About ScaleSpace

What it is

ScaleSpace is a free scale reference for fretted instruments and piano. It draws any of 24 scales, modes, and arpeggios, in any of the 12 keys, on a guitar or bass neck, a ukulele, or a piano keyboard — and it can overlay two or three of them at once so you can see exactly which notes they share.

What it costs

The website costs nothing. There is no account, no sign-up, no paywall, and no trial. Every scale and chord, every instrument, every tuning, and the PDF export are all free here.

The ScaleSpace apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android cost $3.99, paid once, with no subscription, no in-app purchases, and no ads. The website stays free either way.

The apps

The apps have every chart the website has, work offline, and play the scale for you. Tap Play and you hear it from the root, up through every string in one hand position and back down, in the fingerings teachers use on 4-, 5- and 6-string bass, guitar, and ukulele. A ring follows each note as it sounds. Press and hold any note to play the scale from there.

On iPhone Duo, the controls sit in the bar beside the clock, which leaves the screen to the fretboard. Unfold it, turn it sideways, and bend it halfway like a small laptop: the upright half shows a big neck and the flat half becomes large buttons for the scale, the key, and Play.

Get them on the App Store or Google Play, or see how ScaleSpace compares with other scale apps.

Why it exists

Most scale tools are guitar-only, show one scale at a time, and spell notes by pitch number rather than by key — so they will happily tell you a scale contains both A# and Bb. ScaleSpace was built around three things those tools skip: real interval-based spelling, bass as a first-class instrument (4-, 5-, and 6-string, not an afterthought), and comparing scales against each other rather than viewing them one at a time.

How it works

Every chart is computed from interval formulas rather than looked up from a table, which is why the notes are spelled correctly in every key and why alternate tunings re-spell themselves automatically. The scale positions come from real systems — the five-box pentatonic system on bass, three-notes-per-string shapes on guitar, and triad inversions — not from generic fret windows.

Who makes it

ScaleSpace is made by Sprung Interactive, which also makes ShedSpace (a metronome, drone and drummer) and ChartSpace (a chord chart creator). Questions, corrections, and requests go to support@scalespaceapp.com — corrections especially: if a scale is spelled wrong somewhere, that's a bug worth hearing about.

Privacy

ScaleSpace has no accounts and stores nothing about you on a server. What you are looking at lives in the page's own URL, which is what makes a view shareable, and your last view is remembered in your browser's local storage so the app reopens where you left it. Anonymous usage analytics are collected to see which features get used. The privacy policy has the details, including the apps.