Connecting

OnSong Console is available to OnSong Premium subscribers or if you've previously purchased it as an add-on. To purchase, open the Utilities Menu and choose Account to view your options.

Enabling

To enable Console, go into the Utilities Menu and choose Console. Next, tap on the Enable Console button to turn on the web site on your iPad. The area below will show an IP address such as http://192.168.0.123

Loading

Type this web address into the location bar in a web browser on a computer that is connected to the same computer network. For instance, if you connect your iPad or iPhone to Linksys 5G, connect your computer to the same WiFi network. You may also be able to have a wired connection to the same network.

Troubleshooting

If you have trouble connecting to OnSong Console with your web browser, it is most likely caused by network or computer security settings on. Please review our troubleshooting guide if you have trouble connecting.

Whitelisting

To protect access to your OnSong library, you'll be prompted on your device to permit access to the web browser you are using. Tap on the Accept button to view the full interface and begin using OnSong Console.

OnSong uses cookies to allow the browser to connect again without prompting in the future. However, if you use another computer or web browser, you will be prompted each time to ensure your OnSong library is being accessed properly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some questions that you may have before purchasing, or when using OnSong Console.

Does Console work on Windows or just Mac?

OnSong Console works on both Windows and Mac, and most likely Linux too. It just requires a modern web browser that supports the HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards.

Do I need to purchase Console for every device I own?

No. OnSong Console is purchased either as an in-app purchase, or is included in your OnSong Premium subscription. These are both available on multiple devices as long as you are signed in with your Apple ID or OnSong account.

My computer is wired to my network, but my iPad is wireless. Will Console still work?

Yes. As long as both devices are on the same computer network, a wired connection or wireless shouldn't matter. However, some routers set up different networks for each of these access methods. You will want to consult your network equipment user manual for more details on merging the networks if there are issues.

Both my devices are on the same network but I only get a blank screen in my web browser. Why?

OnSong Console works by turning your iPad or iPhone into a mini web server which may not be appreciated by some networks. Please try the following if you are having trouble connecting to Console:

1. Ensure that your iPad or iPhone is on and OnSong is running. Console requires OnSong to be running in order to communicate.
2. Disable and enable Console from the Console screen in the Utilities menu, or restart your iPad. In some cases, the web address that is shown may not be correct, especially when switching between networks.
3. Make sure you are typing in the web address correctly. You must add the http:// before the four-part number called an IP address, and include the colon with the port number (5076).
4. Some corporate networks do not permit other services to be running. Check with your IT staff to see if you are allowed to run console in that environment. OnSong Console operates on ports 80, 5076 and 5077. Some networks may block traffic on these ports. Log into your router and be sure to allow these ports to be active on the network. Some corporate networks do not permit other services to be running. Check with your IT staff to see if you are allowed to run console in that environment.
5. If you are running a firewall on the computer, temporarily disable it to make sure that it is not inhibiting traffic.
6. Try a different network to see if that helps resolved the issue.

Can I use my iPhone or iPad hotspot connection instead of a WiFi access point to use Console?

Yes. Turn on the hotspot in your device's Settings screen and use the WiFi option. Bluetooth or USB will not work. Connect your computer to the hotspot network, and connect your device if it is not already the hotspot. Keep in mind that some carrier may charge you for hotspot connectivity.

My Console screen is telling me to type in 127.0.0.1:5076 and it doesn't work. Any ideas?

127.0.0.1 is essentially the iPad or iPhone referring to itself and is caused by the network IP address not being able to be resolved. Go into the Console screen and disable and enable the console again to see if that refreshes to a different web address. You can also go into the Share menu » Connect » Servers and use the IP address found under your device's name.

My Console screen is telling me to type in an IP address that starts with 169...* and it doesn't work. Any ideas?

IP addresses in this range are often generated in the event that proper DHCP (the assignment of IP addresses on a network) has failed. You may need to go into your network settings and renew the lease to force the network to assign a different IP address, if one is available.

Why is the "Follow" button disabled in OnSong Console?

The follow button in Console requires the operation of Web Sockets. This is a special way for two devices to directly communicate over a network. The Follow button is disabled when the OnSong web socket server cannot be started. This may be caused by too many devices using the socket port on the network or due to a network security setting.

What web browsers does Console work with?

OnSong Console is an HTML 5, web-based application. This means that it works on modern web browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Different browsers have their quirks and we are continuing to refine around these. Older versions of Internet Explorer will definitely have some issues.

I'm getting just the opening screen with the OnSong logo and it gets stuck. Why?

OnSong Console requires Javascript to be enabled in order to communicate with your device. Make sure that Javascript is enabled in your web browser's preferences and that no additional security plugins are preventing Javascript from operating.

Header

The header portion of the console interface appears at the top of the browser window. This contains the following elements:

OnSong Logo

The OnSong logo appears on the left side of the header to visually reinforce the web app. In addition, this logo's glow will pulse subtly when network operations are occurring.

Song Title

The song title appears prominently and changes as you select a different song in the Song List.

Save Button

The save button will appear once you've made a change in the Song Editor or in one of the palettes.

Lyrics Projection Button

Tapping on the lyrics projection button will open a new window suitable for running lyrics projection from within a web browser on a remote machine.

Help Link

This will link to the Console help web page on the OnSong web site.

Lyrics Projection

Tapping on the lyrics projection button in the Console will open a new window that displays the configured background and lyrics. This allows you to display lyrics from a remote computer and operate it with OnSong running on an iOS device, or through the console if the leading is enabled.

Full Screen Mode

Drag the window to the external screen you'd like to target and click in the body of the window. This will cause the window to enter full screen mode. You can then press ESC on the keyboard to exit full screen mode. Keep in mind that full screen mode acts differently depending on your browser and platform.

Navigation

When the lyrics window is enabled, you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move between sections.

Background and Styles

Currently all changes to the look of the lyrics projection must be performed through the External Video Menu from inside the host device.

Palettes

OnSong Console uses palettes to let you select and specific information. Palettes are like floating menus that can be repositioned on the screen. You can open and close palettes by using the menubar or the x icon in the upper right corner of the palette.

You can learn about each palette below:

Add Book Palette

This palette allows you to add new books to your library and is accessed through the Add Menu in the Sidebar.

Add Set Palette

This palette allows you to add new sets to your library and is accessed through the Add Menu in Sidebar.

Chords Palette

Gives you options for transposing and capoing chords, as well as controlling how chords and diagrams appear on the screen. This is similar to the bottom of the Style Preferences Menu. This palette is accessed from the menubar in the Song Viewer.

Import Files Palette

This palette lets you import one or more files from your computer and is accessed both from the Add Menu in the Sidebar as well as the Add Button in the Song List.

Insert Palette

This palette allows you to insert chords and section labels into the song and is accessed from the menubar in the Song Editor.

Metadata Palette

This palette allows you to change the metadata information about the song and is accessed from the menubar in the Song Editor. This is similar in function to the Metadata Editor found in the Song Editor within the OnSong app.

New Song Palette

This palette lets you create a new song from scratch and is accessed both from the Add Menu in the Sidebar as well as the Add Button in the Song List.

Style Palette

This palette lets you change how your songs lyrics and chords appear and is accessed via the menubar in the Song Viewer.

Text Tools Palette

This palette lets search and replace and alter the chord format of the song being edited. This is accessed through the menubar in the Song Editor.

Add Book

This palette allows you to simply set the name of the book to create. Type a name and click Create Book. You can then select the book from the sidebar to view the Song List in order to add new or existing songs to the book.

If you do not specify a name for the book and create it, no book will be added to your library.

Add Set

Use this palette to create new sets in your library. Simply enter a date or an optional title.

To select a date, either type it in the field or tap on the calendar icon to open a date picker. If you do not select a date, the current date is used. If you do not type a title, the full date will appear as the title of the set in your library.

To create the set, click on Create Set.

Chords

The chords palette provides tools for changing how chords appear in the chord chart. This affects both transposition, appearance, and chord diagrams.

Style

Typically chord charts use alphabetic characters to define chords. OnSong can convert alphabetic chords into numeric ones to better suit musicians that play using a number system. The selected style is highlighted. Choose from one of the following chord styles:

• Alphabet uses letters A-G with sharps and flats to indicate precisely what chord should be played. If using different chord localizations, this may also include an H. Default.
• Nashville uses a decimal numbering system which indicates the chord number based on the root chord of the key. In addition, this method uses symbols for different chord variations.
• Roman uses upper and lowercase Roman numerals for chords. Major chords are represented in uppercase while minor chords are lowercase. Symbols are also used to indicate different modes such as a minus symbol for minor.
• Solfege uses do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do instead of numbers. Symbols are used to indicate different modes such as a minus for minor.

Transpose

Use this slider to transpose the song to any key. The key of C is placed on the far left and the key of Cb is on the far right. You can use the arrow keys to make fine-tune adjustments the key you would like to pick.

The power icon on the right turns transposition on and off. If turned off, and if no capo is applied, then no transposition is performed. This will display chords just as they appear in the Song Editor.

Capo

This slider allows you to apply a capo to the song. Slide from 0 to 11. This will modulate the chords of the song down to maintain the key of the song when a capo is applied. You can change the direction of this modulation in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo » Capo Modulates

You can turn the application of the capo on and off using the power icon on the right side. This allows you to maintain a capo and determine if you want to apply it or not depending on the instrument you are playing.

Diagrams

This section of the chords palette is used to toggle the chord diagram display on and off. Use the slider to adjust how many diagrams appear across the page. You can select a number between 4 and 10. Use the power icon on the right to toggle the visibility of chord diagrams on and off.

You can change how and where chord diagram appear in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Chord Diagrams.

Diagram Position

The diagram position chooser lets you determine where diagrams and drawn on the page. You can choose from:

• None turns off chord diagrams. Default.
• Below draws diagrams under the song content.
• Above draws diagrams above the song content directly below the title and metadata.
• Within draws chord diagrams in place of chords within the lyrics.

Instrument

This section allows you to select the instrument to use when displaying chords. The selected instrument is highlighted. Choose a different instrument to have the chord diagrams change to the selected instrument.

Transposing Instrument

If you are playing an instrument that does not play at concert pitch, you can adjust the chords that appear throughout the song to adjust for those instruments. Options include:

• Off used for concert pitch and most stringed or percussion instruments like piano.
• B-flat used for B-flat instruments such as trumpet, clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano and tenor saxophones.
• E-flat used for E-flat tuned instruments such as soprano clarinet, or alto and baritone saxophones.
• F used for F tuned instruments such as French and English horns.
• G used for alto flute.

Note: Making changes in this palette does not affect the song content but is applied in addition to the original song.

Import Files

This palette allows you to import one or more files at once into OnSong. Click on the Select files... button to open a file chooser window. Browse and select a file to import. Use the shift, command and control keys on your keyboard to select more than one file to import.

When you are all done, click on the Choose button in the window. Console will automatically upload and import those files into your library and show you the import status below the Select files... button. You can then close the palette to continue editing.

Please note that OnSong will only permit Supported File Formats to be imported into your OnSong library.

Insert

The insert palette is used to insert chords, line formatting, and section labels into a song. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert chords or on the line where you'd like to apply line formatting.

Chords

As you write new chords in the text editor, they will appear here. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert the chord and then click on a button to insert the chord in that location. Position of the cursor differs for each chord format:

• Bracketed Chords requires the cursor to be placed within lyrics where you would like the chord to be played.
• Chords Over Lyrics requires the cursor to be placed above lyrics and positioned above lyrics using spaces.

Font Style

Click on a color to insert color codes at the front of the line. You can also toggle the bold and italic buttons to insert those line formatting codes as well.

Highlighting

Click on a color to add highlighting line formatting code to the front of the line. The white option will remove the code.

Labels

Common section labels appear in this section. Tap on one to name the current section.

Metadata

The metadata palette automatically updates its fields as you select songs in the Song List. Change the contents of the fields to have OnSong update the metadata section of your song. This palette includes these fields:

Song Title

The title of the song.

Artist

The name of the artist or the byline to output under the song title.

Number

A number used to lookup the song in numbered music collections like hymnals.

Keywords

Keywords or topics to enter for the song. This is used in the By Topic tab in the Songs Menu.

Key

This sets the key of the song. If the key had been already set and there are chords in the song, this will also rewrite the chords of the song into that key.

You can also change the mode of the key to minor by clicking on the "m" button on the right side. The song contents are not rewritten when toggling between major and minor keys.

Capo

Sets the recommended capo level for the song.

Tempo

Set the tempo using this slider. Remember that you can click on the arrows to the left and right of the sliders to fine-tune adjust the values.

Time Signature

Click on a button that represents the time signature of the song to be written in the metadata section. If you do not want a time signature outputted, click on a selected time signature again to remove it. If the time signature you need is not in the list, congratulations on your rhythmic genius. Because of your skills, you'll just need to write the time signature yourself.

Duration

This is the time duration of the song. Set this to a default to enable autoscrolling with the approximate speed. This can be expressed as hh:mm:ss or numeric seconds.

Flow

This is the flow of the song used to arrange the parts of the song into a top-down fashion. Please see Flow for more details.

Copyright

This is the copyright line of the music. This will appear at the bottom of chord charts as well as in lyrics projection.

CCLI Song

This is the unique identifier for registering the song with CCLI SongSelect reporting. This will appear at the bottom of the chord chart on screen as well as at the bottom of lyrics projection.

Restrictions

These are a list of restrictions that are used to limit what recipients of the song can do with it. Please see Restrictions for a list of possible options.

New Song

This palette allows you to create a new song for editing in the Song Editor where you can type lyrics, chords and then save to your library on the device.

To create a song, type in an optional title and artist name and then select either Create OnSong or Create ChordPro from the buttons below. This will create the template song in the Song Editor and open the Metadata Palette for you to custom the song content.

Style

The style palette is used to change the way the chord chart looks in the Song Viewer. Use this to change the font, size, visibility, and color of different parts of the chord chart.

Font

This section contains toggle buttons that allow you to choose the typeface in which your chord chart should appear. Press the font button to make a change. The current font selection is highlighted.

Title

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of the title of the song. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of the title on and off.

Metadata

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of metadata of the song. This includes the artist name, key, capo, tempo, and time signature.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of metadata on and off.

Section Labels

This slider allows you to change the size and visibility of section labels which are used to display a label for the upcoming lyrics and chords such as "Chorus" and "Verse".

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of section labels on and off.

Lyrics

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility lyrics in the song. Lyrics comprise all content in the song other than chords such as musical instruction, section labels, etc.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of lyrics on and off.

Chords

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of chords that appear above or within lyrics. Chords are detected in the song or have been surrounded with square brackets.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of chords on and off.

Line Spacing

This slider is used to adjust the spacing between text in the chord chart. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the line spacing. You can use the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount.

Chord Highlight

You can choose the highlight chords in your chord chart using this color picker. Click on the color of the highlight you desire. It will display under the chord in 50% opacity, just like a highlighter. Choosing the white color option removes the highlight.

Chord Color

This section allows you to change the color of the chords as well as their appearance. Click on a color in the color picker to change the color of the chord text. Choosing black uses the default text color which is black or white depending on the selected low light mode.

You can also toggle italic and bold appearance on and off for the chords as needed for extra visibility.

Text Tools

The text tools palette is used to perform operations on the text content of the song. This can help you change text quickly or switch and fix chord formatting.

Search and Replace

This section of the text tools palette is used to search and replace text in the Song Editor. This is useful for replacing words or chords when using bracketed chords. For instance, you can change all instances of [A4] to [Asus4].

To use, type the search value in the first field and the replace value in the second field. Then press the Perform Search/Replace button to perform the operation.

Chord Format

This section includes toggle buttons that allow you to switch between the two supported formats. If there are any square brackets located in the song content, the Bracketed Chords button is selected. Otherwise the Chords Over Lyrics button is selected. Press the opposite button to reformat the text content into the desired chord format.

It is useful to switch the bracketed chords when splitting or combining lines. This is because the chords will travel with the lyrics in this case. You can then switch to chords over lyrics if you would like to position chords in a more visual manner.

Fix Spaces

This section provides a single-use tool for correcting issues that may occur when converting text from a word processor. You may find that chords are pushed to the right and beyond the lyrics they used to reside over. This is due to variable-width fonts that require many more space characters to align chords above lyrics.

Press the Fix Alignment Spaces button to have chords detected and the space between the chords reduced by a specific amount. This usually will align the chords very close to their original positions when viewed in a word processor or printed. From there you can more easily adjust the chord positions.

Sidebar

The sidebar is where you can view and manage your collections, books, and sets in OnSong Console. To access the sidebar, tap on the icon in the upper left corner that appears as three horizontal lines. This will cause the sidebar to slide in from the left. Tapping on an option in the sidebar will collapse the sidebar and reveal the Song List contained in your selection.

The sidebar is organized in a hierarchy in these three categories:

Collections

This contains the All Songs and Unbound Songs collections that you're familiar with in OnSong. Tapping on All Songs will display all songs in your library in the Song List. Once you select an option here, the sidebar disappears to reveal the songs list. You can import songs in the song list, or by right-clicking to reveal the Add Menu.

Books

This contains all books that are used to organize songs in your library. You can tap on the arrow icon on the left to expand to reveal books. If you have no books in your library, no arrow icon appears. You can add a book by right-clicking on Books to reveal the Add Menu to add songs, books, and sets.

Sets

This contains the sets and folders that you use to play songs for a specific event. Tap on the arrow icon to reveal set folders. You can expand All Sets to view all sets in your library. To view a set, tap on the name. To add a set, right-click anywhere to open the Add Menu to add songs, books, or sets.

Add Menu

You can add songs, books, or sets by tapping on the + button in the lower-left corner. This will reveal a menu where you can choose what to add to your library.

Add Menu

You can use this menu to add songs, books, and sets to your library. In addition, if the menu appears when selecting an item in the sidebar, you can also delete that item. The following actions are available.

Add Song

The add song menu item reveals two ways in which you can add songs to your library.

