Make music on the move with Songsynth for the iPad

Songsynth is an iPad app that allows you to record musical ideas and jot down lyric ideas and notes.

Installation is simple and all the controls fit onto one screen. This makes it easy to use. It has a one octave keyboard and controls for the different instruments and chord bank.

There are three melody instruments to choose from: a synthesisor, piano and acoustic guitar. The Tone control is pretty powerful and offers some good variations on these basic sounds. Other controls include the release for how long the sound carries on after the key is released.

The chord bank is what makes Songsynth useful. Hold down a chord and press a key to play a full chord. With the strum control held down a chord is played as if you had pressed all the keys at the same time. As this control is increased the distinct notes of the chord are heard. There are two forms for each chord.

It's easiest to play the music by using the right hand to select a chord type and the left to select the note.

Once a recording has been made, you can add extra melodies over the top by enabling the overdub mode. There is a confirmation warning before saving extra melody so it doesn't matter if you make a mistake. It isn't possible to go back and edit a recording.

There are six drum tracks that can be added including a simple click track, pop and 3/4 time. Each has three variations. A swing control is also present on the drum kits.

Voice and live instruments are recorded using the microphone built into the iPad.

Once songs have been finished they can be shared in many ways including posting them to Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter or even iTunes.

Songsynth is good app as a music sketchpad and offers an easy way to experiment with music ideas with an iPad.