# Songwriter Pad™ - Songwriting — user reviews > 56 indexed App Store user reviews of Songwriter Pad™ by Dante Media, LLC, rated 3.70/5 from 35 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/songwriter-pad-songwriting/id380151611/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/songwriter-pad-songwriting/id380151611.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 17 · 4★ 6 · 3★ 3 · 2★ 1 · 1★ 8 ## Newest reviews (17 of 56) ### 4/5 — A Helping Hand *2024-03-24* It’s like having a songwriting partner even when I’m alone ### 4/5 — Great song writing tool. *2023-08-26* Love the built in recorder! ### 3/5 — Needs work on key features *2018-01-17, version 5.9* I like this app because unlike MasterWriter, you can sink in the cloud, allowing me to work with iPad or my MacBook. The problem is the tools. The logic in the rhyming dictionary is so inconsistent, often times just wrong. I haven’t tried the recording options so I can’t comment of those features. The rhyming phrases features need a lot of improvement to earn anymore stars from me. I hope the developer improves the app. ### 4/5 — Solid. Hopeful for tweaks. Good service. *2016-10-08, version 5.5* A solid app for the songwriter of any level or genre; hoping it continues to get upgrades to make interface and storage more fluid and user friendly (i.e. Navigating upload/downloading songs from cloud, cloud based storage/sync using my own apple cloud, some clunky dialogue boxes and folder organization especially on the desktop version, ability to upload sound recordings into song, more than one chord per word, text compatibility). Designer is SUPER helpful if you have any problems and a fair business person as well. The app keeps things nice and organized, legalized, and easy to print out for bandmates and the like. ### 4/5 — Really good app *2016-08-18, version 5.4* I'm relatively new to structured song writing. Up until recently I always just threw my thoughts onto scraps of paper. I found this app and was a little cautious at first mainly because of the mixed reviews and the fact that it doesn't appear to have been updated for over a year. Long story short I've written a handful of new songs using songwriter and found most of it really awesome and works well on my iPad Pro. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because I couldn't select my own word for the ideas area. There appears to be a spot where I can enter my own word but it won't let me type in anything. ### 2/5 — You are asking way to much to sync with your cloud *2015-05-29, version 5.3* Are you kidding me Dropbox and iCloud charge significantly less for storage and there are other apps like notability and day one that sync to them. I like the idea of songwriter but you still have tons of bugs and writing in your blocks is cumbersome and impedes workflow. I think you have the potential to be a 5 star app. However you are to busy trying to find ways to bleed people of money rather than fixing your buggy app. I, nor any of my students will ever pay the prices you want for storage. It is simply a waste of money when there are plenty of apps that do the same thing for no extra cost. Let's put it this way I would probably pay around $20-30 for songwriter if it synced to the cloud or Dropbox and did everything it does now as well. However I refuse to pay on a monthly basis to sink to your bogus cloud that probably has more bugs than the app itself. You should probably come up with a better business model. I would pay $2-5 as an in app purchase to sync to the iCloud or Dropbox. ### 4/5 — Great song writing tool!! *2015-05-01, version 5.4* After just the first few uses I am giving this app 4 stars and I may upgrade it to 5 after using it for a while. I have never been a good lyric writer, and this app is helping collect my thoughts, make notes for research, and in general making it easier for me to write and make some serious attempts at lyric writing. I now use the desktop version. The syncing across multiple devices really makes this a great tool. I have run into issues with some information getting garbled. The company responds quickly to help requests. ### 4/5 — Works well, for the most part *2015-04-05, version 5.4* I've gone to pretty much exclusively using this app for writing lyrics, and it works very well. It's nice to be able to sync all my songs across my devices via the cloud. However, there are little things that annoy me. The phrases in the inspiration databank are a bit cheesy, and can sound repetitive. The rhyming bank is off, too - you'll get stuff like "horsemen" as a rhyme for "morning." Once in a blue moon I've also had the app crash on me, resulting in me losing all of the lyrics for a song I was working on. Don't let these things deter you from getting it, however - it's still a great app. ### 4/5 — Data lost *2014-08-12, version 5.1* I originally wrote a fairly harsh review because my data had been lost when I updated. I re-tried contacting support, though, and was pleased that they replied relatively promptly and were