• Add New will open the New Song Palette where you can set a song title, artist, and create the OnSong or ChordPro format in the song editor.
• Import Files will open the Import Files Palette where you can select one or more files to be imported into your library.

Add Book

Selecting this option will open the Add Book Palette to enter a name and create the book.

Add Set

Selecting this option will open the Add Set Palette to enter an optional set title and date for the set to create a new one.

Delete

Selecting the delete option (where available) will delete the selected book or set from the library after a prompt. This option is not available when selecting the + button at the bottom of the sidebar.

Song Editor

The song editor contains tools and a large text area used to change the text-based content of the song.

The text editor component of this pane allows you to type content using the full-sized keyboard of your computer. As you type, the changes you make are reflected in the Preview Pane on the right. This gives you feedback on what the song will look like to avoid trial and error.

In addition to typing content in the text editor, you can also use palettes accessible from the toolbar to get the song looking just right. The toolbar buttons include:

Metadata

This toolbar button toggles the Metadata Palette on and off. Use this to set information about the song without knowing OnSong or ChordPro tags.

Insert

This toolbar button toggles the Insert Palette on and off. Use this palette to insert chords, section labels, and line formatting into the text editor.

Text Tools

This toolbar button toggles the Text Tools Palette on and off. Use this to change the formatting of the song or perform search and replace functions.

Delete

Click on this toolbar button to delete the song from your library. When you choose this option, you will be prompted prior to the song being deleted.

Convert

When you've imported a convertible file such as PDF or Microsoft Word, this option becomes enabled. Click on this to begin the conversion process on the host device. Once completed, the text editor is updated with the newly converted text.

Song List

The song list appears in the left-most pane of the web app and is used for finding and selecting songs to view and edit. Use one of the following to add, import, or edit songs:

Adding

The + button in the upper left corner displays a menu of options for adding songs to the list. From here you can create new songs, import songs from your computer, or add existing songs to existing books or sets.

You can also drag and drop files from your computer onto the song list to import them into your library.

Searching

The search bar gives you an area to type keywords. Press enter on your computer keyboard to filter the list by those keywords. You can then clear the search field to view all songs again.

Browsing

The majority of this pane displays a table of songs. Three columns provide common information for browsing songs including:

• Icon column displays an icon that was picked from the Organizer Menu. You can sort songs by this attribute by clicking the table header in the column.
• Song Title displays the name of the song. You can sort the list by song title by clicking on the column header. The song list is sorted by the song title by default.
• Key displays the key of the song if one is provided. Clicking on the table header above this column will sort the songs by key.

Click on a song to load it into Console. The song's contents will appear in the Song Editor and the song will be displayed in the Song Viewer.

Reordering

If you are viewing a set list, you can drag and drop songs in the list to reorder the set.

Deleting

You can delete songs from your library or remove them from the selected book or set by selecting the song and then pressing the Delete key on your computer keyboard. You will be prompted to ensure you don't accidentally delete the song. The song will then be either removed from the selected book or set, or deleted from your library.

Add Menu

Add songs in the Song List can perform different actions. For instance, you may want to write a new song, or import files from your computer. Additionally you may want to add songs to a set that are already in your library.

New Song

This option will open the New Song Palette where you can set a song title, artist, and create the OnSong or ChordPro format in the song editor.

Existing Songs

If you are viewing a book or a set, this option is available. Selecting this option will open a slightly different interface depending on your current selection.

• Books will open the Add Songs to Book interface for selecting songs to place in the book from your library.
• Sets will open the Add Songs to Set interface for selection songs to place into your set from your library.

Import Files

This option will open the Import Files Palette where you can select one or more files to be imported into your library.

Song Viewer

The song viewer pane displays how the song will look inside of OnSong. You can scroll this pane to view the entire song. Use the toolbar to toggle features and palettes on and off.

Note: If you are viewing a file that is not text-based, it is up to the web browser if and how the file will be displayed. Most web browsers can view PDF files in a browser window, but other documents such as Microsoft Word will be downloaded to your computer for viewing in a separate application.

Low Light

Click on this button to toggle low light mode on and off. Not only does this show you how the chord chart will look in the preview, but when you save your changes the host device will also switch to low light mode too.

Pages

Click on this button to toggle viewing the chord chart on physical pages. This will divide your song based on the Page Layout options you've set in settings. This can give you an idea of how the chord chart will print.

Lead

When you turn on lead, action you make in Console like changing songs, scrolling and selecting sections also take place on the host device. This allows Console to remotely control another iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Follow

When you turn on follow, Console will load the currently viewed song on the host device. In addition, the screen will scroll along with any changes made on the host device. This is handy for knowing the song that is loaded on the device.

Note that follow may not be available if your network disallows web sockets from running. Please try disabling and enabling Console again and refreshing the browser window.

Style

This opens and closes the Style Palette, allowing you to style how the song should appear in the preview and on the device.

Chords

This opens and closes the Chords Palette so you can transpose, capo, and change the way chords and diagrams appear on the screen.

View As...

When viewing external files such as a PDF, this will display the PDF in the preview pane. You can switch between that and the text-based version of the song similar to the Use the imported file instead of OnSong switch in the Conversion Toolbar of the Song Editor.

Download

Click on the down arrow to choose a format to download the chord chart in. This will use the host device to create the file so be sure to save your changes first.

Print

Click on the print button to have the host device generate the print-ready PDF file and print it from your computer. This will prompt you to save your changes before printing.

Download Menu

When you click on the down arrow next to the download toolbar button, you can choose one of the following formats to download to your computer.

• Adobe PDF
• ChordPro
• HTML
• OnSong
• OpenSong
• Text File

Note: This uses the host device to generate the content so you will be prompted to save any changes prior to the file being generated.

Connecting

OnSong Console for Mac connects to your iPad or iPhone device using web-based standards. To make the connecting between your Mac and iOS device, please watch our video tutorial.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

Same Wireless or Wired Network

Make sure that both of your devices are connected to the same computer network. Most routers support both wired and wireless connections. While iOS devices typically are not connected to a network with an Ethernet cable, your Mac may be. Just make sure both are connected to the same network.

Share Your Library With Others

As a security precaution, you need to enable OnSong to share your library with other devices. To do this, open the Share Menu and then open the Connect Screen. On the Servers Tab there is a Share your library with others switch that must be enabled.

Network Security Settings

Keep in mind that network security settings can hamper a proper connection between the Mac app and the iOS device. This connection uses OnSong Connect technology. This works by setting up your iOS device as a web server and announces itself on the network using multicast DNS, sometimes referred to as Bonjour or mDNS. Some network routers may not support this protocol, or it may be limited due to other network restrictions like firewalls.

Check with your network administrator if you experience issues, or try another network to see if that resolves the connection problem.

Overview

Let's get familiar with the user interface:

Title Bar

The top of the screen provides basic window management as well as the Navigator which allows you to switch between devices, books and sets.

Songs List

On the left side of the screen is a list of songs that are retrieved according to what is selected in the Navigator. In addition, this area provides a search bar, sort bar and the add button for importing and creating new songs.

Song Editor

The center area provides a text box and palettes for modifying the underlying content and information about the song.

Song Viewer

The viewer is located on the right side of the screen and displays either the rendered text-based chord chart or the imported file associated with the song.

Title Bar

The title bar appears at the top of the screen and provides for basic window management and content navigation.

From right to left, it includes:

Window Management

On the left side are the standard three OS X buttons for closing, minimizing and maximizing the window. Closing the window does not close down the application. To close down the application, you need to close it from the Menubar. Minimizing the window will minimize into the OS X dock. Maximizing the window will take the application full screen in OS X. To make the window the size of the current display, press the OPTION key when clicking on this button.

Navigator

The navigator is used to switch between devices, books and sets.

Save Button

The save button highlights once changes are made to the selected song. Tapping on the save button will send changes to the selected device to save those changes.

Pane Controls

The three buttons on the right are used to toggle the visibility of each of the application's panes. The position of these buttons corresponds with the song list, song editor and song viewer accordingly. You can click on the button to hide the pane and then click again to show it.

Note: You can also adjust the size of each pane by dragging the divider between the panes.

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Technical Support

OnSong provides email-based support for paid users of OnSong. So whether you have purchased OnSong in the past, purchased OnSong Pro, or are a member of OnSong Essentials or Premium, we can help assist you. To get help, just go into the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon in the Menubar and then choose Communicate and then Get Support.

If you're already a subscriber, your name and email will be filled in and you can provide a brief subject overviewing the issue you have as well as a more in-depth description that describes how we can replicate the issue you are having. This screen will automatically backup your library including your settings, and send them to our help desk staff along with the currently selected song, set, and book. This will allow us to see the issue you are having and provide resolution as quickly as possible.

OnSong does not provide telephone support. We have found that telephone support does not provide us with the details we need to help resolve most issues and also does not allow us to send vital resources such as attachments, images, or video that can help resolve your issue.

If you are an OnSong Premium member, you can access the same support system but opt to enable the Fast Track option. This will move your request to the top of our list and notify our team directly of the issue. We work to ensure our loyalty users get the best service we can offer.

Ad Free

OnSong is a free download from the App Store that lets you try many of the features of the app before you subscribe. In addition to offering a free trial with a Premium subscription, OnSong also lets you try individual features by watching an advertisement.

When you access an Essentials or Premium feature that requires a subscription, you'll encounter an overlay.

Join or Renew Button

The main button lets you join and sign up for a subscription. This could also offer a free trial or renewal depending on the requested feature and account state.

Sign into Existing Account

If you are using a new device, you may just need to sign into your account to access features. You can tap here to sign in and access the features.

By Watching this Ad

You can also tap to view an ad to access the feature to preview it. After the ad is finished, you can access the feature. Each feature will only be available for a limited time until another ad must be viewed.

Tap to Learn More

You can tap below to read more information about the feature in the user manual.

Energy Management

OnSong is designed for professional on-stage use. To that end, while running OnSong keeps the screen on and prevents the device from going to sleep. While this ensures that you have constant access to your charts, sheet music, and other musical assets, it can mean that your battery might not last for hours and hours. We've built some great tools for prolonging the battery on those long sets.

Dimming

While you may want the screen to stay on indefinitely during a performance, you may have times what you walk off the stage but can't shut down OnSong to preserve the battery. For those moments, OnSong can automatically dim the screen brightness as this accounts for a large portion of power draw.

Sleep

By default, OnSong will automatically stay running while in the foreground. To avoid draining your battery, you can automatically dim the screen. OnSong will restore the screen brightness as soon as you tap the screen, use a foot pedal, or other input is received.

Library Management

Library management is a collection of features that let you manage your repertoire and how you play. These include:

Libraries

What if one library of music isn't enough? You can manage completely separate libraries for different users or different bands.

Reporting

Keep track of what songs you played when. This can help you with copyright usage reporting or simply to play more variety.

Settings

Adjust settings to customize OnSong to fit your musical needs.

Live Performance Pack

The live performance pack is a collection of features that are perfect for using OnSong during live performances. This includes:

Autoscroll

Turns your device into a hands-free teleprompter, scrolling through your songs from top to bottom.

Cue

Announces parts of the song as they are selected. This can be integrated with in-ear monitors for a digital music director.

Flow

Arrange your songs so they scroll from top to bottom while repeating sections like choruses and bridges.

Heads-Up Display

Provides more information in the menubar like the next song, the timer, or backing track progress and volume.

Messages

Sends messages to your team using stage monitor mode or wireless streaming.

Moments

Allows you to turn your set lists into full run sheets with scheduled breaks or events.

Pitch Pipe

Plays a tone or tones to help start the song so you sing in the right key.

Quick Pick

Take requests and quickly add songs to your set with a tap.

Timeline

Trigger actions at specific times. Use this to record your playback and send MIDI events at the right time.

Viewport

Focus in on specific sections of the song when loaded or using actions.

OnSong® Cloud

OnSong® 2024 brings cloud connectivity to OnSong to make collaborating with your team easier. This includes:

OnSong® Drive

Your OnSong® Subscription now gives the ability to store and transfer files as you would with other services. Use OnSong® Drive to export and import files to yourself or your team.

Backup

Backing up your OnSong® App Library is an essential step in being ready to play at a moment's notice. The OnSong® App now backs up your library automatically to the cloud using your OnSong® Account.

Sharing

We've made it easy to share sets with your team whether they are nearby, or away. OnSong® Cloud takes the guesswork out of the best way to keep your team organized.

Backup

OnSong 2024 automatically backs up your library when you leave the app unless you've selected a different settings previously. The backup file is stored in OnSong® Cloud in your account for each device. If you sign into a device with the default blank library, OnSong will prompt you to restore one of your backup files by showing the restore backup screen.

Restore Backup

This screen appears when you first start OnSong with a default library. For instance, when you create a new library the screen will appear.

Configure Backup

Backing up your library to OnSong® Cloud is enabled by default, but you can change your backup strategy by opening the Backup Screen in the Utilities Menu.

Storage

Your OnSong® Backups take up storage on your OnSong® Account. Learn more about the amount of storage available to you and how to manage it.

Restore

The restore backup tab gives you quick access to your OnSong® Cloud backup files as well as the ability to import OnSong Backup files from other locations like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.

Devices

Each device that you use is displayed as a section. Within each section is the library that has been backed up. The name of the library is displayed prominently and the date and time the backup was made appears below. You can place a checkmark next to a backup to enabled the Restore button.

Restore

Tap on the Restore button in the upper right corner to restore the selected backup. This will prompt you to either overwrite your existing library, or to create a new library. If you'd like to restore to a specific library, you will need to select that first in the libraries menu.

Storage

The amount of storage you have available in OnSong® Cloud appears at the bottom of the screen along with the amount that is current used. Your avatar also appears in the toolbar on the bottom right. Tapping on this will open the Account Details where you can view more details or switch accounts.

R2 Engine

The core of the OnSong® App has always been its ability to display different types of content, especially text-based chord charts. In OnSong 2024, we've completely rewritten the rendering engine to work across platforms while retaining the same look that you've come to know and love. We call it R2 and it's packed with new features that you've requested:

2-Columns

OnSong can display the your content using two columns. You can simply turn that on in the Style Preferences Menu Document Tab to have OnSong layout your content in a more compact manner.

Inline Formatting

OnSong has allowed you to format lines using line formatting. You can now use a familiar syntax to format words and phrases within each line. We've even added some new formatting options like underline and back slant.

Hyperlinks

The new renderer can recognize URL web addresses and automatically link them. Tapping on a link in the chart will display it within the app. It's its a video, it will begin to play inside of a video player that can be minimized and viewed picture-in-picture along side the OnSong user interface. You can even name the link to make it even cleaner.

Pagination

The new rendering engine draws the chord chart by extending the size of the virtual paper it's drawn on. However, you can also enable pagination to view your chart just like it would look on paper. This also affects how columns are laid out.

Position Chord Diagrams

The new renderer can align chord diagrams to the left or right side of the chart as well as above, below, or within. This makes for an even better way to experience your music or print your charts.

Text Formatting

The new renderer works in conjunction with new, advanced text formatting for applying styles to all songs, or being more specific and stylizing individual sections or components of the song. Want to format Verse 2 differently than Verse 1? We got an easy way to do that!

Platform Agnostic

While not something that seems like a feature, R2 is a single renderer that replaces different versions in OnSong. That lets your charts look the same whether they're viewed in the app, online, in print, or on future versions of the app. It also gives us a solid foundation for building in the future.

Right-To-Left Language Support

For musicians using OnSong in Hebrew or Arabic, the new rendering engine supports right to left output. This is determined based on the language of the imported text file.

R2 is not guaranteed to view or print your content exactly like the original renderer. For this reason, it is not enabled by default but will be used if you explicitly choose to, or if you enable new features that require it.

Sharing

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Single Sign-On

Signing in or signing up to use OnSong is easy using Single Sign-On. Not only have we simplified signing into Your OnSong® Account, but you can also use other services to authenticate with OnSong.

Sign Into OnSong

Your OnSong® Account gives you access to features and services. Sign in with your existing OnSong® Account or create a new account.

Sign in with Apple

If you don't want to set up a new password for an OnSong® Account, you can easily sign in with your AppleID using FaceID or TouchID. OnSong will automatically use or provision an OnSong® Account for you.

Sign in with Google

If you use Google apps and workflows, you may find it easiest to sign into your Google account. Use this to sign in using your Google account that then signs you in or provisions an OnSong account for you. It even signs you into Google Drive.

Sign in with PraiseCharts

If you have a PraiseCharts account, you can quickly sign in using your account there. We even sign you into PraiseCharts for accessing your library and content. You can even sign up for a PraiseCharts Pro Access Subscription for on-demand chord charts.

If you've purchased OnSong 2020 or earlier from the App Store, you can install your purchased version if you don't want to subscribe to new versions and features.

Text Formatting

OnSong lets you stylize and format your text-based chord charts to fit your needs. Text Formatting gives you finer control over each aspect of your chart. All of this is done through the Style Preferences Menu. Here are some ways you can format your content.

Text Styles

Beyond just changing font size, you can now apply more formatting options like font color, background color, and bold or italics to each aspect of your chord chart. Just tap on the new style preview button to display formatting options beneath.

Section Formatting

Not only can you choose the font size of various components like the header versus lyrics, but now you can also format each section separately. You can just add what sections you want to format on the Style Preferences Menu Format Tab.

System Formatting

Many users like consistency, but changing how all your chord charts look. can be challenging. You can now set up the visual preferences of your charts using the new System tab. You can then customize just what you want to for a song. This lets the styling options of the song to be made using layers of style modifications.

Annotations

Sometimes chords and lyrics are not enough to communicate how to play a song. In that case, the annotations menu can help. Tap on the additions icon in the menubar to access the annotations tab. Annotations are notes or drawings that can be placed on the chord chart. OnSong includes the following annotation options in this menu:

Annotation Library

Use the context menu on annotations to place them into your annotations library. You can then open the library to add those saved annotations to other documents.

Clip

Clips let you import pictures or create graphics, crop them to place on your chord charts and sheet music.

