The Chordify toolbox has a lot of fun Premium tools for some Premium jamming! You might have seen them on the toolbar while you were playing your favorite tracks, but just didn’t know what they were actually for. In this blog post we’re going to take you by the hand, and explain every feature so you can improve the quality of your jams.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
In this Chordify toolbox article you’ll find
Chordify toolbox
The Chordify toolbox is accessible for Premium members. Not Premium yet? Jam along with songs from our Featured channel where the Premium features are unlocked for everybody! This way you can try them out and see if they could help you with your jams.
Transpose
As you can see in the figure above, the Transpose tool is the first feature you encounter on the toolbar after the rewind and the play button. This cool tool has two functions:
1. It shows you in which key the song is written, handy for improvising etc.
2. It transposes the key of the song one semitone up or down with every click which provides you with chord diagrams that fit all the different keys.
How to use it?
Click the up or down arrows in the Transpose toolbar option to transpose all the chords one semitone up or down. Notice that the chord diagrams change with every click. Choose your favorite chords and key and start jamming!
Please note that transposing changes the key and the chords, but not the key of the song that you hear in our player. Therefore, the new found chords and the original sound don’t match anymore. But this is not a problem if you use other handy Premium Features like Song Volume and Chords Volume.
Capo
To the right of the Transpose feature you see another feature from the Chordify toolbox: the Capo. The capo is a movable nut that you can use up and down the guitar neck to artificially transpose the range of your instrument in real life. Well you don’t have to do it in the analog dimension of course, since we have it digitally as a tool. Our digital capo tool has a few advantages.
For starters you can move the digital capo up and down the fretboard to see if this will provide you with some cool chord diagrams. After that you can place the real life capo on your guitar and jam along. The second advantage is that the Chordify capo can provide you with some less finger breaking diagrams.
What does it do?
“Yeah, you mentioned that already.” True, but you don’t need a real capo to play the easier chords. Keep that in mind. Also, don’t forget that our tool just shows you the transposition of the chords that we provide, it doesn’t change the pitch of the song you playback on the player.
The digital capo shows you chords that sound like the original chords, but are shaped differently. In other words, the capo adjusts your instrument to the key of the song.
How to use it?
- Move the digital capo up and down the digital fretboard.
- Notice that the chord diagrams change when you move the digital capo.
- Choose your favorite chord shapes.
- Place your real life capo on your instrument at the same fret as the digital capo and jam along with the song.
- Using the capo doesn’t change the key of the song, so your guitar and the song on Chordify will still sound in tune. This is one of the differences with transposing.
Please note that you need a real capo to play along with the new chord shapes provided by the digital capo. Read more about the capo in this blog post.
Song Volume
Moving on to the neighbour of the Capo feature. Please meet the Song Volume tool! Imagine that you love to play along with a song, but you just don’t want the original sound to be very loud, or maybe muted.
Why? Because maybe you just used the Transpose or Capo feature, and want to play along with the new chord diagrams, but don’t want to be distracted by the original sound. This is the place where you can manage the volume of the song in the player.
Chords Volume
Next to the Song Volume tool you’ll find the Chords Volume feature. This does exactly the same thing as the Song Volume button, only this time you manage the volume of the piano MIDI chords you can use to check if you’re in the right key. That’s all there is to it.
BPM
Do you know what BPM stands for? Beats Per Minute, that’s what. And with that being said you can probably figure out what this feature from the Chordify toolbox does. With it you can speed up or slow down the player and the chord diagram playback. This way you can practice part of the song at a slower or faster pace.
Slower if you want to learn it, but still have troubles with the fast pace in which the chords switch from one to another. Fast if… Well let’s say you just want to challenge yourself. Using this tool changes the speed of the song in the player as well as the chord diagram playback.
Loop
We’re almost through the toolbar, and things are getting better and better. This next feature is the Loop tool. The Loop is made for… Yup looping. Just select a part of a song and loop it until you’ve mastered the chords. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
Export MIDI
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. The main function of MIDI is to exchange data between digital musical instruments and computers. So by downloading the chord progression in MIDI we help you as a producer to use the chords in your digital audio workstation (DAW) software, with any instrument you like.
How to use it?
There are two MIDI download options with Chordify:
1) A quantized version which is great for creating sheet music using any score-writing software package (Finale, Sibelius, Musescore, etc.)
2) A time-aligned version that will match the exact timing of the original audio recording. This is ideal for importing into a digital audio workstation (Cubase, Ableton, Logic, Pro Tools, etc.) in order to add additional harmonies, and you can also use this version to create amazing bass lines with the Chordify bass line track. Don’t forget to set your digital audio workstation to use the right tempo.
Print Chord Sheet (and export PDF)
This last tool kind of speaks for itself. Printing a chord progression could be very practical when you want to limit your screen time, or are heading for a place where the internet connection is bad. Although you could save songs in your setlists, and access them offline.
The chords on the PDF are displayed as a chord sheet with the names of the chords included. So if you’re looking for the chord sheet, the Export PDF option is where to find it.
How to use it?
Click the Menu in the top right-hand corner, and select Export to PDF. Note: To use this feature on the app, you will need to grant Chordify permission to access your file storage.
Setlist
We’re through the features in the toolbar, but there’s just one more cool function you can use to your advantage to improve your jams. You can find the Setlist in the left upper corner.
Setlist is a way of saving, and categorizing songs so you can access them fast and easy. Once saved you can use a Setlist on- and offline. Pretty cool, huh? That’s what we thought.
Offline Mode
But wait, there is more! Store songs in the Offline Mode to keep them accessible anytime, anywhere. This doesn’t include the original audio of the song, but does include the chord diagrams, metronome and chord audio. You will automatically enter Offline Mode when you don’t have an available internet connection on your device.
How to add and play a song in Offline Mode?
- Click the Menu icon in the top right-hand corner
- Select Add to Offline Mode
- Find your song in My library
You can remove the track from Offline mode by clicking the Menu icon again, this time clicking Remove from Offline Mode.
Uploading Songs
Did you know you can add your own music to your Chordify library? Yes you can! Let our algorithm have its way with it, check out the chord progression that rolls out and simplify them if you feel like it. Once the songs are in your music library you can use all the other Premium Features on them. Transpose, download your chord sheet, etc.
How to upload a song?
Click on the Chordify tab, and you will then see the option ‘Import a song’.
Supported file types for uploading are MP3, MP4 and OGG, with a maximum duration of 20 minutes and maximum file size of 50MB. Note: To use this feature on the app, you will need to grant Chordify permission to access your file storage.
Alright, that was the guide to the Chordify Toolbox. Use our Premium features wisely. Happy jamming!
