iFretless Sax

A killer apps for beginner and pro musicians alike! (This review was original written for iFretless Guitar but the Bass and Sax versions are very similar with some instrument specific enhancement so I will just use this in all three reviews.) The iFrelless Guitar is truly an amazing app, one of my top 10 most used music apps on my iOS devices, and I have hundreds of them!! I think the app would be great for: Budding musicians who wants to start sounding good from the start go and meanwhile learning and exploring the Guitar fretboard layout and how it relates to the piano keyboard. It is also great for learning and practising the different scale, modal and chord shapes for the guitar. (Been trying to convince the developer into adding a scale overlay to aid learning...would be even more awesome as a learning tool then. :)) Guitarists(and Bassists) who wants to have a realistic and great sounding onboard guitar instrument on their iOS, as well as a familiar fretboard interface to play and control other music apps like BS16-i, Sampletank, and hundreds of other synthesiser apps with. Keybaord players who wants to add good guitar sounds to their arsenal, while being able to finely control all their sounds with the best pitch bending and velocity sensing(plus a CC touch controller pad) on the iOS. The onboard guitar instruments sound great(you can have three guitars playing together), and while the onboard effects are quite good, you can even use Audiobus to output the sounds to effect apps like JamUp, Amplitube...etc to create your very own custom sounds. The developer has painstakingly layered and programmed the sound samples so that the instruments sound really responsive and realistic. Hands down the best sounding guitar soloing app on the iOS. (though it lets you play power chords concurrently as well!) Where it really shines for me though is it's playing surface. No distraction with buttons and the likes. Pitch bending is absolutely awesome and definitely (the best)one of it's kind. Period. The control feels natural and intuitive and once you have learnt the basic scale pattern you can play in all keys easily(unlike the piano keyboard) and there are different tuning options to pick from. An optional touchpad can be activated to control any CC's you want(e.g.: timbre, filters, volume...etc). Velocity sensitivity is the best I have seen on any iOS app and while this still has some room to improve, this is more a limitation on the iOS and

But the note “sliding” is the biggest downside of the app. Real saxophones aren’t trombones and one can not perform a legato on them. The app “Sensual Sax” treats these transitions more realistically, but each of these apps have their positives. Would just like to have more realistic note transitions available here. Thanks!

This version seem to have bugs in the two instruments! The clarinet and alto are really good if you tweak it for your controller. Please fix the other instruments and test them with a wind controller like the Akai EWI 4000s.

As of 20191010: I really had not found much use for earlier versions of iFretless Sax, but, that may be changing for the better with this new update. The new presets I've sampled so far sound good for the kind of long-play generative noises I like to make. That said, I should also remark that I have been enjoying the other iFretless instruments for a good while now. I am tempted to boost this from 4 to 5 stars, but, I guess I'll run it for a few more days first (hopefully I won't forget to boost it). It is hard to make blanket recommendations for sophisticated software like iFretless as the apps can be used in different ways by people with different needs and skill sets.... The instrument apps (the only type from Mani I own) seem to consistently improve over time.

Please?!

The option to included subtle fret noises and squeaks for the bass and guitar apps...for this app, they could add the option for the sounds and clicks of pressing the buttons (but I wouldn’t need it...however, light fret noises and squeaks during slides help to add that feeling of hands having relation to strings for the iFretless bass and guitar...please add)😄

I’ve been using this app almost everyday for weeks now to create super lush drones on my iPhone (with added effects via Audiobus 3.0). The tones are so good and easy for a non-skilled musician to play around with. Worth every penny!

App said it was free at first but a to find out later charged me $10

IF YOU PLAN TO TRIGGER ANY iFRETLEES APPS,WITH A ROLI SEABOARD RISE...DON'T BOTHER!!!! NOTES STICK,PERMANENT SUSTAIN CC MESSAGES RESULT IN STUCK NOTES.ONLY MIDI PANIC ESCAPE,Will KILL CONSTANT SUSTAIN.MOST FRUSTRATING INDEED!!!!!!

It works much much better now, thank you