LIVE JAZZ STANDARDS PLAY ALONG APP

Quartet app – Overview

Quartet is a popular jazz standards play along app designed for jazz instrumentalists and vocalists at all levels. It’s purpose is to provide high quality jazz standards’ backing tracks for every jazz musician along with intuitive tools designed to make the play along experience as accessible and as immersive as possible.

Unlike other popular jazz play along apps, Quartet content is 100% audio. The accompaniment you hear is a ‘live’ jazz quartet featuring top professional jazz musicians. Quartet uses state of the art software to allow users to manipulate the audio in a number of ways including tempo changes (+/- 50%) and key changes (+/- 6 semitones).

There are currently 6 different editions of Quartet: Quartet 1-6 containing backing tracks to over 650 popular jazz standards. Each edition of Quartet contains access to between 50 (Quartet 5) and 150 (Quartet 1 or 2) jazz standards.

Users who buy Quartet are free to run Quartet on all of their iOS devices plus compatible Mac devices (M series only) simultaneously without incurring extra cost provided they use the same Apple ID they used to initially purchase the app.

The audio content in Quartet is licensed to you royalty-free so that it can be used freely in a wide variety of settings without incurring additional costs or permissions. Users can export audio from Quartet in a number of different ways and although there are some legal restrictions [please see ‘legal notices’], users can use some of the audio in their own projects whether commercial or otherwise. [Please refer to ‘legal notices’ for more detail]

Quartet app – Quick start guide

Song search

There are various ways to search for songs in Quartet though the most popular and efficient is via the ‘Song Library’ in the ‘Search +’ section of the app. By default, all 650 songs in the Quartet ‘Song Library’ are listed alphabetically. Use the search box to type in all or part of the song you are looking for, or search a specific composer or artist, or a musical genre or BPM.

Tapping the song artwork will take you to the main chord screen for that song whichever of the 6 Quartet editions it belongs to.

Playing songs

To play any song in Quartet, tap the PLAY button at the bottom left of the chord screen for that song. At the footer of the chord screen you can make realtime adjustments to key and tempo. Changes to key and tempo will be auto-saved.

In the same chord screen for any of the songs in Quartet, sections of a song can be ‘looped’ by tapping the loop button (bottom left). The default 4-bar loop can be shortened or extended as required. [Refer to ‘Looping’ for more detailed information on the various ways to loop sections of songs]

Animated chord diagrams

Animated chord diagrams can be accessed from the same chord screen by tapping the buttons for either Piano, Guitar or Ukulele. In these alternative screens, the chord display is retained. Return back to the main chord screen by tapping the ‘CHORDS’ button again.

Changing the mix and adjusting song settings

When you first download an edition of the Quartet app, you are also downloading the ‘TRIO’ mix (ie. Bass, Drums and Piano) for every song in that app as part of the initial download process.

The ‘TRIO’ mix is the most popular mix for most Quartet users. ALL additional mixes (ie. any of the preset alternative mixes and the separated parts for custom mixes) are downloaded subsequently by the user as required. Once downloaded, these additional files reside on the users’ device. Unwanted audio files can be deleted in ‘Global Settings’ if you decide to free up space on your device.

Each song in Quartet plays by default the ‘TRIO’ mix of Bass, Drums and Piano in concert pitch.

Using the ‘Song Configuration’ panel (ie. local settings) for a particular song (the ‘gear’ icon in the top right hand corner of the chord screen), users can select one of 7 additional preset alternative mixes OR choose to create their own mix by opening up the ‘Custom Mix’ panel for that song. With a ‘Custom Mix’, the separated parts are downloaded onto the users device and a mix can be set up with the user having control of individual volume levels plus the level and type of reverb across each channel. [In ‘Custom Mix’ the drums are re-routed away from the key change algorithm so that they remain unaffected by user-initiated key changes. This is not the case with the 8 preset alternative mixes]

In the same local settings panel, users can select a count-in, select how many song repeats they want the song to play and override any global settings settings for a particular song.

With the ‘Arranger’ feature – which only works in conjunction with the ‘Custom Mix’ feature – users can pre-program a different mix for each of the repeats they have already selected for that song e.g. sax solo in repeat 3 and 4 only.

Quartet auto saves all local level settings made to individual songs.

As well as local settings for individual songs, there is a ‘Global Settings’ panel accessible from the top right corner of the Home Screen of any of the Quartet apps. This allows users to change specific settings for all songs in all the apps they own…settings like count-in type, continuous metronome, Bb and Eb transposition, global output volume etc…
[Note there is no global setting for alternative mixes since all alternative mixes are downloaded over the internet as required]

Playlists

Playlists can be created in a number of ways in Quartet [refer to ‘Playlists’ for more information] and once created, are stored in the ‘My Playlists’ screen of any of the Quartet editions you own. Any playlist you create will be automatically synchronised across all the Quartet editions that you own so that the same playlist can be viewed from any of the individual apps. Users can select whether a playlist is auto-played or played back manually. Users can easily add more songs to a playlist, delete songs from it and change the order of the songs. Playlists can be exported and imported for users who want to share playlists or simply back them up for safe-keeping. [Note that Playlists are not synced across different devices at the moment]

PDF Chord charts

A PDF chord chart for any song in Quartet can be generated by tapping the x button in Xyz.

Exporting audio

There are two audio export options in Quartet. Users can either export a stereo mix of the song exactly as they have set it up (having made adjustments for key, tempo, repeats, mix type etc…) or download the separated parts for a song (ie. the multitrack) in high quality WAV format. [The export of separated WAV files can only be done at native key and tempo and may not reflect the number of song repeats selected]. The multitrack export is downloaded as a GarageBand project all ready to remix and edit. Extracting the ‘dry’ .WAV files from the GarageBand project for use in other DAW applications is a relatively simple process.

Alternative Mixes

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Alternative Mixes

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Alternative Mixes

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Alternative Mixes

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Alternative Mixes

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In-depth guide

1.  Playing songs and selecting different song mixes

Introduction

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2.  The ‘Arranger’ feature

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3.  ‘Global Settings’

4.  ‘Song Configuration’ settings (i.e. local song settings)

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5.  Song search (‘Search +’)

6.  Favourites

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7.  Playlists

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8.  Exporting audio

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9.  Looping sections of a song

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10.  Adding text notes or comments for a particular song

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11.  Connectivity

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12.  Legal notices

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