ultimately able to solve my problem. Seems like they've improved their process. Since I was so unhappy with the data management, I didn't mention the app's functions and features in the original review. These are excellent and well-suited to the songwriting process. ### 4/5 — Love the app, missing one critical feature *2013-12-16, version 4.0.2* I've been using this app for a while now and have written many songs, however one major issue for me is when I import an mp3 from iTunes library and play it, you can't pause to write lyrics and then resume, etc. Please add the ability to scrub through an mp3 and allow to start and stop as needed so that I can create lyrics while listening to the song without having to start the tune all over again. Thanks! --Jason ### 4/5 — Kind of works *2013-09-29, version 4.0.2* It's been good for some things, like recording ideas, but the rhyming is inaccurate, to say the least, and the chord notation doesn't work for me. I love the way I can rearrange the blocks so quickly, and I use the recording feature with every song. It's not for a finished recording, but to facilitate the writing process. Overall, it has been very useful. Been using it more and more, and still the same limitations. I used to wish the rhyming dictionary were available all the time, but it is so bad that I really don't care. I wish I could add rhymes or ideas to the lists. I still wish I could write my own rhymes. I usually designate a block to use for listing rhymes, since I can't integrate mine with the often useless ones in the app. Lately, the words have been Vanishing mysteriously and I have had to retype them. Usually about half a verse just disappears. That has happened only since the last update. Save often, maybe even to paper, or you may lose your work! ### 2/5 — overpriced and clumsy *2013-06-21, version 4.0.1* I use this app a lot, and there's a lot here to like. I love being able to work in blocks, the rhyming dictionary and other features can be great for getting unstuck, and the audio implementation is pretty good, but I can't help but feel that I overpaid for this. Why are social features and printing hidden in fullscreen mode? Why is the chord entry so incredibly awkward? Why are there buttons EVERYWHERE? Why valuable screen real estate eaten up by silly wood grain panels and fake notepads? Why can't I hide the blasted notepads when I'm not using them? The execution is crap. The author needs to invest time in fixing it and spend less time spamming me to buy the desktop version. ### 4/5 — Thought I lost my work *2013-06-03, version 4.0.1* I also did the update and lost all my work. I figured I'd stay calm and contact support first (a clear and easy link right in the app). Within a few hours I got a message to go into settings and tap on import songs from ipad to SP SYNC. Bingo! Over 2 years worth of music back! Haven't messed around with the new features but didn't think I was missing anything from the old. Only reason I gave a 4 was because of the initial heart attack I got upon upgrading. ### 2/5 — Still not quite ready *2013-05-25, version 4.0* this app still has some issues. First off, you can't export your song in any other form but text. If you need to share your stuff with your band in digital form, plain text just doesn't get it. This wouldn't matter so much if the exported text kept the super script formatting where the chords appear above the lyrics. Where's the support for pdf's or word docs? Also, the chord generator function is clunky. If you need to put a chord into the body of the text of the song, you have select it, then copy, then paste it? Takes way too long and quite frankly just easier to do in Word or some other word processor. Also, you can't actually put the chord exactly above the word, so bands mates don't have the exact idea of where the chord falls in the lyrics. This should be a standard feature…basic stuff. Finally, the chords appearing in super script (above the lyrics) would be great IF there was someway to EXPORT it that way…this feature is USELESS unless you want to print of the lyrics….I don't generally share it that way…I play for my church and we use my songs…If I want to share it with the band I end up having the edit the song all over again…who likes doing the work twice? I suppose of you had writers block there might be some utility….the ability to record audio on the fly is nice for ideas…as far as presenting the finished song to band mates or others…falls way short. Sad to say. Needs a bit more work. ### 4/5 — Chiefhollis *2013-03-17, version 3.1* Would be a five star rating, but there are some key features missing, at least from my perspective. Should be to save multi versions of a song, you can track vocal/melody takes, but not lyric progress. On some songs I may have 25 experiments with lyrics and like the ability to go back and find a line that I liked in an earlier version. Cut and paste, or import a song began in Word, into SP would be a helpful feature. I understand there will be improvements in the