Drawing

The drawing annotation lets you draw on the page using a pen or highlighter.

Sticky Note

The sticky note annotation allows you to place colored, square notes on the page.

Text

The text annotation lets you break out of the sticky note box and just type on the page.

Clear All

Tapping on this option will remove all annotations from the song page. You are prompted before this takes place since it is not reversible.

Manage Storage

OnSong is much more than a simply chord chart viewer. It's a full-featured stage performance management app that lets you project lyrics, play backing tracks, show videos, mix MultiTracks, and much more. Because OnSong lets you manage so much, some of those files can take up a lot of space on your device. That's why we've built storage management right into the app.

You can open the Manage Storage screen from either the Audio Media Library or the Background Media Library.

Condense Media

When you import some media like MultiTracks or uncompressed audio, they can take up a lot of space. Whether you do so manually or automatically, OnSong can condense that media in a variety of ways.

Automatically Condense

By default, OnSong will not automatically condense your media. If this is enabled, OnSong will periodically check to look for unused media assets and condense them.

Backup File Includes

Because media can be so large, certain media items are excluded from the backup file by default. You can adjust what gets backed up here.

Estimated Storage

This area will show you the size of the entire media library and the estimated size if full condensed. You can manually condense the entire media library by tapping on the Condense Media Library button at the bottom.

Automatically Condense

OnSong can automatically condense your media library by reviewing media items that have not been used and automatically condensing them in the background.

To do this, you'll need to choose a timeframe. If the media item was not used in that timeframe, it will be condensed. You can choose from:

Off

This is the default option and disables automatic condensing of media.

1-3 Weeks

Media that has not been used for a one to three weeks will be condensed.

1-6 Months

Media that has not been used for one to six months will be condensed.

1 Year

Media that has not been used for one year will be condensed.

Condense Settings

OnSong can condense media in a number of different ways depending on the type of media and how it was downloaded. OnSong will condense the media with the selected method.

By Reducing

This is the default option and will compress audio into the M4A format. This will reduce the size of the media in storage about 10x meaning a 100 Mb file will become about 10 Mb. This is a lossy compression so if the file was downloaded using a supported provide, OnSong will attempt to redownload the asset. This is the best option as it allows the asset to be used if the download is not available or the Internet is not accessible.

By Deleting

This condense settings will always delete the underlying asset whether it can be redownloaded or not. The file will not be reduced.

By Deleting or Reducing

If the asset can be redownloaded, it will be simply deleted so it takes up no storage. If you try to use the asset again, it will be redownloaded from the original source. If the media cannot be redownloaded, it will be reduced using lossy compression.

Include Media Types

Backup files contain everything in your OnSong library like your songs, sets, styles, settings and media. However some media can be quite large and make a backup file a bit difficult to manage. You can choose what types of media are included in the backup file here including:

Audio

This includes all types of standard backing tracks with compressed or uncompressed audio whether MP3, M4A, WAV, AIFF, that are added to the Audio Media Library.

MIDI

MIDI files don't take up a lot of room, but they are a type of media that you can import and manage in the Audio Media Library.

MultiTracks

MultiTracks contain multiple, uncompressed stem files and can be incredibly large when imported into the Audio Media Library. Most MultiTracks can take up between 500 Mb and 1 Gb of space when uncompressed and ready to play. Because of that, OnSong does not include them in the backup by default.

Images

This includes all types of still images that are added to the Background Media Library.

Video

This includes all types of video and motion graphics that are added to the Background Media Library.

MultiTracks

OnSong lets you link backing tracks to your chord charts and sheet music, allowing you to play along for practice and performance. But these can be somewhat limited in that you have one mix available to use and no click track to keep you on the beat. MultiTracks are backing tracks that contain multiple tracks of audio, one for each instrument, as well as a click and often a cue track that allows you to mix the music to your needs and listen with in-ear monitors to the click track.

Sounds complicated? While there are ways to use MultiTracks during a performance, many of them involved additional hardware and special software that is designed for audio engineers. In OnSong, playing multitracks is just like playing normal audio tracks.

Importing MultiTracks

Since MultiTracks contain multiple files or "stems", they can't be delivered as a simple MP3 file. Instead, they are often bundled together in a compressed ZIP archive. OnSong is designed to peek inside those ZIP files and determine if it's a multitrack and if it is, it goes in your Audio Media Library. This means you can download multitracks from a variety of websites, or make your own.

But we've made it even easier by partnering with MultiTracks for Worship and PraiseCharts so you can sign into your account and download multitracks directly from those services too.

Playing MultiTracks

Playing a multitrack is super easy. You just press the play button in the live bar just as you would a normal backing track. It's that easy. We automatically mute the click and cue tracks so it sounds like a normal backing track.

Mixing MultiTracks

Importing and playing multitracks is super easy, but you can do more with them. We've added the Mixer Widget that you can open from the Track Picker or from the Audio Media Library. From there you can mute channels or change the mix.

Using MultiTracks Live

Once you're listened to a MultiTrack, you'll want to add in the click and cue. Obviously you don't want these for everyone to hear so you'll want to make sure to play those through in-ear monitors for only you to listen. You can use the Settings screen in the Mixer Widget to customize how the click and cue tracks are outputted, auto muted channels and more.

Unlimited Imports

OnSong is available as a free download that can be unlocked with different subscription tiers. If you're using the free version, you're limited to 30 songs in your library. In addition, users of paid accounts can share sets with you that don't count against that quota. When you sign up for a paid Essentials or Premium subscription, you get an unlimited number of imports as well as all the features available in that tier.

Viewports

Viewports like you focus in on a specific part of your content. You can easily zoom into a specific area of the page and save the viewport. That way the next time you view the song, you'll be at the right starting point. You can also create multiple viewports and switch between them within the viewports menu, or recall them with a foot pedal by using actions. It's all up to you!

Viewports Menu

To create and switch between viewports, open the Additions Menu and then choose the Viewports tab at the bottom. From there you can create new viewports, switch between them, and mark viewports as primary so they are used when you first view the document.

Configure Actions

You can configure actions to navigate to specific viewports for a variety of triggers like foot pedals, MIDI, or screen taps.

Clips

Use clips to import images and place them on your chord chart or sheet music. This could be anything such as an image of pedal settings or PDF score notation.

Adding

Tapping on the clip option in the annotations menu will open the clip edit and prompt you to import and image to begin.

Editing

Double tap on the clip to open the Clip Editor. You can also tap on a note to select it, and then tap on the edit button in the lower right to edit as well. On the lower right corner is a trash can icon. Tapping on this when the note is selected will delete the note from the page.

Placing

Once the clip is added to the page, you can tap to select the clip and then tap again to drag it. You can also use two fingers to tap and drag as well as rotate and scale.

Note: Clips are positioned relative to the size of the page. This means that if you add significant amounts of text to the song, or use Flow to arrange the song to be longer, the clip will likely shift position to accommodate for this change in height.

Audio Triggers

OnSong enables you to perform different actions within the app when triggered. Triggers can simply tapping on the screen or pressing a foot pedal. As a musician, you may have a need for OnSong to listen to audio input through the device's microphone or using an audio interface. For instance, you can set up an audio trigger that "hears" when you tap on the edge of your iPad. This could trigger the Tap Tempo action that can be used to set the tempo of the current song. Additionally, you could have this listen to a click track to do the same thing. Of course the possibilities are endless and OnSong can be configured to listen on multiple channels for different actionable inputs.

Configuring audio triggers happens in settings. To set up an audio trigger, go into the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon in the Menubar and then choose Settings. Then navigate to the [Navigation Settings]](/docs/interface/menubar/utilities-menu/settings/navigation-settings/) and Audio Inputs. From here you can set an action for each channel as well as the sensitivity or level that must be reached before the action is triggered. You can also invert this so that OnSong listens for no sound instead.

MacOS App

This is so much more than just a feature of OnSong, it's a whole new app! You can now download OnSong 2022 on any Mac running Big Sur or newer. This includes both Intel-based and Apple Silicon M-series Macs. While we've worked hard to maintain the same familiar user experience, some things have been changed to make OnSong work its best on the desktop.

Menu

When you launch an application on a Mac, it appears in a window and has an associated menu that appears at the top of the screen. OnSong is no different. Learn about menu options as well as keyboard shortcuts.

Windowed Interface

The main OnSong window displays the familiar chord chart, but also maintains the familiar menubar at the top of the window. You can make this window nearly any size, or use the window controls to go full screen. In addition, Lyrics Projection and Stage Monitor are also handled with windows that can be opened and closed using the Window Menu. You can move these to external displays and enable fullscreen.

Gestures

Mac laptops and workstations don't have multitouch screens. However these touch gestures translate fluidly into scroll and swipe gestures available on the trackpad and mouse. For instance, use the scroll gesture or scroll wheel to navigate lists or two-finger swipe on the trackpad to swipe through songs. You can also click on the screen to navigate the song viewer just as easily.

Context Menus

We've added context menus throughout OnSong to let you perform actions on item. In iOS/iPadOS, you can view context menus by tapping and holding on an item. In macOS, you can right click or CTRL+click to show the context menu.

Keyboard Shortcuts

On the Mac, the keyboard and trackpad/mouse are the preferred user input device. We've worked to add intuitive keyboard shortcuts to OnSong to make using it with the Mac even faster.

Not Supported

The Mac version of OnSong uses Mac Catalyst to bring the power of our iOS/iPadOS app to the Mac for the first time. But that doesn't mean that everything available in the iOS/iPadOS app is available within the Mac version. This is usually because the Mac does not support the option, or because a framework that we use has not been updated to work on a Mac.

Menu

The Mac version of OnSong contains a menu at the top of the screen that gives you access to application wide actions. Let's take a look at each menu and what's available.

OnSong

This is the default application specific menu available to all Mac applications.

File

This menu provides common import/export features as well as print and a way to close the app.

Edit

The edit menu gives you actions that can perform on text.

Format

The format menu gives you tools for formatting text.

View

The view menu can be used to show and hide user interface components.

Window

The window menu lets you enabled and disabled windows such as Lyrics Projection and Stage Monitor mode as well as other typical window functions.

Share

The share menu lets you share the current set or collection in various ways.

App Menu

The application menu is named after the app and has the following options.

About OnSong

This shows the name of the app as well as the version.

Preferences...

Certain user preferences are available here but you can adjust full OnSong settings in the app.

Services

This displays a list of services installed on the operating system.

Hide OnSong

This is used to hide the application and place it in the dock.

Hide Others

This will hide all other applications except for OnSong.

Show All

This will show all application windows.

Quit OnSong

Use this to quit the application.

Edit Menu

The edit menu provides common features for editing text.

Edit Song

This option will open the song editor for the currently viewed song.

Undo/Redo

These options enable when you are editing a song allowing you to undo and redo changes you've made.

Cut

This option allows you to cut text, removing it from the text field and placing it into the pasteboard.

Copy

This option allows you to copy text, retaining it in the text field while placing it into the pasteboard.

Paste

This option will insert or replace the current selection with the formatted value in the pasteboard.

Paste and Match Style

This option will insert or replace the current selection with the value in the pasteboard, using any styles of the surrounding text.

Delete

This option will delete the selected text from the text field.

Select All

This option will select all text in the text field.

File Menu

The file menu gives you fast access to create and import new songs.

New Song

This option will either open the Template Chooser to pick a song template to create a new song, or open the Song Editor with a blank song if no templates are available.

Add Songs

This option will open the Add Songs screen where you can choose how you'd like to import songs.

Import...

This option will open the macOS file chooser where your an select one or more files to import.

Library

This option contains child menu options that let you backup and restore your library.

• Backup Library will create a backup file of the current library and then open the Save File Dialog to choose where to save the backup file.
• Restore Library will open the Open File Dialog so you can choose an OnSong backup file to restore to the current library.

Print

Opens the print preview screen where you can make adjustments to how OnSong prints the selected songs.

Close

Use this to close the app.

Open Dialog

On the Mac, you can open files using the built-in native file open dialog. This lets you choose common locations in the Favorite section on the left. You can then move around using the path selector at the top, view your files in different ways, and generally navigate to the folders and files you'd like to open.

When more than one file can be selected, you can hold down the SHIFT or CMD buttons on your keyboard to select multiple files. When you've selected the file, either click on the Open button or double-click on the single file to select. Tap Cancel to close the dialog.

Save Dialog

This screen appears when OnSong needs to save a file to a location on the Mac. You can click on the pull down to choose a different location, or expand the chooser by tapping on the down button next to the pulldown. Additionally, you can change the name of the file (but not the file extension) here as well. Click on the Save button to save the file, or click on the Cancel button to close the dialog.

Format Menu

The format menu provides tools for formatting text. Many of these options are not available currently in the app.

Bigger

This option will increase the size of the font in the song viewer.

Smaller

This option will decrease the size of the font in the song viewer.

Share Menu

The share menu gives you quick access to sharing options for the currently selected set or song.

Email

This option will open the Email screen with the currently selected song or set ready to be emailed with the default file format attachments.

Export

This option will open the Export screen with the currently selected song or set ready to be exported to the default location.

View Menu

The view menu provides options to view content in the active window. Some options are currently unavailable.

Find Song

This option will open the Quick Pick screen to search your library and load the song into the song viewer.

Enter Full Screen

This option is available to the active window and will automatically make the screen take up the whole screen and hide the window chrome and controls.

Window Menu

The window menu provides options for managing windows in the app.

Main Window

This is the main OnSong screen that contains the song viewer and the main user interface. You can tap to toggle this window on and off. You can drag and resize the window into the main screen or external screens. OnSong will retain the window size, position, screen, and fullscreen status.

Lyrics Projection

This option toggles the lyrics projection window. You can drag and resize the window into the main screen or external screens. OnSong will retain the window size, position, screen, and fullscreen status.

Stage Monitor

This option toggles the lyrics projection window. You can drag and resize the window into the main screen or external screens. OnSong will retain the window size, position, screen, and fullscreen status.

Minimize

This option will minimize the currently selected window into the dock.

Zoom

This option will cause the window to take up all available space on the current screen. You can choose this option again to go back to the original window size.

Tile Window to Left/Right Side of Screen

This option causes the window to be sized to fit in half of the screen and moved to the left or right side accordingly.

Move to Screen

This option will appear when more than one screen is available, allowing you to move the selected window to different screens without dragging and dropping it there.

Bring All to Front

This option will take all windows that have been placed under other applications to the foreground.

Typeahead Search

Finding what you're looking for quickly is paramount when you are performing live. OnSong's typeahead search feature helps get you to your content fast. Because your library is stored locally, there's no delay when browsing or search your library, even with thousands of songs! This method of search is found throughout OnSong too whether you are search sets, settings, etc.

The search bar appears in various places throughout the app and is prominently located at the top of the screen right below the main navigation bar. The search bar remains constant so you need need to scroll to find it. Tap into the field and start typing to begin searching. OnSong will start searching the title of songs for the text you type. Type up to three characters and OnSong will search for songs that begin with what you type. So if you want to find songs that start with "T", just type "T". If you want to find songs that start with "Th", you can type that too. If you type more than three characters, OnSong will locate songs where the title contains what you type. So if you type "Love", you'll see "Can You Feel The Love Tonight".

If no results are found using this method, or if you press the Search or Return keys on your keyboard, OnSong will perform a full-text search. This means that OnSong will find songs where the lyrics or metadata contain the search term.

The results are displayed with the search term underlined in the list.

Actions

One of the first steps to automating your stage presence is actions. Actions are the things that can be done in OnSong such as scrolling down through the song, or flipping to the next song. Actions are performed by triggers which are the events that take place that cause the action. For instance, pressing a foot pedal on the floor would trigger an action like turning the virtual page.

Of course, that's the tip of the iceberg. OnSong has over 150 actions you can assign to each trigger, giving you boundless opportunities. With OnSong Premium, you get features like Double Tap and Multiple Actions to perform more actions with less hardware. It's as simple as assigning an action to a trigger.

Here's a look at some of the triggers where you can assign actions:

Foot Pedals

OnSong supports many wireless foot pedals from companies like AirTurn, CODA and PageFlip. This means you can finally put your foot down and get some action.

Smart Buttons

If you have enough going on with your feet, you may want to use Flic, a smart button that works over Bluetooth. Featuring microsuction mounting, you can place this on your instrument and perform up to three actions per button.

Screen Taps

Even if you don't have the budget or desire for more hardware, you can assign actions to regions of your screen, giving you control with just a tap.

MIDI

The very mention of this acronym can make even the most seasoned musician tremble, but MIDI gives you the power to fully automate your instruments and audio devices. In the most simple form, you can listen for signals from your instrument and have OnSong do all the things.

Sticky Notes

Sticky notes give you the ability to keep notes like what pedal board or keyboard patches you need to change. But what if you could tap on the note and have OnSong automatically configure your instruments and equipment instead? You can map actions to a sticky note press to automate your stage.

Triggers

Many actions are performed by your input. But what if you want to perform an action when something else happens? You can do that too. For instance, you can start a backing track as soon as you flip to another song.

Moments

Moments let you add other events to your set list, turning it into a run sheet for event management. Moments can be added to an existing set by tapping on the compose button next to the + button in the lower right corner.

When you add a moment with a duration, you are prompted to set a start time for your set. This will result in scheduled times being displayed to the right of each item in the set. This time is calculated from the duration of the moment of the song.

Adding Moments

To add a moment, tap on the compose button in the lower right corner to choose from a list of preset moments.

Editing Moments

Once you select a present moment, or if you tap on a moment when in editing mode, you can change your moment including its title, icon, color, and duration.

AirDrop

AirDrop is an wireless file transfer protocol by Apple that works with newer iOS devices as well as Mac computers running OS X Yosemite that are from 2012 or later.

With AirDrop you can both import files from a computer or another iOS device as well as export just as easily. Use this to add songs to your library, create printouts when an AirPrint printer is not available, or to export your set list to a band member.

