Strum Machine Release Notes

Version 446 (latest release)

This update (and the corresponding App Store update) aims to fix “freezing” issues that were reported by iPhone/iPad users when resuming playback. It also adds AirPlay compatibility and “Now Playing” information/controls to the Control Center.

If you were having any issues with playback or freezing on iOS, please update the app from the App Store (tap the blue Update button if you see it) to get all the fixes. Let me know if you have any problems with it!

I also added a Customize interface size option to Settings → Appearance which you can use to change the overall size of Strum Machine’s interface, separate from your browser’s zoom or iOS Text Size setting.

Version 445

First, in case you missed it:

Watch the Update Tour!

I’ve been listening to your feedback on the big update from earlier this month, and making tweaks and fixing bugs accordingly. There’s still lots more to do, and I’ll be releasing a new beta soon with some more ambitious updates to address issues that have been raised. But in the meantime, here are a few highlights:

First, about getting logged out on iOS/Android after updating: This was an unanticipated side effect of a once-in-a-decade infrastructure change. I’m very sorry about this, especially to those for whom it happened at an inconvenient time like when they were away from an internet connection. It shouldn’t happen again.

If you find yourself logged out more than once: it’s a long-standing bug in iOS that is affecting the new version much more seriously. I’ll be releasing a potential fix to the beta app soon, and hope to eventually eliminate this issue. In the meantime, please turn your iPhone/iPad off and back on to solve the problem.

Size of the interface: I made a few changes to give more space for the chords on iPad: 1) the playback bar is a bit smaller, 2) the list navigation bar slides out of the way when you scroll down, and 3) tweaked how scaling responds to the system Text Size. We’re going to continue working on ways to give you more room to see the chord progression on longer songs as well… stay tuned.

Varius bugs I fixed: Playback wonkiness when double-tapping a chord, mute status not being respected, login codes not submitting after being autocompleted, “Speedup” animation not showing up on phones, and others.

Keep the feedback coming! Tyler and I are working hard to make everyone as happy as we can. The feedback has thankfully been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re grateful! But we also appreciate hearing from those who are disappointed by particular aspects of the update, since it gives us an opportunity to address those issues.

Version 444

This is a HUGE update emcompassing over two years of design work and over a year of coding, testing, and refinement.

Watch the Update Tour!

The biggest changes are summarized as follows:

• ▶️ New Playback Interface: Redesigned to give you faster access to the most useful settings.
• ⏲️ Easier BPM Controls on Phones: Try out our brand new “BPM dial” on your phone!
• ⚙️ New App Settings Page: All settings now in one place, with room to grow.
• 🌃 Dark Mode: Go to Settings → Appearance to enable Dark mode, or have it follow your system theme.

Plus there are a whole bunch of smaller additions and improvements, including:

• 🎨 Design Refresh: Improved contrast and readability, more consistent UI, smoother animations, and so on.
• 🥁 Metronome: Go to the Metronome menu on any song page to enable it. You can also toggle it and adjust volume in the “Audio/Mix” menu.
• ⏳ Count-in Delay: Give yourself time to pick up your picks or bow before the count-in starts.
• 🤏 Shorter 1-Bar Count-in: Want to give yourself less time to prepare before the downbeat comes? This option is for you!
• 🤫 Silence in the Count-in: Leave space to play the pickup notes in your kickoff! (Also a useful workaround if your Bluetooth speaker tends to drop the first beat.)
• 🥁 Count-in Metronome: You can toggle the metronome as a count-in sound now. (It will only play during the count-in unless enabled in the Metronome menu.)
• 🔈 Adaptive Count-in Volume: Count-in volume now matches the instrumentation by default. You can still set a manual volume if you want.
• ⏲️ Pan Controls for Count-in and Metronome: Find them in the Audio/Mixer settings page.
• 👞 Hear Sounds on Rests: New togglable setting to hear the beat during rests. (I’ll be improving the sound sample soon.)
• Ⓜ️ Relative Minor Chord Numbers: Do you want the root chord of minor songs to be 6m and not 1m? Enable this setting under Chart & Display!

Versions 431-443

Development, alpha, and beta releases for the June 2026 update.

Version 430

Something on YouTube’s end changed recently, causing embedded videos (added to References on the song page) to show an “Error 153” message. This has been fixed.

Version 429

As expected, last month’s big release had a few small bugs that needed fixing, most of which were reported in the last few days:

• 🔧 Fixed a bug where BPM would sometimes reset to 100 after editing a song.
• 🔧 Fixed an issue with “foot out” endings not triggering outro sections.
• 🔧 Fixed an auto-scroll issue where it wouldn’t scroll to the top on first playback.
• 🔧 Fixed an issue where BPM could be set to zero and crash the app (since beat duration is 60 over BPM and you can’t divide by zero).

I also took the opportunity to make a few small enhancements:

• 🎵 Improved enharmonics in the Chart menu to display sharps when ascending (e.g. from 1 to 1#dim to 2, or 4 to 4#dim to 5, as is common in Texas swing).
• 💃 Improved beat push (syncopation) handling for mandolin and bass.
• 🔉 Added a temporary “Extra playback delay” diagnostic tool in Advanced Settings; if your Bluetooth speaker tends to drop the first beat of playback, try this and let me know how it goes please!

And for the developers out there:

• 🧪 Implemented an experimental, invite-only REST API for adding and updating your song library and lists. If you’re a developer interested in using this, write me and tell me what you plan to use it for.

Version 428

This update is primarily the result of a big refactoring and code modernization project that began in June of 2025, with over 20,000 changed lines of code, mostly behind the scenes.

That said, there are a few new features:

• 🖨️ You can now view a plain-text version of a song list, suitable for printing or copy/pasting into another app.
• 💕 You can now make a copy of a song list-either your own, or someone else’s.
• ⏳ Auto-Advance’s “Play next song automatically” feature now has a configurable delay to give you time before the next song starts.

