Guide Track vs ScalePlay
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Guide Track
This tool helps musicians quickly create precise guide tracks for recording. It allows users to input song structure, chords, and beat styles to generate smart click tracks, chord charts, and even basic drum and bass lines.
- Create precise guide tracks
- Input song structure, chords, and beat styles
- Generate smart click tracks
- Create chord sheets
- Automated bass track
- Over 35 stock drum patterns
- Supports Inter-app audio and Audiobus 2
Read full descriptionHide full description
From the US Store: Songwriter's pre-production tool extraordinaire ! ***** by Mythmongrel - Version - 1.2.0 - Oct 31, 2014 The best app for easily laying out the form of a composition. It's does exactly what it's meant to do and it keeps getting better. Highly recommend it. Accept No Substitutes. ***** by Focusking - Version - 1.2.0 - Oct 9, 2014 Get this app, and you are in for a pleasant surprise; it's versatile, it's multi-purpose, and it knocks the competition out of the game. And, unlike other developers, this dev responds promptly, and positively. Are you a songwriter, electronic composer or are you in a band? Do you record your music and sometimes have trouble getting started or laying down tracks to record on top of? If the answer to either of these questions is yes then you owe it to yourself to own Guide Track! Guide Track is the primary go-to tool when you want to quickly create a precise guide track for recording when you know the song structure and the style. Simply enter in the time signature (which you can change at any time during the song), which chords (or rests) for how many beats and the beat style—Guide Track does the rest for you! Use inter-app audio or AudioBus 2 or save your track to file and you are ready to start recording for real with a perfect smart click track and guide chords, drums and bass. Save hours of messing around and get to what matters—your creativity. Once done you can mute the guide track to reveal your perfectly structured recording. It's like a sculptor using a mold when casting, except instead of bronze, you end up with perfectly structured music. You may want to even keep your guide track in there or record one of the parts such as bass or arpeggios as a real track, especially if you use a professional synth via MIDI out. You can also use Guide Track to print out chord sheets for your band or to capture song ideas or for recording aid. Features • Records stereo WAV file that can be copied and pasted, saved to Dropbox or emailed • Supports Inter-app recording and Audiobus 2 • Saves 5-track Type 1 MIDI files • Direct output to any MIDI device • All major chord families covered with chord inversions with choice of accidentals • Independent automated bass track with separate octave and sound controls • Change bass note to any desired value for a given chord change • Over 35 stock drum patterns • Click and Count-in • Add lyrics to your score • 128 GM Sounds on two different synths • Several chord play styles including 6 arpeggio patterns • Instant chord sheet which can be printed or emailed as PDF • Add various rests or chords as needed • Transpose songs any time • Time signatures that readjust beat structures for you • Preview chords before inserting • Undo and Redo • Automate changes to tempo, time signature, volume, play style and more during playback • Define up to 6 reusable named sections for ultra fast song creation • Innovative section navigator helps you move around your song • Rearrange or insert chords, rests or sections • Looping playback
ScalePlay
This app generates intricate musical patterns and sequences using complex scale theory. It's a powerful tool for both music production and education, offering scale references, virtual instruments, and interactive playback features.
- Generates intricate ostinatos and sequences
- Applies complex scale patterns
- User-defined songforms and chord changes
- Scale references for hundreds of scales
- Nine virtual instruments and 128 sounds
- Visualizes scale relations
- Interactive playback with generated patterns
Read full descriptionHide full description
ScalePlay is a generative music app capable of producing the most intricate ostinatos and sequences by applying complex scale patterns over user defined songforms and chord changes. It can be used in music production and is also a fantastic tool for music education. It includes scale references for hundreds of scales, nine virtual instruments and 128 instrument sounds. Its unique set of features allows the musician to visualize scale relations and to play along with generated patterns. Modern musicians often practice playing scales according to organizing principles like thirds. What is meant by that is to play a scale tone, then its third, then the second scale tone, the third on top of that one and so forth. The exercise would result in the scale tones 1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5, etc. Not an easy feat at first, because before even getting started, one has to know the base scale. Playing patterns through different keys and scale types finally is a demanding task even for advanced musicians. ScalePlay constructs patterns like these and much more complicated ones by using two simple grids. Grids have been around in music apps for years, but they are based on half-tone steps and include all available notes of the spectrum. That leaves one difficulty on the table, namely that of correctly identifying the notes of a scale. These grids also don’t easily allow for patterning as in our scale in thirds. So a different solution is called for and ScalePlay provides just that and so much more. In the application songs are used as metaphor to organize different scale types into a harmonic context. They are constructed with chords which in turn determine what scale types are available at a given time. During playback the app then cycles through these virtual chords or as with TouchPlay allows to call them up at will. This architecture is very helpful for superimposing ScalePlay patterns over existing pieces and even practicing improvising over changes. For practicing ScalePlay shows a pattern's progression on the built-in instrument and also provides a music notation reference. One can slow things down to need and play along. With the pattern lock feature all patterns can be kept in the same general vicinity. So instead of raising all scale tones when a base chord moves from C to G for example, patterns stay in place. This allows guitarists to practice scale patterns over changes while remaining in the same position. ScalePlay is also a fabulous generative music app. That is because of the magic that happens when these self-repeating scale structures are put in motion. Fantastic music occurs. Since ScalePlay supports virtual MIDI and can be recorded into any iOS based DAW. It also features TouchPlay for advanced looping. With TouchPlay scale structures can be looped endlessly and out of order. The TouchPlay environment is superimposed over ScalePlay's main interface and allows live switching between different scale types with the tap of a finger in continuous or full pattern mode. Of course ScalePlay supports multi-app multitasking as well as split-view and split-screen to make this feature even more useful. Instruments • Banjo, Bass, Cello, Double Bass, Guitar, Mandolin, Piano, Viola, Violin Some other Features: • 211 scale types • Virtual MIDI • Advanced looping with TouchPlay • Full general MIDI instrument library
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: ScalePlay at 4.9 against Guide Track's 3.9. ScalePlay also leads on review sentiment (71% vs 50%). Guide Track's advantage is price ($3.99 vs $9.99) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 26.0). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Guide Track costs $3.99 and ScalePlay $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
ScalePlay holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 10 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 50% of Guide Track's written reviews are positive against 71% of ScalePlay's.
Guide Track ships an update every 2 months, ScalePlay every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on June 2, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Guide Track | ScalePlay |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 3.9 (8 ratings) | 4.9 (10 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | 71.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 10 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 59 MB | 14 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Techné Media | RoGame Software |
Customer experience
Guide Track
ScalePlay
In-app purchases
Guide Track
No in-app purchases
ScalePlay
No in-app purchases