desktop version that will carry over into the iPad and iPhone versions. I look forward to getting the next generation of this extremely useful tool; thanks and keep up the good work! ### 4/5 — Almost there *2013-02-23, version 3.1* Great app! I had 15 pages of notes laying around, for a song I had been working on for months. I downloaded this app, organized my notes, and had the song completed within a day. One big draw back: when you post phrases or snippets of ideas into the "Phrases" section, the become truncated into a narrow window, punctuated by an ellipsis. The only way to view them is by manually copying and pasting them into the body of the song, which is tedious and a real impediment to workflow. A cool feature is the ability to insert chords into the song. This feature would be much better if the color of the chord notations could be modified to make them more readable and distinctive. Once these fixes are implemented, we may be looking at the perfect app. ### 4/5 — Good *2013-02-15, version 3.1* I thought this was fantastic until I had seven songs written and I was working on one of them and turned off the app, when I lost my wireless for a moment and it got stuck looking up a rhyme, when I turned it back on everything I had been working on was lost. Several verses. Now I email the song I'm working on whenever I turn the app off to back it up. If I wasn't in fear of loosing stuff this would be four stars. It needs work on its recording features and guitar note notation. Making blocks of verse and chorus are subpar. Also it doesn't let me see all of my lyrics when I am recording a demo on the ipad mic. It's hard to scroll down when your playing and they spread the lyrics way out on the page instead of shrinking everything to fit to see. Mostly these are minor problems, this is a great app I just hope they make it even better. I guess I'll give it four stars. Perfection is a hard thing to achieve, and it does make my writing better. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Ripped me off! *2024-02-07* Just purchased this out of the App Store and immediately got a notification that was no longer supported. It requires you to upload songs to their server which I’m never going to do and download a newer version of it using AI. I wish I could give them -5 stars for ripping me off. ### 1/5 — Really terrible, after years I finally gave up and deleted it. *2023-11-07* I struggled with this app for years. It was obvious the developer was never going to fix the major problems. The rhyming dictionary is unusable. RHYME GENIE is great, by the way. Never used the recording feature or a couple other “tricks.” Just wanted to use it to write. When I read all the reviews later about people losing all their songs, I started emailing mine to myself. So buggy. So very buggy. Clunky. Try to select a line and sometimes it takes five or six clicks to land where your finger is. Gives instructions that are useful once but get old after a few times. Yes I know about blocks. Tried to write a long verse, use different lines to choose from later, earlier text disappears into the header, thought to use free style. Nope, only when you first start a song. Pick the setting to email lyrics, text becomes mess and uses strange symbols for apostrophes etc. It is possible to work around bugs, but why? One of the worst apps I’ve ever purchased. I don’t know who would give this app five stars, or even two. Beginners, paid reviews, fake reviews, people who know nothing about songwriting. ### 1/5 — Pretty terrible *2023-10-28* Still very buggy. Clunky. Gives instructions that are useful once but get old after a few times. Yes I know about blocks. Tried to write a long verse, use different lines to choose from later, earlier text disappears into the header, thought to use free style. Nope, only when you first start a song. Pick the setting to email lyrics, text becomes mess and uses strange symbols for apostrophes etc. It is possible to work around bugs, but why? ### 1/5 — TERRIBLE! AMAZINGLY BAD AND ABANDONED. *2020-02-12, version 5.9* WILL THE BUGS EVER BE FIXED? I’ve had this for years now and there are text problems, copy and paste problems, font problems....it’s like buying a car with no tires and no engine! I wrote an earlier review thinking this was going to be really good but it's not that great. Very buggy - cut copy and paste doesn't work properly with a line or a paragraph. Rhyming dictionary is awful. Try to rhyme "hate" and get a word like "choose." THE ONE THING it's fairly good for is having a finished set of lyrics to email to yourself with a uniform font and date. Except, the fonts are messed up and when I email it to myself, apostrophes change to hieroglyphics. These days I start with paper and pen, and when I almost have the finished song, I use this app to get a clean copy. I am going to switch to Apple’s “Notes” app instead of this piece of trash. ### 1/5 — Needs work badly *2019-04-01, version 5.9* Sync creates issue with text import, doesn’t sync correctly between my