Changelog — ChordXray

v0.7.0 Latest

June 9, 2026

Manage your account from the app

Manage your purchases without leaving the app. Settings → Activation has a new Manage purchases button that opens your account portal, where you can find receipts and see which devices your license is active on. It replaces the old email-us-to-resend link.
Freeing up a device now works as expected. When you remove a Mac from your account, that Mac is signed out and its seat is freed — so you can move your license to a new machine cleanly.
Fixes. The Activation screen is now readable in light mode, and a few in-app links that pointed at the wrong address have been corrected.

v0.6.0

May 27, 2026

Faster downloads, everywhere

Models and app updates now use a global edge CDN. First-launch downloads of the larger models (Whisper at ~3 GB, Parakeet at ~2.3 GB) used to stream from a single European origin — fine if you were in Europe, slow if you were in Asia or the Americas. They’re now cached at edge POPs around the world. App updates take the same fast path. If you’re far from Europe the first-launch wait should be noticeably shorter; if you’re in Europe you may not notice a difference, which is fine.

v0.5.3

May 19, 2026

Faster, more reliable model downloads

Models now come from ChordXray’s own CDN. Whisper, Demucs, Parakeet, and All-In-One used to download directly from HuggingFace and PyTorch’s hub. They now stream from the same fast CDN that serves the app itself — usually quicker, and unaffected when upstream registries have a bad day.
SongFormer removed. The experimental SongFormer option for section labeling turned out to be considerably slower than the default All-In-One on Apple Silicon — the opposite of what its paper suggests. It’s gone from Settings → Models, so you don’t spend a download on it. All-In-One stays as the section and beat backend.

v0.5.2

May 19, 2026

SongFormer download fix

SongFormer downloads now work. Clicking Download on the SongFormer card in Settings → Models would fail immediately on a fresh install. Fixed — the download now proceeds and the model becomes available for section analysis once it’s on disk.

v0.5.1

May 16, 2026

Volume mixer + smoother setup

Volume mixer. A new popover in the player toolbar gives every stem its own volume slider and mute button, plus an autoplay toggle so songs start the moment analysis finishes.
Smoother model setup. A persistent setup screen now walks you through downloading any missing AI models — not just on first launch. Downloads show byte-accurate progress on a ring you can cancel mid-flight.
Play-the-chord shortcut. Press C to hear the chord at the playhead, without breaking your scroll position.
Less clutter on Home. The Recent Projects strip is hidden until you actually have a project, so a fresh install leads with the dropzone instead of an empty row.
Tidier footer. Renamed “Open-source licenses” to “Licenses” and added a direct Website link, arranged inline.

v0.4.4

May 14, 2026

Isolated model cache

Model weights stored under ~/.cache/chordxray/. Downloaded AI models now live in their own folder instead of the system-wide HuggingFace and PyTorch caches. This keeps ChordXray's files separate from any other tools you use. If you had models downloaded already, head to Settings → Models to re-download them at the new location.
Semitone picker for transpose. The previous ±1 step buttons are replaced with a dropdown that lets you jump to any offset from −11 to +11 in a single tap.
Spinner while analysis loads. Panels that are queued or running now show the ChordXray logo spinner instead of a blank skeleton, so it is clearer that work is in progress.

v0.4.3

May 13, 2026

Auto-update polish

Per-step AI model selector. Choose which model runs each analysis step directly from the Analyze dialog. Pick a faster model for a quick pass, or a more accurate one when you have time — independently for lyrics, chords, sections, and stems.
Hourly update checks. During early access the app checks for new versions every hour, so patches land the same day they ship without you needing to do anything.
Quieter update indicator. Instead of a banner, the version label in the footer and project header becomes a “Restart to update” pill once a new version has finished downloading in the background. Click it to relaunch — no interruptions while you are working.

v0.4.0

May 13, 2026

Background updates

Automatic updates. The app now checks for new versions on launch and once per hour, downloads them silently in the background, and shows a restart prompt when ready. Future updates skip the Gatekeeper step entirely — no more right-click workaround after the first install.
First-launch model download. When you open ChordXray for the first time, a card on the home screen offers to pre-fetch the three AI model bundles (Whisper ~3 GB, Demucs ~320 MB, All-In-One ~200 MB). Accept once and your first analysis starts right away instead of hanging on a silent background download.
App version in Settings. The current version number is now shown at the bottom of the Settings screen so you always know exactly what you are running.

v0.3.0

May 12, 2026

Trial and licensing

7-day free trial. Every feature is fully unlocked from the moment you install — no credit card, no account. The header shows a countdown of days remaining so nothing comes as a surprise.
License activation. After the trial, enter your license key in Settings › Activation to unlock ChordXray permanently. One key, one Mac.

v0.2.0

May 11, 2026

Stem export

Download stem tracks. Each isolated track — drums, bass, other, vocals — now has a download button in the media player. Export any stem as a WAV file and take it into your DAW, loop library, or practice tool.

Early Access

May 2026

Initial feature set

Everything that shipped when ChordXray first became available for testing.

Vocal analysis

Vocal note transcription with piano-roll visualization. Every pitch in the vocal track is detected on-device and shown as falling notes scrolling past a keyboard. A pitch-usage histogram sits behind the runway so you can see at a glance which notes the singer lands on most.
Chord-aware keyboard highlighting. The piano keyboard lights up the notes belonging to the current chord as playback moves, so you can see the harmony and the melody at the same time.
Playable keyboard. Click any key to hear that pitch. Hold and slide across keys to play multiple notes. Volume, mute, and an auto-play toggle are in the panel header.

Chord diagrams

Guitar, ukulele, and piano fingering diagrams. The diagram for the current chord scrolls into the center of the row automatically as the song plays.
Hover to hear. Hover any chord card to play it through the guitar or ukulele sampler. Useful for checking whether a voicing sounds right without picking up your instrument.
Solfège note names. Each diagram shows the note names (Do, Re, Mi…) alongside standard notation so you can connect the shape to the scale.
Slash/bass voicings. Chords with a bass note (Am/E, G/B, etc.) show the correct inverted voicing on the piano diagram.
Distinct-chord popover. A button in the panel header lists every unique chord in the song — useful for a quick key overview or for checking a chord before you reach it in playback.

Player and navigation

Sections strip aligned to the waveform. Verse, chorus, bridge, and other sections are drawn directly above the waveform so you can jump to any part of the arrangement at a glance.
Active chord and lyric auto-follow. The current chord pill and lyric line stay highlighted as the song plays. The chord diagram row scrolls automatically; the lyrics and chords panels stay in place so you can scroll independently if you prefer.

App-wide

Light, dark, and system theme. Defaults to your macOS appearance preference. Switch at any time from Settings.
Rename and delete from the home screen. Long-press or right-click any song card to rename it or remove it from the list.
Primary instrument preference. Set guitar or ukulele as your default in Settings › Preferences. Chord diagrams open in that tuning automatically.
Multiple AI models per analysis step. Settings › Models lets you download and choose between model variants — different Whisper sizes for lyrics, Parakeet for faster English transcription, SongFormer as an alternative for section detection. Larger models are more accurate; smaller ones are faster.
Open-source credits. Settings › Licenses lists every open-source library ChordXray is built on.