Stage mode
Tapping a song opens the performance screen. It is the one place in the app designed to be operated with a guitar around your neck, from two metres away.
Five display modes
The same song can be shown five ways, cycled through in turn:
| Mode | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Chords | The ChordPro body with chords above the syllables |
| Text | Lyrics only, no chords — for singers |
| The attached PDF with pinch zoom, an optional start page and fit-to-width | |
| MusicXML | Notation with its own transposition at the notation level and the option to hide parts |
| Images | A gallery of photographed sheets with pinch zoom |
Each song remembers which mode you want it opened in. The setting is local — the guitarist can have chords on the same song while the singer has lyrics.
Auto-scroll
- Countdown before start — a short countdown runs before the text moves, so you can take a breath. The default delay is 3 seconds and can be changed in settings.
- Speed on the fly — adjustable on stage without stopping.
- In a session — when the leader starts auto-scroll, members start from the same position at the same speed. If someone is elsewhere, the position is closed with a smooth glide rather than a jump.
Moving between songs
| Gesture / action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Swipe left / right | Moves to the next or previous song in the setlist |
| Page scroll | Jumps a screenful of text down or up |
| Pedal | Any of the above, depending on your mapping |
Transposition
MusicXML has its own separate transposition at the notation level — chord text and notation shift independently.
Chord diagrams
| Instrument | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Guitar | Fretboard with frets and barre |
| Ukulele | The same for four strings |
| Bass | The same for bass tuning |
| Piano | A keyboard with the notes marked, inversions included |
It recognises major and minor chords, sevenths (dominant, minor, major), sus2, sus4, diminished and augmented.
Metronome
| Setting | Where |
|---|---|
| Click out loud | Settings → Metronome |
| Count-in before start | none / 1 / 2 / 4 bars |
| Try it | Plays a sample |
The count-in is useful when starting auto-scroll — a bar is counted first, then the lyrics begin to move.
The metronome across the band
Each beat is computed from the start rather than by adding an interval to the previous one, so the metronome does not drift even over a long song.
Backing tracks
A song can carry several audio stems — a click in your in-ears, the mix to the PA — played from a bar on the stage screen. Only the position in the recording travels over the network, not audio, so everyone hears their own mix and still runs together. Auto-scroll can be tied to the position in the track, and then scrubbing takes the text with it.
A pane beside the song
On a tablet or a computer there is room left beside the text. One of four panes can go there:
| Pane | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Setlist | The song list — switch without leaving the stage |
| Metronome | Tempo and count-in |
| MIDI | Manual MIDI commands |
| Pre-gig check | Findings from the last check |
View and zoom
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| View lock | Locks zoom and panning so you cannot knock them while playing. Unlocked by default |
| Single page in landscape | In landscape a PDF shows two pages side by side by default. This option switches it to one |
| Persistent zoom | Zoom on PDFs and photos is saved with the song, so you do not have to find it again every time |
Stage appearance
The stage has its own theme, separate from the rest of the app. Five presets are available:
| Preset | For |
|---|---|
| Dark | Clubs, evening light |
| Light | Daylight, rehearsal |
| Sepia | Softer contrast for long reading |
| High contrast | Poor lighting, poor eyesight |
| Custom | Four colours of your own, HEX codes included |
In the custom preset you set the background colour, the lyric colour, and the chord background and chord text colours separately.
Control buttons
- Size — from discreet to easy to hit
- Opacity — so they do not get in the way of the text
- Order and visibility — hide the buttons you never use
- Custom button — assign it the action you reach for most
During a gig
- The screen stays on. It is kept awake in stage mode and during an active sync session.
- Annotations. You can draw on the text with a pen and a highlighter — see Annotations.
- Stage cues. The leader can push a "SOLO", "LAST CHORUS" or "END" overlay to everyone else.
- MIDI. Opening a song can send a command to your rig — see MIDI.
- Missing attachments. If you are missing sheet music for a song, you can request it from the band straight from the performance screen.
- Android in the background. During an active session a foreground service runs, so sync survives the screen going off and switching to another app.