Pocket Chordsmith

Pocket Chordsmith is a mobile-first browser music sketchpad for quickly building chord progressions, beats, bass lines, melodies, guitar parts, and full song ideas on your phone, tablet, or desktop.

Start simple with chords, drums, bass, and melody, then switch into Advanced mode when you want deeper sequencing, MIDI import, song sections, live playing, guitar rhythms, sound controls, and export options.

Features

• Simple mode for quick, uncluttered loop building
• Advanced mode for deeper songwriting, arranging, MIDI, and performance tools
• Chord progression builder with major and minor scales
• 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures
• Chord types including triads, sevenths, sus2, and sus4
• Chord playback styles including block, strum, arpeggio, octave, rhythm, and sound controls
• Chord sounds including Pocket Chordsmith, piano, harp, warm pad, and glass
• Random idea button for quick key and chord progression inspiration
• Beat step sequencer with straight grid resolutions
• Drum presets including rock, house, half-time, punk, metal, blast, ghost groove, ballad, and 3/4 variants
• Live drum kit pads with playback and optional recording to the beat grid
• Bass sequencer with auto root-follow and manual bass modes
• Manual bass notes with accents, holds, and slides
• Up to six melody tracks with instrument, octave, pan, mute, and solo controls
• Melody instruments including pulse, soft, synth, bell, lead guitar, distorted lead guitar, trumpet, and saxophone
• Melody pads, melody sequencer, melody idea generator, hold, slide, and chromatic/free-note writing
• X-Y melody grid for live playing, soloing, pulses, ostinatos, and grid recording
• Triplet tuplet markers on the normal grid, without needing a separate triplet resolution
• Song sections A-H with section length controls and song sequencing for fuller arrangements
• Rock guitar power-chord lane with clean, crunch, high-gain, and metal tones
• Guitar rhythm presets including rock eighths, punk downstrokes, metal chug, gallop, doom, and verse/chorus patterns
• Guitar articulations including strum, palm mute, accent, hold, and scratch
• Delay, chorus, flanger, reverb, humanise, and pump/sidechain-style movement
• Browser save slots, autosave, JSON import/export, and share code support
• MIDI export, WAV export, and Advanced-mode MIDI import
• Optional downloadable plugin for Godot to import songs from JSON or share codes

Godot plugin also available here:
https://godotengine.org/asset-library/asset/5174

What has changed since v56?

• MIDI import has been added in Advanced mode.
• Song sections now support A-H for larger arrangements.
• The melody system has expanded to six tracks.
• New melody instruments and chord sounds have been added.
• A rock/metal guitar rhythm lane has been added.
• Key/chord random ideas, drum presets, and melody ideas help start sketches faster.
• Live drum recording and chord playback timing have been tightened.
• Sound controls have been expanded while keeping Simple mode clean.

MIDI import and export

Pocket Chordsmith can export your ideas as MIDI or WAV, and Advanced mode can import standard MIDI files as a starting point for new sketches.

MIDI import reads tempo, time signature where available, notes, tracks, and drum channel data, then maps the result into Pocket Chordsmith’s chords, bass, drums, melody tracks, and song sections. Complex MIDI files may be simplified during import, but they can still be useful as a fast way to pull musical ideas into the sketchpad.

MIDI export supports quantised output for cleaner DAW and notation use, plus performance-style output for sketches where timing feel matters more.

How to use

1. Choose a key, scale, tempo, and time signature.
2. Pick chords for each bar or use Random idea.
3. Build drums by hand, use drum presets, or record with the live drum pads.
4. Add bass, melody, and optional guitar parts.
5. Use sections to arrange a longer idea.
6. Export your sketch as JSON, MIDI, WAV, or a share code.

Best for

• Songwriting sketches
• Chord progression experiments
• Loop building
• Mobile music-making
• Game music prototyping
• MIDI idea sketching and remix starting points
• Beginners, hobbyists, and anyone who wants a lightweight browser-based music tool

Notes

This is a browser-based music sketchpad. Performance and audio behaviour may vary slightly depending on device and browser. The built-in sounds are lightweight Web Audio instruments rather than large sampled libraries.

For best results, open it directly in a modern browser and tap Play once to unlock audio.

Feedback is welcome!

Credits

Designed and developed by Samfa12.

Tested extensively by Kate and Marc. Thanks team.

Check out Spin Vector

Spin Vector uses the Pocket Chordsmith engine to play its background music. I made the songs here, exported the JSON, and used it to play the music in real time inside the game.

https://samfa12.itch.io/spin-vector