Composition tools for guitarists.

Between voice memo and DAW.

A riff arrives under your fingers.
A voice memo loses the structure;
a DAW asks for it too soon.

MACCA is the guitar-first, tab-first space in between. Catch the fragment, develop harmony, melody and rhythm, then carry a structured song into the DAW.

Start sketching

Loaded in MACCA Sketch

Cold as Bach

Intro pt 1 → Arepggio · Bars 1–20

20-bar excerpt · All 6 tracks

The first twenty bars of Cold as Bach rendered with MACCA Sketch's read-only tab surface across product sheets. All six authored tracks contain their real notes in this range. Play starts only when requested, follows each sheet, and returns to the beginning when complete; editing is unavailable.

120BPM4/4CHarmonic Minor
Read
Degrees
40 sec excerpt · no autoplay
MACCA · TABBars 1—3 · 1 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Intro pt 1
14/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
2
3
C
Cm
Cm²
Cm
C
Cm
B°²
B°¹
C
Cm
Cm²
Cm
3
3
6
5
4
6
MACCA · TABBars 4—6 · 2 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Intro pt 1, continued
Intro pt 2
44/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
5
6
Fm
Fm²
B°¹
G
C
Cm
Cm²
Cm
C
Cm
B°²
B°¹
3
3
3
6
5
4
3
1
3
1
1
0
3
0
MACCA · TABBars 7—9 · 3 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Intro pt 2, continued
74/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
8
9
C
Cm
Cm²
Cm
Fm
Fm²
B°¹
G
C
Cm
Cm²
Cm
4
6
3
3
3
4
1
1
0
0
4
3
3
3
2
3
3
1
0
MACCA · TABBars 10—11 · 4 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Intro pt 2, continued
104/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
11
C
Cm
B°²
B°¹
C
Cm
Cm²
Cm
6
5
4
6
1
3
1
4
3
4
1
0
3
3
4
3
MACCA · TABBars 12—13 · 5 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Intro pt 2, continued
Theme
124/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
13
Fm
Fm²
B°¹
G
3
6
5
3
1
0
4
3
2
3
3
1
0
16
15
13
15
333
MACCA · TABBars 14—15 · 6 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Theme, continued
144/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
15
6
5
0
4
6
1
3
1
4
1
1
3
0
3
3
11
15
13
11
13
333
MACCA · TABBars 16—16 · 7 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Theme, continued
164/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
3
0
0
2
4
3
13
11
10
11
10
333
MACCA · TABBars 17—17 · 8 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Arepggio
174/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
8
10
9
10
10
9
6
6
9
8
5
8
9
12
10
12
MACCA · TABBars 18—18 · 9 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Arepggio, continued
184/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
10
5
4
8
4
8
13
15
19
22
22
19
19
22
21
20
MACCA · TABBars 19—19 · 10 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Arepggio, continued
194/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
22
17
13
10
8
10
8
8
8
11
8
8
5
5
1
5
MACCA · TABBars 20—20 · 11 / 11
ChordsBassgDAEMelodyeBGDAEMelody harmonyeBGDAEBTop melodyeBGDAEChords ArpeBGDAE
Arepggio, continued
204/4♩120C Harmonic Minor
6
10
8
10
10
11
15
18
17
20
21
22
24
19
19
17
Take the demo into WriteCreates a local, editable copy of these 20 bars.

01 / Sketch

Catch the riff before it disappears.

Sketch opens with one empty Guitar track. No setup ritual between your hands and the first note.

Put the idea down in tab while it still belongs to the instrument. Fret, rhythm and bar structure stay together without translating the thought into a score or a DAW session.

Open an empty Sketch

Starting point

One empty Guitar track.

No notes. No drum track. No template.

The same empty starting state opens from every Sketch door.

MACCA · TABBars 1—1 · 1 / 1
GuitareBGDAE
14/4♩120

02 / Chords

Find what belongs underneath.