And a few bug fixes and minor improvments:

• 📶 Fixed a bug with offline mode where it would sometimes fail to load songs offline.
• 🤫 Other instruments will once again properly hush themselves when editing settings for an instrument in Band Settings.
• ✋ Fixed problem where +/- BPM buttons would get stuck and wouldn’t stop incrementing.
• 🗣️ Hopefully fixed the bug where the first sound (i.e. the “one” in the count-in) wasn’t getting played; let me know if you still have this problem.
• 🔧 Improved performance and reliability of the chart’s chord auto-fit algorithm.
• 📱 Band Settings menu uses a more modern “bottom sheet” design, utilizing more of the available screen space on phones.

Finally, this happened separately from this release, but it’s worth noting that the macOS desktop app now requires macOS 12+ due to changes in the underlying Electron library.

(Side note: This was 100% written by hand. I was using emoji as bullet points long before AI made it passé. 😉)

Versions 426-427

Internal and beta releases.

Version 425

The new iOS audio engine appears to be stable and reliable, so I have made it the new default for all users. After months of struggling to resolve these iOS audio issues, I’m so relieved to have things back to normal!

The new audio engine utilizes and builds upon Michael Tyson’s The Amazing Audio Engine library. Much gratitude to him for open-sourcing his work, and for all the folks who tested the various Strum Machine beta versions and provided feedback on the new audio engine.

Version 424

This version has a new audio engine for iOS-different from the one I had to recall last month. It’s going to be opt-in at first, and will require you to have the latest version of the Strum Machine app from the App Store. You can opt in through the Advanced Settings page in the top-left menu, and I encourage you to do this if you’ve had any trouble with audio playback or rhythm on your iOS device. It will gradually become the default for all users over the coming days/weeks.

As always, contact me through the Help menu if you run into any problems. It’s been extensively tested by me on a bunch of iOS devices and by other users as well, so any remaining issues are likely rare-that means you should definitely report them if you encounter them so that I can fix them! Thanks!

Versions 421-423

Tests and diagnostics to figure out how to make the iOS audio engine robust again.

Version 420

I’ve built a new audio engine for iOS from scratch, in the hope that it will not be plagued by the mysterious issues affecting the FMOD audio engine that I licensed in 2022. This version, v420, adds support for this home-brewed audio engine in Strum Machine. [Update: there were too many problems with this new engine so I had to recall it and go back to the drawing board.]

Version 419

Beta version with new iOS audio engine - recalled due to problems that has me going back to the drawing board.

Version 418

Strum Machine users have been telling me about recent issues with audio playback on their iOS devices, and I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s tricky because for the most part I have no issues on my own iOS devices and am unable to recreate the problem locally (and thus examine it up close and in person).

That said, I think I may have figured out a solution that should make the issue happen extremely rarely (if at all). If, after updating, you still have a problem with audio playback, please let me know. [Update: this update did help a lot, but didn’t completely solve the issue.]

Thanks for your patience as I work through this extremely frustrating bug in Apple’s iOS audio system! (If only Strum Machine were just playing individual audio files like most other music apps… 😅)

Version 417

This update addresses some issues that were reported by users after the release of version 416.

• 🔧 Auto-Scroll no longer stops working when the key is changed.
• ✨ Auto-Scroll behavior has been tweaked to show more of the upcoming chords.
• 🔧 The UI now adapts better to font-only scaling that is optionally used by certain browsers like Firefox.

As for the issue of sound periodically cutting out on iOS devices: I am aware of the problem. I have a theory as to what causes it, and have included a potential fix in this update, but we’ll have to wait and see if it fixes things or not. If you still notice the issue happening, please let me know!

Version 416

This release encompasses five months of behind-the-scenes work on deferred maintenance and infrastructure upgrades for the app, to ensure the stability and longevity of the project. Many tens of thousands of lines of code have been rewritten, so despite many weeks of beta testing it’s possible that there are still bugs to be found. If you encounter one, don’t wait for someone else to report it — send me a message through the Help menu! (And thank you!)

There are more than behind-the-scenes improvements to be had, though. I’ll make a video about them soon, but briefly, here’s what’s new:

• ✨ Mid-song time signature changes (for standard time and waltzes; here are some demo songs).
• ✨ Syncopated “beat pushes” (for having a chord played an eighth-note early).
• ✨ “To Coda” and “End” markings which will direct the player to jump to a coda/outro or end the song early the last time through.
• ✨ Effects can now be applied on a per-beat basis if you subdivide the cell. Opens up many possibilities for syncopation.
• ✨ Rests can be made to also silence all strings.
• ✨ Overall performance improvements, particularly on slower devices, and especially with long song lists.
• ✨ The MP3 download feature has been rewritten so I’m hoping it’s more reliable now (let me know please)!

As always, your feedback is much appreciated!

Versions 412-415

Mix of public and internal beta releases.

Versions 409-411

Internal releases.

Version 408

We’ve overhauled the Band Settings menu… again! (Hopefully for the last time.)

Now it’s easier than ever to load a preset musical style (or make your own presets!), and we’ve added a bunch of new presets (especially in the bluegrass category) and we’ll expand the list further based on user feedback.

To go along with the new presets, we’ve made some improvements to the instruments:

• 👉 The standup bass can now play four-note-per-bar walking bass lines! Great for jazz, swing, country, and more.
• 👉 The mandolin chop sustain and intensity/loudness can now be adjusted – we made it somewhat “dry” (less sustain) by default.
• 👉 The mandolin can now insert rhythmic accents (downbeat strums and upstrokes) into the chop, according to your settings.
• 👉 There are new half-time patterns for the mandolin chop and standup bass to match the existing half-time pattern for the guitar. All three of these patterns will be improved in the future, but even this basic version opens up some fun new possibilities.
• 👉 You can now make the guitar substitute all C chords with Cadd9 when in the key of G – I added this specifically for the new “mash” preset.

Beyond that:

• 👉 The overall Band Settings interface has been improved to be cleaner and easier to navigate.
• 👉 When sharing a song that you’ve created or edited, the person viewing the song will be able to load your band settings. (This can be a roundabout way of sharing band presets.)
• 👉 Various minor bugs that have been reported over the past couple months have been fixed.

Versions 405-407

Beta testing releases.

Versions 403-404

Internal and alpha testing releases.

Version 402

The mandolin chop has been overhauled and expanded in this beta release, with new options for sustain and intensity, along with the option of adding rhythmic accents (like upstrokes) between offbeat chop chords. Let me know what you think!

