Solo vs ScaleMate
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Solo
Master your guitar fretboard with this interactive trainer. Learn note names, intervals, chord changes, and scales through guided exercises. Designed by professional guitarists, it offers customizable workouts for all skill levels.
- Fretboard visualization
- Note name trainer
- Interval shape memorization
- Chord change outlining
- Scale practice
- Interactive fretboards
- Customizable workouts
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Solo is the ultimate practice App for mastering fretboard visualization, designed by world renowned guitarists Tom Quayle and David Beebee. Four powerful fretboard trainers allow you to work intuitively on each aspect of the visualization process; learning note names, memorising interval shapes, outlining chord changes, and practicing scales. Solo asks you to find intervallic functions against one root note, chord symbol or scale at a time, listens to the notes you play, and doesn’t move on until you’ve correctly found each note by its intervallic function in the specified order. Practice with Solo and finally learn your note names, master interval shapes, confidently play through chord changes and break out of scale boxes with intervallic functions. Start transforming your playing and confidence on the fretboard today! NOTE TRAINER The Note Trainer is perfect for beginner and intermediate players getting to grips with note names on the neck - the foundation of solid fretboard knowledge. ‣ Solo shows you random root notes to find and listens, waiting for you to get it correct. ‣ Slide on the interactive fretboards for helpful diagrams and to study alternative options. Choose from 6 string guitar (standard and 4ths tuning), 7 string guitar, 4 string bass & 5 string bass. ‣ Optional practice suggestions offer challenging ways to limit and test yourself. ‣ Duration based workouts allow you to craft the perfect practice session. INTERVAL TRAINER The Interval Trainer will help players at all levels work on interval shapes with intervallic functions - the key to unlocking true freedom on the fretboard. ‣ Choose any combination of intervallic functions to practice. ‣ Create custom interval groups or choose the intervals for ANY chord type or scale. ‣ The Interval Trainer will randomise your chosen intervals and ask you to find them against either a fixed or random root note. ‣ Slide on the interactive fretboards for helpful diagrams, showing you where all of the interval shapes are across the neck, and to study alternative options. Choose from 6 string guitar (standard and 4ths tuning), 7 string guitar, 4 string bass & 5 string bass. ‣ Duration based workouts allow you to craft the perfect practice session. CHANGES TRAINER In the Changes Trainer you find intervallic functions, using single notes to outline different chord types or sets of chord changes, a key skill for learning to improvise through chord changes. ‣ Practice outlining intervallic functions through over 100 common chord progressions and single chord exercises. ‣ 50 intervallic function levels. Go from simple chord tones to complex melodic structures and scales. ‣ Solo intelligently maps out the correct intervals over each chord and listens for you to play each intervallic function in the specified order. ‣ Powerful workout options provide almost limitless ways to challenge yourself. ‣ Transpose the key of any progression or exercise. ‣ Choose to randomly transpose the progression (or single chord exercise) each time it repeats. ‣ Work on voice leading chord tones through single note lines. SCALE TRAINER The Scale Trainer contains a vast array of scales and powerful workout options, allowing you to finally break out of the box and develop a much deeper understanding of how scales are constructed on the fretboard. ‣ Practice finding scales on the fretboard using intervallic functions. ‣ Over 50+ Scales and modes. ‣ Powerful workout options provide almost limitless ways to challenge yourself. ‣ Melodic sequence options let you focus on starting from any chord tone within the scale. ‣ Duration based workouts allow you to craft the perfect practice session.
ScaleMate
This app provides an interactive reference for understanding music scales and jazz harmony. It allows users to hear, visualize, and manipulate scales to deepen their comprehension of musical concepts. Features include expert write-ups, practical usage tips, and animated transformations between scales.
