The Mandolin Tool

The Mandolin Tool is a small audio program whose purpose is to help you work with chord charts for several instruments, like guitar, banjo and mandolin. In addition, you can make use of a metronome, tuner and audio player.

User interface

The application welcomes you with a minimalist panel from where you can select the type of instrument that you are interested in, namely mandolin, banjo, guitar and ukulele.
Each instrument can be controlled from a separate window. However, the set of features is similar for all instruments so you can make an idea of how to work with them very quickly. You can open all instruments’ windows at the same time.

Chords, scales, metronome and tuner

The Mandolin Tool lets you choose between different chords and scales for each instrument, create your own chords and save them, and zoom in or out of the chords.
The utility comes packed with a metronome for helping you find the rhythm and allows you to choose between different tempo values. The tuner lets you work with the A, D, E and G strings, and adjust the pitch.

Audio player and tuner

The built-in audio player gives you the possibility to open MP3, WAV and WMA files directly in the tool’s interface, seek for a position in the audio streams, play or stop the current audio selection, and adjust the speed without altering the pitch.
The audio player lacks advanced features for helping you create a list with multiple songs, drag-and-drop items directly in the main window, and go to the previous or next selection, just to name a few suggestions.

Final verdict

All things considered, The Mandolin Tool comes with basic learning tools for those who want to become musicians. On the downside, the program hasn’t been updated for a while so it runs on older Windows operating systems like Windows XP, Vista and 7.