A melody gives you a line. Harmony gives it direction.

MACCA keeps the song's key and playable guitar shapes in the same place. Hear a voicing, compare the movement, and commit it only when it belongs.

Open Chords

Incoming from Sketch

Cold as Bach · Theme

Authored Melody + Bass · bars 13–16 · 19 notes

C harmonic minorCore triadsG–B–e
Suggestion selected · press any voicing to hear it.

MACCA suggestions · Theme

Authored Melody + Bass · bars 13–16

Core triads

Bass on the left · melody note on the right

Click to hear · shape stays secondary

ICm
IIDdim
IIID#aug
IVFm
VG
VIG#
VIIBdim
CmRoot position

C bass · G top · G–B–e

e|---3-B|---4-G|---5-

Suggestions are exploration. This preview auditions playable shapes but never writes harmony into Cold as Bach.

03 / Beat

Give the idea somewhere to land.

Harmony can hold a phrase in place. Rhythm decides how it moves.

Focus a kit piece, place a few hits, and hear the foundation before production becomes a session.

Open Beat

Disposable rhythm sketch

One bar. Zero authored hits.

120 BPM · 4/4 · 1/8 grid

120BPM4/4Draw1/8
Empty one-bar sketch · place a hit to enable the loop.

One-bar sketch

Focused pieces write · every hit stays in view

1/8
Kit
14/4

Focus set

Traditional kit

Pick one or several pieces

3 pieces focused

Cold as Bach contains no percussion in the published excerpt. This one-bar sketch starts empty, stays in this tab, and is never written to the song.

Inside Sketch / Arp Lab

Make the harmony move.

A chord can become a line without leaving the fretboard.

Change pattern, density and direction. MACCA keeps the exact chord tones, then finds three playable paths through them.

Open Sketch

Authored source · Cold as Bach

Intro pt 2 · Chords · bar 12

4 exact chord slots · 12 authored notes · 2 sec

FmFmBdimG

Shape

Exact played chord tones, placed for this guitar.

Variation 1
Pattern
Density
Direction

MACCA proposals

Three generated paths through the four authored chord slots · variation 1.

Candidate tab

16 tab notes on 6 strings

Strings
6
Fret move
20
Largest jump
5

Tick 0, string 5, fret 11, duration 240. Tick 240, string 3, fret 10, duration 240. Tick 480, string 1, fret 8, duration 240. Tick 720, string 2, fret 9, duration 240. Tick 960, string 3, fret 10, duration 240. Tick 1200, string 2, fret 9, duration 240. Tick 1440, string 1, fret 8, duration 240. Tick 1680, string 5, fret 8, duration 240. Tick 1920, string 6, fret 13, duration 240. Tick 2160, string 4, fret 12, duration 240. Tick 2400, string 2, fret 12, duration 240. Tick 2640, string 3, fret 10, duration 240. Tick 2880, string 4, fret 9, duration 240. Tick 3120, string 2, fret 8, duration 240. Tick 3360, string 1, fret 10, duration 240. Tick 3600, string 4, fret 9, duration 240

Proposal 1 selected · nothing written to the song.

The loaded work also contains an authored Chords Arp track in bars 17–20. These MACCA proposals do not claim how that track was made and are never written to it.

Studio resident / The Stupid Piano

Make it stupid.

You're not bad at piano. The notes are just in a stupid order.

Cold as Bach supplies C harmonic minor. Press “Make it stupid” and MACCA keeps only the in-key notes—equal-width, labelled and ready to play.

Explore on piano. Harvest on guitar.

One click to no wrong notes

We kept the piano sound. We removed the piano problem.

Cold as Bach · C harmonic minor · Degrees

Context: C Harmonic Minor

Ready · press a key. No autoplay.

The real Stupid Piano instrument, reading only the published song's key context. Nothing here records, saves or writes back to Cold as Bach.
Make all composers compliant again

The joke is optional. The instrument works.

Open The Stupid Piano