Apple released an app called Music Memos that seems tailor-made for yours truly. It allows you to record song ideas, hear those ideas played with auto-generated bass and/or drum accompaniment, view the chords, and add lyrics. Artists can then share them via Apple Music Connect or import them directly into GarageBand or Logic Pro X for further development.
Apple's Music Memos Screenshot
The app uses the auto-drummer technology Apple added to GarageBand and Logic Pro X, including the ability to tweak those drums on the fly, as shown in the image above.
Apple's release notes:
Quickly capture musical ideas
- Easily record any musical idea using a simple interface
- Instantly listen to your recorded song ideas with a virtual drummer and bass player, who follow along like a live band in the room
- Adjust the groove and sound of the drum or bass using simple and intuitive controls to hear your song idea in different ways
- Tune your guitar with a built-in instrument tuner
Build a library of song ideas
- Name any song idea, or delete unwanted recordings
- Tag your song ideas to help you find them later using keywords like verse, chorus, mellow, energetic, or add your own custom tags
- Rate your song idea 1-5 stars to help you identify your favorites
- Supports iCloud Drive so your library of song ideas are always safe and available across all your iOS devices
View, edit and document your song ideas
- Automatically analyzes the music you played and displays musical measures and suggested chord names
- Rename or provide further detail for any chord names throughout your song
- The drum and bass performances adapt immediately to match any chord and rhythm edits
- Trim away any unwanted parts from the beginning and end of your recording
- Keep track of comments, lyric ideas, alternate guitar tunings or capo position
Share your new song
- Use iCloud Drive to make your song ideas available across all your iOS devices
- Email any song idea to a friend to share your music, or to collaborate with other musicians
- Quickly open your idea in GarageBand for iOS to add more instruments and keep building your song
- Export a song idea to the Mac so you can work in GarageBand or Logic Pro X as a full multi-track production
- Share to SoundCloud, YouTube and Apple Music Connect*
* Requires Apple Music Connect account
Music Memos is a free download, and is available now from the App Store.