Songwriting Apps Every Musician Needs to Have

By
Sarah Better
,
August 23, 2024

5 min read

Introduction 

Songwriting is both incredibly rewarding and challenging. Whether you're a professional songwriter or just starting out, the right tools can make all the difference in capturing inspiration, organizing your ideas, and crafting polished compositions. Below, our Musiversal experts share some of the best songwriting apps available today to help you create your next hit.

MasterWriter songwriting app interface showcasing rhyming and word search tools for lyricists.

1. MasterWriter

Overview: MasterWriter acts like a personal songwriting assistant, loaded with features that make finding the right words and phrases easy. It’s a comprehensive tool for lyricists combining an intuitive interface with powerful resources like rhyming dictionaries, synonyms, and phrases to keep your creativity flowing.

Key Features:

  • Extensive word and phrase dictionaries

  • Rhyming dictionary with over 100,000 rhymes and 36,000 rhyme phrases

  • Comprehensive thesaurus and definitions, including unique speech types like idioms, metaphors, and alliterations

  • Features a built-in audio recorder to capture melodies and lyric ideas

  • Cloud-based organization to access your work from any device

  • Auto-save and multiple version tracking for lyric drafts

Why It Stands Out: MasterWriter’s extensive libraries, paired with a user-friendly interface, help streamline your creative process and ensure you never miss a word. With its powerful search and filtering tools, finding the perfect rhyme, phrase, or metaphor becomes easier, allowing you to focus on crafting great music.

SongPad app interface with lyrics editor and AI-assisted lyric suggestions for songwriters.

2. SongPad

Overview: SongPad is a simple yet powerful tool designed by songwriters, for songwriters. Built with simplicity in mind, it focuses on keeping your writing process as smooth as possible, offering essential tools without the clutter. From lyric editing to AI-assisted songwriting, SongPad’s clean and user-friendly design helps you capture, organize, and refine your lyrics with ease, eliminating creative roadblocks. 

Key Features:

  • Clean, intuitive interface for easy lyric writing and organization 

  • Chord notation support for guitar and piano

  • Auto-save functionality to ensure no ideas are lost

  • Cloud sync for accessing your songs from any device

  • Lyric Helper AI, which generates lyric suggestions based on genre, mood, and artists

  • Syllable counter to help you maintain consistency and rhythm 

  • Collaborative features allowing you to co-write in real time

Why It Stands Out: SongPad’s standout feature is its Lyric Helper AI, which acts like a co-writer by offering suggestions to keep your creativity flowing. Whether you need help overcoming writer’s block or generating fresh ideas, the AI can generate lyrics based on your song's genre, mood, and style. Combined with real-time collaboration tools and intuitive organization, SongPad provides an all-in-one solution to elevate your songwriting process​. 

Evernote app interface demonstrating note-taking and organization features for musicians and songwriters, recommended by Musiversal.

3. Evernote

Overview: Evernote isn’t just a note-taking app—it’s a versatile cross-platform tool that helps songwriters capture, organize, and retrieve their ideas effortlessly.  While it’s not specifically designed for songwriting, its powerful features make it a go-to app for many musicians. Whether you’re writing lyrics, recording melodies, or storing images and web clippings for inspiration, Evernote keeps everything in one place and syncs across all your devices.

Key Features:

  • Sync notes across multiple devices

  • Rich text formatting and multimedia support

  • Notebook and tagging system for easy organization

  • Web Clipper allows you to save web pages, articles, and images for future referencing

  • Robust search functionality

  • Audio to text notes so that you can attach audio recording to specific notes

Why It Stands Out: Evernote’s flexibility makes it a must-have for songwriters who want to stay organized. The ability to attach audio to text notes and sync across all devices ensures you never lose a lyric, melody, or idea. Plus, its Web Clipper tool helps gather inspiration from the web, making it a powerful all-in-one workspace for songwriters on the go.

Songwriter's Pad app with AI lyric generator and song organization tools for enhancing creativity, from Musiversal Blog.

4. Songwriter's Pad

Overview: Songwriter's Pad is designed specifically for songwriters, providing a suite of tools to inspire creativity and help organize your songwriting projects. With features like an AI-powered lyric generator, rhyme dictionaries, and an idea generator, it’s a powerful tool for crafting lyrics. 

Key Features:

  • Built-in idea generator

  • AI lyric generator

  • Rhyming dictionary and thesaurus

  • Chord notation support

  • Audio recording and playback

  • Cloud sync across devices 

  • Song block editor to organize lyrics by sections like verse, chorus, and bridge

  • Collaboration tools to co-write in real time 

Why It Stands Out: The idea generator and built-in tools are perfect to help tackle the incredibly dreadful writer’s block, ensuring your creativity keeps flowing. The Song block editor feature simplifies the writing process, helping you visualize and arrange your song while ensuring that no part of your lyrics gets lost.

Notion by PreSonus app showing music notation and arrangement tools for songwriters and composers, from Musiversal recommendations

5. Notion by PreSonus

Overview: Notion by PreSonus is a powerful music composition app that combines notation, tab, and audio tools. It’s great for songwriters who want to write, compose, and arrange music on the go.

