decent playalong app? (along lines of aebersold's?)

Bruques

Hi grateful if any of you know a good playalong app? ireal pro is yuck. generic midi with no feel. shockingly sheet music direct (hal leonard) subscription pass is also yuck. the only thing i can really do at the mo is apple music across collected jamey aebersold audio files.

thanks!

Bruques

@Bruques said:
Hi grateful if any of you know a good playalong app? ireal pro is yuck (ok to be a little more generous, it's, meh, not yuck, SMD is bizarrely worse). generic midi with no feel. shockingly sheet music direct (hal leonard) subscription pass is also yuck. the only thing i can really do at the mo is apple music across collected jamey aebersold audio files.

thanks!

Tickletiger

The Peter Erskine ones are the best

hes

Aebersold playalongs are actual recordings of pro musicians comping a tune. You're not going to find anything auto-generated of that quality anywhere.

What playalong apps give is a lot more flexibility. Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro is an app that's similar in some ways to iRealPro, but which has added features and generates somewhat better sounding accompaniment, with more options. You can feed the midi in realtime to instrument vst's for even better sound. Not as quick and easy to use as iReal though.

You can get midi from iRealPro (not in realtime, though, I think) and use it to create tracks sounding better than stock iReal sounds. What you lose is some flexibility.

The Lumbeat apps (iBassist and all the xxxx Drummers, and any non-Lumbeat piano/keyboard auv3) can be combined to create quality backing tracks.

You could check out the Sessionband apps, which use actual recorded players snippets and stitch them together as backing tracks. Sound is good, usability and flexibility not so good.

There are a couple more options on iOS probably, can search archives for similar threads.

Fingolfinzz

For play along stuff like that, I usually just stick to YouTube if it’s just for practicing

RonnieOmelettes

@Tickletiger said:
The Peter Erskine ones are the best

I’ve only tried Quartet 1 (same developer as session band) and really like that. How do the other apps you have there compare?

McD

The Session Band apps got better with each release so more recent is likely better. Session Band apps are recorded parts but you can enter a chord progression and get a rendered group performance and also change tempo within some boundaries since the parts are recorded segments.

I like that there is always a solo track that you can use to learn improvising fragments you can integrate into your vocabulary when you see specific chord patterns… very much in line with typical jazz exercises.

For standards, the Quartet apps are the way to go. Since you have Quartet #1 you know how that works.

I don’t have the Peter Erskine apps but in that series there’s a Bob Mintzer Big Band app for practicing reading charts with your instrument turned off. The parts are provided as PDF’s in a viewer.

Edward_Alexander

Try “Impro Master”

I haven’t used it extensively, but it does what it says on the tin. Leans towards jazz chord progressions.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/impro-master/id1552035106

filo01

I would very much like to mention and recommend Band-In-A-Box from PGMusic, but it is not for iOS, unfortunately

Bruques

@Tickletiger said:
The Peter Erskine ones are the best

thank you, perfect! it looks like quartet 1 and 2 cover a few hundred standards

@McD said:
The Session Band apps got better with each release so more recent is likely better. Session Band apps are recorded parts but you can enter a chord progression and get a rendered group performance and also change tempo within some boundaries since the parts are recorded segments.

I like that there is always a solo track that you can use to learn improvising fragments you can integrate into your vocabulary when you see specific chord patterns… very much in line with typical jazz exercises.

For standards, the Quartet apps are the way to go. Since you have Quartet #1 you know how that works.

I don’t have the Peter Erskine apps but in that series there’s a Bob Mintzer Big Band app for practicing reading charts with your instrument turned off. The parts are provided as PDF’s in a viewer.

thanks for the details, yeah these are exactly what i would have hoped existed, and suspected would not, so brilliant

MadGav

This thread is gold! Thank you all!

I have iRealPro in my wish list and just last night I was thinking that I must knuckle down and finally study the II-V-I progression… as it happens I’ve had the Aebersold II-V-I volume on vinyl for umm, since the late 80s (maybe digress later work just called for help early)

raabje

+1 for Band in a Box (I am a fan....), when you use Realtracks only and not the generic midi sounds, it sounds pretty good.

And I have next to Quartet 1 and 2, also this one, Jazz300

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/jazz300-ultimate-play-along/id1567821393

That said, I cannot play that stuff yet, too high BPM in combination with the more difficult guitar chords.

And maybe as an out of the box idea, this one sound very synthetic, Odesi. You can pick a chord progression from a list, to check how this sounds and works, and to practice solo's. I think it is a bit overpriced, I only use the free version.

https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/odesi-chords-create-rhythms-basslines-chord-progressions/id1056176667

MadGav

I’ve just bought the Quartet 1 and 2 bundle, which covers a load of the tunes which were played at the jam I went to last week but it would be really handy to also have charts of the heads as I’ll need to learn those… I guess a paper real book (or PDF) would cover this, I’m wondering if there’s an app option?

And also, I found a copy of the Aebersold Bird volume, just the vinyl, on the local market for like 3 quid.

Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr

Session band would be my rec. I have yet to try the Erskines—I didn’t know they were on iOS!

Lumbeat jazz drummer plus Lumbeat bassist would also be excellent.

raabje

@Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr said:
Session band would be my rec. I have yet to try the Erskines—I didn’t know they were on iOS!

Lumbeat jazz drummer plus Lumbeat bassist would also be excellent.

I am still wondering if the two IAP drummers in Jazzdrummer add something new to the core program.

MadGav

@MadGav said:
I’ve just bought the Quartet 1 and 2 bundle, which covers a load of the tunes which were played at the jam I went to last week but it would be really handy to also have charts of the heads as I’ll need to learn those… I guess a paper real book (or PDF) would cover this, I’m wondering if there’s an app option?

And also, I found a copy of the Aebersold Bird volume, just the vinyl, on the local market for like 3 quid.

To answer myself I went hunting for real books last night and found a few round and about that will do for now.