Also:

• 🚀 Performance of the band settings menus has been greatly improved.
• 📋 There’s a new keyboard shortcut for paste-in-place (Cmd+Shift+V or Ctrl+Shift+V) which overwrites the selected cells.
• 🏝️ There are new “half-time” mandolin chop and standup bass options… very rudimetary (as is the guitar half-time strum, to be honest) but it’s a start, and will be improved over time.

Version 401

Internal testing release.

Version 400

Feels a little weird to do a small bugfix update for “Version 400”, but these version numbers are simply incremented for every substantial update (with point releases for small “addendums” to the update) and are not planned around major updates. Part of me wishes I had more traditional version numbers (“Announcing version 3.0!”) but that fits more with a development style of big updates once in a blue moon, which companies do partly because it’s better for marketing and press releases. Instead, I aim for more steady improvement and continual updates, which is better for users. 🙂

Anyway, here’s what’s fixed in this release:

• 🐜 When editing the reps of a section, the cursor is no longer automatically scrolled into view (which was annoying when editing long song arrangements)
• 🐜 Editor toolbar is temporarily hidden when editing the name of a section on a phone (to keep it out of the way)
• 🐜 When changing the key in edit mode, playback effects (rest, stop, diamond) are retained
• 🐜 When duplicating a section in edit mode, the rep count of the new section is set to 1 (if the old behavior was preferable, I’d be curious to know)
• 🐜 New medleys use the BPM of the first song/tune in the medley by default
• 🐜 When creating or appending to a medley, band settings are copied from the constituent songs/tunes
• 🐜 Fixed a bug where a song added to a medley wouldn’t play at first
• 🐜 The “View All Songs” button (under “A-Z” on the index screen) wasn’t always working properly

Version 399

Got some bug fixes for you in this update!

• 🍏 There was a bug where the iOS app would sometimes crash when opening it. This has (hopefully!) been fixed now.

• 🔨 I hammered out a new line-length algorithm, so hopefully editing the length of lines should work more smoothly and predictably now.

• 🔗 YouTube links with a playlist in the URL are now processed correctly by the New Reference form.

• 🚀 I made some improvement to the performance of the circular “Feel” slider on slower devices.

Version 398

Note: I’m playing around with more detailed release notes. Let me know if you like this kind of detail or if you prefer the more skimmable bullet-list format.

• 🧱 Experimental metronome feature. Strum Machine is a great metronome replacement, but sometimes you might want to hear the crisp click of a metronome in addition to, or instead of, the other instruments. By popular demand, we’ve been working on a metronome feature for Strum Machine, and the “first draft” is ready for you to play with! First, opt in to this feature in Advanced Settings (top-left menu), then check out the new “Metronome” option in the sidebar menu. This feature is experimental and is very much subject to change, but I wanted to get an early version out for folks to be able to use right away. Send me your feedback, and expect a more polished version to come in the fall.

• 👉 Also in Advanced Settings, I added a toggle switch to require two taps on a chord in order to play from that point when using a touchscreen. We’ve been hearing reports of accidentally triggering playback on mobile devices when this was not wanted, such as in jam or performance scenarios where you just want a chord reference. This is my first experiment toward supporting that use case better. Let me know what you think!

• ↕️ The song & list sorting algorithms have been improved. Song and list titles have always been sorted with leading articles (“The”, “A”, and “An”) at the end, but this created problems when “A” was meant to refer to a letter, such as in “A exercises” (i.e., the key of A) or “A and E Waltz”. Strum Machine will now do its best (based on my manual analysis of all song titles in the database) to determine if “A” is meant to be a letter and will sort accordingly. If you find any issues with the new sorting algorithm, let me know!

• 🔊 The yellow current-beat highlight now syncs up with Bluetooth speaker audio on Chrome and Chrome-based browsers like Edge. Previously, I thought this was only possible inside a mobile app (where it’s an existing feature). But recently, I did my first podcast interview on a web-development podcast called ShopTalk (here’s my episode) and I got an email from a listener who’s on the Google Chrome team (Thomas Steiner). In the course of our email exchange, I learned about a new (to me) browser API that gives me the information needed to correct for Bluetooth audio latency. Unfortunately, the Firefox and Safari implementations of this API are buggy at the moment, but it works in Chrome and Chrome-based browsers (Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, and my personal favorite, Arc) and I’ll check back in on Firefox and Safari later.

• 🐜 Fixed a bug with the MP3 recorder where the BPM in the filename was wrong.

Version 397

This update features a newly-redesigned song editor! We went back to the drawing board and made a new interface that will hopefully feel familar but better.

More chords are also available, including almost every chord you could previously only find in iReal Pro. New settings are available in the editor, such as switching to numbered chords. Subdivided beats are easier to edit. Click-and-drag selection works more smoothly. Plus, we’ve paved the way for more new editing features to come in the future.

👉 Watch this video for a quick five-minute tour!

Speaking of videos, I also recently filmed a multi-part video series that walks you through the process of transcribing chords by ear. Watch them all on this forum post.

Other changes include:

• 👉 Waltzes (songs in 3/4 time) now have bar lines between every measure, not just every pair of measures.
• 👉 Songs with numbers in the title sort better – “Blue Yodel #4” now comes before “Blue Yodel #17”. Same with lists.
• 👉 You can now press the ”–” button in Auto-Speedup to go directly into Auto-Slowdown mode.
• 👉 Minor keys use better guitar chord voicings.
• 👉 When Capoed Chords is in use and you change keys, the capo will stay on if the same base shape can be used (e.g. A to B).

Versions 395-396

Public beta releases of Editor 3.0, previously released on beta.strummachine.com.

Versions 393-394

Alpha releases of Editor 3.0 for internal development and usability testing.

Version 392

This is a huge update, eight months in the making! It’s a complete overhaul of the band settings system. Watch this video walkthrough for a quick tour of some of the new features and improvements.

