problems with playback, please write Luke through the Help menu. Thanks!)

This version includes a newly-rebuilt audio engine (opt-in for now) that should be more reliable. If you've had any issues with audio playback recently, please go to the top-left menu > Advanced Settings and enable the new September 2025 audio engine.

Uses a new default audio engine, custom-built just for Strum Machine, with improved reliability and slightly lower battery usage.

It's the Tenth Anniversary Update! The biggest changes are summarized as follows: - New Playback Interface: Redesigned to give you faster access to the most useful settings. - Easier BPM Controls on Phones: Try out our brand new "BPM dial" on your phone! - New App Settings Page: All settings now in one place, with room to grow. - Dark Mode: Go to Settings → Appearance to enable Dark mode, or have it follow your system theme. Plus there are a whole bunch of smaller additions and improvements, including: - Design Refresh: Improved contrast and readability, more consistent UI, smoother animations, and so on. - Metronome: Go to the Metronome menu on any song page to enable it. You can also toggle it and adjust volume in the "Audio/Mix" menu. - Count-in Delay: Give yourself time to pick up your picks or bow before the count-in starts. - Shorter 1-Bar Count-in: Want to give yourself less time to prepare before the downbeat comes? This option is for you! - Silence in the Count-in: Leave space to play the pickup notes in your kickoff! (Also a useful workaround if your Bluetooth speaker tends to drop the first beat.) - Count-in Metronome: You can toggle the metronome as a count-in sound now. (It will only play during the count-in unless enabled in the Metronome menu.) - Adaptive Count-in Volume: Count-in volume now matches the instrumentation by default. You can still set a manual volume if you want. - Pan Controls for Count-in and Metronome: Find them in the Audio/Mixer settings page. - Hear Sounds on Rests: New togglable setting to hear the beat during rests. (I'll be improving the sound sample soon.) - Relative Minor Chord Numbers: Do you want the root chord of minor songs to be 6m and not 1m? Enable this setting under Chart & Display!

Improvements to the login form. Unfortunately, many users found themselves logged out after the previous update, due to some very necessary infrastructure upgrades. We've tried to streamline the process for getting logged back in with this update. Here's a summary of what we released in the last big update: - New Playback Interface: Redesigned to give you faster access to the most useful settings. - Easier BPM Controls on Phones: Try out our brand new "BPM dial" on your phone! - New App Settings Page: All settings now in one place, with room to grow. - Dark Mode: Go to Settings → Appearance to enable Dark mode, or have it follow your system theme. Plus a whole bunch of smaller additions and improvements, including: - Design Refresh: Improved contrast and readability, more consistent UI, smoother animations, and so on. - Metronome: Go to the Metronome menu on any song page to enable it. You can also toggle it and adjust volume in the "Audio/Mix" menu. - Count-in Delay: Give yourself time to pick up your picks or bow before the count-in starts. - Shorter 1-Bar Count-in: Want to give yourself less time to prepare before the downbeat comes? This option is for you! - Silence in the Count-in: Leave space to play the pickup notes in your kickoff! (Also a useful workaround if your Bluetooth speaker tends to drop the first beat.) - Count-in Metronome: You can toggle the metronome as a count-in sound now. (It will only play during the count-in unless enabled in the Metronome menu.) - Adaptive Count-in Volume: Count-in volume now matches the instrumentation by default. You can still set a manual volume if you want. - Pan Controls for Count-in and Metronome: Find them in the Audio/Mixer settings page. - Hear Sounds on Rests: New togglable setting to hear the beat during rests. (I'll be improving the sound sample soon.) - Relative Minor Chord Numbers: Do you want the root chord of minor songs to be 6m and not 1m? Enable this setting under Chart & Display!

Some users were reporting that the app froze upon playback. This update should fix that issue, among other minor fixes and improvements.