The Practice Pro app has all the tools I want for music rehearsal

An iOS app called Practice Pro hit the App Store last week that might be the ideal music rehearsal app. It features a customizable interface with widgets like a digital tuner, metronomes, and audio recorder, and it’s an ad-free pay-once-and-its-yours affair. The app costs $0.99 cents right now, an introductory price that its developer, Joe LeBlanc of Dynamic App Design, said will go up to $9.99 eventually.

In the app, you can create pages containing up to six widgets at a time or use one of several premade templates with several light and dark theming options.

I had a good excuse to try this app out right after LeBlanc told us about the app — I’d been asked to perform “Islands in the Stream,” a Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers duet, at a wedding earlier this month. So far, it’s the app I always hope I’ll find when I look through the App Store for a dedicated guitar tuner app every now and again.

I used the tuner, metronome, and audio recording features most in my testing. Each was easy to understand and use, with several options, such as changing the reference pitch or graphic look of the tuner or altering where the metronome places the accent on the beat. The audio recorder is simple and is limited to recording and playback, but LeBlanc says adding an option to export recordings is on the list.

Other widgets include a clock, a stopwatch, a timer, a photo-displaying widget, and one for practicing your tempo by tapping the screen to a beat and seeing how close you are to the tempo you’re going for.

I’m sure there are other good music practice apps — please tell me about them, dear Verge reader! — but this one is my new favorite. It’s rare to find one that looks nice, can be bought outright, is easy to use, and isn’t full of ads. Practice Pro is off to a great start.