Band settings interface

• ⭐️ Redesigned menu that is easier to read and navigate
• ⭐️ More prominent Presets button for quick access to band presets
• ⭐️ Improved rhythm pattern visualizations that mirror what you hear as you customize the settings
• ⭐️ Volume/pan sliders now affect the current song immediately – for global settings, continue using the Audio/Mix panel
• ⭐️ New help docs for the band settings system

Guitar: All boom-chuck–based strums

• ⭐️ Choose between hearing alternating bass notes or the root note only
• ⭐️ Add automatic leading notes: transitional notes before chord changes (guitar only for now, bass coming soon)
• ⭐️ Add automatic guitar bass runs, picked based on the chord progression and your preferences
• ⭐️ Change the strum to be more boom-heavy or chuck-heavy
• ⭐️ Specify the “voicing” to use (chord shape, capo position, drop-D or standard tuning, etc.)

Guitar: Boom chuck with upstrokes

• ⭐️ Make the pattern more strum-heavy (think Jimmy Martin) or pick-heavy (think cross-picking)
• ⭐️ Change the feel of the strum with a new “2D slider” control – see and hear your changes immediately as you drag the slider around

Guitar: Syncopated boom-chuck strum

• ⭐️ Revamped syncopated (D DU UDU) strumming pattern that is more configurable and works better in more situations

Guitar: Dampened strumming patterns

• ⭐️ A new “in-between” option for onbeats: a “short strum” that only plays 2 or 3 strings
• ⭐️ Adjustable sustain duration for dampened strums, anywhere from full sustain (no dampening) to almost no sustain (dampened immediately) – moderate sustain sounds great with slower ballads, for example
• ⭐️ Adjustable backbeat emphasis (softer onbeats and louder offbeats)

Standup bass instrument

• ⭐️ Choose which octaves you’d like to hear the bass use: low, middle, or high (plus a “mix” option that currently needs work)
• ⭐️ Disable root-fifth alternation and hear the bass “pedal” the root note instead
• ⭐️ Fine-tune the amount of sustain you want to hear from the bass

On my to-do list for the future:

• ☐ Add many more built-in presets and styles to reduce the need for fine-tuned customization in common genres
• ☐ Add more mandolin strumming patterns to match the guitar offerings
• ☐ Add leading notes and chord walk-ins to the bass
• ☐ Add walking bass (four notes per measure) for jazz/swing genres
• ☐ Continue adding more strumming patterns to the guitar, such as a syncopated waltz strum, a simpler DUDDUD jig strum, and many more
• ☐ Add more jazz/swing chords
• ☐ …and more, depending on what folks want to see!

Desktop apps and iOS 17 issues

Finally, we now have a proper desktop (Windows/Mac/Linux) app for Strum Machine! Download it here. It’s based on the web version, with the same functionality, but it’s a standalone installable app which makes it easy to access. Offline support is also baked in. We’ve also made some changes to hopefully address the recent Apple bug in iOS 17 that has been breaking audio playback for some users. (It’s been a doozy of a bug to track down!)

As always, please let us know about any issues you encounter, or if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement. Thanks!

Versions 390-391

Beta versions, previously released on beta.strummachine.com.

Version 389

Alpha version shared with members of the Strum Machine Backstage Pass newsletter. (You’re welcome to sign up!)

Versions 386-388

Internal development versions.

Version 385

First beta release of what would become Band Settings 2.0; we ended up going back to the drawing board after this release, but it was a good start.

Versions 382-384

Internal development versions.

Version 381

You can now retune the instruments of Strum Machine up or down, away from the standard “A = 440 Hz” pitch, using the new button at the bottom of the Audio/Mix settings panel. Once set, all songs played on the current device will be played “sharp” or “flat” by the amount specified.

For most people, this update will not be useful and can be ignored. But for those of you who have been wanting to be able to match the pitch of a recording that is not tuned to standard pitch and asking me for this feature, I hope you enjoy it!

In addition, I have two work-in-progress features in this release:

1. A new “Notepad editor monospace font” option in Advanced Settings Experiments. This only changes the font of the editor, but you can have parts of your notes rendered in monospace font by sticking them between pairs of three backticks (example here).

2. A per-instrument “customizations” UI in the band settings menu, which eventually will have various options to tweak a given strumming/playing style. (Right now it just has timing tweaks which most people won’t be interested in.)

Finally, this release also includes a pretty substantial reworking and modernization of the client-server communication code. I’ve kicked the tires myself quite a bit, and things went fine in beta testing, but I’ll still be checking the logs for errors I might have missed.

Versions 379-380

Beta versions, previously released on beta.strummachine.com.

Version 378

Happy New Year, everyone! I am back from holiday break and starting off the year with some small bug fixes and improvements:

• 🐛 Squashed bugs relating to waltz-time upstroke timing, newly-created songs not instantly appearing in the song index, deleting a song that is used in a medley, customizing line lengths in 9/8 time, recording MP3 files when Auto-Advance is enabled, and the Major/Minor selection buttons in the editor’s key selection menu.
• 🗒️ For those of you that use the Notepad to store and refer to lyrics, you may have been annoyed by how Strum Machine automatically keeps the current chords in view, pulling you away from the Notepad on smaller screens. Now Strum Machine detects if you’ve scrolled down to view the Notepad and won’t automatically scroll the view if this is the case. In addition, the Notepad experience should be a bit smoother on phones and small screens.

Version 377

This update addresses one of the most embarassing flaws that Strum Machine has had since it was first created in 2016: the BPM values for waltzes and jigs were off by a factor of 1½ and 1⅓, respectively, because the wrong formula was being used. Fixing this was trickier than you might think, but now BPM values are correct for all time signatures. 😅

In addition, you can now change the definition of what “beats per minute” means in you Advanced Settings Playback & BPM Settings.

Version 376

With this release, Strum Machine now has an assortment of new guitar strumming patterns to choose from!

Watch this six-minute video that gives an overview of how to use the new features:

Simulating more complex strums in a realistic way is a big technical challenge, and this update involved countless hours of research and development, spanning nearly five years (though most progress happened in the last nine months). I’m thrilled with the update and the positive response I’ve received from my beta testers, and I hope you enjoy the upgrade. There is more to come in future updates, too!

