Hey y’all! I’ve been working on a project that I hope you’ll like. It’s basically a Strum Machine alternative. I need some folks to take it for a test drive and try to break it, then report back here with any issues you found. I’m already in the works to have higher quality samples for it, but what it has now isn’t that bad.
You can find the app here: https://cqsys-ares.com/mark_sandbox/
If you create new songs, right now they’ll only be saved on the device you create them on, and only in the browser you used to create them.
What I’d like from you is:
1 - your honest first impression.
2 - Any problems you find.
3 - What device and operating system you were using when you had the problem.
4 - What browser you were using.
And any other information you think might be important, including suggestions to make it better.
Looking forward to your replies!
Major updates this morning, 5/14/2026
65 songs now load by default. No need to load a separate JSON file. If you create new songs, though, it will still only be available on your device.
Some updates to the current version:
- Allow tempo to go from 30 BPM to 200 BPM.
- Split logic on 3/4 time was changed and so was the layout.
- Added an option for just a guitar strum and rest or just a guitar note and rest.
- add an option to individually select the single guitar notes to replace the notes the app would normally use if the user wants to.
- Auto Scroll corrected. Thanks Archie!
- When importing a song that already exists, ask the user if they want to overwrite existing songs.
- Have new songs default to G and BPM of 100.
- Key selection drop down changed to remove the extra click previously needed.
- Corrected an issue when starting play from a chord tile that is not in the first section, playback would start in the first section, but sometimes it starts where it’s supposed to.
- Corrected an issue saving a new song where it sometimes added to the top of the song list even though the list was sorted alphabetically.
- Warn when leaving a new song being created that hasn’t been saved.
- Corrected an issue where the user could hear 3 echoes of the guitar strum when the song advanced to a rest measure
- When exporting a song list, name it “SongList.json”
- Made the space bar always a shortcut for starting and stopping Play.
- BPM tap tempo — Added a “tap” button to set BPM by feel rather than typing a number.
So many updates made during the day today, 5/14/2026!
- Added a trigger to stop playback by touching anywhere on the screen on mobile device. No more chasing the Play/Pause button as it scrolls off the top of the screen
- Song time selector (4/4, 3/4, 2/4) added to the song page.
- Added buttons to move to the previous or next song without having to go back to the song list. Should be context aware, so if you go to a song from inside a list, it should advance to the previous or next song in that list rather than all songs.
- Major mods on the chord / rest / strum / note buttons. You can now insert single strums that either ring out or stop quickly. Rests now work without echoes.
- The entire footer has been rearranged for better visual appeal.
- You can now alter the bass guitar note of a given measure. No more being stuck with 1-5-1-5.
- You can now split a measure in 3/4 time. (This was hard to work out!)
- Added a song search option.
- More improvements on auto scrolling.
- Tons of small tweaks!
All about the mobile device updates this morning, 5/15/2026.
- Changed chord and variations buttons to now be two separate horizontally-scrollable rows instead of side-by-side columns. Allows more of the chord chart to be visible on small screens.
- Tap-screen-to-stop wasn’t working when the song was started from a chord tile in the chart. Fixed.
- Strum/Note command applied to all measures in multi-measure entry. Now only applies to the chord tile selected in the chart.
- Changed the Ring/Cut toggle switch to Ring/Stop. Changed the Stop tile icons from
to 
- Section name tap no longer zooms the screen and makes it impossible to pick a name from the list.
- Note/Strum/Root Note weren’t transposing if the song’s key changed. Now they do.
- Fast tapping the Tap button for BPM no longer zooms in.
- BPM tap averaged too few taps to register the BPM. Now averages 8 taps to calculate the BPM.