Key Features:

  • Easy-to-use notation tools

  • Extensive sound library, including orchestral samples

  • Integration with Studio One and other DAWs for successful workflow between notation and production

  • Cloud syncing and collaboration features

  • Handwriting recognition for tablet users 

  • Dynamic Songwriting Dashboard with a task manager, song templates, and a release schedule

Why It Stands Out: Notion’s strength lies in its ability to blend powerful notation and arrangement tools with intuitive songwriting management. The Dynamic Songwriting Dashboard helps you track your entire songwriting process, from capturing initial ideas to final release, making it a must-have for serious songwriters looking to streamline their workflow.

RhymeZone interface with rhyme search features for songwriters to refine lyrics and find creative word choices, Musiversal logo at the bottom.

6. RhymeZone

Overview: RhymeZone is a must-have for lyricists, offering a comprehensive rhyming dictionary and thesaurus that helps you find perfect and near rhymes, synonyms, antonyms, and more. It’s an indispensable tool for anyone looking to elevate their lyrics by refining word choices and exploring creative language options.

Key Features:

  • Extensive rhyming dictionary and thesaurus with perfect, near, and slant rhymes

  • Synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and definitions

  • Advanced search mode to filter results by rhyme quality and syllables

  • Word and phrase search

  • Example sentences for context

  • Phrase rhymes for creating multi-syllable rhymes

  • Cross-referencing with Shakespeare’s plays and poems to draw inspiration from classic literature

Why It Stands Out: RhymeZone’s focus on language makes it an essential tool for any songwriter aiming to improve their lyrics. What sets RhymeZone apart is its advanced search mode, which allows you to filter rhymes by multiple criteria such as rhyme quality, syllables, and popularity. This tailored search capability helps songwriters find the most fitting words faster. Additionally, its phrase rhymes feature opens up new possibilities for crafting complex rhymes that enhance your lyrics.

Hum songwriting app interface with note-taking and audio recording features for capturing musical ideas.

7. Hum

Overview: Hum is designed for songwriters who need a quick, intuitive way  to capture and organize their musical ideas. It combines audio recording with note-taking, making it perfect for keeping your inspiration at your fingertips. 

Key Features:

  • Audio recording with timestamped notes and a loop feature

  • Lyric organization tools

  • Sorting system for tagging your songs by key, mood and tuning

  • Syncs with Dropbox

  • Simple, intuitive interface

  • Collaboration features 

Why It Stands Out: Hum’s simple design and focus on quickly capturing and organizing ideas ensures you never miss a moment of inspiration, no matter where you are. Hum’s standout feature is its robust sorting system, which allows you to organize your ideas effortlessly by key, mood, and even intensity. This makes it easy to retrieve and refine ideas whenever inspiration strikes. With its audio recording, lyric organization, and seamless cloud sync, Hum ensures that your creativity is always within reach​.

Bump beat-making app featuring drum pads, sound libraries, and beat creation tools for musicians.

8. Bump: Drumpad, Beat-Making App 

Overview: Bump is an easy-to-use drum pad and beat-making app designed for anyone looking to create music on the go. With Bump, you can access a variety of sound packs, including drum pads, guitar loops, and sound effects, all within a simple, intuitive interface that doesn't require in-depth musical knowledge.

Key Features:

  • Dope drum pads for crafting beats effortlessly

  • Guitar loops and sound effects to enhance your tracks

  • User-friendly interface perfect for beginners and pros alike

  • Sample sound packs to customize your beats

  • Looping functionality for creating polished tracks quickly

Why It Stands Out: Bump’s intuitive design makes music creation accessible to everyone. Its wide selection of sound packs and easy-to-use drum pads allow you to create professional-sounding beats without needing a complex setup or prior musical experience.

Additional Tips

  • Stay Organized: Use tags, notebooks, or folders to keep your ideas neatly organized and easy to find.

  • Capture Inspiration Quickly: Always have your app-of-choice ready to catch spontaneous ideas, whether it’s audio, text, or notation.

  • Experiment with Features: Each app offers unique features—take the time to explore and discover which ones work best for your creative flow.

By incorporating these apps into your songwriting routine, you can streamline your creative process and focus on what truly matters: making awesome music.

Conclusion

The right songwriting app can make a world of difference in your creative process. Whether you’re using MasterWriter for its extensive vocabulary tools, Hum for quick and intuitive idea capturing, or Notion for its powerful notation features, these apps are designed to help you stay organized, inspired, and productive. Experiment with these tools to find the ones that best support your workflow, and incorporate them into your routine! 

Of course, even the best tools can’t replace the magic of real collaboration. When you’re ready to take your songs to the next level, working with experienced musicians and producers can make all the difference. That’s where Musiversal comes in—offering unlimited remote recording sessions with professionals who can help shape your sound and bring your ideas to life. Join our community and collaborate with 70+ top-tier musicians and producers across 130+ instruments and services. Once you’ve crafted that perfect song, you can bring it to life through simple, remote, world-class collaboration. 

We hope you enjoyed this article! If you are looking for even more resources to spark your songwriting creativity, go check out our creative list of songwriting prompts. For additional tips, tools, and insights into music creation, explore the Musiversal Blog, where we cover everything from songwriting tips to music theory guides, gear reviews, marketing advice, and production tools.

Happy writing!

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