Highlights of this release:

• ⭐️ Fully re-recorded guitar and mandolin samples with much-improved audio quality and clarity
• ⭐️ A few bluegrass-style strumming patterns with upstrokes
• ⭐️ A Celtic-style strum for reels and jigs (with drop-D tuning)
• ⭐️ Dampened closed-chord strums for swing and jazz
• ⭐️ A couple “pop” strumming patterns (including a half-time strum)
• ⭐️ Configurable “upstroke swing” to adjust the feel of each strumming pattern (learn more about upstroke swing)
• ⭐️ Per-song band settings so that each song can have its own backup style
• ⭐️ A few built-in band presets to get you started, and the ability to make your own presets
• ⭐️ Ability to edit default preset settings for any song you open
• ⭐️ Both global instrument volume settings (as before) and optional song-specific volume overrides
• ⭐️ Pan controls for each instrument, to put them in your left or right speaker
• ⭐️ Optional foot tap, either on downbeats or in a Canadian-style rhythm
• ⭐️ Support for making “5” chords that have no third
• ⭐️ A master volume control, useful for Zoom calls and JamKazam, etc.
• ⭐️ A new audio engine for iOS, for better performance and lower battery usage
• ⭐️ A bit of design “polish” throughout the app

Updates planned for the future (related to this release) include:

• 🔲 Improvements to all existing guitar strumming patterns: more variety, more realism, more options
• 🔲 Additional strumming patterns (let me know if there are specific ones you most want to see!)
• 🔲 Automatic bass runs (hopefully)
• 🔲 Ability to specify “voicing” to use (capo position, drop-D or standard tuning, etc.)
• 🔲 More mandolin strumming patterns to match the guitar offerings
• 🔲 Bass options, including a walking bass
• 🔲 Configurable song endings
• 🔲 More jazz/swing chords
• 🔲 …and more, depending on what folks want to see!

Head on over to the forum thread for this update to talk about it with me and the rest of the Strum Machine community! Or just write me directly through the Help menu in the top-right corner if you have any feedback. Thanks!

Versions 373-375

Versions 373-375 were released to the beta site, where anyone can try out the latest version of Strum Machine that is available for public beta testing… as well as the NEW “SM Beta” iOS app, which you can install through TestFlight (Apple’s method for installing beta apps) if you want to use the latest cutting-edge features on your iPhone or iPad.

Version 371

This was the strumming patterns update that was briefly released on the main Strum Machine website/app; it had to be pulled from there due to some issues that were resolved with version 376.

Versions 361-370

Versions 361-370 were released to the beta site, where anyone can try out the latest version of Strum Machine that is available for public beta testing.

Version 360

Small update with various bug fixes for issues that were showing up here and there, plus low-level library updates to stay compatible with the latest browsers.

Version 359

The time has come where Strum Machine has to start collecting sales tax in various parts of the world. The problem is, sales taxes in the US and Canada are generally added onto the cost of the product, whereas they are included in the price in many other countries that use a VAT system, such as basically all of Europe. Plus, while US sales taxes are pretty low (under 10%), European VAT rates are often 20% or higher.

To address this, Strum Machine is now offering subscriptions billable in Euro (€5/mo) and GBP (£4.29/mo). If you’re in Europe, you’ll save money by switching currencies since VAT is included in those prices… not to mention you won’t pay exchange fees or see the price fluctuate with the exchange rate. Click here to learn how to switch to Euro or GBP.

(We’ll be sending out notices to customers who are affected by the new tax charges a week prior to their subscription renewal.)

Version 358

This first release for 2022 aims to improve a few niggling bugs that have been affecting users of the iOS app. Issues that prevented playback from working after switching from a different audio-related app should be fixed now.

More importantly, the “white screen of death”, in which the app only shows a white screen until restarted, may or may not be helped by this update — time will tell. (That particular bug is affecting a lot of apps right now, and nobody can seem to figure out why.)

Version 357

This update includes the first version of a brand-new audio engine for the iOS app! (Release announcement here.) The objective was to fix the bugs introduced by Apple in iOS 15. To use the new audio engine, make sure you’re updated to the latest version of the app in the App Store (1.357.0). You can verify that the new engine (“AudioKit”) is running in Advanced Settings Audio/Mixer Settings.

With the new audio engine enabled, Strum Machine is also able to continue playing if you switch away from the app or turn off your screen, which is a nice bonus. 👍

Since this was such a sweeping change to how audio is generated in the Strum Machine iOS app, I definitely want to hear about any new problems you may notice with it, so that I can fix them!

• 🐜 (In v357.3) Fixed beginning of count-in getting chopped off sometimes.
• 🐜 (In v357.3) Fixed various glitches with the new audio system.

Version 356

Lots of small tweaks, bug fixes, and improvements in this release, including (but not limited to):

• ⏯ The Enter key now plays/stops playback in edit mode.
• 📋 Added cut/copy/paste buttons so that you can use the clipboard on touch-only devices like the iPad.
• 🎵 The mandolin “A” chord was changed to a “no-third” chord, for better compatibility with modal tunes until Strum Machine gains the option to specify chord voicing preferences for each song.
• 🍏 Laying groundwork for the upcoming iOS app update, which will fix the audio issues there (see previous release’s notes).
• 🐜 Fixed a bug where sometimes new songs wouldn’t appear in the song list until you made a change to the search query.
• 🐜 Auto-Speedup and Auto-Finish now reset when you hit restart, and don’t get thrown off by pausing and resuming.
• 🐜 Playing a paused song skips the count-in now reverted as it was causing issues.
• 🐜 Fixed keyboard play/stop shortcuts on Firefox.
• 🐜 Fixed a couple “edge cases” with playing back certain chord progressions.

Version 355

With the release of iOS 15 and Safari 15, Apple introduced many new bugs in the Web Audio system that Strum Machine uses. I’ve been able to circumvent some of these bugs, but there are at least two that only Apple can fix. This update adds code to detect these issues, and instructions for how to work around them (plus a one-tap button to reload Strum Machine in cases where that helps).

In the long run, there are two solutions to these issues:

1. Apple releases an update that fixes the bugs. They’ve actually identified the issue (and the fix) in their code already, but it could be awhile before that fix finds its way to our devices.

2. Strum Machine ditches Web Audio on Apple devices, and uses a more low-level “native” audio interface. This involves a lot of coding that is outside my realm of expertise, which is why I haven’t done it sooner. I’ve decided to hire an iOS/Mac developer with lots of experience building music apps, who should be able to build this much faster than I could.

