CHARTBLAZER:DRUMS chart · mark up · gig

Release notes

What’s new in ChartBlazer

Every release since launch, newest first.

v2.6.0

Every button on the chart page, explained

  • Help now opens a reference to every button on the chart page: what each one does, whether it works in View, in Edit or both, and its keyboard shortcut if it has one. The tips sheet links to it too.
v2.5.0

Bring a chart from another app, and the lyrics as cues

  • Upload a chart PDF from any app and it comes back as a chart: the section names and order, the playing directions and the first words of each section, with a groove drafted for you to check.
  • When your sheet’s sections can be read, bar counts follow it: a count it states, else one bar per printed line of a sung section, else blank. Check them as you play the chart through, or add the recording and we’ll count them for you.
  • Paste the lyrics or a chart from any app beside your AI request, or upload a PDF or a photo of one, and each sung section’s cue comes back as its first three words, in teal. With nothing pasted the cues stay landmarks.
  • The upload box accepts a recording, a chart PDF, a photo of a chart, or any combination, and identifies each one. Reading a photo or scan costs one credit.
  • AI credits are yours until you use them. Every payment adds more, and whatever you have left carries over instead of resetting each month.
  • Subscribe while your trial is running and we top you up to a full month straight away. On the annual plan your credits arrive a month at a time.
  • The AI chart page keeps a list of the charts it has made for you. A draft you closed is one click away, instead of somewhere down your chart list.
  • Grooves sit closer together on the page, so a section with a groove or two takes less room. Nothing is cut off.
  • When the AI doesn’t know how a song’s drums go, it writes a plain beat and says in the note that it’s a stand-in, rather than inventing one.
  • A chart made from a recording now shows each section’s energy level.
v2.4.1

Better sections and names on AI charts

  • Songs you convert are cut into sections more accurately: boundaries land where the music changes, and back-to-back repeats of the same part are split apart instead of running together as one long section.
  • Whether you type a song name or upload the recording, sections come back with standard names and short, glanceable cues. A chorus that comes back the same is just "Chorus" now, instead of being numbered every time.
  • Your AI usage page no longer shows a draft as failed while it is still being written.
v2.4.0

Better AI labels on converted songs

  • Songs you convert get more consistent section labels: repeats of the same part share one name (Chorus 1, Chorus 2), drawn from the same names the section picker offers.
  • When a section boundary looks off, the AI says so in a note on that section. Check it against the song, and fix the bars if it is right.
  • If your connection drops while a draft is running, the page now waits and opens your chart as soon as it lands. Pressing again never starts a second draft.
v2.3.0

Draft a chart by naming the song

  • ✨ AI draft (Pro): name a song and get a starting chart to fine-tune in the editor. It drafts from what the model knows, so give it a listen against the record.
  • Choose how much draft you want: four levels, from a quick outline to the finest full pass, each priced in credits from the same monthly allowance.
  • 🎧 Or upload the recording itself (Pro): ChartBlazer measures the tempo, sections and bar counts from your audio. Add the song’s title and the AI labels the sections it measured.
  • Your 30-day trial now includes AI credits, so you can try both on your own songs before you pay. They last the whole trial, and Pro renews a full allowance every month.
v2.2.0

Easier to read, on the page and in the grid

  • Every chart now uses a clearer, stronger typeface, and cues print in solid black alongside bolder section names. It reads the same on your laptop, your tablet and paper.
  • Each section starts under a tinted heading band, so the form of the song reads at a glance before any color is set. Auto-color now marks the landmarks: choruses blue, bridges gold. It leaves every other section clean.
  • The Standard / Expanded switch in the groove editor now covers the sticking, ensemble figure and time-slash rows as well as the instruments, so the grid opens with only what you use.
  • Choose which of them you want by default under Settings. Anything you have already written stays on screen either way.
v2.1.0

Write what the band plays

  • Flow charts can now carry ensemble figures: the kicks the band hits, drawn above the staff. Tap a step in the new Figure row in the bar editor, tap again for an accent.
  • Slash part of a bar rather than the whole thing, on either kind of chart. Tap the beats you want in the new / time row, so the figure lands on beat 1 and the rest of the bar keeps time.
v2.0.0

Flow charts — the same song, on a staff

  • A flow chart is a second way to write a song down: every bar on a staff, wrapping across the page like sheet music, instead of a table of sections. It uses the same step grid, markup and library as a chart. Pick whichever you read better.
  • Blank bars are fine. Write out only the bars you need, and use cues or pen marks for the rest.
  • Any bar can be drawn as time slashes: the "keep time" bar a big-band part is made of, one slash per beat. Your notes stay underneath and come back when you toggle it off.
  • Flow charts share your 25 and can be published, shared and cloned exactly like a chart.
  • Duplicate a chart from your list: a second arrangement of the same song without starting over.
  • Adding a groove now offers two ways in: a blank one, or pick from the grooves already in this chart and your saved library, each shown on a real staff. Either way you land straight in the step editor, ready to play with it.
v1.4.2

