Quartet 1

Great app with music played by real musicians. The advantage of this is huge. You get the high quality and real groove of a live performance, with all the variations in texture and rhythms, along with more sophisticated chords and riffs, plus song intros and a horn if you like. The band plays the actual bass patterns in songs like Footprints and All Blues - things you generally don’t get in synthetic apps like iReal Pro. Although you can modestly change speed and key signature, I find the range is limited by a degradation in sound quality that creeps in when you stray too far from the original. This is an inherent problem when you work from a single live recording and try to stretch the pitch and/or speed. A real band playing in a different key would also use a different set of voicings rather than simply play every note higher or lower. This is where iReal Pro with its synthesized sound has the advantage. But if you stay close to the original recording, Quartet is by far the best play-along app I’ve found.

As a jazz musician myself, the Quartet apps are so much more motivating to practice with than iReal Pro. The fact that these are REAL musicians playing these tunes is SO good; it’s basically like having the Jamey Aebersold tracks on your phone! However, I’ve noticed quite a few gripes that are preventing me from giving it a full 5 stars. One thing that I think NEEDS to be fixed is a pretty major issue when you’re changing keys. I get that it’s basically putting a pitch shifter on the recording, but why do the drums have to be pitch shifted as well? That alone makes the tracks sound really tinny as you go to a “higher” key than the original and that should not be happening (iReal does not have this issue). Also, I personally think the prices of exporting the track stems is a bit much…especially after already paying for the apps themselves. I do understand the distribution licensing, but I feel that we should be able to export at least the tracks without the soloist in the quartet for personal use. Other than that, AMAZING apps, these are definitely replacing iReal as a practice tool for me!

I have been jamming to your new quartet app all afternoon and it is absolutely phenomenal. I’m always looking for super high quality ready made backing tracks. These are so good I felt like I was in the room playing live with a band. I have to say this is hands down the best I have heard. Real players playing together, and so musically too. The brilliance is the ability to select a different key to any song and set the tempo too. All these songs are must-know titles from the jazz repertoire and I feel like digging in deep. Congrats to all you guys, you have a clear winner!