Either solution will do the trick, but I’m optimistic that I will be able to pull off the second option long before Apple gets around to releasing their bug fix. 🧑‍💻

Thank you for your patience, and please continue to feel free to write me if you’re having issues of any kind with Strum Machine.

Version 354

This is a big update, many months in the making. Huge thanks to everyone who beta-tested the new features and offered their feedback!

There are three big NEW features available in this release:

• ⭐ Medleys! Multiple songs can be combined into a set and Strum Machine will seamlessly play through them one after another. Songs can be in different keys and at different tempos if desired. Watch the overview of how medleys work, or just load up a song and then go to “Medley” in the right-hand sidebar to get started.

• ⭐ New “playlist” features! Go to any song through a list and you’ll see a list navigation bar at the top of the screen, with Auto-Advance and shuffle features available. Learn more about the new navigation bar.

• ⭐ Ending brackets! These can be used to have a repeating section end differently on each repetition. Learn more.

Most of the changes in this update are actually invisible, “under the hood” improvements. Huge portions of the code that powers Strum Machine have been rewritten to pave the way for the next wave of new features (including the three new features in this release).

Some smaller noteworthy changes in this release:

• 📋 The song editor copy/paste functionality now works across browser windows/tabs, making it easier to copy part of one song into another.
• ⏮ Changed behavior of the restart button (and Backspace key); it will now go to the beginning of the current section. You can press it twice to go back to the beginning of the song.
• 🔨 Clicking Auto-Finish “rep markers” doesn’t start immediately anymore. I’m consdering making this the behavior of the section rep markers as well.

Also:

• 🍏 Apple introduced several “show-stopping” bugs in version 15 of Safari and iOS that affect the audio system that Strum Machine uses. Some bugs (such as broken MP3 decoding) could be worked around, while others (like the bug that sometimes halts playback altogether) only Apple can fix. I’m still looking into what bugs are causing which problems, though. If you encounter any issues with audio playback, please write support@strummachine.com and describe the issue you’re facing – or better yet, send me a video!

Versions 345-353

Beta-only versions that were deployed at beta.strummachine.com in September, October, and November of 2021.

Version 344

• 🐜 Safari 15 isn’t loading audio files properly on some Mac computers. This is a bug in the new version of Safari, as far as I can tell. A fix is being tested on the beta site.
• 🐜 Safari 15 and iOS 15 have a serious bug that prevents audio playback. I’ve filed a bug report with Apple; let’s hope they fix it soon.

Version 343

• ⭐ Count-in volume can now be adjusted from the Count-ins panel.
• 🔨 Navigating the song index with the arrow keys works better now.
• 🔨 Looping behavior was improved: now any sections that are fully incorporated into a loop will repeat themselves normally.

Version 342

• ⭐ New “tap tempo” feature which lets you set the tempo by tapping a button or your spacebar. Find it by clicking on the song’s BPM display.
• 🔨 Minor user interface improvements.

Version 341

• 🔨 Removed Google Analytics tracking code from the site because a) they track users across the web (which we don’t like) and b) we weren’t getting much insight out of it anyway. We still gather usage analytics with a product called Amplitude, but there aren’t any privacy concerns there.
• 🔨 Updated the privacy overview page to be shorter and easier to understand, and removed references to a couple third-party services that are no longer being used.

Version 340

This is the official non-beta release for the changes introduced in beta versions 337, 338, and 339. In summary:

• ⭐ There’s a new Auto-Modulate feature, which you can use to easily practice a given tune in multiple keys. Find it under the key menu.
• ⭐ The Advanced Settings panel now includes options to have Auto-Speedup and Auto-Modulate reset the tempo or key after stopping the song.
• ⭐ Auto-Speedup now accepts negative BPMs (to automatically slow down the song) and 0.5 BPM (to increase the tempo by half a BPM each time).
• 🔨 Increased performance for lists with hundreds of songs on them (like Tater Joe’s old-time tune lists, for example).
• 🔨 Made the auto-scroller also bring the next line after the current one into view.
• 🐜 Turns out the bass and mandolin timing adjustment hasn’t been working for awhile now. They are now, though!

Version 339

• ⭐ Added an option under “Advanced Settings” (top-left menu) to have Auto-Speedup automatically reset the tempo to the starting BPM value after the song is stopped.
• ⭐ Added a similar option (in the same menu) to have the original key restored when Auto-Modulate is enabled and the song is stopped.
• 🔨 Increased performance for lists with hundreds of songs on them.
• 🐜 Fixed a bug in the auto-scrolling feature — hopefully it always works now…

Version 338

• ⭐ Added a new feature, Auto-Modulate, which automatically changes the key by shifting up or down a step, a fourth, or a fifth. It can also cycle through an arbitrary set of keys you type into it. Enable it through the key menu.

Version 337

• ⭐ Improved UI for Auto-Speedup and Auto-Finish; in particular, these tools now automatically enable themselves when you open them.
• ⭐ Auto-Speedup now accepts negative BPM values, which makes it subtract BPMs (slow down) with every rep. Just tap the BPM value and enter a negative number.
• ⭐ You can now type 0.5 into Auto-Speedup and it will increase the speed by just half of one BPM each time, for even more gradial tempo increases.
• ⭐ Editor: The chart view now scrolls itself when moving the cursor around with the arrow keys.

Version 336

• ⭐ Auto-Speedup and Auto-Finish will now have their settings remembered even when they are turned off. That is, if you set Auto-Finish to play a song 3 times, then later turn Auto-Finish off for a bit, when you turn it back on it will still be set to play the song 3 times.
• ✨ The beta version has a few more improvements I’m testing out: negative Auto-Speedup (to slow down a song with each repetition), fractional BPMs for Auto-Speedup (bump the tempo up by half a BPM each time), and a more polished UI. A new “Auto-Modulate” feature is going to enter testing on the beta site soon as well.

