Type the changes. Get the bassline.
BY SONGDEED
Most bassline tools ask you for a scale. Continuo asks for your chords. Type a progression — slash chords and all — pick a style, and Continuo writes a line that actually plays the changes: chord tones on the strong beats, approach notes into the next chord, and a register that sits where a bass player would sit. Audition it, cycle through takes, then export MIDI or MusicXML to your DAW.
Coming soon to the App Store iPhone & iPadType bars separated by |. Slash chords like Am/C pin the bass note exactly. Or start from one of 18 sets of changes — blues, rhythm changes, bossa, one-drop.
Root & fifth, walking, funk/R&B, tumbao, bossa nova, reggae one-drop, and Motown — each with its own rhythmic logic, not a preset pattern stamped over your chords.
4-, 5- and 6-string bass guitar, upright, 808/sub, synth bass and chiptune. The instrument changes what it plays — range, leaps, octaves, how fast it moves.
4/4 and 3/4, compound 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8, and irregular 5/4, 7/8, 5/8 and 11/8. Every style works in every meter — the grooves are written against the pulse, not against bar templates.
Density sets how busy the line is, Motion moves it from plain roots toward passing and chromatic tones, and Swing goes straight to triplet. Next take cycles ranked alternatives, best first.
MIDI for your DAW — optionally with a reference chord track — or MusicXML with chord symbols for MuseScore, Sibelius, Dorico and Finale. No account, no internet, no ads. Continuo collects nothing.
A generator that only knows a scale can hand you a note that fights the chord underneath it. Continuo works the other way around: it reads each chord, decides which tone belongs on each strong beat, and then connects those targets — with a walking chromatic approach, a fifth, an octave drop, whatever the style calls for. Change one chord and the line around it changes with it.
You can also edit by hand. Tap any chord in the strip to swap it, move it, or stretch it across more beats, and the line rewrites around your edit. Import a MIDI or MusicXML file to pull changes in from something you've already written.
Also from Songdeed: Mediant, for the chord progressions themselves.