Open—Shape vs SongEngine

Open—Shape helps guitarists find playable chord voicings across the fretboard, including in different tunings. Its chord engine searches for shapes, filters them by note count, and supplies difficulty labels and fingering details. Users can chain and reorder chords, play progressions, and save them. The Free plan includes the full chord engine, every voicing, 33 built-in tunings, real acoustic guitar playback, a microphone tuner, and up to three saved progressions. Pro costs $9.99, paid once, billed one-time, and adds unlimited custom tunings and saved progressions. The tuner identifies strings in alternate and custom tunings; capo settings update chord voicings and progressions. A visual Canvas board for connecting chords, tuning, and capo runs in a desktop browser. Open—Shape is available on iOS and the web, and an account is not required. Saved tunings and progressions are stored in browser local storage, with backup export and import in Settings. Its privacy policy says tuner audio is analyzed in the browser and is not recorded or transmitted.

SongEngine creates chord progressions and generates matching basslines, phrases, and melodies. Users can make chords with Chord Pads, import MIDI progressions, or generate progressions in the plug-in. Its free core includes 60+ presets for basslines, arpeggios, phrases, and melodies. Live Mode turns MIDI chords sent from a keyboard or DAW into new MIDI phrases in real time. Generated parts can be dragged into a DAW as standard MIDI files; an optional MassExporter can write hundreds of phrases to a computer folder. SongEngine runs as a VST2, VST3, or AU plug-in and needs a compatible host such as FL Studio or Ableton Live. It supports 64-bit Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11, and macOS 10.13 or later on 64-bit Intel or Apple Silicon processors. There is no official Linux build, though the manual says users have reported using Wine. The maker says its algorithms were crafted by human musicians, not AI, and generated MIDI files may be used in commercial releases.