Guitar Notebook User Reviews

Top reviews

Love!

I adore the app. Finally, a place where I can capture chords, lyrics, and recordings in one place!

I am experiencing one bug, which I’m told will be fixed in an upcoming release… playing iPhone recordings on Mac cause the Mac app to crash. (Even songs that I recorded days ago.)

Still, a 5-star app and I’m loving it… thanks!

UPDATE: Every wishlist item that I’ve submitted has been achieved! Great team! Every update has made this app even sweeter - Thank you!
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Response from developer

Thanks for this review! Yes we expect to push a fix shortly. The app will now show a downloading icon and tapping play will force a sync if the files have not already been downloaded.

THE Songwriting Notebook

Love the app. It lets me be more productive and organized than ever. Great Lifetime pricing. And the Developer is extremely responsive. Run, don’t walk! AAA+

Response from developer

So great that the app is making an impact for you! We love hearing that. And we so much appreciate the input from musicians like yourself. Thank you for the emails!

Best Guitar Songwriting app

I love this app, like so freaking much. I’ve been using it for years and it’s really the only thing that has all the features I want for songwriting. A year ago I had a horrible data corruption issue and I wrote to them and they SOLVED IT. No songs lost. At the time they asked what else I wanted in the app and I told them: multiple recordings. DUDE, THEY DID IT. IT IS SO GOOD. I love this app and will continue to use it for songwriting. Maybe one day I will have a #1 hit and stand on that red carpet and talk about how great GUITAR NOTEBOOK is. IDK. Probably not. But I love yall.
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Response from developer

Wow this made our day! Love it and thank you Sarah. It’s our dream come true that songwriters like yourself feel this way about the app and are writing more songs. So glad you love the multiple recordings feature as well. We wish you all the success in the world and a walk on that red carpet! (For those reading the thread, your songs are always safe in your iCloud account, there was a brief issue launching on older MacOS versions but this has been resolved.) More great features are in the works, as always. Stay tuned!

Looks Good But

The free version is very limited. You can only add 8 chords and record only one minute of audio. Because of this limited functionality it’s impossible to judge how useful the app is to guitarists.

Love!

I adore the app. Finally, a place where I can capture chords, lyrics, and recordings in one place!

I am experiencing one bug, which I’m told will be fixed in an upcoming release… playing iPhone recordings on Mac cause the Mac app to crash. (Even songs that I recorded days ago.)

Still, a 5-star app and I’m loving it… thanks!
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Such a time saver

Keeping the stacks of paper with my lyrics and chord sketches clean and organized has been a nightmare. Where are they all? Is this page a continuation of that one? One slip of the pen or pencil and everything becomes sloppy after an erasure. Two slips and it can become an unrecognizable mess. Guitar Notebook changes all that. Everything is digital, right there, completely ready. Want to change a lyric or a chord? Easy. Want to hear the strummed chord or individual notes ? Done. Want to import song sheets from other sources? Yes, please.
I do, however, have three suggestions: Turn the fretboard vertical, so it naturally matches the string configuration of the chord boxes. Add a way to designate the names of chords after you include them in the song. And add a rhyming generator. Roll out these changes, and Guitar Notebook becomes the indispensable app for songwriters. Period.

UPDATE:
The new fretboard is horrible. It’s so small as to render it unusable; unlike the other one, you barely can see the strings to touch them and create chords. And what do the string emblems above the fretboard mean? Come on! The previous version was so much better. If this is the new Guitar Notebook, I’m gone…

UPDATE (again) Sorry for the panic… But Sean at Sonametro recreated my glitch and told me how to fix it. The nice thing is he actually reads our comments and quickly replies. Thanks again, Sean!
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Response from developer

Well said! Thank you for this great review, and your suggestions! So glad the app is making a difference in your songwriting! On the suggestions - there is a way to name the chords, but maybe you mean in the lyrics section? You can also make the fretboard vertical in portrait mode (rotating the device), but I can definitely see how it would be useful in landscape mode as well. Love the rhyming generator idea, and we are already connected to AI so that is on our list. Contact us at support@sonametro.com if you want to share more or clarify the chord naming. More good stuff is in the works. Thanks for your support! Update: This appears to be a bug where the fretboard thinks it is in the wrong orientation (portrait/landscape). The fix is to turn the device, exit that screen and return, or worst case restart the app. We will work to improve this in the next update. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Such a time saver

