Enhance your guitar playing with free Riffstation app 

The web and mobile versions of Riffstation will no longer be available, but Fender is hoping to bring a similar service back in the future. In the meantime, they are offering a free copy of Riffstation Pro desktop app.

The Riffstation Pro is a desktop app for Mac and PCs only and will not run on iOS and Android devices. Also, this app does not work with YouTube videos but with audio files stored on your computer.

I downloaded this app and added “Faithfully” by Journey on it. In about five seconds the app populated the chords for the song. It is relatively easy to add songs to the app that you are learning to play.

Isolation of Instruments

What I like about this app is that you can slow the music down or speed it up, change the pitch, or even select a portion of the track. It also has a neat feature of isolating instruments so you can hear individual musical instruments on their own, like if you want to focus in on the guitar, drums or piano. Another impressive feature is the option to view chord shapes to play along, just in case you can’t recall them, like me.

Chord Shapes

Fender, which acquired the Irish startup that made Riffstation in 2015, didn’t disclose why its web-based service for Riffstation is no longer available. But some are saying that it’s probably due to music licensing issues.

If you would like to get the Pro copy of the Mac or Windows version of this app, you can do so by going to Riffstation.com.

Have fun playing.