Broadcasting

Musicians today want to be able to reach their listeners both live and online. Live-streaming performances has become commonplace as a way to reach a global fan base. In addition, e-learning has become a necessity in today's global economy. OnSong lets you share your screen with popular video conferencing apps, all from a single device!

To get started, open the Share Menu from the Menubar and then choose the Social option. From there, choose Broadcast top open the system broadcast picker.

Be sure to watch the tutorial video to learn how to use broadcasting to reach your audience with your favorite apps!

Bumpers

OnSong enables you to scroll through yours songs and through your entire set with just a press of a foot pedal. Though this is convenient, it could mean accidentally navigating to the next or previous song in your set.

Bumpers give you protection from these accidents by notifying you that the next pedal press will navigate you to the next or previous song. In addition to showing you to the song title, it also provides key and capo information so you can prepare. When you reach the end of the set, it will let you know too so if you have any triggers assigned to the beginning or end of the set.

Bumpers appear in a semi-translucent box that is based off the app color. This looks good and is visible when running in and out of Low Light Mode.

While some users may appreciate this extra safety, others may want to disable it to avoid additional pedal presses. You can do this in Settings » Navigation Settings » Foot Pedals » Show Bumpers. You can also adjust this setting in the Foot Pedal Settings Menu.

Chromecast

Engaging your listeners is an important part of your musicianship. For houses of worship, this means having the ability to project lyrics for congregational singing. Most churches invest in separate computers, wiring and expensive software that requires a volunteer to operate. This means more time spent planning services and checking lyrics. But what if you can skip expensive software and hardware upgrades and display lyrics right from the stage inexpensively and wirelessly?

OnSong has a powerful lyrics projection feature with composite images and motion backgrounds. With the new scenes feature, you can even dynamically style lyrics projection and lighting for each song or section of a song. Simply connect your device to an HDTV or projector with a wired adapter, AppleTV, and now with Google Chromecast. So no matter where your projector or TV is located, you can run lyrics without any additional wiring.

Chromecast can only be used to project lyrics. It cannot be used to show chords and lyrics in stage monitor mode.

Document Scanner

The document scanner is an OnSong Premium feature that lets you use your device's camera to import songs into your OnSong library. You simply line up the camera with pages on a table or music stand. The document scanner finds rectangles that look like paper and snap the shot. It automatically perspective corrects your pages.

Prerequisites

The document scanner is available in OnSong 2020.0 and requires iOS/iPadOS 13 or higher because of the advanced computer vision that is being used. You'll also need to have OnSong Premium to use this feature.

If you don't see this in your Add Songs Menu, tap on the + button to add it to your customized import sources.

Scanning Pages

The document scanner takes over your enter screen to use your camera in augmented reality to capture pages.

Making Adjustments

You can make adjustments in the camera to handle changes in the environment. For instance, if you are on a dimly lit stage, turn on the flash button to enable the rear flashlight to illuminate the paper.

Reviewing Pages

Use the menubar that appears that the bottom of the screen with your scanned pages to make adjustments to each page, more bad scans, reorder pages, and finally import the document into your library.

Importing

Once you're satisfied with your scanned document, tap on the Save button in the right corner to import the document as a PDF file into your library.

Importing

Coming soon...

Page Editor

Tapping on a thumbnail of a page displays the editing toolbar where you can access a number of tools including:

Crop

This tool loads the photo that was taken and displays the selection as a rectangle shape. You can use tap and drag on the four corners to better crop the page as well as make corrections for perspective distortion. During this process, you may also opt to try again by tapping on the Retake button. Keep in mind that the document scanner cannot adjust for curvature in the pages, only perspective correction.

Color Mode

Tap on the color mode button to choose from a different color mode including:

• Color is a full color scan and is useful for showing high-contrast text along with colors. This may sacrifice accurate color reproduction for better legibility of text.
• Grayscale is used for documents that are printing with black, but may have various levels of shading.
• Black & White is used for text-only documents and may result in higher contrast and become easier to convert into text-based documents using optical character recognition.
• Photo is used for scanning photographs and will result in the use of more accurate color, but is not good for scanning textual documents.

Rotate

Use this tool to rotate the scan into the proper orientation. Tapping on this tool shows you the cropped and perspective-corrected scan and lets you rotate it by 90 degrees.

Delete

If you've accidentally scanned a page you don't want, just tap on the trash can icon to delete the page.

Reviewing Pages

Once you've scanned your pages, they appear in the menubar at the bottom of the screen. Here you can go in and edit each page. Once you're happy with the document, tap on the Save button to create a PDF file and then import the file into your library.

Cancel

If you've changed your mind, just tap on the Cancel button to close the document scanner without adding the document to your library.

Editing Pages

Tap on the thumbnails in the menubar to open the Page Editor. In here you can make changes to the crop, rotation, and color mode as well as delete or retake the picture for that page.

Importing

Once you're happy the scan, just tap on the Save button to import the scanned document into your library as a song.

Scanning Pages

The document scanner takes over your enter screen to use your camera in an augmented reality interface to capture pages. Here are some steps to make sure you get the best results.

Best Practices

Here are some tips for getting the best quality scans.

1. Make sure that your case or cover is not blocking the camera.
2. Place your paper on a flat surface such as a table, the floor, or a music stand.
3. Ensure the paper is as flat as possible to avoid warping as the system corrects for perspective.
4. Use good lighting to ensure the highest contrast ratio between the paper and text.
5. Use other controls on the left to adjust the image using flash, mode, and shutter.

Capturing the Page

As you move the camera, the computer vision system will identify rectangles in the scene. If the rectangle is determined to be a piece of paper, the scanner will automatically take a picture. You can also tap on the camera button on the bottom or side of the screen to initiate a photo.

Multiple Pages

As you capture pages, they will appear in the menubar at the bottom of the screen. You can flip through multiple pages for a single song. You can always go back and make adjustments.

Drag and Drop

iOS 11 has changed the way we interact with our iPads with drag and drop. You can now drag and drop items within and between apps using intuitive gestures. Drag and drop is integrated throughout OnSong so you can use it to:

Import Songs

You can drag files of supported formats into the OnSong songs menu to add them to your library. Drag them into Books to create a new book or simply into All Songs to add them to your library. You can even drag them into a Set.

Reordering Items

Wherever you can reorder items in a list in OnSong, you can use Drag and Drop instead. Just tap and hold and then drag your items to where you like.

Organizing Your Library

You can also use drag and drop to organize your library. Drag songs into a book or set to find a new way to manage your repertoire.

Exporting Files

You can then drag and drop songs, sets, books and even your library into other apps such as the iOS 11 Files app as a faster, more intuitive way to export your content.

You can disable Drag and Drop within OnSong in Settings » Menu Settings » Use Drag and Drop Interface.

Drag and Drop is only available on iOS 11 or higher running on an iPad.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a popular cloud-based storage service that works great with OnSong. You can use Dropbox to move files between all of your devices no matter where you are. Save your PDF, Word, or text-based chord charts to a Dropbox folder on your computer. In a few moments you can import those files using OnSong. You can also export files to Dropbox to have them instantly available on your computer and in the cloud.

It's free to sign up for Dropbox and receive a free 2 gigabytes of data storage. There are also subscription plans to expand your storage as your needs grow. In typical usage, 2 gigabytes of storage is plenty of space for using with OnSong.

Sign Up

To sign up for Dropbox, visit the Dropbox website, sign up, and then install software on your computer. OnSong does not require that you install the app on your device.

Import

You can easily import files from Dropbox using the Dropbox import source. Sign in, browse your Dropbox and choose songs to import. It's that easy!

Export

Use the Share Menu to Export your songs and sets to different file formats. Just use the Location Picker to upload your files to Dropbox.

Sync

You can even synchronize your OnSong library to Dropbox, allowing you to use the same songs and sets on another device.

External Video

OnSong is designed to make full use of a connected video device to extend OnSong beyond mobile devices.

Adapters and Devices

Learn how to connect your device to a video device with a wired video adapter or wireless with AirPlay.

Lyrics Projection

Display lyrics to the chord chart you are playing, all controlled from your device on-stage.

Stage Monitor

Keep your entire team on the same page by turning video monitors into a virtual music stand run from a single device.

Screen Mirroring

If you are creating video tutorials, or want to see the full interface of OnSong on an external device, turn on screen mirroring to use the operating system's built in mirroring mode.

Screen Mirroring

When you connect an external video device to an iOS device, it mirrors the content of your screen directly onto the other video device. This is great for sharing what you see on the screen with others. Use this for giving presentations, or with video capture software to create tutorials.

OnSong takes control of any connected video device for projecting lyrics or displaying music charts on stage. This allows OnSong to use the entire screen, as well as control resolution and orientation. User interface components don't get in the way either.

If you want to prevent OnSong from taking over the display and use the built-in screen mirroring found in iOS, go into Settings » Live Settings » External Video » Screen Mirroring and turn this on and tap Done. When you are done with your presentation or recording a video tutorial, you can turn this back on.

Note: You may need to restart OnSong for this to take effect.

Video Devices

Connecting your device to a projector or HDTV requires some extra equipment. This depends on the device that you have and the application. Pick one of the options below:

AirPlay

Stream video content from your iOS device to an HDTV or projector wirelessly using AirPlay. This requires an AppleTV connected to an HDTV and a reliable WiFi connection. No Internet connection is required.

Digital A/V Adapter

You can hard-wire you device to a video device that supports HDMI connectors. Purchase the adapter from Apple for the device you have.

VGA Adapter

If you have an older monitor system or projector, you may need to resort to an analog VGA connection. Purchase the appropriate adapter for your device.

Note: Devices older than the first generation iPad do not support external video devices. The first generation iPad does not support video over AirPlay.

AirPlay

AirPlay is an Apple technology that can stream audio and video content wirelessly to another device using WiFi. This requires a reliable WiFi network as well as a receiver device. Here's what you'll need:

Apple TV

The preferred method for receiving video content in OnSong is an Apple TV. This puck-sized device connects to a video device using HDMI and requires external AC power. Set it up on your WiFi network and connect it to your TV for high definition video playback.

Enabling AirPlay

Connecting to AirPlay requires an additional step that is as easy as plugging in an adapter. Follow these directions to enable AirPlay on your device and start streaming video.

Enabling AirPlay

Enabling AirPlay is slightly different on devices depending on their iOS version. Follow the instructions below to enable AirPlay video.

iOS 7 and later

Swipe up from the bottom of your screen to access the control center. Tap on the AirPlay button that appears when connected to a WiFi network with an AirPlay device. Next, tap on the device that you would like to connect to. For video-enabled devices like Apple TV, you must then turn on the Mirroring switch that appears. This will send the video of the device to the Apple TV.

iOS 6 and earlier

In iOS 6 and earlier versions, double press on the home button to open the multitasking tray. Swipe to the left to reveal playback controls as well as an AirPlay button. Repeat the steps above to select the device and enable mirroring.

Audio Only

You can also connect in the same way to audio devices. For instance, you can use an AirPort Express as a WiFi access point and to stream audio wirelessly.

Digital A/V Adapter

The digital A/V adapter allows you to connect your device to an HDMI cable and then to a video device like an HDMI splitter, projector, or HDTV.

Lightning Port

Modern iOS devices feature the smaller and reversible Lightning port. Be sure to get the Apple Lightning to Digital A/V Adapter.

30-pin Dock Connector

If you have an older device with a 30-pin adapter, you'll need the Apple Dock Connector Digital A/V Adapter.

Note: Both devices also include an additional port to charge the device while in use. Only the 30-pin model allows you to also synchronize to the device through the USB cable.

VGA Adapter

A VGA adapter allows you to connect your device to a VGA cable and then to a video device such as an analog VGA splitter, projector, or computer monitor.

Lightning Port

Modern iOS devices feature the smaller and reversible Lightning port. Be sure to get the Apple Lightning to VGA Adapter.

30-pin Dock Connector

If you have an older device with a 30-pin adapter, you'll need the Apple Dock Connector VGA Adapter.

Note: Only the Lightning VGA Adapter features an additional port to charge the device while in use.

Extract Text

OnSong can import and view a wide variety of file formats, but works best with text-based chord charts, allowing for chord transposition, text formatting, and lyrics projection. Converting existing files can be a challenge. OnSong provides tools to make converting these file formats easier.

Adobe PDF

Many users have PDF files available that they have used in their paper binders for years. The Adobe PDF file format is great for accurately representing the printed page and is portable between different computer platforms.

Images

You can import photos and other files using the JPEG, PNG, and TIFF file formats. These are images that are displayed "as-is" but may be able to be converted into text if they are from a scanned document.

Word Processing Files

OnSong can view many popular word processing files such as Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, and the Rich Text Format (RTF). These are viewed "as-is" but can usually be converted to text-based chord charts.

Fast Track

OnSong takes customer support seriously. But with nearly a million users around the world, it may take some time to get back to you with personalized support. If you're an OnSong Premium member, go straight to the head of the line with Fast Track.

For the fastest support, open the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon in the Menubar and then choose Communicate » Get Support. Fill out your email address and name as well as a brief explanation of the issue. Be sure to provide steps our support staff can use to replicate the issue. Include what you expect to happen versus what is happening.

At the bottom of the screen is a switch which allows you to turn on Fast Track. When you send your request, OnSong support staff will be notified directly to review your case and provide near immediate response times.

Flow

Flow is a feature that allows the basic components of a song (verses, choruses, bridges and more) to be arranged in a particular order. OnSong then displays those parts of the song to create one continuous page. This allows the song to be experienced in a linear fashion by scrolling from the top down.

The system is very flexible and requires you only to label the sections of your song. You can then use an abbreviated version of the flow, or a more verbose version to allow even more options like displaying musical instructions at just the right time in the song.

Flow can be defined either as metadata in the song content, or in the Song Flow field in the Playback Menu. Please see information on the Flow Tag for details on how to express flow.

Gears

What are Gears?

As a musician, you already have enough keys, pedals, buttons, knobs, and strings to worry about. Gears turn one set of foot pedals into many more without all the on-stage clutter. Press one pedal to "shift" into another gear and access more options.

Configuring Gears

Configuring gears can be done in the Foot Pedals Setup screen by tapping on the Gears Icon in the bottom right corner.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a popular cloud-based service for storing and editing your files and documents online. You can use Google Drive to transfer files between all of your devices no matter where you are. Save your PDF, Word, or text-based chord charts to a Google Drive folder and then import those files using OnSong. You can also export files to Dropbox to access from other devices like your computer.

When you sign up for a free Google Drive account you receive 15 gigabytes of storage. There are also subscription plans to expand your storage as your needs grow. In typical usage, 15 gigabytes of storage is plenty of space for using with OnSong.

Sign Up

To sign up for Google Drive, visit the Google Drive website.

Import

You can easily import files from Google Drive using the Google Drive import source. Sign in, browse your Google Drive and choose songs to import. It's that easy!

Export

Use the Share Menu to Export your songs and sets to different file formats. Just use the Location Picker to upload your files to Google Drive.

Sync

You can even synchronize your OnSong library to Google Drive, allowing you to use the same songs and sets on another device.

Libraries

When you first start using OnSong, you import and manage your songs in a library. The library comprises all of your songs, sets, books, settings... everything! For most, this is all you will ever need.

Libraries allow you to create completely separate instances of OnSong that are isolated from each other. This may be useful if you are using one device for multiple users, or never want to mix songs or sets from multiple bands.

You can access your libraries and manage them by opening the Songs Menu and selecting the Songs tab. Next, tap on Books button to view a list of your collections and books. You can then tap Back to see the Libraries Menu.

Live Video

More than ever, musicians are reaching their audiences through live-streaming. OnSong has features that let you make an impact with engaging still or motion graphics, lyrics, and live video that doesn't break the bank.

Enable Live Video

Live video is an OnSong Premium feature that lets you use your camera as a motion background. You can enable live video by tapping the Live button in the External Video Menu to turn it on. You can configure your live video by tapping and holding on the Live button, or by tapping on the arrow button to open the Live Video Configuration Editor.

Broadcasting

With OnSong, you can broadcast your OnSong screen to video conferencing apps, right on your device! You can use the Lyrics Preview Widget full screen to show your audience your live video with effects and lyrics. Reduce the opacity of your Lyrics Preview Widget to show your chord chart underneath.

Video Capture and IMAG

You can also use the output of live video to output to an HDMI video capture card or video switcher to use the camera on your device for live-streaming and recording. You can even use it as a view for live video editing for IMAG (image multiplication) use cases.

Lyrics Projection

Doing more with less is one of the core tenants of OnSong. It keeps you organized on a sleek and mobile device, and provides all the tools you need right when you need them at an incredibly low price. It should come as no surprise that OnSong features lyrics projection too.

Many Uses

While larger churches already have expensive lyrics projection software and equipment, smaller and mobile churches can benefit from lyrics projection in OnSong. For instance, your small group or house church may use OnSong to lead worship and display lyrics on an HDTV.

Music therapists have been using lyrics projection to help their clients sing again. Whether it's to bring people into worship, or to help people heal from disease, lyrics projection is a powerful tool that lets you control lyrics while playing live.

Configuration

You can configure lyrics projection using the External Video Menu. From there you can set up different modes, as well as background colors, images, or even motion videos. There are also other options and settings located in Settings » Live Settings » External Video » Lyrics Projection.

Hands-Free Operation

Once you've connected a video device (HDTV, projector, etc.) to the device running OnSong, you can tap on the sections of lyrics you want to display on the external video device. Another method is to use the hands-free features of OnSong to control lyrics as well.

Arrange your songs from the top down using Flow and then use Autoscroll to have the song scroll from the top to the bottom over a certain amount of time. This will also select the sections as they come into view and display lyrics!

For even more control, use foot pedals. If you are using foot pedals in addition to lyrics projection, OnSong will scroll the song by jumping from section to section. If you are using other pedal models, you can set up OnSong to scroll by section in the Foot Pedal Settings Menu found in the Foot Pedal Setup Screen.

Motion Graphics

You have the option to configure colors, gradients, custom images, and even motion graphics as your background. Images can be imported from your photo library, and motion graphics can be added or even purchased via the Image Media Picker.