Version 335

• ⭐ Songs in the keys of A, Bb, and B, will be played with capoed guitar chord sounds. Besides being a better match for what you’d hear a real guitar play most of the time, there’s one big advantage to this: “modal” songs (with more edgy/lonesome melodies that aren’t quite major and aren’t quite minor) will sound better with the capoed G chord than with the open A chord you’d hear before.
• ℹ Note: if you prefer the old sounds for those keys, you can disable the “Guitar: use capoed G” preference in the Instrument settings panel while in the key of A, Bb, or B. This is just an interm solution; more options for chord voicings, more sophisticated handling of modal tunes, and per-song settings are coming in a future update.)
• 🐜 Guitar bass notes were sometimes being cut off a bit too early; this has been fixed.
• 🐜 Shared songs used to default to the song creator’s current key/speed settings every time the song was opened. Now your own settings will be remembered.
• 🐜 Song subtitles weren’t printing; they do now.
• 🐜 When clicking a chord during song playback, there was a short delay before the playback cursor moved; it’s now nearly instantaneous.

Version 334

• ⭐ This update will soon be followed by an update to the iOS mobile app, which will fix a few issues with that platform.
• 🐜 Fix some small issues with menus not closing when they should.

Version 333

• ⭐ New chords: m6, 9, m7b5. By popular demand, these chords are now available!
• 🐜 Fixed an offline syncing issue with songs on shared lists.
• 🐜 Fixed an issue with naming lists on an iPad in landscape mode.
• 🐜 Fixed a few other minor issues.

Version 332

This update is just to bring some third-party modules up to date in preparation for working on new features.

Version 331

This is an extra-special update, nearly five months in the making. It features a major overhaul of the song editor, with many new features and improvements:

• ⭐ New chords: 6, maj7, sus2, sus4, and augmented now available! (Other chords to be added by popular demand.)
• ⭐ Slash chords (where you can set the bass note independently of the strummed chord) are now available.
• ⭐ You can subdivide the beat into individual sub-beats (quarter notes, to be exact) and assign a different chord to each one.
• ⭐ Line length can now be set for each line, for when the phrasing of a song doesn’t divide evenly into groups of 4 measures.
• ⭐ New Chord, Chart, and FX menus to access all these new features.
• ⭐ You can now multi-select (click-and-drag or Shift+arrow-keys) in the song editor to make edits to many beats at once.
• ⭐ Cut/copy/paste functionality is now available in the song editor. Comes in handy for quickly duplicating phrases within a section, for example.
• ⭐ New keyboard shortcuts; click the Shortcuts button in the editor to see the keyboard commands available.
• ⭐ Hear as you edit feature; listen to chords as you type them in and move around the chart you’re editing.
• ⭐ Redesigned section editing interface — no more popup window to edit the section label or rep count.
• 🔨 Lots of rewritten modules under the hood: key/chord logic, chart-rendering engine, dropdown renderer, etc. Fixed some long-standing bugs in the process.

Other improvements in this version:

• ⭐ You can now record the output of Strum Machine and save it to an MP3 file on your computer. You can then use it in, for example, an audio-recording program. To enable this feature, open Advanced Settings Audio/Mixer Settings, then enable “Backing track recorder”.
• ⭐ Updated help docs, including new tutorial videos for adding or editing songs with the new editor.
• 🔨 Too many little tweaks and fixes to enumerate!

Many thanks to everyone who beta tested the changes as I went along. If you want to use new features like this before they’re released, consider becoming a beta tester too! I’ve got lots of exciting new stuff planned for 2021! 😁

Versions 325-330

Beta-only releases.

Version 324

• ⭐ New users now get an automated email with some tips about useful Strum Machine features. (Didn’t get the email? Just check out the guides to learn everything that you would’ve received, and more.)
• ⭐ Some iOS users who stumbled on the app without seeing much information on the app were met with a very stark login page… and not much else. Whoops! Added a small “demo mode” so that iOS users can kick the tires before signing up.
• 🔨 Random (and inconsequential) transaction-related error messages should be hidden now.
• 🔨 Improvement to the way the “B” key is handled in the song editor.

Version 323

• ⭐ At last, mobile apps for iOS and Android are in the app stores! It’s the same Strum Machine you know and love, with a few improvements detailed on the app downloads page.

Version 322

• 🔨 Add code for Apple In-App Purchase billing so that we can get the app approved in the App Store.

Version 321

• ⭐ Improved visual display of Auto-Finish/Auto-Speedup status info.
• ⭐ Rep markers for Auto-Finish and repeated sections are now clickable.

Version 320

• 🐜 Previously, a bug in offline syncing meant that song edits made on device A wouldn’t always show up on device B without reloading Strum Machine. This has been fixed.
• 🐜 Fixed a bug that prevented lists from being made publicly editable. (Don’t worry, this is still an opt-in feature!)
• 🐜 Fixed song-setting help tooltips on mobile devices.
• 🔨 Made some other tiny tweaks and bugfixes too small to mention.

Version 319

• ⭐ Launched a new user forum and linked it up in the Help menu (for now).
• 🔨 Added code so that linking to a Strum Machine page on the forum shows the song name or the list of songs without having to click the link.
• 🐜 Fixed a very rare bug that affected the deletion of songs that were on multiple lists.
• 🐜 Fixed printing of song pages on Firefox.

Version 318

• 🔨 Deployed a few fixes related to the new iOS and Android mobile apps, which will be coming out of beta in the near future.

Version 317

• 📳 The coding for the mobile (iOS & Android) versions of the app is (in theory) complete! Next I’ll have them tested by my small group of beta testers. My hope is to have the app tested and in the app stores (as a free download) by the end of May if not sooner.

Version 316

• ⭐ Disable “mute switch bypass” on iPads by default, since they don’t have a physical ringer mute switch and this setting can cause problems with certain Bluetooth speakers. The caveat is that now Strum Machine won’t work if Silent Mode is enabled on your iPad, unless you turn on Mute Switch Bypassing in Advanced Settings Audio/Mixer Settings (or disable Silent Mode in the iPad’s control center).
• 🔨 Improved display of various pop-up windows on certain device sizes.
• 🐜 Fixed search on the new standalone help site. (This site has the same content as the in-app help; it mostly exists so that I can link to help articles in customer support emails.)
• 📝 Side note: I’m trying to move away from bigger mega-releases and lots of “point” releases, and back to my earlier intention of numbering each substantial release with a new whole number. I’m also going to try to be more transparent about all the various changes, fixes, and improvements that tend to sneak in with new version releases. 😉

Version 315

• ⭐ Help docs are now searchable, and have been expanded and updated. (Planning to expand even further in the near future.)
• 🔨 New users get more helpful (I hope!) emails during their free trial.

