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Show HN: Songcraft – Online Songwriting Platform and Guitar Tab Builder

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Show HN: Songcraft – Online Songwriting Platform and Guitar Tab Builder

#41

Post by gabergg »

hodder wrote: post #37

You are the man. This is fantastic. Can't wait to see how this project progresses. Some random suggestions: Maybe I am missing something, but I don't see the ability to add chords outside of the scale. Let's say I want to play an E major chord in an A Minor progression due to a harmonic minor substitution. Is that possible with this tool? It would be cool to be able to add common substitutions or completely random ch…

You can add any chord you want! Just click anywhere on a chord line and enter the chord you like (or click on an existing chord and type to change it). You will also get recommended chords for that location in your song as part of the autocomplete. The theory tools on the right are just meant as an alternative way to add chords / progressions that sound great with your song, plus some goodies like transposition.

I really do want a way to incorporate roman numerals, especially with the progressions. I need to find a way to do it without cluttering the UI, but I love the idea.

Thanks so much!

Re: Show HN: Songcraft – Online Songwriting Platform and Guitar Tab Builder

#42

Post by gabergg »

ry-n wrote: post #40
xster wrote: post #34

How do you address the market of 30-something hobbyist with kids and jobs etc who might have short spurs of creativity followed by very long inactive periods. They might want to pay to use all the features and become good with the tool for sporadic use but might be turned off to the idea of paying for months of the account being dormant. A one time price for an online license like Propellerhead Reason seems sensible.

This. And somewhat discouraged by the seemingly imaginary 44% discount on the pricing page. Has 8.95/mo ever been the price? Is it going to be? Is this just a permanent gimmick? Without any details or explanation it seems disingenuous. I also can't find any info about exporting data for backups or what happens to data if a subscription is paused for a period of time. Since it isn't called out my default assumption is…

This is very helpful feedback, thank you. In a couple places, I mention that the $4.95/mo rate (Launch discount) is for the first 3 months of your subscription before it changes to $8.95/mo. I need to make this more prominent, and I absolutely need to clarify the info on backups, plan-switching, etc.

I'm working on a FAQ, but I'll also leave some clarification here:

Songcraft Basic is always free, and your existing songs will never be locked or lost, even if you downgrade from Pro to Basic with more than 3 songs. You can always export any song as plain text.

Comparison info on the plans can be found at https://songcraft.io/plans.

Please let me know if you have other questions!

Re: Show HN: Songcraft – Online Songwriting Platform and Guitar Tab Builder

#45

Post by mhh__ »

JamCult wrote: post #4

This is a huge unmet need in the market. I have over 300 guitar parts recorded into iOS Music Memos, which does a decent job of automating the break out of chords played but provides no way to build lyrics on top, note the tabs (which is HUGE, because the next day I always get foggy on how to play what I recorded and a month later have no idea...) Excited to give this a red hot go!

Sheet music with a pen?

No one else has to see it so it doesn't have to be pretty

Re: Show HN: Songcraft – Online Songwriting Platform and Guitar Tab Builder

#47

Post by mr_tristan »

I'd be curious to hear about the experience with customers in 6-12 months. It seems like if you can tap into the "hobbyist" market, and keep them interested, it could be a solid business.

I'm reminded by the Fender presentation at re:Invent this year (https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/fender/). Fender noticed that 45% of Fender players are new to the instrument, and most spend more on lessons then the guitar itself, but 90% quit after a year. The 10% that stick with it will go on to purchase 8-10 guitars, typically from their brand. So their whole strategy with apps and services is just to chisel away at that 90% number.

Re: Show HN: Songcraft – Online Songwriting Platform and Guitar Tab Builder

#48

Post by byproxy »

gabergg wrote: post #24
byproxy wrote: post #23

I wish you could incorporate rhythm/bars on top of the lyrics along with the chord symbols. I've been playing guitar since 2005, and I still find it exceedingly difficult to play chords along with lyrics without some kind of rhythmic reference, even if I know the song pretty well.

This is an incredibly important feature to me. It's coming, but I want to be sure to get it right. It will also enable some other really useful features like entire song play-through. Thanks for the feedback!

Yea, I can imagine how it'd be hard to implement. I guess you'd have to tie the lyrics to rhythm, as well, and at that point you're pretty much implementing sheet music features.
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