Comparison

JamEngine vs Fake Book Index

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

Head to head
About

JamEngine

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JamEngine is a real-time music generation app that puts a full backing band in your pocket. Choose from 15 musical styles, pick your key and tempo, and JamEngine instantly creates authentic, genre-appropriate arrangements, complete with MIDI drums, bass, guitar, piano, brass, and woodwind instruments. Whether you're a guitarist looking for a rhythm section to practice over, a songwriter sketching out chord progressions, a jazz player working on improvisation, or a producer hunting for inspiration, JamEngine gives you a responsive, endlessly variable musical companion. 15 STYLES TO CHOOSE FROM Rock · Hard Rock · Classic Rock · Metal · Pop · Ballad · Blues · Slow Blues · Jazz Swing · Jazz Ballad · Funk · Bossa Nova · Reggae · Country · Lo-fi Each style comes with genre-authentic drum patterns, bass lines, guitar voicings, keyboard parts, and horn arrangements. 12 INSTRUMENTS Build your arrangement from a roster of 12 instruments, each with realistic General MIDI sounds: • Drums · Bass · Electric Guitar · Acoustic Guitar • Piano · Organ · Strings • Trumpet · Trombone · Alto Sax · Tenor Sax · Clarinet Mix and match any combination. Each instrument has independent volume, mute, solo, pan, density and 11 variation levels to control the complexity and character of its part. SMART CHORD PROGRESSIONS Build chord progressions using the grid editor or the interactive Circle of Fifths, a visual tool that highlights diatonic chords in your selected key, so you can see at a glance which chords belong together. Start from scratch, or load one of the built-in templates: I-IV-V, I-V-vi-IV, ii-V-I, 12-Bar Blues, Jazz Turnaround, and more. Choose from 18 chord types including major, minor, seventh, diminished, augmented, sus, and extended chords. FLEXIBLE TIME & KEY Play in any of 7 time signatures, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8, and 12/8, with BPM from 40 to 300. Tap tempo to match a song. Select any of the 12 keys in major or minor. Change key mid-session and your chord progression transposes automatically to preserve harmonic relationships. VARIATION RANDOMIZER Enable the variation randomizer and JamEngine will shuffle instrument variations at musically appropriate boundaries, every 4 or 8 bars, keeping your practice sessions fresh and unpredictable without you lifting a finger. EXPORT YOUR SESSIONS Capture your jam as a WAV, M4A, or multitrack MIDI file. Use export to bring your arrangements into your DAW for further production. SONGBOOK Save your favorite sessions, style, key, tempo, chord progression, and instrument setup to your personal Songbook. Load them instantly to pick up where you left off. CUSTOM SOUNDFONTS Import your own SF2 SoundFont files to customize the sound of every instrument. FREE TO START, PRO TO UNLOCK EVERYTHING JamEngine is free with 4 styles (Rock, Metal, Jazz Swing, Lo-fi), 3 song saves, and all playback features. Upgrade to JamEngine Pro for a one-time purchase to unlock all 15 styles, unlimited song saves, and full export capabilities.

About

Fake Book Index

Quickly find jazz standards across numerous fake books and play-along series. Search by title or composer, filter by owned books, and browse titles by page. Works offline, ideal for musicians.

Highlights
  • Search 10,000+ jazz standards
  • Works offline
  • Search by composer
  • Filter by owned books
  • Browse titles by page
  • Supports custom book imports
  • Multi-language support
Features
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The fastest way to find which fake book a jazz standard is in — and on which page. Search 10,000+ jazz standards across 90+ books at once: Real Book, New Real Book, Sher Music, Hal Leonard, Aebersold Play-A-Long, and many more. No signal at the basement venue? No problem. Fake Book Index works fully offline. Perfect for late-night jam sessions, anywhere. Available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. SEARCH Start typing and results appear instantly. No internet, no waiting. Search by composer too: type “Parker” to see every Charlie Parker title in your collection. FILTER AND BROWSE Select only the books you own to narrow your results. Pick any book and tap Browse to see all its titles sorted by page. Ideal on the bandstand. PLAY-ALONG SERIES Aebersold and Hal Leonard Jazz Play-Along volumes are listed individually, so you can quickly find the right tune and work on your standards with accompaniment. YOUR BOOKS Add any fake book that isn’t in the list. Enter titles manually or import a JSON index. Your books are saved and searchable alongside the others. Available in English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Italian. The index is updated regularly — new books and titles are added without requiring an app update. A BOOK IS MISSING? If you own a fake book that isn’t in the app, feel free to get in touch. I’ll happily add it.

Screenshots

JamEngine4 screens
Fake Book Index4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: JamEngine at Free against Fake Book Index's $2.99. Fake Book Index's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and device support (4 vs 2). On update cadence and 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

JamEngine is free to download; Fake Book Index costs $2.99 up front. JamEngine sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Fake Book Index asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 5 level
JamEngine versus Fake Book Index: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterJamEngineFake Book Index
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 daysEvery 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Paid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.615.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size149 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperOrcun KeskinArmel Courree

In-app purchases

1 purchases

JamEngine

One-time1
  • JamEngine Pro$8.99
None

Fake Book Index

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is JamEngine free?
JamEngine is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Fake Book Index free?
Fake Book Index costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do JamEngine or Fake Book Index have ads?
Neither JamEngine nor Fake Book Index shows ads.
Which is updated more often, JamEngine or Fake Book Index?
JamEngine ships an update every 5 days, and Fake Book Index every 5 days. Most recently, JamEngine was updated on October 24, 2026 and Fake Book Index on October 24, 2026.

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