MainStage

OnSong is a powerful MIDI controller that lets you control your rig in a manner that's contextual to each song. This means that you can have your patches and effects ready to play just by going to the next song in your set list. Apple's MainStage is a Mac app you can use to add sonic depth to your music. With pre-designed templates like those from Sunday Sounds, you can use OnSong in a very intuitive way.

Connecting to a Mac Laptop

There are many ways to connect your iPad or iPhone for controlling MainStage on a Mac, but none are as simple as IDAM. IDAM stands for Inter-Device Audio and MIDI mode which uses the sync/charge cable that came with your iOS device. To use this, simple connect your iOS device to your laptop using the USB charging cable. Next, go into your Applications folder and open the Utilities folder to find the Audio MIDI Setup app. Once open, view the Audio Devices window and locate your iOS device. Tap on the Enable button adjacent to the device on the list. This will allow audio to flow from your iPad to your computer and also allow MIDI to be sent to and from your iOS device to your laptop.

IDAM allows for a simple connection without additional hardware. If your needs are more advanced or you need to use the Lighting or USB-C port on your device for other functions, you can choose other ways to integrate with MIDI devices.

Changing Patches

You can easily change patches in MainStage using MIDI program changes. Program changes are used to communicate changes to how your instrument sounds. MIDI combines this with bank selects, permitting selection of thousands of options. Setting this up is a simple two-step process.

In MainStage, select a patch in from the Patch List while in Edit mode. Locate the Patch Settings panel in the lower center of the screen and choose the Attributes tab. Find the Program Change option and checkmark it. You can then use the controls on the right to set a number between 1 and 128. You can optionally choose a bank select using the field above program change.

In OnSong, you need to set the program change to the song. You can do this in text-based chord charts by tapping and holding on the title of the song to open the Section Mapping Menu. You can then tap on the + button in the lower right corner to add a MIDI event to be sent. Choose Program Change and then set the number to match when you typed in MainStage. Tap Done to save your changes and add the MIDI to the list. Now when you swipe to that song, the MIDI information is sent and MainStage will change to that patch.

Synchronizing Tempo

Patches can use tempo to change drum beats, arpeggios, and delay effects. When you're using a product like Sunday Sounds, you want to be able to dynamically adjust the tempo to keep with the band. OnSongs lets you easily keep track of your song's tempo which can be sent using MIDI Clock. It's just a two step process to set this up.

In MainStage, click on your concert at the top of the Patch List while in Edit mode. Next, locate the Concert Settings panel in the lower center of the screen. Click on the Timing tab and place a checkmark next to the Get Tempo from MIDI Input option. This will tell MainStage to listen to the MIDI clock to acquire tempo.

In OnSong, tap on the gear icon in the Menubar to open the Utilities Menu and then tap on Settings. Tap on MIDI Settings on the left and then locate the Sync section on the right. Turn on the MIDI clock option. Now when you switch songs, OnSong will adjust the MIDI clock to set the tempo in MainStage.

*Note: Use MIDI clock only on wired MIDI connection as wireless connections like Bluetooth and WiFi introduce latency that will cause the MIDI clock and tempo to shift.

Multitasking

OnSong lets you make the most of an iPhone or iPad on stage. Watch these tutorial videos to learn more about ways you can use more than one app at a time to enhance your performance.

Run In Background

OnSong prevents the screen from sleeping while running so you can use your hands for playing music instead of trying to keep the iPad awake.

Typically apps shut down when you leave the app. OnSong is efficient on your battery, but will continue to play music even if you leave the app. You can also set OnSong to run in the background for more advanced tasks.

Multitasking

Newer iOS 9 devices like the iPad Pro can run more than one app at a time in split screen mode. Fully supports slide over and split screen multitasking simply by swiping your finger from the right side of the screen to the center.

OnSong also supports playing video tutorials with picture-in-picture so you can watch the video while you are using OnSong or other apps on your device.

OnCue

OnCue is the name given to wireless sharing in OnSong. This is different than OnSong Connect, in that it uses Apple's wireless sharing frameworks to allow for sharing over Bluetooth. This provides the ability to beam and stream content to devices running OnSong without the use of WiFi.

About

Since OnCue is built on top of Apple's frameworks for wireless, peer-to-peer connectivity, there are a few things to consider as well as some limitations.

Beam

Beaming is the process of sharing the currently viewed song or set with nearby users. Once received, those users will need to navigate and scroll through the song on their own.

Stream

Streaming allows the user who sets up the streaming session to control the connected devices. This will send song content and navigation signals to the connected devices.

Beam

The wireless sharing screen displays nearby devices that are running OnSong. While all devices are checked by default, you can check or uncheck devices to receive the currently loaded song or set.

Tap on the Share button in the upper right. You will be prompted before the set is sent. Recipients will receive a prompt inside of OnSong asking if they would like to receive the set. They can accept or decline the song or set. Transferred songs and sets will appear the same as they do on the source device with styles, transposition, annotations, etc.

You can also set up an OnCue streaming session by toggling the "Enable OnCue wireless streaming" switch on the bottom. This will invite the selected devices to join the wireless streaming session for you to control the display on their devices.

Lastly, the refresh button in the lower right corner will refresh the list of devices by disconnecting you from the ad-hoc network and then reestablish that connection after a brief delay.

When you are all done, tap on the Close button in the upper right corner.

Stream

OnCue streaming allows one device running OnSong to control multiple devices. This is performed by each device creating and maintaining a peer-to-peer, ad-hoc network using iOS wirelessly sharing protocols.

You can start an OnCue streaming session by either opening the Wireless Sharing Screen and turning on the OnCue switch at the bottom, or by choosing the Start OnCue option in the Share Menu. This will invite users on other devices through a prompt to join the session.

Once enabled, the songs you view and any other actions such as navigation, autoscroll, and song style changes will be sent to the other devices automatically. Depending on your network speed and reliability, this may take a second or two to send. If a follower views a different song in their library, the navigational commands will not take place.

OnCue will send the content as it appears on the leader's device. Followers in the OnCue stream can opt to turn on a setting to allow their version of a song to be used instead. This can be found in Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Network Settings.

Both streaming and beaming content in OnSong may experience connection issues due to how wireless sharing is implemented in iOS. Please review the About section to find ways to accomplish a reliable connection.

Output Options

OnSong is built for flexibility. True to that goal is the ability for OnSong to output your songs and sets in the formats you need. By doing this, OnSong can make your life easier by giving you the flexibility to send your songs, sets, or song list in whatever format your team might need.

The Share Menu provides access to a number of methods for outputting your files (such as Exporting or Emailing). These screens have common elements for picking songs, configuring output options, and information about file formats that can be utilized.

File Formats

OnSong supports a number of file formats with which to export songs and sets. The following is a list of supported formats:

Adobe PDF

PDF is a standard file format that is used as a means to create digital paper output. OnSong can export a song or songs in the PDF format. When the "As a single file" option is turned on, a single multipage document is outputted.

OnSong uses the page size, orientation, and margins as provided in Page Layout Settings when exporting PDF files. Only text-based chord charts and other PDF files can be exported the PDF file format. If you have another file type in your set, that will be outputted as just the song title. Songs that use the PDF format will be appended to the document in the page size, orientation, and margins used in the original file. These files do not include annotations or sticky notes.

PDF files include a .pdf file extension.

OnSong

The OnSong file format is usually just the content as it is written in the Song Editor. This is useful for importing into another version of OnSong, or to save in order to make future changes. These files are plain text and have the .onsong file extension.

ChordPro

Choosing this format will export the song content using the ChordPro syntax. This can be used to edit and view the file ChordPro-compatible apps. This file format is text-based and has the .chopro file extension.

OpenSong

Choosing this format will export the song or set in the OpenSong XML file format. This can be used in other OpenSong-compatible applications for lyrics projection or library management. This file format is XML-based and has a .xml file extension.

HTML File

HTML files can be exported to view in web browsers on any platform. OnSong exports the HTML file to closely resemble the chord chart as rendered in OnSong. This does not include annotations. HTML files have a .html file extension.

Text File

This outputs the song content as a plain text file, placing chords on a line above the lyrics. Text files are plain text and include the .txt file extension.

Song List

The song list is different from other file formats in that it does not export the actual chord chart, but rather a list of every song in the set or which has been selected using the Song Picker. This list is in the HTML file format and contains a table with the song title, artist, key, and capo.

The song list is exported as an HTML file that contains a table of the following song attributes: song title, artist, current key, and capo.

OnSong Archive

The OnSong Archive is one the best-kept secrets in OnSong. This file format is binary and can only be read by other versions of OnSong. However, these files contain all the information necessary to display a song or set in another version of OnSong (including styles, settings, annotations, and external files).

The OnSong Archive file format includes the .onsongarchive file extension and can only be opened by the OnSong app.

OnSong Backup

Exporting an OnSong Backup is a must for any user who has spent significant time organizing and curating their song library in OnSong. The OnSong Backup format always stores a single file and always contains everything needed to restore your OnSong library to its original state. This includes user preferences and settings, songs, sets, styles, books, etc.

The OnSong Backup file format includes the .backup file extension.

Output Options Menu

This menu provides options to change how files are outputted from OnSong. It contains the following options:

Lyrics only

When exporting chord charts in various formats, you can turn chords off and only display lyrics. This is useful for printing song books for congregational singing or to send to vocalists.

As a single file

When a set or more than one song is selected to be outputted, OnSong defaults to sending multiple files, one for each song. Enabling this setting will combine the individual files into one, aggregate file. For instance, if the PDF file format is selected and the single file option is selected, one PDF file is generated with multiple pages which contain all outputted songs.

Different file formats handle exporting as a single file differently; outputting in this manner does not make sense for all formats.

Original key

OnSong uses a transposition engine which allows you to set the key of the song independently from the underlying song content. This key is outputted by default. If this option is turned on, the original key in the underlying song content is used instead.

As a ZIP file

When exporting multiple files, it may make sense to export as a ZIP file. This places all individually outputted songs into one file which can be extracted. When emailing multiple songs it is beneficial to turn on this setting since most email servers will block or omit attachments it does not recognize or that could be construed as a security threat. Sending ZIP files will typically work around this limitation.

Song Picker

The song picker menu displays which songs are to be outputted, as well as allowing for you to select more songs if desired.

Most of the picker menu is comprised of your song list. Here you can search and browse for songs. Tap on a song to place or remove a checkmark. Check marked songs will be added to the export list. You can also tap on the Select All or Deselect All buttons at the bottom to do just that.

When you are finished, tap on the Done button to change the songs to be outputted. Tap on the Cancel button to close the picker without changing the song selected for output.

Performance Pack

It's the little things that make a big difference when you're on stage. OnSong is more than a document reader for musicians. It has the features you need and the performance required for live music. Check out some of the features below that together make for a great experience.

Autoscroll

Once your music is digital, you no longer have to worry about turning pages! Autoscroll turns your device into a teleprompter-like experience to scroll down your song and even through your entire set. You just set a duration for the song and let it roll. Of course if you need finer control you can always use Timeline.

Flow

Once your song is autoscrolling, you may find that you want to repeat certain sections of the song. Instead of changing the song by copying and pasting, flow lets you dictate the arrangement or layout of the song. Just add a flow tag to repeat sections of your song and turn it on and off as needed.

Heads-Up Display

When you switch songs in OnSong, the menubar shows you the name of the song. While that's handy, it can do so much more. Just swipe to the left or right over the name of the song for different views of information you care about like sets, timers, or audio playback control.

Quick Pick

While many musicians pull their sets before stepping on the stage, you may want to take requests. The Quick Pick feature of OnSong lets you tap the name of the song in the menubar and immediately prompts you to start typing. Type a few letters of the song title or artist name and tap to add the song to your set list.

Messages

Communicating with the band can always be tricky and you make have developed hand signals or vocal inflections to try to guide your fellow musicians. OnSong lets you flash messages on each participant's screen with color and text to communicate effectively on stage. Combine with foot pedals or Timeline and never lift a finger.

Moments

Organizing your event is more than just songs. Moments lets you insert additional items on your set list to turn it into a run sheet for your event. You can even specify the amount of time for each song and moment to help you organize your event and keep everyone on track.

Pitch Pipe

If you're singing an a cappella piece, you may need a reminder of the pitches to sing. OnSong lets you assign an action to play the pitch. By default, this plays the notes of the song key, but you can customize the notes and octave of those notes for more advanced songs.

Timeline

With OnSong you can automate the entire song. Scroll the page, select sections for lyrics projection, trigger actions, or coordinate MIDI devices all in one timed sequence that's saved with the song.

Viewport

You may want to view a specific section of the song sheet. Zoom and position your song and then use the viewport feature to save the initial view for the song to be recalled when the song loads.

Pitch Pipe

Not all of us have perfect pitch. So what do you do if you need to start a song vocally or perform a song a capella? For that, OnSong features a pitch pipe to play notes that get you started.

Setup

OnSong will play the notes of the key of a song without requiring any setup. For instance, if your song is in Am, the notes A, C, and E are played back in a middle octave.

You can also set notes to play back using the pitch tag in Metadata of the OnSong or ChordPro file formats.

Playing the Pitch

To play the pitch, you need to set a Hot Corner, Navigation Zone or Foot Pedal to initiate the pitch playback.

Using Pitch

While it's common to hear a pitch played from a pitch pipe before an a capella performance, you can also send the output of your device to the mixing channel of your in-ear monitoring system, or send it as a mono channel to a source board. This setup, like the metronome feature, allows you and your team to hear the pitch without the audience hearing it.

Printing

OnSong is designed to reduce or eliminate the use of paper on stage. Not only is this a more cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option, but it also helps to keep you more organized.

However, sometimes it's just easier to print your songs or set list to a sheet of paper for sharing. OnSong has powerful print capabilities that help you stay organized and save paper, too.

To print, select a song or set. Use the Share Menu to open the Print Screen. From there you can print chord charts, song lists, and even multiple pages on a physical piece of paper. OnSong also allows you to send the printout as a PDF.

Quick Pick

Even the best laid plans can go awry. Maybe you get a song requested that's not in your set list, or perhaps you show up to the gig late and need to pull songs as you go. No matter what the event, OnSong has you covered with the new Quick Pick feature.

Using Quick Pick

To access the Quick Pick screen, tap on the song title in the menubar when a song title is displayed. The search bar is then automatically selected and you can begin searching. Tap on the song to display it or add it as the next song.

Sets

OnSong is great for keeping your entire chord chart library organized and accessible no matter where you go. But when it comes to playing live, you need to be able to quickly and easily move between songs in your set list. OnSong lets you create sets to be played at specific times and venues.

Creating Sets

You access your sets in the My Sets tab in the Songs Menu. From there you can create folders for organizing sets by band or venue, as well as create new sets. Once the set is created, you can quickly pull songs from your library or books.

Navigating Sets

Simply tap on a set from your list of sets to load it into the song viewer. You can swipe, tap, or use other hands-free methods like foot pedals to move between songs in your set, or to scroll your songs up and down.

Sharing Sets

Sets allow you to organize some songs in your library for use with the band. Once you have the set selected, use the Share Menu to share it with your team using a variety of methods.

Tracking Songs

Sets are created for playing in the moment, but they also form the basis of song tracking in OnSong. Using the date you specify when creating your set, OnSong can determine when you play songs. This can be used to let you know if you've overplayed a song, or use to send song reports to licensing agencies like CCLI.

Archiving Sets

Because you may want to look up and see what you did last week or last month, it's a good idea to archive your sets. You can then access old sets using the archived sets list.

OnSong can also be configured to auto-archive sets so you don't have to worry about doing that manually. This keeps your active sets list nice and organized.

Song Reporting

OnSong can keep track of what you're performed, printed, and projected which can be useful for understanding your habits, as well as reporting to content licensing organizations.

OnSong keeps track of what you play in two different ways. By default, OnSong will keep track of what you play in sets. Because sets in OnSong automatically have a date and time associated with them, it means OnSong knows when you've last played those songs. You can also configure OnSong to report song by usage. This means if you view a song for more than a certain amount of time, it gets reported. You can change this preference in Song Reporting Settings.

To access this feature, go into the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon in the Menubar and choose Editors and then choose Song Reporting. From there you can choose a timeframe to begin viewing your song usage in new ways.

Support

OnSong is a powerful app that is unlike anything else you may have used on a mobile device. Many musicians only use a fraction of its functionality. As you begin to invest time into OnSong, you'll likely want to get some extra help. Check out ways that you can find the help you need to make the most out of OnSong.

Knowledge Base

Get instant help with our vast knowledge base that has answers for nearly any question you may have.

User Manual

Browse the current user manual and learn how to do more with OnSong. Search for keywords and get answers.

Tutorial Videos

Access our comprehensive collection of tutorial videos to learn new tricks, or brush up your skills.

Technical Support

If you're just stuck and need OnSong to review your issue, you can submit your question directly in the app. Not only does this send your request directly to our support team, it also includes details about your library so we can pinpoint our advice to better serve you. You can access this by opening the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon, and then choose Communicate and Get Support. If you are a Premium member, you get Premium Support that gives you immediately response times from when you fast track your request.

Synchronization

OnSong is designed to store your library on your device. This allows you to access your songs anywhere you go without the need for an Internet connection. This means if you have multiple devices like an iPad and an iPhone, they both will have separate libraries.

OnSong provides the ability to synchronize your library between devices using a cloud-based storage service like Dropbox. For more details, open the Songs Menu and tap on the + button on the bottom right to view the Add Songs screen. Choose a storage method under the Synchronize section in the list.

Timeline

Timeline enables you to record navigation events and then play them back to give you flexible, hands-free control of your music.

All you need to do is either set a duration of your song for linear autoscrolling, or choose timeline to start recording and scroll through the song just as you want it to in a live scenario. Even tap on sections to project lyrics, send MIDI commands or switch scenes for automated control over your performance.

To configure timeline for autoscroll, see Live Bar » Autoscroll.