desktop version and this version. Also chord names split the words depending on where you try and set them, the full screen view is not full screen it is a window in the app. No refund so hopefully these issue get resolved. It is too much work to get through this app. ### 1/5 — Too many bugs for someone trying to use it to keep track of ideas *2017-12-07, version 5.8* Second time an update has deleted all my recordings... lost ideas. If there is one thing an app like this CANNOT DO it is lose audio tracks. I mean come on. ### 1/5 — NOT for iPad Mini!!! Will lose your lyrics. Guaranteed *2013-01-01, version 3.1* Fortunately I have tested this for a few days before trying to use it for anything important to me. It **will** crash on you. Not for serious writers or if you actually value your work and ideas. May be fine for other platforms. I only know it's dicey at best. Too bad, because it has features (e.g. Chord annotation inline) which just isn't available in anything comparable that I have found. I give it a 1 star vs 0 only because I'm hoping it gets fixed for the mini. It would then easily warrant 4 stars (absolute value) and 5 stars (relative) based on the features compared to the competition. Please please address the bugs!! I want this to be usable. ### 1/5 — Still trash!! Lost my songs!!! *2011-07-06, version 2.4* I can't believe that i gave this app another try!!! Can't understand why its still here.... ****Original review**** I thought that this app would be great, and began to really use it on a regular basis. It only took one time for the app to crash during the middle of writing a song, and it LOST EVERYTHING!!! I was so shocked, that i couldn't speak! My song, i just lost it. There is a very good underlying idea here, but I would stick to with Notes or Pages from now on. Besides, iTunes can play my track in the background while i write. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and It only takes once to screw it up. Tread lightly!!! ### 1/5 — TERRIBLE!!!!! *2011-05-17, version 2.1* Wish this app never existed!!!!! I would give it zero stars if I could! I am sorry to say that this is the worst app I own! I want to save someone from going through the heartache and misery I went through!!!! Please save yourself the $10 it's not worth it!! It can crash at any given moment and has for me countless times and you lose everything, I should have known better used it last night to record a crucial segment of my song that has a deadline with an artist-- needless to say after recording it I went to play it back and it erased the track once I pressed play! Up till 4 am trying to recover it and am only taking precious time now to save someone who may be reading this to go somewhere else..and prevent from the misery this cost me... It looks nice enough but it's a wolf in sheep's clothing! it also doesn't allow for you to read the entire lyric as you record you have to keep scrolling down which is impossible playing an instrument!! BOTTOM LINE IT'S 100% UNRELIABLE & UNDEPENDABLE!! ### 1/5 — Fail Writer Pad - It's Called An Autosave *2010-12-02, version 1.0.4* I bought this program months ago, despite my hesitation of price (cheaper competing apps) and have used it less then 10 times. The song ideas and writing tools i haven't used I haven't found them useful but I won't hold that against the program. I wrote a full song on this and that one time I sat down and hammered it out, no issues. I have also written bits of other songs and tried to chop up and organize other songs. (No import!!!!!) Not many issues until a few hours ago! I had large chunks of the chours intro and verse mapped out, and then BAMN! CRASH! I goto relaunch and just the song title --- AWESOME! SO HERE IS A FEATURE REQUEST!!!! Before you can call anything Pro it must have AN AUTO-SAVE / AUTO-RECOVERY OF LYRICS... AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE IT SAVE A SCREEN SHOT OR SOMETHING EVERY MINUTE OR SOMETHING CONFIGURABLE!!! I won't be using this with any level of confidence until it's added. I really, really wanted to love this app but this was deal breaker. If there is a secret ninja way to retrieve it, I'll update this review once the A/S is added. Thanks ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — I love this app! *2023-08-14* The only problem for me is that I keep starting songs…and don’t finish them! But that’s on me!!! Songwriter is amazing… and I remain a fan since it was first released. so, here’s to more fun with this app in 2023! ### 5/5 — Iphone version is different tho? *2022-06-22, version 5.9* Luv this app so much and its helpful as some1 shamelessly in the disability community💕 🧩 however the iphone versions like a decade behind and i rebought this app being that ive supported these devs from the start. Update wud b very appreciated 🧞‍♂️🪛🛠💚 ### 5/5 — Worth Every Penny *2020-04-19, version 5.9* I don’t normally rate apps, but wanted to share my experience as I’ve used this app now for several months. This app is wonderful for songwriters - when arranging