Keeping the stacks of paper with my lyrics and chord sketches clean and organized has been a nightmare. Where are they all? Is this page a continuation of that one? One slip of the pen or pencil and everything becomes sloppy after an erasure. Two slips and it can become an unrecognizable mess. Guitar Notebook changes all that. Everything is digital, right there, completely ready. Want to change a lyric or a chord? Easy. Want to hear the strummed chord or individual notes ? Done. Want to import song sheets from other sources? Yes, please.
I do, however, have three suggestions: Turn the fretboard vertical, so it naturally matches the string configuration of the chord boxes. Add a way to designate the names of chords after you include them in the song. And add a rhyming generator. Roll out these changes, and Guitar Notebook becomes the indispensable app for songwriters. Period.

UPDATE:
The new fretboard is horrible. It’s so small as to render it unusable; unlike the other one, you barely can see the strings to touch them and create chords. And what do the string emblems above the fretboard mean? Come on! The previous version was so much better. If this is the new Guitar Notebook, I’m gone…
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Response from developer

Well said! Thank you for this great review, and your suggestions! So glad the app is making a difference in your songwriting! On the suggestions - there is a way to name the chords, but maybe you mean in the lyrics section? You can also make the fretboard vertical in portrait mode (rotating the device), but I can definitely see how it would be useful in landscape mode as well. Love the rhyming generator idea, and we are already connected to AI so that is on our list. Contact us at support@sonametro.com if you want to share more or clarify the chord naming. More good stuff is in the works. Thanks for your support! Update: Hey thanks for letting us know about this. We haven’t changed the fretboard in ages so I’m wondering if there is a bug you are seeing. Could you please send a screenshot and your device type to support@sonametro.com? We will look at it right away.

sierra ocean

thank you so much
frome Berkeley nero

Recently Found • Greatly Appreciated

While, searching for an App to replace the dying Guitar Tool Kit, to assist with songwriting, I came across Guitar Notebook. Am I ever glad for that. The developer is top-notch, updating frequently and unbelievably wonderful to work with and reply. There are features in this App, like including recordings and even AI recognition from your notes or printed page that go beyond anything I expected. Being someone who sketches out song ideas with text and chord grids, (I’m not a huge tab guy), this app works great for my workflow. Many Thanks!
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Response from developer

Grateful for this review! It was great talking with you through our support channel and I encourage all users to reach out to us and tell us about their songwriting experience and where they would like to see us go next. Thank you!

Such a time saver

Keeping the stacks of paper with my lyrics and chord sketches clean and organized has been a nightmare. Where are they all? Is this page a continuation of that one? One slip of the pen or pencil and everything becomes sloppy after an erasure. Two slips and it can become an unrecognizable mess. Guitar Notebook changes all that. Everything is digital, right there, completely ready. Want to change a lyric or a chord? Easy. Want to hear the strummed chord or individual notes ? Done. Want to import song sheets from other sources? Yes, please.
I do, however, have three suggestions: Turn the fretboard vertical, so it naturally matches the string configuration of the chord boxes. Add a way to designate the names of chords after you include them in the song. And add a rhyming generator. Roll out these changes, and Guitar Notebook becomes the indispensable app for songwriters. Period.
Show more

Response from developer

Well said! Thank you for this great review, and your suggestions! So glad the app is making a difference in your songwriting! On the suggestions - there is a way to name the chords, but maybe you mean in the lyrics section? You can also make the fretboard vertical in portrait mode (rotating the device), but I can definitely see how it would be useful in landscape mode as well. Love the rhyming generator idea, and we are already connected to AI so that is on our list. Contact us at support@sonametro.com if you want to share more or clarify the chord naming. More good stuff is in the works. Thanks for your support!

Great app. Too pricey.

