What is Melody Maker?

Melody Maker lets you compose short melodies using a visual grid editor. Place notes on a timeline, choose instruments and tempo, then play back or export your creation as audio.

The grid is a piano roll: each column is one beat (the playhead steps left to right), each row is a pitch in the chromatic scale. Below it sits a rhythm track with kick, snare, and hi-hat so you can build a full groove, not just a melody line. You can change tempo, shift the octave, switch between piano, synth, or marimba, and lock the grid to a Major, Minor, Pentatonic, or Blues scale so beginners stay in key. Transpose buttons shift the whole melody up or down a semitone, and playback loops by default. Export writes a 44.1 kHz WAV with the drums mixed in, and a separate MIDI export drops both the melody and a General MIDI drum track into any DAW for further production.

How to use

1. Click on the grid to place notes — each column is a beat, each row is a pitch from low to high.
2. Pick an instrument, lock the grid to a scale if you want to stay in key, and add a beat on the kick, snare, and hi-hat rows.
3. Press Play to hear your melody and drums together, nudge the whole pattern up or down with Transpose, then download it as a WAV or MIDI file you can drop into any DAW.

When to use

• Sketching a song idea or chiptune-style loop before opening a full DAW.
• Building short audio cues for a video, podcast intro, or game prototype.
• Teaching scales and intervals, showing students which rows form a major triad.

Result

A teacher creates a simple 8-bar melody in C major to demonstrate scale patterns to music students, then downloads the audio for classroom playback.

FAQ

Can I make chords or only single-note melodies?

Tap multiple notes in the same column to play them at once, so chords work. The grid is monophonic per row but polyphonic across rows, which is enough for triads, sevenths, and simple voicings.

What time signature is the grid, is everything in 4/4?

The grid counts beats rather than bars, so it isn't locked to a meter. Use a multiple of 4 beats for common time, 3 for a waltz feel, or 7 if you want an odd-meter experiment.

Is the exported WAV usable in a DAW?

Yes. The file is standard 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo WAV. It loads into Ableton, Logic, GarageBand, Reaper, FL Studio, or Audacity with no conversion needed, and you can resample or re-pitch from there.

Why does the synth sound thinner than the piano?

The synth is a simple sawtooth oscillator with a short envelope, while the piano is a multi-sampled instrument with natural harmonics and decay. Synth fits pads and bass lines; piano usually feels fuller for melodies.

Does increasing the tempo change the pitch?

No. Tempo only controls how fast the playhead steps through the grid. Pitch is tied to which row each note sits on, so a melody at 160 BPM sounds in the same key as at 90 BPM, just faster.

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