Comparison

iPracticePro vs Scale Syllabus

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

iPracticePro

This app offers a comprehensive suite of tools for musicians, including a chromatic tuner, extensive chord library, and customizable metronome. Practice scales, intervals, and complex chord progressions with adjustable tempos and time signatures. Explore fingering charts and reed adjustment information for wind instruments.

Highlights
  • Chromatic tuner with adjustable frequencies
  • Extensive chord library with over 45 types
  • Customizable metronome with adjustable BPM and time signatures
  • Chord progression practice with over 50 progressions
  • Pad for creating custom intervals and chords
  • Saxophone fingering charts and reed adjustment info
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

•Drones• The first part of the app allows you to play all chromatic notes in tunings from 432Hz to 444Hz in many different sounds. The notes sound continuously and it´s a perfect way to practice intervals, chords and scales. You also have the possibility to play the notes randomly in an adjustable period of time. The app supports quarter tones if you´ve chosen expert mode. Sounds: organ, piano, electric piano, strings, guitar, double bass, bassoon, clarinet, oboe, flute and sine •Chords• The chord section contains 5 chords in standard mode more than 45 chords in expert mode. The metronome allows you to practice in tempos from 30bpm up to 300bpm. It can be set to different time signatures like 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 7/4, 9/4, 11/4, 13/4. You can also select or deselect the downbeats and offbeats separately. You can listen and play to all chords in all twelve keys, see which notes are the chord notes and scale notes and read information about the chord and the corresponding scale. In addition to that, all chords can also be played randomly. You can choose to just randomly change the root or the root and the chord type. The app lets you filter the chords, which allows you to only randomly play the chords of for example the modes of melodic minor or harmonic minor. 45+ Chords: ▵7, 7, -7, ø7, o7, 5 69, ▵7#11, ▵7#5, ▵7#5(11), ▵7#9, ▵7#9b13 7sus4, 7susb9, 7#11, 7#5, 7b913, 7b9b13, 7b13, 7alt -6, -▵7, -▵7b13, -7b13, -7b9, -7#11, -∆7#11, phryg, ø713, o7b2b11 major, major/3, major/5, major/b9, major/9, major/b3, major/11, major/#11, major/b13, major/13, major/7, major/▵7 minor, minor/b3, minor/5 augmented, diminished Sounds: electric piano, piano, organ and strings •Progressions• In this section you can practice more than 50 chord progressions in all twelve keys. The metronome, with all its setting options, is also included in this section. The volume of the root note, third and septime or rather the tensions is adjustable. If you press one of the two random buttons, the app picks a random root or a random progression and root. 50+ progressions: II-7 V7 I▵7, II-7 V7alt I▵7, II-7 bII7#11 I▵7, II-7 V7b913 I▵7, II-7 V7b9b13 I▵7, II-7 V7susb9 I▵7 IIø7 V7 I-, Coltrane Changes and so on…see full list on my website. Sounds: electric piano, piano, organ and strings •Pad• Using the pad you can put together your own intervals and chords. You have four octaves and five sounds to choose from, with which you can select up to five tones. The tones can sound both simultaneously and one after the other. The metronome, with all its setting options, is also included in this section. You can choose out of these sounds: electric piano, piano, organ, strings and sine •Fingerings for saxophone and reed adjustment for saxophone and clarinet• There are fingering charts about standard fingerings, false fingerings, altissimo and quarter tones and information about reed adjustment of sides, table, tip, shoulder and heart. If you don´t play the saxophone, you can hide this part of the app. •Features• * Stealth Mode (Ear Training Mode). You can use stealth mode in drones, chords and progressions. This will hide the currently played chords and display them afterwards. * A practice timer that informs you when your set practice time has expired. * Landscape mode. * Light- and dark appearance (Night Shift). * You can set if you play a C, Bb, oder Eb Instrument. * Are you an advanced player? The expert mode offers you additional information which could be confusing to unexperienced musicians. If you have no idea what C▵7#5 means or if you have never heard of quarter tones you probably should choose the standard mode. * All sounds can be played from 432Hz to 444Hz.