This is a really cool app. The free version is not usable other than as a test. That’s fine, some apps give you enough to get long term, limited, use, but this one doesn’t. But the $20 price tags for the full version feels too expensive to me when I can just use separate apps to do the same things. If I knew for certain I’d be able to use this app and not lose my stuff forever, I’d consider it. But it’s hard to invest that much into a single app that may be left for dead with any iOS update. How many years will they continue keeping the app functional? I’ll just keep using Voice Memos and a different tab app.
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Response from developer

Hi there. You can always send us feedback at support@sonametro.com and we will get back to you, often with offer codes as a thank you for product feedback, which we truly value. Glad you think the app is great! We’ve put thousands of hours into making this app, ensuring your Songs are safe in YOUR iCloud account and accessible across all your devices. We would never leave fellow musicians stranded and suddenly unable to access them. In the unlikely event we ever discontinue development, we would provide plenty of advance notice (at least 1 year) and enable an export ability so that users would have other ways to access their songs. We’re sorry you feel that the current price of $20 (or $5 per year) is too much for the Pro version. We based this off looking at other apps in the category, and also considering the fact that you get iPhone, iPad & Mac support with one purchase (we certainly understand that not everyone has all those devices, so it may not help them). As musicians ourselves we felt that this price was a small price to pay for not losing our song ideas. This said, we will take your comments on the free version to heart, as we want as many guitarists to benefit as possible. If you would be so kind to reconsider your rating based on the merits of the app itself, it would be very appreciated! We are continuing to develop Guitar Notebook and working on a major update now. We thank you for any support.

Capture that idea before it vanishes

The Guitar Notebook is a great app for quickly capturing song ideas so you can refine them later. I’m not much of a music theory person, so the ability to tap a fretboard to notate the chord I’ve stumbled into is super useful. The simplicity and focus means this app is less fiddly and fumbly than the dozens of other songwriting apps I’ve tried. Seems like the developers have a vision for carefully curate features in the future. Looking forward to seeing where they take it!
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Response from developer

Thanks for this review! Glad you find the app as easy to use as we had hoped. Stumbling into chords is a good way to put it. Can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on next.

Keeps getting better

I'm a Logic Pro user and was looking for a way to jot down the guitar chords and voicings I use in my songs, which usually have multiple guitar tracks, so that I can remember what I played. I use the notebook pages as tracks, so that each page corresponds to a DAW track. Perfect! With the audio recording and the fretboard notation I can easily recreate my tracks when I want to practice or edit them. It's really become my personal song catalog.
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Has both iOS and Macos versions sync

Well worth a try. Very clean concept. Like a Fender Deluxe and one or two floor pedals. The app does not get in the way of the creative process as it is with so many other fussy apps out there.

Response from developer

Love the analogy! Hope we can keep it just as clean and easy as we add more capabilities!

A Guitar Players Dream

Guitar Notebook is a fantastic app. I have been using it since December 2021 and it holds everything that I have written or started to write in that time and is indispensable to me. It is so quick and easy to use, and yet has superb tools to enable you to grab anything that comes into your head or fingers without having to have any knowledge of traditional music notation.
A guitar players dream. Love it.
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The song that got away

There are some full-featured and complex score editors for making sheet music, but if you just want to capture your song idea quickly, this app is perfect. I come up with song ideas all the time, but I don’t want to take the time to make sheet music out of it. I just need to capture the chords and my voice. Then later I can keep working on it in my DAW, when I have the time. Highly recommend this for any guitarists that write songs. Even if it saves one song you would have lost, that could be THE song!
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Wonderful songwriting and practicing tool

This applications is great for quickly saving my compositions. I also realized it can be leveraged for jotting down practice routines. I like how easy and intuitive it is to use and how well it pairs with my iPhone and iRig devices.

Where has this been all my life?!

Fantastic app that is becoming a big part of my songwriting workflow. Well done!

Outstanding

I could have used this app extensively over the years. It is a dream come true. Thank you! It is easy to use and incredibly accurate! 5 stars all the way

Love this app!

This app is perfect for keeping all your ideas in one place! One of my biggest problems is that I have so many different guitar ideas scattered around in so many different places - some on my phone, some on google drive, etc. This app means that I can now keep everything in one place. I use it for song ideas, and even as a way of trying to memorise scale patterns. Adding notation is simple and intuitive, and I love being able to add recordings. Superb work Sean - you’ve come up with a peach of an app for songwriters and guitarists alike!
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