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SuperMegaUltraGroovy’s Capo Touch – Review
SuperMegaUltraGroovy recently made their popular Capo software available for the iOS platform with Capo touch for the iPad and iPhone.
The popular music transcription software Capo has finally entered the mobile app market with the recent release of Capo Touch for the iPad and iPhone.
In a nutshell, the app is the mobile musician’s best friend. Simply import a song from iTunes into Capo touch and you will be presented with…well, just about everything you need to start working on a tune.
As an example, I had the task of charting 20 cover songs for a duo project where I’m playing acoustic guitar instead of bass. I’m not a great guitarist by a long shot so I can use all of the help I can get when it comes to transcribing guitar parts.
I used Capo touch on my iPad to help me create the charts while I was traveling. Here’s how it worked:
- I opened a song from my iTunes library in Capo. The app quickly calculated the wave form, beat locations, song key, and mapped out chords for me. In less than 25 seconds I had a workable chord chart.
- Like most vocalists, there are certain keys that work better for the singer’s range than others. I used the pitch slider to adjust to my partner’s preferred key and all of the chords instantly morphed to the new key.
- I like to experiment with alternate tuning from time to time. I can change the app settings to go from standard tuning (EADGBE) to drop D (DADGBD), or any other alternate tuning. Capo touch instantly morphs the chords to the new key.
- With guitar being a secondary instrument for me, I can have Capo suggest alternate chord voicings for will work best for the song and my limited dexterity on the guitar neck. By touching the chord diagram, Capo strums the guitar chord so I can hear it and listen what other voicings may sound like.
- At this point, I can write out the chart and make my tweaks on paper.
- I can also save the Capo file and send it to my partner so she can see the final arrangement. Since storage space on my iPhone and iPad is limited, I prefer to use Capo touch’s built-in feature of syncing the file with my iCloud account.
- Repeat for the other 19 songs.
Once I have every song saved and charted, I can turn Capo touch into a practice tool. I use the looping feature to repeat and slow down challenging sections that I need to get under my fingers.
The heart of Capo touch is the Chord Intelligence engine. Take a minute to think about what this technology does. It analyzes the frequencies at a moment in time and decides what chord is being played. Simple if you have only a bass plucking a C. Add a guitar strumming a CMaj chord (C-E-G) and a CMaj chord will be displayed. Add a singer belting a B and our CMaj is interpreted as a CMaj7 chord. Toss in the harmonics from a snare drum or cymbal and you have now opened up a large sonic spectrum that the app must accurately decipher.
The Chord Intelligence engine relies on a rather enormous sampling of chords that it attempts to match to the song it’s analyzing. Successive chords are analyzed a second time to determine what the likelihood is of the chord movement is. Is a CMaj7 more likely going to an F#sus or a GMaj7? On my iPhone 5C, this musical math is completed in about 25 seconds for a 3:30 song.
And physics being physics, it’s objective. Sometimes your subjective ear may not like what Capo is telling you. The developer, Chris Liscio, is also a musician and took our fickleness into account. We can change the chords. Touch the chord diagram and a screen appears letting us select a new voicing from a list of suggested chords or select an entirely different chord.
For iOS users, the Capo touch app can be a powerful transcribing, charting and practice tool for your musical toolbox. You can learn more about Capo touch at supermegaultragroovy.com/products/capo/ios or download the app for $4.99 (one app works for both iPad and iPhone) at the iTunes store.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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