About

Scale Syllabus

Read full description

Scale Syllabus puts the 253 scales of Complete Scale Syllabus by Gianluca Barbaro in your pocket, and lets you see, hear and transpose every one of them. The scales are not a stored list. The app rebuilds them with the algorithm the book itself was made with: every seventh chord, every combination of available tensions, folded together by rotation. That is why the numbering matches the printed page exactly — scale 145 here is scale 145 in the book. WHAT YOU CAN DO • See any scale in standard notation, on a piano keyboard, or on a guitar or bass fretboard • Transpose to any of the twelve keys, with each note spelled the way a musician would write it • Start from any degree: pick a mode and the scale is shown from that note, in the key you chose • Hear a scale or any of its chords, ascending or arpeggiated, with the notes lighting up as they sound • See the triads and four-note chords every degree carries, inversions included, and view any of them the same three ways • Read the fretboard as a whole map, or touch a fret for the run one hand can play from there • Ask for a chord and the neck answers with shapes a hand can really hold — tap again for the next one • Walk through the sixteen ways a four-note chord can be laid out inside two octaves of keyboard • Choose your instrument once, and clef, written octave and transposition follow • Find a scale from the notes themselves: play a phrase into the microphone, or type the note names, and the app lists the scales that contain them and says what chord they make • Follow the relationships: which scales contain this one, which ones it contains, and which are a note away • Print a scale as a sheet of engraved music, export it as PDF, or share it • Read six short chapters of music theory, with figures the app draws itself • Mark favourites and keep your own written notes on any scale A guided tour goes through all of it the first time you open the app, and it can be replayed whenever you like. The app speaks English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese and Chinese, and you can look for a scale in your own language. The names of the scales themselves stay as the book prints them. WHAT MAKES IT ACCURATE The book's own derivation quietly loses four chord types, and with them five scales. This app generates them too — appended at the end, so that not a single number from the printed book moves. Note spelling follows musical function rather than whatever is cheapest to compute: a minor seventh chord is written C Eb G Bb, never C D# G A#. FREE AND COMPLETE Three scales are always open: major, harmonic minor and melodic minor — and with the major come all its modes, natural minor included. You can open two more of your choice, and the ones you open stay yours. A single purchase opens all 258 scales and unlocks printing, PDF export and sharing — no subscription, no account. Nothing you write leaves your device. The app has no accounts, no advertising and no tracking of any kind, and what you play into the microphone is analysed as it arrives and never recorded, stored or sent anywhere. Reports of wrong or missing scale names are welcome: me@barbaro.it

Screenshots

iPracticePro4 screens
Scale Syllabus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Scale Syllabus at Free against iPracticePro's $5.99. Scale Syllabus also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). iPracticePro's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and chart position (#199 vs unranked). On ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Scale Syllabus is free to download; iPracticePro costs $5.99 up front. Scale Syllabus sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. iPracticePro asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
iPracticePro versus Scale Syllabus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriPracticeProScale Syllabus
Price$5.99Free — better
Rating4.7 (244 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews87.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings244 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank#199 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size170 MB23 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSteffen WeberBarbaro Gianluca

Bugs and requests

iPracticePro

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • App closes on its own after about 30 seconds
  • Cannot limit roots and progression at the same time

Requested features

10 requests
  • Display notes of a chord when improvising
  • Ability to create own chord progressions
  • Random tempo oscillation with tweakable parameters
  • Add sax voices
  • Cover more than an octave
Show 5 more
  • Add a metronome for drones
  • Keep audio playing in the background
  • Progress tracking with gamification
  • Drones cycle down the scale
  • Drone scale made of selected notes

Scale Syllabus

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

iPracticePro

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Scale Syllabus

One-time1
  • Scale Syllabus Complete$8.99

Questions

Is iPracticePro free?
iPracticePro costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Scale Syllabus free?
Scale Syllabus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do iPracticePro or Scale Syllabus have ads?
Neither iPracticePro nor Scale Syllabus shows ads.

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