Autoscroll now can automates your performance!

Tint Colors

There are a lot of benefits to reducing paper on stage. You can play in the dark or outside on a breezy day. Even if it starts to rain you can keep jamming if you have a waterproof case. Once you move away from paper you can even use OnSong to customize the look of your music in a way that works for you. Tint colors can reduce visual stress when reading your music on stage.

You can configure tint colors on individual songs using the mode chooser in the Document tab of the Style Preferences Menu. You can also set the tint colors globally for the app in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Tint.

Vertical Menubar

The menubar in OnSong is where you access all the functions of the app. Tapping icons in the menubar open popover menus which provide transient access for picking songs or changing the appearance of your charts. While this is good for most functions, it does result in those menus disappearing after each use.

The vertical menubar in OnSong lets you place the menubar down the left or right side of the screen. Tapping on options allows menus to appear from the screen edge. By pinning the menus, they can appear in a split-screen orientation, allowing the menu to remain visible while you interact with the song viewer.

You can turn on the Vertical Menubar mode for OnSong in Settings » Menu Settings » Menubar » Vertical Menubar.

WorshipReady.com

WorshipReady.com provides handcrafted chord charts for use on a number of platforms including Planning Center, PDF and OnSong. Access to content is through subscription only and limits the number of chord charts you can download per month based on your subscription level.

For more details about this service, or to sign up, please visit http://worshipready.com.

Using WorshipReady.com

You can access WorshipReady.com chord charts by importing them right inside of OnSong. Just sign in, find a chart, and download it right into your OnSong library.

Flic

Many musicians have already discovered the flexibility of hands-free control of their iPads during practice and performance. OnSong now supports Flic – Bluetooth smart buttons Bluetooth that you can stick anywhere. Place Flic on the ends of your keyboard, or on the body of your guitar... anywhere you want to reach to trigger one of the may actions in OnSong.

Flic is configurable in the Foot Pedal Setup screen. You can assign one of more than 50 actions. Since Flic supports single click, double click and press and hold gestures, you can assign up to three different actions.

Add To OnSong

As a musician, you use a variety of sources to find and organize your chord charts. OnSong provides a number of ways to import your music into your digital library that you can use without an Internet connection.

If you are running iOS 8, you can import chord charts from your favorite websites using the new Add To OnSong extension in Safari. When you find a song you like, tap on the action menu in the toolbar and choose the Add To OnSong option. The next time you open OnSong, the song will be added to your library.

Not only does the Add To OnSong extension let you import chord charts on common websites, but also lyrics and even files such as a PDF, Microsoft Word or audio tracks. This makes the Add To OnSong extension the most powerful tool in the OnSong toolkit.

Note: Be sure to read the Terms of Service of each website that you use to ensure that you are complying with the rules for using that content. OnSong will prompt you before each import to insure that you are aware of any agreement you've made between you and the content provider.

Autoscroll

As a musician, you put all of yourself into your music. Now let the music carry you with the hands-free operation of autoscroll. Autoscroll displays your chord chart from top to bottom like a teleprompter. All you need to do is to get the song started and autoscroll will take care of the rest.

Setup

The setup for autoscroll is really easy. Tap on the autoscroll button in the live bar to set a duration for the song for linear autoscrolling from the top to the bottom of the page. You can even configure non-linear autoscrolling using Timeline.

Once configured, tap to start autoscroll. OnSong scrolls the song from the top to the bottom in the amount of time you set or plays back recorded timeline events. Tap and hold the autoscroll button to set a different duration or timeline events for the song. See Live Bar » Autoscroll for details.

Flow

OnSong scrolls through your song vertically like a scroll. Songs are typically arranged based on different sections like verses and choruses. You can use Flow to arrange your song in the order that you will perform it. Add instrumentals, intros, verses, choruses, and bridges. When OnSong scrolls from the top to the bottom, it will display the entirety of your song.

You can configure the flow of the song in the Playback Menu or in the Metadata Editor found in the Song Editor.

Triggers

Start autoscroll by tapping on the screen, or with a supported foot pedal for completely touch-free operation. Since autoscroll is the action you normally take to start a song, you can even set up additional actions to occur at the same time autoscroll starts. Configure this in Settings » Navigation Settings » Triggers » Autoscroll Trigger.

Backing Tracks

OnSong is not only great at displaying chord charts and music, but it can also be used in place of heavy and expensive stage equipment. This can make moving from one gig to another much easier, as well as making shows run smoother than they ever have before.

Backing tracks can be linked to each of your chord charts allowing you to play a song in an instant. Just tap or tap and hold on the Audio Live Bar Button to link or toggle audio playback. Use the Playback Menu to perform more advanced functions. You can even configure audio playback to crossfade between two playing tracks in Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Audio.

OnSong links to tracks that are available in the Music app of your iOS device or you can manage audio tracks inside of OnSong.

iTunes Music Library

You can use iTunes technologies to transfer music and media to your device. That advantage to this is you get the full playback abilities of the built-in Music player and tracks are shared between apps. You can also playback tracks that are stored in the cloud. Learn more about linking to tracks your iTunes Music Library

Here are a few methods you can use to get music into your iTunes music library:

• iTunes Sync is the standard way to move music files from your computer to device.
• iTunes in the Cloud accesses iTunes tracks you have purchased on your device and allows you to play them from the cloud or download them to the device.
• iTunes Music Match is similar to iTunes in the Cloud but allows you to submit your entire music library to iCloud for a low yearly fee. This allows all your content to be transferred to your iOS device without connecting to a computer.

Note: It's a common misconception that only music tracks that are purchased through the iTunes Music Store can be played on an iOS device. Learn more on Adding Music Tracks to iTunes.

OnSong Audio Media Library

If you don't prefer to use iTunes to manage your music, you can import backing tracks directly into your OnSong media library and manage them inside of the app. This is a great option if you don't have access to a laptop for synchronizing content.

You can learn more about importing, managing and linking to tracks in your OnSong Media Library

Importing into iTunes

iTunes is a powerful media management program that is available for free from Apple. It is also used to manage your iOS device as well. You can use iTunes to browse and purchase music and other media from the iTunes Store, or simply use it as a media management device.

If you have tracks that you want to add as Backing Tracks in OnSong, you'll need to make sure they are in your computer's iTunes library before synchronizing them to your device, using iTunes in the Cloud, or iTunes Music Match.

To add tracks to iTunes, locate them on your computer, select in the Finder (Mac OS X) or File Explorer (Windows) and drag and drop them in the library area of iTunes. You can also do the same thing by opening the File option in the menubar and choosing Add To Library.... From here you can browse your files and select those that you want to add to iTunes.

iTunes will typically copy these files into its own library and organize the files based on the information available in the audio track file. You can change these settings by opening iTunes Preferences and selecting the Advanced tab.

iTunes Sync

While millions of people own iPads or iPhones, not everyone knows how to get their music on their device. Follow these steps to get music synced to the device using the USB cable.

1. Connect the device to a computer using the USB sync/charge cable that came to the device. Ensure that the computer has iTunes 12 installed and running.
2. In iTunes, click on the Device Icon in the bar just below the volume slider and choose your device if more than one is listed.
3. Tap on the Music option under settings. This is where you tell iTunes what music you would like to sync to the device.
4. You will need to turn on music syncing by clicking to checkmark Sync Music.
5. Use the other checkmarks below to determine what music to send to the device. For instance, you can sync Entire music library or only Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres.
6. If you picked the latter, place a checkmark next to what you would like to sync to the device.
7. When you are finished, click on the Apply button in the lower left to start copying the music over.
8. Check that the music is on the device by launching the Music app from the home screen.

Backup

One great advantage with OnSong is that your OnSong library is stored directly on your device. This means you never need to worry if you have an Internet connection to access your music. Whether you are playing in a pub on the outskirts of town, a busy concert hall with lots of wireless interference, or as a missionary in the jungles of the Philippines, OnSong will continue to work non-stop.

Why Backup?

While having everything stored on the device itself a great feature, it does have some downsides. We hear all too often of users who have had their iPads stolen or lost. Sometimes they just forgot their device on the roof of the tour van and picked up the pieces on the highway. Yet others find their app missing when deleted by children or when wiping their iPad for a new operating system. The crucial step you need to take is to make a backup!

How To Backup

Creating a backup in OnSong is really easy. First, we recommend backing up your library to Dropbox to make sure your content is stored safely off your device. In addition, if anything happens to your device, you can easily restore your library from your Dropbox with an Internet connection and your Dropbox credentials. Go to the Dropbox section to learn how to sign up for Dropbox and use it in OnSong.

Next, go into the Share Menu from the Menubar in OnSong. Tap on the Export option. In this screen, place a checkmark next to the OnSong Backup format. Tap on the folder icon in the lower right to open the Location Picker and choose Dropbox. From there you can select a location where the backup file should be stored. Once you choose a location, tap on the Export button at the top of the export screen to create the backup file and upload the file to your Dropbox location.

What's In a Backup?

The backup file that is created has a .backup file extension and the file name is the current date and time in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format. This allows no two backup files to have the same name.

The backup file is actual a ZIP archive that contains the entire contents of your OnSong library folder. In addition to containing the OnSong database called OnSong.sqlite3 and imported files, this also contains your imported media files (music and images), help files, and a special preferences file that contains all the settings you had made in the app.

How To Restore

So now that you have the file in a safe place, let's learn how we can restore the backup file. It's as easy as importing a file into OnSong.

Go into the Songs Menu and select the All Songs tab. Tap on the + button on the bottom right to view the Add Songs screen. Tap on the Dropbox option. From here you can browse for your backup file and import it.

When you select the backup file to restore, you will be prompted that importing it will completely overwrite any other songs or settings you have in the current library. If you agree, the file will be downloaded and restored, returning your OnSong library to it's original state.

Note: Backup files are the ZIP-compressed contents of the OnSong library directory. OnSong can create backup files of approximately 4 GB in size.

Capo

If you're a guitarist, you know the advantages to using a capo. You can increase the pitch of your guitar to provide dynamics between other instruments, or simply transpose out of difficult to play keys like D-flat. Whatever your reason, OnSong can adapt the chord chart to meet your needs. Let's take a look at how OnSong handles capo in regard to transposition.

Difficult Keys

OnSong is designed to maintain the designated key of a song at all costs. This is important to know because changing the capo of the song will not transpose the song. Instead, it combines the transposition with the capo itself. Let's take a song written in D-flat as an example.

1. You have a song that is written in D-flat because your pianist is fancy like that.
2. You want to be able to play the song, but sadly you don't have fingers like E.T.
3. Figuring you can play the song with C chord forms instead, you apply a capo to your guitar on the first fret.
4. In OnSong, you simply slide the capo slider in the Style Preferences Menu to the first fret so it knows where you put your capo.
5. OnSong now maintains the key of D-flat, but displays chords in the key of C so you can play along with everyone else.

In this case, we didn't transpose the song at all, but just wanted to be able to play the song in the key that it is written. OnSong modulates the chords in the song down to maintain the key - essentially reversing the transposition that the capo applies.

Transposing With Capo

What if we want to use the capo slider to transpose the slider? What you'll need to do is adjust the key and the capo. Lets say that you have a song in the key of C and want to transpose to D. With a capo, you'd place the capo on the second fret. In OnSong, adjust the capo from zero to the 2 position and then drag the transpose slider to the D key.

This underscores that transposition in OnSong is one step, and then capo is applied on top of that transposition. The order of operations are:

1. The song is written and declared in a specific key.
2. If the song's key is not declared, the key is determined using another detection method
3. Tranposition is then applied to the original key. If the original key was the key of A and we want to play the song in the key of D, OnSong would transpose up by five (5) half steps to bring the song to the key of D.
4. Now when we want to play with a capo so we can play in the key of C. Set the capo to 2. OnSong then modulates the chords that are rendered down two (2) half steps to the key of C.

Toggling Capo

You can also toggle the capo on and off in the Style Preferences Menu using the power button. This is useful for playing with or without a capo as your needs arise.

Learning to Share

Since OnSong changes the chords that appear on the screen when capo is applied, sharing with others may be more difficult. What if you both need to use the same chord chart? In this case, you can display both chords.

To enable dual capo chord mode, go into Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo » Display Dual Chords. This can be configured to display either the capoed or non-capoed chord first with the other chord being displayed in parenthesis.

Chords

Chords are the lifeblood of music. It's no wonder that most of OnSong revolves around what you can do with chords.

Writing Music

You can write and edit music right inside of OnSong. OnSong understands both the OnSong and ChordPro formats, and even works with most text files too. You can also use different ways to display chords and lyrics in your song.

Styling Chords

Once chords are detected in OnSong, you can use the style preferences menu found in the menubar to change how chords appear. Highlight, color, bold, and italicize them to make them pop from the page.

Instrument Diagrams

Tap on a chord in the song viewer to view different ways to play the chord on a variety of instruments. You can even make your own variations in the chord diagram library.

Playing Chords

Tap on the speaker icon in the upper left corner to toggle chord playback on and off. Playback does require a sound bank to be installed. You can purchase sound banks in the Add-Ons Screen. You can alter the way chords are played under the Utilities Menu » Settings » Live Settings » Chord Playback.

Color Picker

Color is used throughout OnSong to quickly communicate musical information. In each of these places, OnSong uses a color picker component that lets you pick from a palette of colors by tapping on a swatch. You can also create your own color swatches and arrange them in the palette.

Picking Colors

To pick a color you tap on it. OnSong surrounds the swatch with a border to indicate it has been selected. Since the size of the color picker may be limited, you can scroll to additional colors. Swipe to the left or right to access additional color swatches.

Adding Colors

At the end of the color picker palette is a button you can tap to add new colors. This will open the color builder screen that lets you choose the hue, brightness, saturation and opacity of the new color.

Editing Colors

You can also edit existing colors in your palette by double tapping on them. This will open the color builder screen which you can use to make adjustments to the color.

Arranging Colors

The color picker is designed to provide quick access to more commonly used colors. You will want to place these towards the left in your palette for faster access. To do this, tap and hold on a color swatch for about one second and then drag the color to a new location in the color picker.

Deleting Colors

To remove a color from the palette, tap and hold on the swatch as if you were going to place it elsewhere in the palette. Drag the color off of the palette to remove it.

Color Builder

The color builder is used for creating new colors as well as editing existing ones. In addition, smaller form factor devices like the iPhone or iPod touch may use the color builder directly to create or pick colors from the palette.

*When you're done picking or building a color, tap on the Done button in the upper right corner to save your changes.

The color builder is divided into these five functional areas.

Saturation/Brightness Picker

The main area of the color builder is comprised for the saturation/brightness picker. The values displayed in this two-dimensional space vary the saturation of the color horizontally and the brightness of the color vertically. Tap or drag your finger in this space to adjust these attributes based on the selected hue.

Hue Picker

The hue picker appears under the saturation/brightness picker and allows you to choose a hue. This appears as a one-dimensional slider that moves from 0-360º from red, through the rainbow and back to red.

Opacity Picker

The color picker can also specify opacity in a color. AN example of where this is used is for chord highlighting. In this case, all colors run about 50% opacity. Using the opacity picker, you can vary the transparency of the of the final color.

Tap or drag your finger up and down to move between 0-100% opacity. All of these changes effect the add swatch button in the lower right corner.

Add Swatch Button

As you make changes to the hue, saturation, brightness and opacity, the color changes appear within the builder. Most notably, it appears in an add color button in the lower right corner. You can tap this button to add the selected color to the palette.

Color Picker

The color picker for the edited palette appears below all other controls. This lets you quickly choose a preset color from the palette to edit, or you can add and arrange your palette from the builder.

Console

OnSong Console is a powerful in-app purchase that lets you edit your library on any computer using a standard, modern web browser. You get a real-time preview of your chord chart along with palettes that help you make your chord charts just right. When you're all done, one click saves the chord chart back to your library.

Most people agree that laptops or desktops are great at creating content. OnSong Console lets you use your computer to quickly make changes to your OnSong library. What's more, you can even make changes to an iPad while it's being used on the stage, or use it in the back-of-house to determine lyrics for a song.

FAQ

While OnSong Console is easy to use, you may have questions about connecting to it on your network or how it effects your OnSong library as well.

Requirements

Find out the components and services you need to make console work.

Setup

Learn how to get OnSong Console up and running so it's ready to be put to good use.

User Interface

Learn the user interface components of Console and how they can be combined to make music creation and management easy.

User Interface

Once you've loaded Console into a web browser, you're ready to get to work. Console let's you import or create songs as well as edit the songs you already have in your OnSong library on the device. This is accomplished by selecting a song, making changes in the editor, viewing in the real-time preview screen, and then saving. Let's take a look at the different areas of the Console's interface to help with each of these tasks.

Header

The top is the header which contains the OnSong logo. To the left of the logo is the name of the current song. If you have made changes to the save, a save button will appear to the right of the song title allowing you to save changes back to your OnSong library on the device. Finally, the help link is located on the far right and provides access to this web site.

Palettes

Palettes are floating windows that can be placed around the user interface. These palettes can be opened and closed using the menubar of the following panes.

Song List

The song list is displayed on the left and contains all the songs in your library. To view and edit a song, just select it from the list. This area also contains a search bar to search songs in your library as well as an add button to create new songs or import existing songs from your computer. Tapping on the + button displays the Add Songs Palette.

Song Editor

The song editor appears in the center of the screen and provides a text editor for making changes to your song. The toolbar items give you access to tools for managing your content such as the metadata, insert and text tools palettes, as well toolbars to convert text and delete the song.

Song Preview

The song preview pane displays the chord chart on the right side and is updated as it is updated in the song editor. The toolbar items allow you to turn certain features on and off such as Low Light mode, Pages mode, and follow mode. The toolbar also gives you access to additional palettes including style palette (to make changes to the look of the song) and chords palette (to transpose and capo). Lastly, you can toggle between the text and imported files with the view as menu, or export and print using the export menu and print button.

