The 12 Best iPad Apps for Musicians

Best Overall iPad App for Musicians: Yousician

Yousician is the perfect app if you're new to learning a musical instrument. It's free to download but requires a monthly or annual subscription after a trial period. Even if you've been playing a while, it can be a handy tool. It allows you to play along with it in a manner similar to music games like Rock Band. However, instead of notes coming straight at you, the notes appear on the right and scroll to the left. This is similar to reading music and almost the same as reading tablature, so if you are learning guitar, you learn to read tab at the same time. For piano, the music sheet flows similarly, but you get a cheat sheet of a piano's keys lighting up to help you out. 

Best for Organizing Your Music: ForScore

Fans of the forScore app say it's the best music reader anywhere. Its clean interface was designed exclusively for iOS devices. Use it to download sheet music or load PDFs onto your tablet and play in seconds. The forScore app partners with Musicnotes to give instant access to purchases. You can annotate, play along with an audio track, and create setlists.

The app supports split-view and slide-over multitasking on iPads with these features. Play hands-free with its page-turning devices and MIDI signals or use its built-in remote control. Serious collectors can add composers, genres, tags, and labels to each score's metadata in the library.

Best of all, you can take your entire sheet music library with you wherever you go.

Best Digital Guitar Tuner: GuitarTuna

Is your ukulele out of tune? How about your mandolin, banjo, or bass guitar? You need GuitarTuna, the premiere tuning app for all stringed instruments. It's easy, fast and accurate even for beginners. It offers more than 100 tunings, including standard, Drop-D, half-step down, and 12-string.

The app also includes a metronome, chord-learning games, a chord library, and four practice songs with guitar notation.

Best App for Synthesizer Fans: Animoog

Synthesizer fans love Animoog, a polyphonic synthesizer designed for the iPad. It includes waveforms from classic Moog oscillators and allows users to explore the space of those sounds fully. It's not cheap, but for those who want a true synth experience out of their iPad, Animoog is the way to go. It supports MIDI In, so you can use your MIDI controller to create the sound or use the touch interface.

Best for Turning Your iPad Into an Instrument: ThumbJam

ThumbJam is a virtual instrument designed specifically for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Rather than provide an on-screen keyboard linked to instrument sounds, it turns your device into an instrument. By picking out a key and scale, you can use your thumb to move up and down the notes and wave the device to provide different effects such as pitch bend. This makes it a unique and intuitive way to "play" your iPad.

Best for Apple Purists: GarageBand

Easily the most popular music app, GarageBand packs in plenty of functionality for a relatively low price. First and foremost, it's a recording studio. Not only can you record tracks, but you can also play with buddies remotely through virtual jam sessions. If you don't happen to have your instrument with you, GarageBand has virtual instruments. You can use them with a MIDI controller, so if tapping on a touch device doesn't give you the right feel for making music, you can plug in a MIDI keyboard. Best of all, GarageBand is free to anyone who purchased an iPad or iPhone within the last few years. 

Most Realistic Digital Keyboard: Music Studio

Music Studio is for people who like the concept of GarageBand but feel constrained by its limitations. The basic concept is the same: provide virtual instruments in a studio setting that allows for the creation of music. Music Studio goes further and adds more sequence features, including the ability to edit tracks, add effects, and draw in additional notes with the digital pencil tool. It has a comprehensive range of downloadable instruments, so you can expand your sounds as needed.

Best for Drummers: DM1 - The Drum Machine

One area where the iPad excels is as a drum machine. While playing a virtual piano or guitar on the touch screen can be a little awkward, with the lack of tactile sensation leading to missed notes, the touch screen provides a good imitation of drum pads. You might not get the touch sensitivity or advanced features of actual drum pads, but for anyone who wants to tap out a beat, DM1 is the next best thing and far cheaper than a real drum machine. Along with drum pads, the app includes a step sequencer, a mixer, and a song composer.

Best Chromatic Tuner: InsTuner

InsTuner is a chromatic tuner that works with any stringed instrument. The app features the standard frequency gauge as well as a fixed note wheel, which gives you a nice visual feel for the pitch being produced. InsTuner supports tuning through the microphone or through line-in modes, such as using a guitar interface to hook your guitar to your iPad. In addition to tuning, the app includes a tone generator for tuning by ear. 

Best Metronome App: Pro Metronome

The metronome is a staple in any musician's arsenal, and Pro Metronome provides a basic one that works fine for most musical needs. The app has an easy-to-use interface that allows you to set the time signature, use it in the background, and project a visual representation onto your TV using AirPlay.

Best for Reading Tablature: TEFview

Guitarists who deal with tablature love TEFview. This tab library features MIDI playback with speed control, so you can slow it down while learning the song and speed it up once you have it perfected. You can also print out the tab from within the app and share files via Wi-Fi or email them as an attachment. TEFview supports TablEdit files in addition to ASCII, MIDI, and Music XML files.