Bold text, and a tap on the groove itself

  • Bold any text you have written: select it and press B on the markup bar. It sits beside the colour swatches and works the same way. Use it on your section notes, wherever you are writing them.
  • Tap a groove’s notation instead of hunting for a button: in Edit it opens the groove editor, in View it plays the groove. The small ✎ and ▶ beside every groove are gone, and the bars box goes with them when you leave it blank.
  • The ▶-with-a-slash in the chart tools now stops a tap from playing a groove, for a stage where a stray touch must not start a loop.
v1.4.0

Sticking, rolls, flams — and two more instruments

  • Write the sticking under a groove: mark each step R or L and the letters read under the notes, the way a method book prints them.
  • Rolls and doubles: add one, two or three slashes to a note. They engrave on the stem and play as repeated strokes.
  • Flam joins normal, accent and ghost in the groove editor. It engraves as a grace note and plays as two strikes.
  • Two more instruments: china and foot hi-hat. Both sit in the expanded kit, alongside cowbell, open hat, ride bell and cross-stick.
  • Size the cues, the text, the titles and the grooves apart, for the whole chart or one section. A− / A+ still sizes everything at once; tap the percentage for the four on their own.
  • Fixed: the cross-stick sounded like a quiet snare.
  • The date on a gig opens its calendar wherever you tap in the field.
v1.3.0

Color your chart in one press — and refer a drummer

  • Color a whole chart in one press. Every section named Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge and the rest takes its own color, so the song’s structure is easy to see at a glance.
  • The scheme is yours: pick a color for each kind of section once, in Settings. A color you set on a section yourself is never painted over.
  • Sections can be colored automatically as you name them, if you want that.
  • Charts fit to one page in print and PDF. It only ever shrinks a chart, and a checkbox turns it off.
  • Each song in a setlist keeps its own size: on the stage, in print and in the PDF. Print and PDF share one button on the gig bar now.
  • Every account has a referral link. A drummer you send who buys the annual plan earns you three free months of Pro, with no cap.
  • Your referrals have a page of their own: your link, clicks, signups and the months you have earned. An email lands with each reward.
  • A short welcome email when you confirm your account.
  • The gig-stage pull-tab clears more of the page: the chart description and reference track now fold away with the rest.
  • Fixed: printed charts cutting off the end of a cue.
v1.2.0

Sized for the tablet — the gig stage, and the type on it

  • Put your setlist above the chart, down the left, or away altogether. The choice is remembered on each device, and above the chart leaves the chart the most room.
  • A gig fits a phone screen now.
  • The setlist scrolls by arrows rather than a scrollbar. Swiping or ← / → brings the song you are on into view.
  • Bigger touch targets on the gig bar and in the setlist.
  • Less chrome above the chart, and the pull-tab still folds away what is left of it.
  • Section titles and note text size separately. Tap the % between A− and A+. Those two still size the whole chart in one tap.
  • Print margins are half what they were, and the space goes to the notation.
  • Print and PDF come out at the size you set, instead of always at 100%.
  • The energy meter is five levels instead of ten. Charts you have already marked keep the level they read as.
  • Move, insert, duplicate and delete sit on the section header whenever there is room for them.
  • Fixed: a section’s ⋯ button and its menu escaping their column in the two-column layout.
v1.1.0

Room to work, and controls that stay put

  • Cut time is real. Set a chart to 2/2 and it counts, beams and engraves the way cut time reads.
  • One meter list on the chart header and in the groove editor, and the click divides the bar exactly in every meter.
  • Beat lines down the groove editor grid, so you can find beat 3 without counting pads.
  • Page width: Normal, Wide or Full, remembered on each device.
  • The title bar and its controls stay with you as you scroll a long chart.
  • Colour lives on the markup bar. With the pen it inks your strokes; with Select on it colours a title, a cue, or a few words.
  • More of the gig stage goes to the chart, and one tap on the pull-tab folds the rest away.
  • Editing and reading now use the same layout, so a pen mark stays exactly where you drew it.
  • Two columns while you edit, not just while you read.
  • Sections are numbered down the chart.
  • Every section’s controls live in one ⋯ menu beside its name.
  • Pen marks and highlights no longer print, which keeps the chart on paper as large as it can be.
  • Fixed: the Description box mangling ampersands and angle brackets.
v1.0.0

ChartBlazer is released

  • ChartBlazer: Drums is live at chartblazer.com, with your charts, your setlists, and a community library of over two hundred charts to browse, clone and make your own.