Palettes

Palettes provide the means to interact with songs and are similar to menus in the OnSong app for iOS. These palettes are opened by toggling buttons in the toolbars of the various panes in the application. Once opened, you can close and minimize the palette using the buttons in the upper-right corner of the palette titlebar.

Here is a list of all the palettes used in Console:

Add Songs Palette

The add songs palette is opened in the Song List pane and is used to create new songs or import files.

Metadata Palette

Provides fields that can be set to write the metadata of each song in the proper format. This is similar in function to the Metadata Editor found in the Song Editor.

Insert Palette

Provides buttons to insert chords and sections, as well as line formatting characters without needing to know the OnSong file format codes.

Text Tools Palette

Provides tools like search and replace, as well as the ability to toggle between chord formats similar to the Text Tools Menu in the Song Editor.

Style Palette

Enables you to customize the look of the song in a way similar to the Style Preferences Menu.

Chords Palette

Gives you options for transposing and capoing chords, as well as controlling how chords and diagrams appear on the screen. This is similar to the bottom of the Style Preferences Menu.

Add Songs Palette

The add songs palette is used to either create a new song completely within the Console, or to upload Supported Files to create songs.

Create New

This section of the palette allows you to type an optional song title and artist name. You can then click on one of the buttons to create the song and open it in the Song Editor.

• Create OnSong creates an OnSong-formatted file with the optional song title and artist name.
• Create ChordPro creates a ChordPro-formatted file with the optional song title and artist name.

Import Files

This area of the palette allows you to import one or more files at once into OnSong. Click on the Select files... button to open a file chooser window. Browse and select a file to import. Use the shift, command and control keys on your keyboard to select more than one file to import.

When you are all done, click on the Choose button in the window. Console will automatically upload and import those files into your library and show you the import status below the Select files... button. You can then close the palette to continue editing.

Insert Palette

The insert palette is used to insert chords, line formatting, and section labels into a song. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert chords or on the line where you'd like to apply line formatting.

Chords

As you write new chords in the text editor, they will appear here. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert the chord and then click on a button to insert the chord in that location. Position of the cursor differs for each chord format:

• Bracketed Chords requires the cursor to be placed within lyrics where you would like the chord to be played.
• Chords Over Lyrics requires the cursor to be placed above lyrics and positioned above lyrics using spaces.

Font Style

Click on a color to insert color codes at the front of the line. You can also toggle the bold and italic buttons to insert those line formatting codes as well.

Highlighting

Click on a color to add highlighting line formatting code to the front of the line. The white option will remove the code.

Labels

Common section labels appear in this section. Tap on one to name the current section.

Metadata Palette

The metadata palette automatically updates its fields as you select songs in the Song List. Change the contents of the fields to have OnSong update the metadata section of your song. This palette includes these fields:

Song Title

The title of the song.

Artist

The name of the artist or the byline to output under the song title.

Number

A number used to lookup the song in numbered music collections like hymnals.

Keywords

Keywords or topics to enter for the song. This is used in the By Topic tab in the Songs Menu.

Key

This sets the key of the song. If the key had been already set and there are chords in the song, this will also rewrite the chords of the song into that key.

You can also change the mode of the key to minor by clicking on the "m" button on the right side. The song contents are not rewriting when toggling between major and minor keys.

Capo

Sets the recommended capo level for the song.

Tempo

Set the tempo using this slider. Remember that you can click on the arrows to the left and right of the sliders to fine-tune adjust the values.

Time Signature

Click on a button that represents the time signature of the song to be written in the metadata section. If you do not want a time signature outputted, click on a selected time signature again to remove it. If the time signature you need is not in the list, congratulations on your rhythmic genius. Because of your skills, you'll just need to write the time signature yourself.

Duration

This is the time duration of the song. Set this to a default to enable autoscrolling with the approximate speed. This can be expressed as hh:mm:ss or numeric seconds.

Flow

This is the flow of the song used to arrange the parts of the song into a top-down fashion. Please see Flow for more details.

Copyright

This is the copyright line of the music. This will appear at the bottom of chord charts as well as in lyrics projection.

CCLI Song

This is the unique identifier for registering the song with CCLI SongSelect reporting. This will appear at the bottom of the chord chart on screen as well as at the bottom of lyrics projection.

Restrictions

These are a list of restrictions that are used to limit what recipients of the song can do with it. Please see Restrictions for a list of possible options.

Text Tools Palette

The text tools palette is used to perform operations on the text content of the song. This can help you change text quickly or switch and fix chord formatting.

Search and Replace

This section of the text tools palette is used to search and replace text in the Text Editor. This is useful for replacing words or chords when using bracketed chords. For instance, you can change all instances of [A4] to [Asus4].

To use, type the search value in the first field and the replace value in the second field. Then press the Perform Search/Replace button to perform the operation.

Chord Format

This section includes toggle buttons that allow you to switch between the two supported formats. If there are any square brackets located in the song content, the Bracketed Chords button is selected. Otherwise the Chords Over Lyrics button is selected. Press the opposite button to reformat the text content into the desired chord format.

It is useful to switch the bracketed chords when splitting or combining lines. This is because the chords will travel with the lyrics in this case. You can then switch to chords over lyrics if you would like to position chords in a more visual manner.

Fix Spaces

This section provides a single-use tool for correcting issues that may occur when converting text from a word processor. You may find that chords are pushed to the right and beyond the lyrics they used to reside over. This is due to variable-width fonts that require many more space characters to align chords above lyrics.

Press the Fix Alignment Spaces button to have chords detected and the space between the chords reduced by a specific amount. This usually will align the chords very close to their original positions when viewed in a word processor or printed. From there you can more easily adjust the chord positions.

Chords Palette

The chords palette provides tools for changing how chords appear in the chord chart. This affects both transposition, appearance, and chord diagrams.

Style

Typically chord charts use alphabetic characters to define chords. OnSong can convert alphabetic chords into numeric ones to better suit musicians that play using a number system. The selected style is highlighted. Choose from one of the following chord styles:

• Alphabet uses letters A-G with sharps and flats to indicate precisely what chord should be played. If using different chord localizations, this may also include an H. Default.
• Nashville uses a decimal numbering system which indicates the chord number based on the root chord of the key. In addition, this method uses symbols for different chord variations.
• Roman uses upper and lowercase Roman numerals for chords. Major chords are represented in uppercase while minor chords are lowercase. Symbols are also used to indicate different modes such as a minus symbol for minor.
• Italian uses do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do instead of numbers. Symbols are used to indicate different modes such as a minus for minor.

Transpose

Use this slider to transpose the song to any key. The key of C is placed on the far left and the key of Cb is on the far right. You can use the arrow keys to make fine-tune adjustments the key you would like to pick.

The power icon on the right turns transposition on and off. If turned off, and if no capo is applied, then no transposition is performed. This will display chords just as they appear in the Song Editor.

Capo

This slider allows you to apply a capo to the song. Slide from 0 to 11. This will modulate the chords of the song down to maintain the key of the song when a capo is applied. You can change the direction of this modulation in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo » Capo Modulates

You can turn the application of the capo on and off using the power icon on the right side. This allows you to maintain a capo and determine if you want to apply it or not depending on the instrument you are playing.

Diagrams

This section of the chords palette is used to toggle the chord diagram display on and off. Use the slider to adjust how many diagrams appear across the page. You can select a number between 4 and 10. Use the power icon on the right to toggle the visibility of chord diagrams on and off.

You can change how and where chord diagram appear in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Chord Diagrams.

Instrument

This section allows you to select the instrument to use when displaying chords. The selected instrument is highlighted. Choose a different instrument to have the chord diagrams change to the selected instrument.

Note: Making changes in this palette does not affect the song content but is applied in addition to the original song.

Style Palette

The style palette is used to change the way the chord chart looks in the Song Preview Pane. Use this to change the font, size, visibility, and color of different parts of the chord chart.

Font

This section contains toggle buttons that allow you to choose the typeface in which your chord chart should appear. Press the font button to make a change. The current font selection is highlighted.

Title

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of the title of the song. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of the title on and off.

Metadata

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of metadata of the song. This includes the artist name, key, capo, tempo, and time signature.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of metadata on and off.

Lyrics

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility lyrics in the song. Lyrics comprise all content in the song other than chords such as musical instruction, section labels, etc.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of lyrics on and off.

Chords

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of chords that appear above or within lyrics. Chords are detected in the song or have been surrounded with square brackets.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of chords on and off.

Line Spacing

This slider is used to adjust the spacing between text in the chord chart. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the line spacing. You can use the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount.

Chord Highlight

You can choose the highlight chords in your chord chart using this color picker. Click on the color of the highlight you desire. It will display under the chord in 50% opacity, just like a highlighter. Choosing the white color option removes the highlight.

Chord Color

This section allows you to change the color of the chords as well as their appearance. Click on a color in the color picker to change the color of the chord text. Choosing black uses the default text color which is black or white depending on the selected low light mode.

You can also toggle italic and bold appearance on and off for the chords as needed for extra visibility.

Song List

The song list appears in the left-most pane of the web app and is used for finding and selecting songs to view and edit. Use one of the following to add, import, or edit songs:

Add Button

The + button in the upper left corner of this pane opens the Add Songs Palette. From here you can create new songs or import songs that are stored on your computer.

Search Bar

The search bar gives you an area to type keywords. Press enter on your computer keyboard to filter the list by those keywords. You can then clear the search field to view all songs again.

Song List

The majority of this pane displays a table of songs. Three columns provide common information for browsing songs including:

• Icon column displays an icon that was picked from the Organizer Menu. You can sort songs by this attribute by clicking the table header in the column.
• Song Title displays the name of the song. You can sort the list by song title by clicking on the column header. The song list is sorted by the song title by default.
• Key displays the key of the song if one is provided. Clicking on the table header above this column will sort the songs by key.

Click on a song to load it into Console. The song's contents will appear in the Song Editor and the song will be previewed in the Preview Pane.

Song Editor

The song editor contains tools and a large text area used to change the text-based content of the song.

The text editor component of this pane allows you to type content using the full-sized keyboard of your computer. As you type, the changes you make are reflected in the Preview Pane on the right. This gives you feedback on what the song will look like to avoid trial and error.

In addition to typing content in the text editor, you can also use palettes accessible from the toolbar to get the song looking just right. The toolbar buttons include:

Metadata

This toolbar button toggles the Metadata Palette on and off. Use this to set information about the song without knowing OnSong or ChordPro tags.

Insert

This toolbar button toggles the Insert Palette on and off. Use this palette to insert chords, section labels, and line formatting into the text editor.

Text Tools

This toolbar button toggles the Text Tools Palette on and off. Use this to change the formatting of the song or perform search and replace functions.

Delete

Click on this toolbar button to delete the song from your library. When you choose this option, you will be prompted prior to the song being deleted.

Convert

When you've imported a convertible file such as PDF or Microsoft Word, this option becomes enabled. Click on this to begin the conversion process on the host device. Once completed, the text editor is updated with the newly converted text.

Song Preview

The song preview pane displays how the song will look inside of OnSong. This uses the HTML 5 canvas tag to draw the song just the way OnSong does. You can scroll this pane to view the entire song. Use the toolbar to toggle features and palettes on and off.

Note: If you are viewing a file that is not text-based, it is up to the web browser if and how the file will be displayed. Most web browsers can view PDF files in a browser window, but other documents such as Microsoft Word will be downloaded to your computer for viewing in a separate application.

Low Light

Click on this button to toggle low light mode on and off. Not only does this show you how the chord chart will look in the preview, but when you save your changes the host device will also switch to low light mode too.

Pages

Click on this button to toggle viewing the chord chart on physical pages. This will divide your song based on the Page Layout options you've set in settings. This can give you an idea of how the chord chart will print.

Lead

When you turn on lead, action you make in Console like changing songs, scrolling and selecting sections also take place on the host device. This allows Console to remotely control another iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Follow

When you turn on follow, Console will load the currently viewed song on the host device. In addition, the screen will scroll along with any changes made on the host device. This is handy for knowing the song that is loaded on the device.

Style

This opens and closes the Style Palette, allowing you to style how the song should appear in the preview and on the device.

Chords

This opens and closes the Chords Palette so you can transpose, capo, and change the way chords and diagrams appear on the screen.

View As...

When viewing external files such as a PDF, this will display the PDF in the preview pane. You can switch between that and the text-based version of the song similar to the Use the imported file instead of OnSong switch in the Conversion Toolbar of the Song Editor.

Download

Click on the down arrow to choose a format to download the chord chart in. This will use the host device to create the file so be sure to save your changes first.

Print

Click on the print button to have the host device generate the print-ready PDF file and print it from your computer. This will prompt you to save your changes before printing.

Download Menu

When you click on the down arrow next to the download toolbar button, you can choose one of the following formats to download to your computer.

• Adobe PDF
• ChordPro
• HTML
• OnSong
• OpenSong
• Text File

Note: This uses the host device to generate the content so you will be prompted to save any changes prior to the file being generated.

Header

The header portion of the console interface appears at the top of the browser window. This contains the following elements:

OnSong Logo

The OnSong logo appears on the left side of the header to visually reinforce the web app. In addition, this logo's glow will pulse subtly when network operations are occurring.

Song Title

The song title appears prominently and changes as you select a different song in the Song List.

Save Button

The save button will appear once you've made a change in the Song Editor or in one of the palettes.

Lyrics Projection Button

Tapping on the lyrics projection button will open a new window suitable for running lyrics projection from within a web browser on a remote machine.

Help Link

This will link to the Console help web page on the OnSong web site.

Lyrics Projection

Tapping on the lyrics projection button in the Console will open a new window that displays the configured background and lyrics. This allows you to display lyrics from a remote computer and operate it with OnSong running on an iOS device, or through the console if the leading is enabled.

Full Screen Mode

Drag the window to the external screen you'd like to target and click in the body of the window. This will cause the window to enter full screen mode. You can then press ESC on the keyboard to exit full screen mode. Keep in mind that full screen mode acts differently depending on your browser and platform.

Navigation

When the lyrics window is enabled, you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move between sections.

Background and Styles

Currently all changes to the look of the lyrics projection must be performed through the External Video Menu from inside the host device.

Drawing

Whether you are practicing or playing on stage, OnSong has many ways to make your music work for you. Sometimes you need to be able to sketch an idea or some instructions on your music. For that, you can use the Drawing Annotation. You get an intuitive drawing bar you can use to write and highlight. It also features a full undo/redo stack with layers.

To get started with drawing in OnSong, use the Drawing Annotation available in the Annotations Menu.

Files

The Files app in iOS 11 and higher gives you a centralized location to manage documents and data that you store in services like Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive. This was formally known as storage providers on older iOS versions. This system allows OnSong to import or export to your favorite cloud storage even if it's not available directly inside of OnSong.

Installing Apps

In order to import or export to these services, you need to install apps that support iOS storage providers so they appear in the Files app. There is no definitive list of apps that support this extension, but known apps include:

• Box
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• iCloud Drive
• Microsoft OneDrive

Importing

To import from another storage provider, go into the Songs Menu » All Songs and then tap on the + button to Add Songs. Tap on Files to open a window that displays that loads the storage provider interface. By default, iCloud Drive is opened. To choose a different storage provider, tap on the icon in the upper left corner. Tap on More to enable the apps that you've installed that are supported.

Exporting

To export, tap on the Share Menu from the menubar and then choose Export. Tap on the folder icon in the lower right corner and choose Files. Choose the file formats you would like to export and then tap on the Export button in the upper right corner. OnSong will again open the storage providers window. Choose a folder to export the files to.

Limitations

There are some limitations to using storage providers.

1. Keep in mind that once the Files window opens that each interface is controlled by the app you choose. That is why each process of importing and exporting files is a little bit different.
2. The Files interface may not support importing or exporting multiple files depending on the version of iOS you are using. This is why you can only choose one file to import, and multiple files are exported as a ZIP file. This may be supported by these apps in the future.
3. You are limited to apps that support the new storage provider extension and apps that you have installed on your device.

Foot Pedals

OnSong works great with popular foot pedals to control OnSong without the use of your hands. These solutions can work great for vocalists, drummers, and other instrumentalists that need a creative way operate OnSong without taking away from why they are on stage in the first place.

Bluetooth

The most popular form of foot pedal connects via Bluetooth and is similar to a computer keyboard but for your feet. Companies like AirTurn have created stage-proven devices like the BT-105 Duo, the BT-105 Quad and the new PED that are highly reliable and flexible.

Foot pedals are set up to scroll your song and navigate your sets with a press of your foot. You can also customize the actions for each foot pedal in the Foot Pedal Setup screen. With four-pedal options you can also configure Gears to extend your foot pedals to perform even more actions!

MIDI

OnSong can be configured to work with various MIDI devices like the iRig Blueboard. The setup for MIDI devices is a bit different and does require the purchase of the MIDI Integration in-app purchase. Each pedal would need to be configured separately and does not function out of the box.

Wired

OnSong also works with wired foot pedals like the Griffin Stompbox or BiLiPro Page Turn.

Note: Keep in mind that USB foot pedals need to be able to be powered by the iOS device and require the use of a Camera Connection Kit to be connected to the device. Check with the manufacturer to make sure that the foot pedal works with iOS devices before ordering.

Supported Foot Pedals

The following is a list of foot pedals supported by OnSong.

AirTurn

AirTurn makes some of the premier foot pedals for musical applications. Musicians trust these foot pedals for their ease of use and reliability.

• PED is the latest member of the AirTurn family and is a cost-effective, all-in-one device that covers most needs.
• BT-105 Duo is the original design that covers most needs and is flexible for future expansion.
• BT-105 Quad is just what you need if you need a lot of foot pedals in a convenient package.

BiliPro

BiLiPro develops innovative peripherals for controlling your computer with your feet.

• Page Turn was originally designed for use persons with physical disabilities, but is useful for wired hands-free scenarios.

IK Multimedia

IK Multimedia is an industry leader in products for making music on mobile platforms.

• iRig Blueboard is a wireless MIDI foot switch that is useful for a number of operations.

Griffin

Griffin makes great products for your mobile lifestyle.

