Capo 3.5

Overview

Getting Started

If you've never used Capo before, or it's been a while since you last used it, read over this section to orient yourself with Capo and its UI. But if you've used Capo before, you can skip to the New in Capo 3.5 section below to get a walkthrough of the significant new features.

Requirements

Capo 3.5 requires a Mac running macOS El Capitan (10.11) or macOS Sierra (10.12) to run. You must also have access to audio files in the MP3, M4A, WAV, or AIFF format.

Note that Capo cannot be used with audio files that are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). That includes songs that are available for streaming via Apple Music and other streaming services.

Loading a Song into Capo

Drag a song file from iTunes or the Finder onto Capo's icon in the Dock, or the "Drag Song Here" window that opens when you create a new Project using File > New… Once dragged, a new Project will begin processing and display a new window shortly thereafter.

In case you are unable to drag a song directly from iTunes, right-click on the track and select "Show in Finder" to initate the drag from there instead. If you do not have an option to show the file in the Finder, then you probably need to download the track from the cloud first.

Ideas for exploration

There is a lot you can do with Capo, but here are some ideas to help get you oriented with Capo's most commonly-used features.

• Adjust the speed and pitch of the song using the controls at the bottom-left of the window while working in a project. You can hear the changes take effect live during playback.

• Click and drag in the waveform area to define a region. Select the region to enable looping playback, and press play to hear the region play back in a loop.

• Reveal the Song Settings by clicking the button in the bottom bar that looks like a pair of sliders. Select the Isolation tab (if it's not already) and select 'Solo' from the Effect control. Play with all the sliders to hear how this works.

• Change one of the detected chords by double-clicking it to reveal the chord chooser. Pick a different shape from the list, or one of the other chords that Capo detected as being "likely" at this point of the song. New chords can be searched, and all the matching chords in the song can be changed at once by toggling the 'Change All' button underneath the selected shape.

New in Capo 3.5

Song Views

When Capo loads a song for the first time, it now starts in the Practice view. In this view, Capo displays a waveform that represents the entire song, along with the chords and/or user-entered tablature underneath it.

You can also switch to the Tabbing view—the default (and only) view available in previous releases— by clicking the popup button in the window's title bar as shown. In Tabbing view, you are also treated to Capo's sophisticated spectrogram display. In the tabbing view, you can click and drag to "draw" notes atop the spectrogram to automatically generate tablature.

Notable Review Points:

• The Spectrogram is calculated using an advanced (wavelet-like) technique that is capable of displaying low-frequency bass notes clearly. Standard spectrograms that are generated using the Fourier Transform (a.k.a. FFT, DFT) are nearly impossible to read in the lower range of notes.

• When you click your mouse on the spectrogram in the Tabbing view, the note is played so that you can verify that the notes you are about to place are indeed the ones you are hearing in the song. Some instruments (especially distorted guitars) will show energy that is placed above (i.e. the harmonics of) the note that is being played in the song.

Transcription Playhead

This new feature allows users to listen to a riff starting from the same spot every time playback is started. You enable this playback mode by clicking on the Transcription Playhead icon in the bottom bar as shown. You'll know it's enabled because the playhead will turn pink, and it displays a 'T' in the "thumb" of the playhead at the top.

Each time you press play, playback begins from the location of the Transcription Playhead.

Notable Review Points:

• You can also toggle the Transcription Playhead on and off by pressing command-T on the keyboard. Pressing the T key on its own will position the Transcription Playhead at the current point of the song.

• The Transcription Playhead will feel familiar to users that work with Pro Tools, or those that have previously worked with Transcribe!

Touch Bar and the new MacBook Pro

<img src="img/tb_waveform.png" width=100% />

Capo also adds support in this release for the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. As demonstrated above, Capo displays playback controls as well as a waveform overview of the entire song. The waveform is colored to indicate the location of regions. Using the waveform scrubber, you can:

• Tap on the waveform to jump to a specific point in the song
• Tap on either of the time labels to jump to the beginning or end
• Slide your finger along the waveform to scrub over the song while hearing feedback from our all-new scrubbing engine

Other Improvements

• Markers have been re-added to Capo in this release, and you can place markers on the timeline by pressing the marker button in the bottom bar, or pressing the M key on your keyboard.

• Capo has an all-new scrubbing engine that you can start by clicking and dragging the playhead in the timeline.

• Capo now supports full-screen mode in version 3.2

Any Questions?

This review guide does not contain a comprehensive list of Capo's features, so we fully expect you to have some questions while taking a look at the product.

Please email us if anything comes to mind during the course of your review. We're here to help you out in any way we can, so don't be shy!