iReal Pro

Paid for this app at the suggestion of another musician. I wanted to use it for the drum loops. For rock or pop stuff, for many of the drum tracks, there is no variation at all…they are identical; just with a different name. I’ve not found this app useful or easily comprehensible.

Not at all what I was looking for. Songs I imported sound pathetically amateurish. Wanted something to play along with and every sample I’ve listened too. $20 wasted.

I wish I could tell what I think about what this app does. It might just be amazing. Certainly some people seem to think it is. However the needlessly complicated registration process had me fuming from the moment I started to register and after 45 minutes I never did get registered. I don't know whether I hate this app or not, but I certainly hate its registration process.

I do not understand why everybody raves about this. I have no idea how to decipher these gobbledygook charts. No lyrics no nothing. Just a bunch of slashes and triangles and stuff. Get guitar tapp, it at least has the lyrics and where the changes are. This is terrible. I guess they just assume you magically already know "chart-ese"
Update - there's no way like in the app it doesn't even show you what your username and password is. This is the most complicated load of garbage I ever saw in my life..

You can’t even reset your password. It sends you a link to reset your password that requires your password. Bizarre. No wonder I stopped using it a while back. I thought they might have made it easier to use. Nope….can’t even get started.

Every time I open the app it immediately closes back out

This is basically an iPhone apps that was clumsily updated for iPad. If you’re planning on using this on your iPad and are planning on creating your own backing tracks for practice sessions, I would look elsewhere. It is rarely updated. If you download pre-made charts for backing tracks it works pretty well, but I need to make practice material and attempting to input chords and formatting is clumsy. The assistance from the forums is outdated, all the tutorial demonstrations are screen recordings from an old iPhone. If you are a musician and you pay for this and you are expecting forScore or Andante, this isn’t that.

What is it now, 2005? Imagine an app that requires you to have a username and password. You have to come up with an original username so you are forced to try a bunch of things til you get one that nobody else has. Now a few years go by and you want to find more charts so you try to log in so you can access the forums. What was that username you made up on the fly when you first bought the app? Donn’t know it? You are out of luck. There’s a “forgot password” option, but no “forgot username” option. You spent 20-something dollars for the app, and it’s pegged to your Apple ID. You are using the same device, same Apple ID you had when you bought the app. But no, you are locked out. You won’t be getting in. Period. So many things about this old, clunky app are just like this. Want to name a chart you just created? If a chart already exists for that song on any of the playlists you have previously downloaded, you will not be able to use that title. You’ll have to call your chart All Of Me 2, or something like that. You’ll find the whole app is riddled with nutty appendices on the names of common songs. It’s so freaking cumbersome amd clunky. It’s from a bygone era, but it’s what everyone uses for the time being, so it’s what you are stuck with.

This app was a great idea when is appeared about 15 years ago. But unfortunately the tool has not substantially evolved since it’s initial release. No functionality of any significance has been added. It still has the same primitive interface, with the same minuscule array of editing and annotation options.
The whole premise of the app is ‘keep it simple’. Fine - I’m down with that. Its very limited capabilities are indeed extremely useful, for one simple reason: Everybody else uses it, so you have to as well.
Because the app is in very many respects profoundly weak to the point of being truly laughable, I feel sure that if and when a better option comes along (I.e. another tool offering similar functionality but done much better) large numbers of users including me will quite rightly abandon iReal.
Basically the guys that wrote this have made their money, and are continuing to do so with ongoing sales of the product. There is no real competition (yet) and thus no incentive to radically rethink the tool, or add significant new functionality. They have not earned a whole lot of respect from real software engineers, or from legions of disappointed users who need many improvements that never arrive.
Positives:
In certain contexts, like for example if you are a rhythm section player and are called upon to play an unfamiliar song, then it’s worth its weight in gold.
It’s a useful practice tool - you can play along using the playback functionality, which in the background generates and executes a midi sequence based on the chords, tempo, style etc that you select.
So far so good. However…
- Editing capabilities are primitive and extremely limited
- Playback sequences (not to mention the very weak array of styles) range from just ok to truly atrocious.