- Hear scales as melodies
- Visualize scales on circle of fifths
- Expert scale write-ups
- Manipulate scales and hear changes
- Full library of scales
- Automatic scale recognition
- Animated scale transformations
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ScaleMate is a modern, interactive reference to jazz harmony. ScaleMate lets you… HEAR SCALES conventionally or as random melodies. VISUALIZE SCALES in ways that help you understand them deeper. READ & LEARN through built-in, expert scale write-ups & use tips. MANIPULATE SCALES while you listen. Hear the effects instantly to understand how scales differ. ————————————————— ScaleMate is a reference that shows you & plays for you any scale you wish…. But that's just the beginning. ScaleMate helps you hear & understand scales and harmony more deeply… by teaching you to visualize scales in ways that match what they sound like. Imagine… Wouldn't it be nice to have a single image to understand all the modes of the major scale? Ever wonder why the modes are ordered so oddly, hopping between major & minor & dominant? Or notice that the Altered Scale is the "darkest", most minor sounding of all possible dominant scales? Or that its tritone-substitution, the Lydian Dominant Scale, is the "brightest" of them all? Ever notice that the minor pentatonic scale is a mode of the major pentatonic scale and wonder whether there were any other useful pentatonic modes? Ever notice that the major pentatonic scale (and its modes) are the only 5-note scale that doesn't contain any half steps or tritones? ScaleMate shows you scales in a way that makes these observations natural and immediate… and plays you the results too. Or ever just wonder what the definition of a dominant chord is and which common scales can be used for them? ScaleMate's got you covered. ——————— FEATURES ——————— USE IT RIGHT AWAY Use ScaleMate right now! Built-in help is there for you whenever you want it. LISTEN ScaleMate lets you hear what scales sound like, by playing them up & down, or by playing random melodies that use them. VISUALIZE WHAT YOU HEAR ScaleMate shows every scale both linearly (for melodic understanding) and on the circle of fifths (for harmonic understanding). FULL LIBRARY OF SCALES ScaleMate knows all the scales you're ever likely to encounter. A WELLSPRING OF KNOWLEDGE Extensive info pages on 60+ of the most common & important scales, including practical advice and usage tips. (Over 15,000 words of content.) USE IT TO TEACH ScaleMate is perfect for projecting on a screen or sharing over zoom while you teach. Its animations let you show how one scale transforms into another, and it has special features (pointing, hiding/revealing) for educators. AUTOMATIC SCALE RECOGNITION Build your own scales and ask yourself "what if I make this change…" Whenever you produce a conventional scale, ScaleMate will automatically identify it for you by name and tell you about it. ANIMATED IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES Change between one scale and another and see the differences between them, visually animated before you. SMART SPELLING ScaleMate notates perfectly, for every scale in every key. NOTE ROLES Next to each note, ScaleMate displays its function—in numbers (3, 5, b7) or in solfege (Mi, Sol, Te) or not at all, according to your preference. SIMPLE OR ADVANCED NOTATION ScaleMate shows you double flats and double sharps whenever they're called for… unless you'd rather see simpler note names. Prefer never to see notes like Cb and E#? You can have ScaleMate show them as B and F. DIMINISHED HARMONY Choose the option to color the notes in three colors so you can see which diminished seventh chord every note belongs to. Great for understanding diminished scales & chords and seeing how they relate to other scales too. JAZZ CRED ScaleMate is created by Anton Schwartz. An award-winning saxophonist & composer as well as an expert educator, he is also the creator of the highly rated RANDOM ROOTS app. Terms and conditions: https://scalemate.app/terms-conditions Privacy policy: https://scalemate.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ScaleMate at $3.99 against Solo's $17.99. ScaleMate also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 2) and review sentiment (100% vs 83%). Solo's advantage is ratings volume (657 vs 24) and chart position (#183 vs unranked). On rating, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Solo costs $17.99 and ScaleMate $3.99 up front. Solo sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. ScaleMate asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Solo against 4.8 for ScaleMate. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Solo has 657 ratings behind it against 24, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 83% of Solo's written reviews are positive against 100% of ScaleMate's.
Solo ships an update monthly, ScaleMate fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Solo | ScaleMate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $17.99 | $3.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (657 ratings) | 4.8 (24 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 83.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 657 — better | 24 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #183 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.5 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 231 MB | 36 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Trio Software Ltd | Anton Schwartz |
Customer experience
Solo
ScaleMate
Bugs and requests
Solo
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes when launching the app
- Inconsistent note detection
- Inability to save progress or settings
Requested features
8 requests- Add ability to create custom chord progressions
- Integrate metronome functionality
- Provide visual representation of intervals on staff
- Add option to practice natural notes only
- Implement option to hear chord tones in the background
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- Allow randomization of scale order
- Add support for non-standard tunings
- Implement sound feedback when finding the correct note
ScaleMate
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Solo
- Custom Tunings$1.99
- Custom Chord Progressions$5.99
ScaleMate
No in-app purchases









