ultimate play along

Overview

When you start Jazz300 you’ll see the Home screen with an A-Z listing of all 326 songs that are included in the app.

Tapping on any song art will take you to the main Chords screen for that song.

At the top and bottom of each Chords screen there is a purple header and footer with all the options and settings for the current song. By default these are displayed, but can be hidden to show more chord detail by tapping the circular ‘down arrow’ in the footer – useful for smaller devices.

Header
On the right hand side of the header you have the Export button, Favourites button and Song Configuration button

• Export – allows you to export the audio for use in other applications.
• Favourites – tapping this adds the song to your favourites list making the song easier to find.
• Song Configuration – this is where you can turn on a 1 or 2-bar count-in, transpose the chords for use with Bb or Eb instruments, set the numer of repeats the main part of each song is played and set the instrument mix you want to hear.

Footer
The left-hand side of the footer has the Play, Rewind and Looping buttons. Then you have the song Key and Tempo adjust buttons. On the right-hand side you have the 4 main viewing screens for the song: Chords, Piano, Guitar and Ukulele. Far right is the button to hide the header & footer.

• Looping – allows you to set which bars you would like to loop. Click here for more on looping.
• Key – adjusts the pitch of the song by +/- 8 semitones away from the recorded key. Tap on the button to reset.
• Tempo – adjusts the tempo of the song in +/- 1 BPM increments. Tap on the button to reset.
• Chords – the default view of the song showing the chords and bars with a moving playhead.
• Piano – animated piano keyboard showing the current chord being played as  well as the next chord to be played
• Guitar – animated guitar tab view showing current chord being played as well as the next chord to be played.
• Ukulele – animated ukulele tab view showing current chord being played as well as the next chord to be played.

Alternative Mixes

The default sound you hear is the main mix with all instruments playing, for example: Piano, Bass Drums & Guitar.

You can choose other alternative mixes from the Song Configuration screen (tap on the gear icon, top right, for any song).

There are typically 4 or 5 alternative mixes available for each song – so you can remove one of the main instruments allowing you to play along.

The default mix (with no muted instrument tracks) is already loaded into the app – the other mixes are downloaded over WiFi from our servers when you need them to keep the app download size managable.

To the right you will see a small cloud icon and a progress bar will appear as an alternative mix is downloaded into the app. This usually only takes a couple of seconds depending on your internet connection. Once downloaded, the mix is stored on your device so you won’t have to download it again.

Looping

You can loop any section of a Jazz300 song to help with practicing – you can also slow down the tempo to help with those tricky sections.

With the song not playing, tapping on the Loop button (bottom left) will cause all bars to be highlighted – the whole song, including Intro and End sections, will now loop over and over when you play the song (to cancel, tap the Loop button again).

To modify your selection, see below…

With all bars initially selected, tap any bar to set the looping Start bar. In this example bar 19 has been selected. A default selection of 4 bars will then appear (bars 19 – 22).

Next, tap the last (End) bar you wish to loop – bar 24 in this example. The song will now only play between the Start and End bars shown (the six bars 19 to 24) when you tap Play.

If you now tap another bar this will select a new Start bar (and highlight a default 4 bars) and then wait for you to select a new End bar.

Looping with track playing
You can also have a track playing before you set up looping. This time, when you tap the Loop button, the default 4-bar loop selection will appear – starting at the bar in which the playhead is currently.

If you wish to you can then select a new Start bar followed by an End bar and the song will then continue to play until it reaches the new highlighted section when it will then start looping.

Playlists

Playlists is a facility to select and automatically play songs one after another. This can be useful for practicing a collection of favourite songs or for setting up setlists when performing a gig.

You can create your own playlist (Create New) or modify the included Sample Playlist. To edit the Sample playlist, tap on the edit icon on the right hand side.

Edit Playlist
To add songs to the playlist, tap on the edit icon where it says Songs. A Song List screen will appear showing all songs in the app. Tap on the left-hand side of the song artwork (or the text to the right) to add it to the playlist. Once you have added your songs, close the Song List screen.

To delete a song, tap on the red circular ‘minus’ symbol.

To reorder the sequence and move a song up or down the list, tap and hold the 3-line icon on the right-hand side of the screen then drag the song to the desired location.

Tap Save (top right) to save your changes and exit the screen.

Back in the Your Playlists screen, tap on the playlist icon to load up the first song in your playlist. Then when you press the play button the app will automatically play your list in order.

Exporting Audio