← Back to fretboard

Changelog

What's changed, in reverse chronological order. Have an idea for the next entry? hello@playfretboard.com.

  1. new

    The neck goes 3D

    • The neck is now 3D. It was modelled and textured in Blender: a rosewood board with real grain, nickel frets that catch the light, pearl inlays, and a bone nut. Light mode swaps in an all-maple neck with black dots.
    • Strings move when you play. Strum or arpeggiate and every string you hit visibly vibrates, from the fret you're holding down to the end of the neck. Acoustic gets bronze wound strings, electric gets nickel.
    • Everything from the flat neck works in 3D: tap frets, mute strings, drag the capo, the fretboard map, and the scale overlay. Note dots sit neatly between the frets all the way up to the 22nd.
    • Prefer it flat? The 2D / 3D switch in the header flips between the two and remembers your choice. The 3D neck only loads when you use it, so the 2D view is as quick as ever.
  2. newpolish

    A new look

    • The whole app has been redesigned. New type (Manrope for the interface, Cormorant Garamond for the chord name and titles), a calmer palette in both themes, hairlines instead of boxes, and a lot less tiny uppercase text.
    • The neck looks like a neck now: continuous fret wires, a real nut, inlays set into the wood, and strings that get thinner as they go up.
    • All the controls live in one place under the neck. Quick chords and voicings, playback, and pedals sit side by side on desktop and stack on a phone.
    • Tuning and capo moved into the header. Tap the tuning to pick another, tap the capo to choose a fret. Dragging the capo on the neck still works.
    • Left-handed mode now flips the strings top to bottom instead of mirroring the whole neck. The nut stays on the left.
    • A proper phone layout: the play bar sticks to the bottom of the screen and the neck scrolls sideways at full size.
    • Your theme and saved settings are applied before the page paints, so reloading no longer flashes the wrong theme or the default settings.
  3. newfix

    A much smarter chord engine

    • The chord dictionary grew from 17 types to 40: 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, 6/9, add9/add11, half-diminished, altered dominants (7♭9, 7♯9, 7♯11, 7♭5, 7♯5), minor-major 7ths and 9ths, and more. Shapes that used to come back blank now have names.
    • No more "Unrecognized". Every voicing with two or more distinct notes now gets a name, and anything that isn't a textbook match is labelled with the tones it adds or leaves out, like "Cmaj7 · add ♯11" or "Am7 · no 3rd".
    • Ambiguous shapes now show their alternate readings. The same four notes can be Am7 or C6/A; tap a chip to switch and every interval label on the neck re-roots to match.
    • Inversions and slash chords are named properly. A C major with E in the bass now reads C/E (1st inversion) instead of quietly calling itself C.
    • Sharp/flat spelling. Chords pick the accidental a musician would actually write (D♭ not C♯, E♭m not D♯m), with a manual override in settings if you want everything one way.
    • Left-handed mode: mirrors the neck, the capo, and the fret numbers, and keeps every label upright.
  4. newpolish

    Alternate voicings, scale overlay, mobile polish

    • Alternate voicings: when a chord is identified, the app now suggests up to three other common shapes you can click to load.
    • Scale overlay mode: pick a root + scale (major, minor, pentatonic, blues, dorian, mixolydian, harmonic minor) and the fretboard maps every scale tone with interval shading.
    • Mobile polish pass: bigger tap targets, no iOS zoom on selects, a tighter settings panel, smoother capo dragging on touch.
    • Added this changelog. Hi 👋
  5. launch

    Initial launch

    • Fretboard goes public at playfretboard.com.
    • Click any frets to build a chord and the identifier names it instantly, including inversions and slash chords.
    • Acoustic and electric instruments with a live pedalboard: distortion, wah, chorus, flanger, delay, reverb.
    • Strum (up/down/repeat) and arpeggiator (up/down/up-down/random) playback modes.
    • Nine tunings out of the box: Standard, Drop D, DADGAD, Open G/D/E/A, half and full step down.
    • Movable capo (drag along the neck, double-click to remove).
    • Quick-chord preset row per tuning.
    • Dark and light themes with persistent preferences.
    • Keyboard shortcuts: Space to play, ↑/↓ for strum direction, 0–9 for capo, C to clear.