you can shift things around and backup different lines (phrases) to try new ones. The rhyming section is not without flaws (everything listed doesn’t rhyme) but there’s still a great list of words that do so it’s still very helpful. The ability to with a few clicks backup everything to Dropbox is great. (I’ve heard people fuss about the app locking up and them losing input - this has not been my experience, but if I had to guess, those people either didn’t backup, or didn’t backup properly - early and often) I could go on as it has many great features, but the bottom line is, is that it’s a great app. Not perfect, but well worth 5 stars. If you want a perfect app, quit crying about the work of others and build one yourself. This app deserves more recognition than it has received. Thanks dev. ### 5/5 — Excellent *2016-07-19, version 5.4* I'm an iOS musician and this app in a class all its own. The developer has really put his heart and soul into this and it shows. He's very responsive to feedback and this thing is absolutely essential. Well designed everything works great and is extremely well designed. One of those apps that you just open it and go. I had it mastered in about 5 minutes without reading the manuals. Great indispensable piece of programming. Highly recommended. ### 5/5 — Indispensable App *2014-12-17, version 5.3* I've been using this app for a couple of years now and it is brilliant. I love having all of my lyrics in one place, I love that I can attach audio notes to them and I love that they are backed up to the cloud. I've never had any major problems and any issues I have had have either been down to user error or nothing a quick email to tech support couldn't fix. it just works! Today I upgraded my storage amount and bought the desktop version. Everything went very smoothly and now I'm even more organized. Couldn't be happier. Keep up the Great work! ### 5/5 — Great tool for pro songwriters *2014-12-02, version 5.2* I use a lot of apps for creating music on my ipad. This is one of the few I use everyday! I've been a pro songwriter for more than 40 years, and I take my lyric composition seriously. This app allows me to capture every idea. I love the ability to imagine words, phrases and concepts that I'd like to use in a song and save them in the margin. Arranging sections (blocks) is a breeze, and backing up to icloud allows me to work the same song from several devices. Customer support is great. The rhyming dictionary and thesaurus are very good. I've tried other apps for lyrics but this is hands down the best. ### 5/5 — Best songwriting app EVER *2013-04-20, version 3.1* Coming from the era where all I did was create songs on a black and white note pad, this app has been the best thing ive ever experienced. All of the options make the creating process so easy and understandable to any person who starts using the app. The first day I purchased songwriters pad, i created my song in matter of minutes. I could'nt believe it. I give the creator an infinite amount of stars for creating something that has changed my life forever. Thank you for helping my songwriting process. ### 5/5 — The Songwriting Tool Of Them All *2013-02-10, version 3.1* Highly recommend this app as a wonderful, organized means to write your songs. I sent a few suggestions for future updates on this program and was pleasantly surprised by the prompt and courteous response I received from the developer, Dante. This is my first review ever. I've been writing music for almost 25 years and this is the ultimate "all in one" tool ever. I can strum out ideas and record multiple takes and then work on parts of a song in an orderly fashion. You can rearrange and interchange parts (like when your chorus becomes your verse and so on). No more carrying around my thesaurus since its all here. I'm using an ipad so I can see everything nicely as I work. You cannot beat this app for the money. ### 5/5 — Awesome! *2012-11-09, version 3.1* Great app! Does everything it says and more. Wish I could record riffs for different sections and have something like a brain storming board for each file. To put research for each song. Like pasting web clips or something. Definitely going to use this a lot but I wish it had more in depth features to jot amd record ideas for different parts. I could see this being the one stop app for songwriting. Love it. ### 5/5 — On its way to being great! *2012-08-10, version 3.0* I like the GUI (graphical user interface). Yet, some of the functions are tedious and not as intuitive as I'd like them to be. For example, if you were to double-tap on a word and pull up the rhyming dictionary/synonyms/antonyms menu, that would be great! My caveat is that you can't add/delete the phrase categories, whereby, you are strictly limited to the selection of phrase categories that are available. Let me add my own phrase categories, pretty please? I don't know if that was tautological, but either way. Keep up the good work Paragoni! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*