FretBoard

We just stumbled upon some old screenshots of the first versions of FretBoard. Back in the old days, FretBoard was programmed for the Palm PDAs and it was released as an open source application and is still available at the Sourceforge repository.

Here is a screenshot of the version 0.9:

And here you see the more advanced v1.2 which introduced the “Magical Note Bar” as can be found in the current iPhone version.

The most interesting thing is, that the old FretBoard version still runs on the current Palm devices as can be seen in the following picture. Thanks to Locks for the picture of running FretBoard on his Palm T|X.

Good news: FretBoard 1.7 is on it’s way into the AppStore.
There are several changes and enhancements, including iOS4 compatibility, several new tunings and instruments, and a nice new feature you definitely will love! So watch your update tab in the AppStore…

We just got the information that v1.6 is approved by Apple and will be available worldwide within the next 24 hours. Changes in v1.6:

The chords database is completely new designed and sorted. We added a section for dominant chords and added several missing chord types. We now hold a database of 68 chords.

Further we added several new tunings: – Don Helms and Leon McAuliffe steel tunings – CB’s Dual Bass Reciprocal – 8 string Dobro – Poor Mans 5 String for Bass – “Drop D” for four string bass – Stephan Wach’s 8 String Guitar
We also corrected some tunings. Thanks to all the contributors…

Now FretBoard holds a total of 141 instrument tunings.

In all keys and on all instruments these are 138744 scales and 115056 chords. This is the largest database currently available on the iPhone.

Hi folks!
Version 2.0 is under heavy development. Anyway it still may take a while, so we decided to release v1.6 for approvement to Apple. This version is a major database update. We added several instrument tunings and extended and redesigned the chord database.
When everything works as it should, you will be able to download this free update in a week or so…

We will document the ongoing v2.0 development on twitter. So if you like to always be updated, stay tuned and follow us on twitter.

Thanks to cnet for including FretBoard in the small article iPhone app teaches you scales and modes

Wow, it took Apple only 7 days to approve v1.5 of FretBoard and FretBoard LE – that is only half of the time they needed for former updates! Thanks Apple.

Here are the changes in v1.5:

Several tunings were added: – a bunch of “drop” tunings for guitar – several 7 string guitar tunings – 5 string mandolin with low C – Stanley Jordan bass tuning – Toni Iommi’s C# tuning – Jeff Loomis tuning – Jimmy Page’s legendary Kashmir tuning – Matt Dacek’s 8 string bass tuning

For an even more individual landscape display we added 4 nifty background graphics.

Download FretBoard today at the AppStore.

This is a major database update. FretBoard now contains 82 scales and 55 chords to be displayed in every key on 111 instrument tunings. In all keys and on all instruments these are 109224 scales and 73260 chords. This is the largest database currently available on the iPhone.

The changes are as follows:

• note symbols can be erased with a log push of the certain symbol’s button
• add mixo-blues scale. Now FretBoard holds 58 scales in it’s database
• “sawmill” banjo tuning added
• added Don White’s tunings for 7 and 8 string guitar
• Charango tuning added
• standard baritone guitar tuning added
• corrected the position of fretmarkers for Warr guitar tunings
• only frets with fretmarkers are now numbered
• the fretnumbers position follows the position of the symbols on the fretboard
• compatible with iPhone OS 3.1