Version 314

• 🔨 Various infrastructure changes were made to prepare for the release of bona-fide mobile apps. (Yup, that’s right… they’re coming… let me know if you want to help beta test them.)
• 🔨 The “notch” on the iPhone X and iPhone 11 should be better supported now.
• 🐜 Fixed various tiny bugs that probably nobody noticed but are better off fixed anyway.

Version 313

• 🔨 Improvements to screen reader support for visually impaired users.
• 🐜 Bugs relating to the new audio engine should be fixed. In particular, I added a workaround for a rare “periodic muted beats” iPhone/iPad bug under Advanced Settings.

Version 312

• 🔨 Strum Machine’s internal audio engine has been completely rewritten, fixing several rare but longstanding issues with audio playback. (It behaved very well in beta testing, but if you notice any audio glitches with this new version, please let me know. Thanks!)
• 🔨 Officially dropping support for iOS 9 devices, by necessity. The last version compatible with iOS 9 will be kept at old.strummachine.com for as long as possible.

Version 311

• ⭐ You now have the option of reordering songs in a list by hand instead of them being sorted alphabetically.
• ⭐ There’s an experimental “list navigation bar” available, giving you easy access to the next and previous songs in a list right from the song page. To enable this experimental feature, head to the new “Advanced Settings” page which is in the main menu (top-left corner of index page).
• 🔨 Various improvements to list-related UI.
• 🐜 Fixed a bug where Auto-Speedup and Auto-Finish settings would be temporarily reset after editing a song.
• 🐜 Fixed a bug in which new/edited songs weren’t properly beat-highlighted until a refresh.

Version 310

• ⭐ Long-overdue refresh for the landing page – not very interesting for existing users, but hopefully an improvement for new visitors to the site.
• ⭐ Going to Strum Machine’s home page now puts you right in the app if you’re logged in, saving you a click.
• 🐜 Fixed some errors that were being logged – although I don’t think anyone would’ve noticed them.
• 🔨 Tweaks to improve first-load speed.

Version 309

• ⭐ There’s now a self-serve subscription cancellation form; no need to send me an email.
• 🐜 Help quirkiness on certain Android phones was resolved.
• 🔨 Other improvements to accounts/subscription code.

Version 308

• ⭐ Added a status bar to the index page when Strum Machine is offline.
• 🐜 Bug fixes for offline mode – more reliable BPM-preference syncing.
• 🐜 Other miscellaneous small bug fixes and improvements.
• 🔨 Song search is a bit more forgiving of alternate spellings now.

Version 307

• ⭐ The song search bar is now always visible at the top of the song index page—where it should be!
• ⭐ Strum Machine loads much faster now, as much as 10× faster for some folks!
• ⭐ Song search results load faster now.
• 🐜 Double-length count-ins for jigs work correctly again.

Version 306

• ⭐ New “Notepad” feature: store your personal notes along with any song! Jot down reminders, target BPMs, paste in notes or lyrics from elsewhere… whatever you want!
• ⭐ New “Reference” menu: add links to recordings and have them play in an embedded player. (Works with videos on YouTube and Vimeo, tracks on Spotify and SoundCloud, MP3s in Dropbox, and more.) Or add links to lyrics or whatever else you like. Your references are private, but I’ll also be adding public ones.
• 🐜 Sections marked as “intros” weren’t behaving correctly in edit mode. This has been fixed.

Version 305

• 🔨 Infrastructure improvements to pave the way for many more songs to be added to the library soon!

Version 304

• 🐜 Fixed the “can’t see to the bottom of the song” bug that was affecting certain browsers.
• 🐜 Fixed various graphical/UI glitches with song page menus.
• 🔨 Removed some old code that wasn’t doing anything anymore. Spring cleaning, bit by bit!
• 🐜 (In 304.7) Auto-scrolling is working again.
• 🔨 (In 304.8) Database schema changes to stay compatible with the new features in beta.

Version 303

• 🐜 Some iPhone/iPad users were having issues with their Bluetooth speakers (no audio). Hopefully this is fixed now, but please write in if it’s still broken for you!

Version 302

• ⭐ Strum Machine now works better when used with a screen reader (for visually-impaired users). It’s not perfect yet but it’s a start!
• 🐜 Song sidebar open/close state wasn’t being remembered. This is now fixed.

Version 301

• ⭐ Menu actions on song pages has been moved to a sidebar menu. This makes certain functions more visible and also paves the way for new features that will be coming in the near future!
• ⭐ Song search bar now enables a “Search” button in the iOS keyboard.
• ⭐ Started publishing release notes, i.e., what you’re reading right now!
• 🐜 Songs weren’t able to be deleted in certain cases. This has been fixed.
• 🐜 Fixed a bug where, in some cases, when logging out and logging in, all of the songs one created seemed to have disappeared from the “Mine” list.
• 🐜 Fixed the “endlessly repeating outro” bug that affected newly-created songs with outros.
• 🐜 Fixed a broken logout link.
• 🔨 Logging out works offline now. Not sure if anyone cares, but it was an easy fix.
• 🔨 Help pages are now stored in code, versus the database; reduces load times and bandwidth consumption.

Version 300

First officially numbered version (April 2019). Strum Machine has been in development for over three years, with 1200+ internally-versioned iterations, so I didn’t want to start back at “Version 1”. I picked “300” as a nice round number to start numbering from.

Why so high? To keep things simple, I am counting every update as a new version (versus point releases like “3.4” or “3.7.12”). It’s all arbitrary anyway, and bigger numbers are more fun… as evidenced by the fact that every kid who plays around with Strum Machine tries to see how high the BPM can go. 🙂

Addendum (2024): Well, that didn’t quite go according to plan, because I didn’t count every update as a new version – far from it. Oh well. It’s still all arbitrary anyway so I’m not stressing out about it.