Singscope

A simple app that shows your pitch as you sing


Singscope

for iPhone ⋅ iPad ⋅ iPod touch

Download on the App Store
Singscope app on iPhones

About Singscope

Singscope is a mobile app that shows the pitch of your singing. It analyzes your singing voice, estimates its pitch values, and draws the pitches in a graph as a function of time. The pitches are shown in music scales (C, D, E, F, G, A, B). From the graph, you can check if your singing is stable and on pitch, and can also observe some vibrato characteristics of your singings.

This app is made for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and requires iOS 9.0 or later. It is optimized for real-time* pitch graph display while you sing, for devices with 64-bit CPU, including iPhone 5s and higher, all iPad Air / iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation and higher, iPad mini 2 and higher, and iPod touch 6th generation and higher.

*On earlier generations of iOS devices, the graph display might be slower and delayed. At the end when the graph rendering is completed, you will still get the full pitch graph displayed. See Device Compatibility section later for details.

Singscope app on iPhone and iPad

Using Singscope

To use Singscope app, simply go to the Singscope View, tap on the Microphone button, and sing to your iPhone (or iPad/iPod). While you sing, watch your pitch graph being drawn in progress. Note that if Singscope does not respond to the voice, please make sure the Microphone is enabled for Singscope in the device's Settings > Privacy > Microphone.

Singscope is sensitive to ambient noise, so it performs better when you sing in a quiet place. Don't play instruments or music loudly in the backgound while you sing to Singscope. If you'd like to play music for your singing, use earphones or headphones.

When you are done with your singing, tap on the Microphone button again to stop recording (or simply keep quiet for a few seconds and wait for the recorder to stop by itself). Then, you can review the pitch graph by pan-and-zoom using typical touch gestures such as drag and pinch.

To hear the voice you recorded, tap on the Play button.

To clear the pitch graph and start a new one, tap on the New button.

Singscope also provide functions to review and save your recorded voices. For details, please see Singscope User Guide.

Singscope User Guide

We regularly update our app to add new functions, improve the usability, and fix problems. To learn more about additional functions, please refer to the following link:

What's New

Singscope app help screen

What is Pitch Graph

The pitch of your singing is drawn in the music scale as function of time. We call this drawing a pitch graph.

In the graph, each vertical grid line indicates a time mark in the unit of seconds. Each horizontal grid line indicates an exact semitone pitch frequency and is labeled by music name and octave number. For example, C4 means note C at 4th octave, which is corresponding to the middle C in piano keyboard. A4 is note A at 4th octave and has pitch frequency of 440 Hz.

Pitch Graph

Here are two sample pitch graphs of singing voices. You can see the moving of your pitch as you sing. You can also observe the vibrato of your singing in the graph.

Sample Singing Pitch

Sheet Music Support Pack

This is a feature pack that adds supports for MusicXML sheet music or lead sheets. With this feature pack, you can import and use your own lead sheets for singing exercises. It also comes with a set of sheet music for singing warm-ups and exercises. When you open a sheet music in the app, you get the following extra functions:

  • Highlight the position of the musical notes in pitch graph, so you can check your singing pitch against the musical notes prescribed by the sheet music.
  • Play musical notes in the sheet music with piano sound.
  • Change tempo, by modifying metronome mark in the sheet music.
  • Change key, by music transposition on the sheet music.
  • Record your singing voice while playing the musical notes.
  • Playback your singing voice with the musical notes sound mixed.

For details about this feature pack, please check out its User Guide:

Music Functions User Guide

For the information about the type of MusicXML Lead Sheets files that are supported and how to use it, please refer to the following link:

Use Your Lead Sheets

Singscope feature pack screen

Device Compatibility

This app relies on CPU power for pitch estimation and graph rendering. For smooth real-time graph output, it is recommended to use 64-bit platforms (Apple A7 CPU or higher), including iPhone 5s and higher, iPhone SE, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation and higher, iPad mini 2 and higher, and iPod touch 6 and higher. For the 32-bit platform with A6 CPU, such as iPhone 5/5c and iPad 4, the app still performs ok without much noticeable delay.

On the devices with A5 CPU, such as iPhone 4s, iPad 2/3, iPad mini 1, and iPod touch 5, you might see some delay on real-time graph drawings. Although the drawing of pitch graph might be delayed, at the end when the graph rendering is completed, you still get the full pitch graph displayed.

If you'd like smoother real-time graph display on slower devices, you can lower the setting of Sample Rate (which reduces the voice recording quality), or Spectral Measure Rate (which reduces the pitch graph resolution). These adjustments can reduce the computation complexity and therefore get smoother pitch graph drawing.

To get to the settings page, tap on the Menu button and then choose the Settings item. The original setting for Sample Rate is 44100 Hz. The original setting for Spectral Measure rate is 100 Hz.

Singscope app settings screen

Limitations

Singscope utilizes spectral analysis and pitch detection algorithm to estimate pitch from audio signals. The method has its limitations. The first limitation is the range of pitches. Singscope cannot recognize pitches that are too high or too low. The exact range depends on the timbre or characteristic of voice. The second limitation is related to the stability of input sound. Singscope cannot handle voices that are either too short or changing too fast. It may miss a short note. It may also have problems handling large-extent or high-rate vibrato (that is, pitch frequency swing too large or too fast in the vibrato voice).

Singscope cannot handle more than one singing voice or polyphony. Ambient background music sounds, instrument sounds, and additional singing voices could interfere with its pitch detection.

The performance of pitch detection algorithm could also be affected by personal characteristic or timbre of voice, the words in the singing, and some singing styles. For some types of voice, some harmonics or partials could be mistakenly identified as a pitch. Currently we continue collecting and analyzing more varieties of singing voices and improving the pitch detection performance. The improvement will come in the future app updates.

Disclaimer

The terms of this app is Apple App Store's Licensed Application End-User License Agreement. That is part of the Terms and Conditions you agreed when you signed up with Apple iTunes & App Store.

THIS SOFTWARE AND THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THIS WEB SITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS". ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR AND DEVELOPER, SPRINGWELL MUSIC LLC, BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Contact

Any comments, suggestions, and inquiries, please email us at developer@singscope.com.

If you contact us via this email, we may collect the information you provided for the purpose of improving our product and improving your experience with our product. We may answer your inquiries via replying to your email address. We do not collect or retain any personal information unless you choose to provide it to us. We do not sell or share your personal information to any third party outside of our organization. For the privacy statement of this website, please follow the link:

Privacy Statement

For the privacy statement of Singscope App, please follow the link:

Singscope Privacy Statement