Appmuse

They make practicing almost more fun than the gig! Hope to see a lot more of them.

I’ve been using Jazz Session Bands 1, 2, and 3 for a few years now—bought them in a bundle. First off, I can unreservedly recommend these apps for any jazz players who like to create their own backing tracks. Each version—one, two, and three—contains styles that are vital for jazz, so *you are going to need all three!* (Can’t wait to get 4!) The sampling is very good, the sound realistic and dynamic, particularly on 2 and 3. But this app definitely has weaknesses as well as strengths. I especially like SB’s piano and drums—but I almost always mute the horns when I play over SB backing trax; very quickly the horn licks get predictable. And you can’t play without bass, obviously, but sadly SB’s bass does not sound anything like a real jazz bass player. Some styles have no walking lines, no nifty little 8th note pickups. The piano, on the other hand, is sparkling and realistic. The drums are outstanding. You can really personalize a track just with the use of drum fills. SB 3, in particular, has a great array of drum fills. Now for my critique. To me, one of SB’s weaknesses is that when you create a backing track with rapid harmonic movement—for example 4 chords per bar, using dominant 7ths or ii Vs, the changes sound choppy. On the other hand, the app shines over chords that are prolonged for 2+ bars. Another weakness is that you can’t create a form in one version, for example, SB 1, and then copy and paste it into a new document from one of the other versions, like SB 2. That’s a drawback, because it is laborious to create forms using this app. If it turns out that a form sounds crummy in one version, it’d be cool if you could export it to another version. Another weakness is that not all the chord extensions and alterations are available in SB 1, 2, and 3. (I understand they are all possible in 4, which is why I plan to get it!) If you like to play over pieces with lots of colors and extensions in the melody, it’d great to have the backing chords that put those colors on top. For example, there’s no minor 11 available, no dom 9, no dominant 7(#11). I would also really like to see a dom 7(13,-9) voicing. You can get around this, of course, by using changes that are consonant with those colors, but I do feel the chord voicings on 1, 2, and 3 are limited. To summarize, you can create some really nice stuff that’s fun to play over, using Session Band Jazz 1, 2, and 3. Get all three in a bundle, if possible. You’re going to want and need them if your repertoire includes a wide variety of jazz styles. Show more

I have all of the session band apps, as a songwriter I can always find tracks that fit the song I’m writing. Really wonderful apps. Very authentic, and natural, doesn’t sound like a computer, it sounds like real people playing. I highly recommend these apps if you’re a songwriter Show more

Very nice apps. Dreaming about a kind of stop button with a sustain incorporated, and more looper markings.

I have an iPad Pro version 2. The app’s screen is stuck on a c major 7 9 chord and will only play the same 2 measure loop over and over again.no control buttons are displayed. Just the time line and 1 chord. I have jazz and jazz 3 apps. I re-downloaded the app many times but same result. GREAT APP IDEA BUT RIGHT NOW ITS CRAP!1. Fix this or refund my money! I am a jazz and music theory teacher and Berklee graduate and I want to recommend this app to my students but I can’t because of it’s problems. Please contact me! Show more

It’s a great idea, but difficult to fully realize it seems. The sound quality is excellent! The musicianship is good yet sounds generic. Styles are cool, but The chord options are too limited for real composition and the list of samples are shallow. The interface is not so good. A lot of bugs to work out. I give it a 4 though because it’s a beautiful concept. I hope they continue developing this. More! Show more

The app freezes. A lot. Would be perfect were it not for that.

This app is easy to learn so that you don’t spend hours working on it instead of your instrument... Nice! The only request I would place is to be able to customize time signature, especially in the jazz app. I am working on a 5/4 timer right now and pulled a work-around on it by shoving the 5 beats into 4/4... It’s a little funky but it’s working, sort of. Overall great app for woodshedding... Thanks!!! Show more

Good for reference and ideas

Good sound quality and variety of styles. But all of these apps need to be able to import/export saved songs so that users can open them in other versions and share them with others (Much like how ireal Pro has its forums of users' files). This would give the app an entirely new function and make it easily worth the money. Show more

This is like a cross between iReal Pro and Band in a Box with real tracks. I love the sound of BiaB with real tracks but it isn't convenient to have the computer all of the time. This fills in the gap and gives me the better sound quality I'm missing from iReal. Show more

Horrible app. Crashes every time I use it. Can't shut the d@#n thing off!

I love this....

I’ve used the app on my 5th generation iPod for over a year now with no problems whatsoever. I have between 10 and 15 tracks stored on the app - that shows you just how much I used the app before. However, in the past few weeks, the app would stop responding and eventually crash. This would happen just about every other time I opened the app. I tried to delete other apps from my iPod to clear up some space so the iPod could run it better, with no effect. Maybe it’s just because I have so many tracks on the app saved, or maybe it’s because I don’t have a lot of free space on my iPod, but this app has just become extremely inconsistent on its performance. The one thing that could save me from writing this review was whether or not their support team could help me. But after emailing the link UK Music Apps has on their website for support TWICE, I’ve heard nothing back from them. This has been a very useful app in the past, but until I get this problem fixed or until I hear back from UK Music Apps, I’m giving this app 1 star. Show more

I purchased volumes 1,2 and 3 thinking that this app would be an improvement over the iReal Pro app in terms of play along sound quality. As far as sound goes, this app is excellent, however, it's missing some very fundamental cords and can't perform slash-cords either. This app has great potential but needs some updates. Show more

This seems like a great idea, like band-in-a-box, but -- unless I am missing something -- you can only get fancy chords: dim, flat 9, all kinds of 7ths. If you want a C major chord (or any unadorned major chord) you are out of luck. It is like a car that will drive in loops but cannot go in a straight line. Show more

Nice app. Unfortunately it won't work with Garageband as advertised.

These apps are brilliant!! I just bought a Line 6 Amplify 150 and they work great with it!! These are hands down the best jam / practice apps on the market! Just bought the blues and the jazz versions! Show more

What a great app this is! I've found it very useful as a sketchpad for ideas and for creating backing tracks of jazz standards for the purpose of rehearsal. Kudos to the makers! Show more

Very easy learning curve, and the sounds are realistic. I threw together "Autumn in New York" in about 15 minutes, Really cool. A few minor complaints, so far I can't export full size WAV files to Dropbox, it seems the workaround is to export it to another audio program that does allow direct exportation, but it will export M4v via email. Not quite the same. It could also use a few more chord options, a minor 6 would be nice, and a few other useful chords would make it even more legit sounding. But first please allow WAV exporting to Dropbox, or iTunes. Show more