• Stompbox gives you real guitar stomp box feel in a single, wired package at an incredibly affordable price.

PageFlip

PageFlip makes two foot pedals to meet the needs to musicians.

• Cicada is the basic, two-pedal page turner.
• Firefly provides LED lights to light the way.

Griffin Stompbox

The Griffin Stompbox is a solid, wired foot pedal with a real stomp box pedal feel. In addition to four stomp buttons, it includes a 1/4" input jack for an optional expression pedal.

The Stompbox connects to your iPad or iPhone with a 30-pin dock connector. For newer Lightning port devices, you will need to use a Lightning to 30-pin Adapter.

OnSong lets you choose different actions for each foot pedal using the Foot Pedal Setup Screen. Just be sure to swipe to the Griffin Stompbox screen to enable the Stompbox and configure the buttons and expression pedal.

Hands-Free

When you're on stage, you already have plenty of strings, buttons, keys, and pedals to be concerned with. Thankfully, you can use OnSong completely hands-free, allowing you to focus on the music.

Sets

To get started, you need to first create a set and place your songs in the order you will perform them. This will allow you to switch between songs without opening the songs menu or touching the screen.

Foot Pedals

Once you have a set, you can tap on the edges of the screen to quickly navigate your song and set. But wouldn't it be nice if you could use your feet instead?

OnSong works with popular foot pedals to create the ideal stage solution. Foot pedals are designed to scroll and move through songs in your set list out of the box. You can configure them further in the Foot Pedal Setup screen.

Autoscroll

Another option is to use autoscroll, which allows you to slowly scroll from the top to the bottom of each chord chart over a specified amount of time. You can also turn on [Settings] » Live Settings » Live Bar » Autoscroll » Autoscroll Continually to have OnSong automatically switch to the next songs in the set when autoscroll reaches the bottom.

MIDI Integration

With MIDI integration, you can trigger songs to appear on your device when configured MIDI commands are triggered from MIDI-compatible software. (such as Ableton Live) Likewise, you can also scroll and navigate your sets using MIDI commands. Start your sequence and program OnSong to follow along.

Connected Devices

If you are using multiple devices controlled by one host, or if you are sharing your screen with the stage monitor mode, you can make sure that the rest of your band doesn't have to use their hands either. Here are a few ways you can connect devices:

• Connect uses WiFi to share your library with others and stream chord charts during a performance.
• OnCue is similar to OnSong Connect, but has the option of Bluetooth for streaming without a wireless access point.
• Stage Monitors allows you to turn HDTVs into virtual music stands.

Low Light Mode

One of the advantages to using an iPad on stage is that it is automatically backlit. This means that you don't need to supply additional lighting for paper charts. Because it's backlit, it's also easier to read even though the screen is smaller. You get higher contrast and sharper text.

When To Use

If you play on a dimly lit stage or outdoors, you may quickly come to appreciate this advantage. But using white paper and black text is not ideal for these environments. The bright light can be hard on your eyes. In addition, the ambient light from screens can cause your face to glow white on stage. To make things easier on your eyes and less distracting for your audience, use low light mode.

Limitations

Low light mode will only work for text-based chord charts. Songs that are displayed as PDF, Microsoft Word or other file formats are displayed "as-is". In these cases, low light mode cannot be applied.

Enabling Low Light Mode

Low light mode is enabled either from a foot pedal, a hot corner, or from the settings screen. To enable, go into Settings » Display Settings » Enable Low Light Mode and switch that on. When you tap Done, your screen will redraw with low light mode enabled.

Now your chord chart and menus will appear with a black background and white text. If you want your menus to retain their white background and black text, you can change this settings in Settings » Menu Settings » Use Dark Menus in Low Light Mode.

Setting an Action

You can also toggle low light mode on and off using either a foot pedal, hot corner, or MIDI trigger.

• To set a foot pedal action, go into the Foot Pedal Setup Screen, tap on a foot pedal and then pick the Toggle Low Light Mode action in the Actions Menu.
• To set a hot corner or navigation zone action, go into Settings » Navigation Settings » Hot Corners or Navigation Zones and choose the Toggle Low Light Mode action for a specific region of the screen.

Messages

What are Messages?

Communication with your band when playing live can be challenging. Hand signals and vocal cues can be used, but what if you could use colors and text to inform your band where the music is headed next?

Setup

You can create and manage personalized messages using the Messages Menu. You can also trigger messages from this menu, although when playing live, it's more useful to trigger these from a Hot Corner or from Foot Pedals.

Viewing Messages

Messages can be viewed on your device's screen, devices connected with OnSong Connect, or with any external video screens running as Stage Monitors. Messages will appear for about one-third of a second per word. This ensures that the reader has enough time to read longer messages. You can configure messages to appear longer in Settings » Display Settings » Song Viewer » Flash Message.

Sending Messages

You can send messages by triggering a Send Message action in the Action Menu inside of OnSong. You can set actions for Hot Corners or Navigation Zones in Editors » Navigation » Screen Tab.

You can also set actions for foot pedals in the Foot Pedals Setup screen. From here, you can setup your pedal to trigger the Send Message action in the Action Menu.

Metronome

Playing to a click track is a great way to work on your tempo personally and as a band. OnSong has a built-in metronome that plays to the tempo you set for every song in your library. OnSong has both an audio and visual metronome to work in any scenario.

You can set the tempo and time signature of the metronome for each song in the Playback Menu or by setting Metadata in the Song Editor or with the Metadata Editor.

You can toggle and set the metronome from the Metronome Live Bar Button found in the Live Bar at the lower right corner of the OnSong user interface. You can also toggle the metronome using Foot Pedals.

The metronome has many different configuration options that can be accessed in Settings » Live Settings » Metronome. Here are some things you can do with the metronome:

Get Musical

Use different metronome sounds like a snare and bass drum to make the metronome sound more like music. Do this in Settings » Live Settings » Metronome » Audio Settings » Sound.

Get the Song Started

Forgetting the tempo of a song can be catastrophic to the rest of the song. Play the metronome for a few measures and have it turn off automatically. You can do this with the Stop Metronome option in Settings » Live Settings » Metronome » Audio Settings » Behavior.

Click Track with In-Ear Monitors

Whatever you do, don't play your metronome on stage for everyone to hear! However, you could send the audio metronome from OnSong into your sound board or use a mix-in channel on your in-ear monitoring system. With this configuration, you will hear the click and your audience won't.

Visualize the Beat

If you are using Stage Monitors, OnCue, or OnSong Connect you can configure OnSong to flash external displays in time with yours. Configure visual metronome settings in Settings » Live Settings » Metronome » Visual Settings.

MIDI Integration

MIDI or "Musical Instrument Digital Interface" is a powerful digital communications protocol that ushered in the age of electronic music. Even though it was first released in 1984, it's use is still prevalent in modern computing. Apple has built CoreMIDI into iOS, making the iPad and iPhone great tools for musicians on-stage. In addition, MIDI is now being used to communicate between music apps on the device, as well as external devices.

Setting Up MIDI

The first step in using MIDI on an iOS device is connecting the standard MIDI or USB cable to the device. This can be accomplished with:

• MIDI Adapters are devices that connect to your 30-pin or Lightning port and provide traditional MIDI "DIN-5" connections.
• USB with Camera Connection Kit allows MIDI devices with a USB port to be connected directly to the iOS device.
• MIDI over WiFi can also be used as long as you have a computer or host device to create the MIDI network session.

Triggering Actions from MIDI

Once you have a MIDI device connected, you can map MIDI signals to OnSong actions. This can be used to scroll the chord chart, navigate your set, or trigger backing tracks. Any action that can be performed in OnSong can be mapped to MIDI in the MIDI Triggers screen.

*Note: MIDI devices may send signals differently depending on their intended use. For instance, the iRig Blueboard device becomes a latching pedal with control changes. OnSong has advanced MIDI Settings to handle some of these differences.

Sending and Receiving MIDI

OnSong can also be used to send MIDI commands to other MIDI devices when songs are viewed or when sections are selected. In addition, you can have OnSong switch to a song by listening for specific MIDI commands. These are typically set up using Metadata with the Metadata Editor in the Song Editor.

OnSong Connect

OnSong Connect is a communications layer in OnSong that allows your device to control or to be controlled by other compatible apps on your local network using WiFi. OnSong uses this communications layer to "connect" devices together with a robust network. Within the app, this allows you to share your music by either beaming songs and sets, or by sharing the music on a leader's device with other members of the team.

Beaming

You may want to share your set with your band after practice so they can review the songs before performing them. To do this with OnSong Connect, go into the Share Menu » Connect screen.

Scenes

Music is so much more than sound alone. It's the entire experience that you bring between you and your audience. But bigger experiences can be cost prohibitive and require trained and specialized people to run light shows or graphics. But what if the simple act of swiping to the next song or pressing a foot pedal could shift the visual and emotional impact of your music in a moment? That's scenes.

Scenes integrates smart bulbs from companies like Philips and LIFX to create colorful lighting for your stage. Compared to professional lighting equipment, these bulbs are very affordable, easy to install and portable.

Scenes also can integrate with DMX stage lighting fixtures using the ArtNet protocol with a compatible interface from companies like DMXKing.com.

To enable the in-app purchase and start making a scenes, open the Utilities Menu » Editors » Scenes.

Spotify

Spotify lets you play millions of songs through streaming technology. Now you can link Spotify tracks to your OnSong chord charts.

Stage Monitor

Get rid of paper and make sure everyone is on the same page by using stage monitor mode. Stage monitors use standard HDTV on stands or wedges, turning them into virtual music stands. With one iPad or iPhone, you can control an entire band.

Connecting

You can use either a wired adapter to connect to your screens or use an AppleTV to send video wirelessly using AirPlay. From there, you can use standard video splitters to have more than one screen if necessary.

Note: OnSong recommends using wired adapters to avoid issues with wireless radio interference in production environments. If you are planning to use multiple video screens, be sure to invest in quality HDMI components and powered splitters.

Equipment

Here is a list of supplies that we used in the making of the tutorial video. The cost per station is about $250-$300 depending on screen size and cabling. In addition, each monitor can be used by more than one musician.

• Coby LEDTV2326 23-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV/Monitor (Black)
• Audio2000'S AST420Y Portable Flat Panel TV/Monitor Stand with Foldable Tripod Legs
• J-Tech Digital TM 4 Ports HDMI 1x4 Powered Splitter
• Aurum Ultra Series - High Speed HDMI Cable With Ethernet - 15 Feet
• VicTsing Dock to HDMI A/V Cable Adapter for 30-pin Dock Connector
• Lightning Digital A/V Adapter
• Apple iPad Charge and Sync Dock
• Macally Lightning Charge and Sync Dock for iPad

Confidence Projector

If your facility has a back-of-house projector, you can also project chord charts in a way that makes them easy to see from the stage. Since most projectors are locked in the landscape orientation and further away, you may want to show one song at a time to make the size larger. You can do this in Settings » Live Settings » External Video » Stage Monitor.

Sticky Notes

OnSong is designed to replace paper, so it's only natural to use metaphors and tools that we've come to rely on with paper charts. Sticky notes allow you to apply notes to a song to remind you of who's starting the song or other hints that help you play.

You can choose a variety of colors for your sticky notes, too. Change the opacity of them to allow your music to show through. You can even position, rotate, and scale them to make them more visible.

Create sticky notes by selecting the Sticky Note option in the Annotations Menu found in the Menubar. This will add a sticky note to your chord chart and will open the Note Editor so you can begin typing.

Tap and drag a sticky note around the page to place it where it belongs. Double-tap to open the Note Editor.

Supported File Formats

OnSong supports a number of file formats making it a great app for any type of music content. Click on a file format to learn more about it and how OnSong displays its contents.

Chord Charts

OnSong works best with text-based chord charts and natively understands these formats.

• OnSong
• OnSong Archive
• ChordPro
• Plain Text

Converted

These file formats are text-based in nature but not natively understood or edited by OnSong. They are converted when imported into supportable formats.

• OpenSong
• SongSelect USR
• SongShowPlus

External Files

All other supported file types can be imported and viewed "as-is" from within OnSong. The song editor also supports conversion of many of these file types to text.

• Adobe PDF
• Microsoft Word
• MP3
• Rich Text Format
• Apple Pages
• OpenOffice Text
• HTML
• TIFF
• JPEG
• PNG
• Other

Media Files

OnSong features a media library that can be used for associating graphical assets like images and videos to lyrics projection, or to assign backing tracks to songs. You can import the following file types into your media library.

• AAC
• AIFF
• M4A
• M4V/MP4
• MIDI
• MP3
• QuickTime
• JPEG
• PNG
• Wave Audio

ZIP Files

OnSong can also import ZIP files that contain one or more supported file formats. This is useful for import more than one file at a time from an external resource or app.

HTML

The Hypertext Markup Language or HTML is what is used to create web pages that you browse on the Internet. In some cases you may save chord charts as HTML files that can then be imported into OnSong. OnSong can view these files using the built-in viewer and can also convert these files into text. The quality of the conversion depends on how the HTML file was authored. For instance, you may receive navigation or hidden text from the conversion.

JPEG

If you have lots of paper chord charts, you may opt to scan those documents into a digital form. One method you could save files is as a JPEG image. You could also use JPEG images for lyrics projection backgrounds. OnSong can import both file types and determines their use automatically.

About

JPEG images are typically used for photography since the compression algorithm can be used without noticeable loss of quality. However, as the compression is increased, the artifacts may become apparent and the image may blur and lose quality as a result. OnSong can read JPEG files, but it may not display properly depending on size and complexity of the image. OnSong recommends a scan setting of 100 DPI greyscale if you intend to use scanned paper documents in OnSong. Since a chord chart may span more than one page, you may choose to scan as a PDF document.

Scanned Chord Charts

If the image is in a portrait orientation, or if the scan is landscape and the average color of all four corners has an average brightness greater than 93%, then the image is considered a chord chart.

Lyrics Projection Backgrounds

If the image is in the landscape orientation and not consider to be a paper scan, then the image is imported into your image media library. You can then use that background in the External Video Menu using the Background Image Picker toggle button.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word processing applications available. You may have many chord charts available in that format. OnSong can read, view, and convert both the older DOC file format as well as the newer DOCX format.

To learn more about Microsoft Word, please visit http://office.microsoft.com/word.

Converting

Word processing files can be challenging to convert into text-based chord charts. This is because files are often written in variable-width fonts that make a space character much narrower than other characters. While this is easier on the eye while reading, it can cause the author of the chord chart to use many more spaces to align chords on lines above lyrics. Other word processor specific features (like tabs or text boxes) may also have been used making the alignment of chords difficult because both of these layout tools are not used in text-based file formats.

You will usually need to adjust chords after converting them to text. OnSong provides various tools to assist with this process. Please see the Text Tools Menu for details.

Viewing

Word files are viewed "as-is" using the built-in web viewer of iOS. This means that any issues regarding the viewing of these files is related to how iOS interprets them. For instance, some users have reported formatting or font changes when viewed on an iPad versus Microsoft Word. OnSong has no way to correct these rendering issues as the file format is relatively closed and display of the file is handled by iOS.

Another common issue is found when viewing DOCX files in Word. There appears to be a bug in iOS 7 and higher that may cause a crash when more than one DOCX file is loaded concurrently. OnSong takes steps to limit this behavior and avoid the crash condition.

MP3

When OnSong imports MP3 files, it actually does a few things. If the MP3 file contains lyrics, it creates a chord chart based on the attributes of the song and its lyrics.

The MP3 file is then importing into the OnSong audio media library and optionally associated with the created chord chart. This allows you to bypass using iTunes to synchronize audio tracks for linking chord charts to backing tracks.

OnSong File Format

The OnSong file format is a text file that is written in a way to give a song musical meaning. It typically has a .onsong file extension, although OnSong understands any type of plain text file and can render it as an OnSong-formatted file. This format uses special characters to attribute meaning to different parts of a song.

Apps for Editing Plain Text

The first thing to know is that an OnSong file is a plain text document. This makes it very easy to edit on any platform with included software.

• On OS X open TextEdit from your Applications folder. TextEdit is a general purpose word processing program that can also edit plain text files. Be sure to switch to plain text by choose Make Plain Text from the Format menu.
• On Windows open the Notepad application from the Start menu.

To follow along with the rest of this tutorial, download this Example OnSong File and open it in your application of choice.

Sections

The first thing to know about the OnSong file format is that it can be divided into sections. Sections are typically used to divide verses from the chorus or bridge. They can also be used to divide a verse into two separate stanzas for lyrics projection, or to make things easier to read. You can even label sections if desired.

Metadata

Metadata is information about the song which is always contained in the first section. Typically these are provided in name/value pairs separated by a colon, each being placed on its own line. You can also set the title and artist of the song as the first and second lines in the file.

Chords and Lyrics

Chords are placed to align with certain words or phrases. OnSong supports two kinds of chord formatting: Bracketed Chords and Chords Over Lyrics.

ChordPro

While the OnSong format does much of what you need in a chord chart, the ChordPro format has a few other tricks up its sleeve. You can use ChordPro syntax interchangeably for advanced options.

Line Formatting

Want to bold or highlight a line of lyrics? OnSong uses special characters to format your chord chart for harmony parts, or to make things stand out.

Pages

You can now define separate pages in your chord chart which can be used to force page breaks for printing.

Pages

Chord charts in OnSong are outputted in a single page and scrolled from the top to the bottom in a continuous view. When printing the chord chart, it is automatically divided. You can force page breaks for printing, or for scrolling by pages as another method to set scroll markers.

To add a page break, type four hyphens in a row on a single line. For instance:

Verse 1:
This is the end of the first verse.
Just before we start the second one.

----

Verse 2:
This is the second verse now,
And then we are done.

Chords and Lyrics

Chords and lyrics represent the content of your song and can be expressed either as bracketed chords or as chords over lyrics. Place this content in sections to divide your song into its logical parts.

Bracketed Chords

With bracketed chords, you place the chords on the same line as the lyrics, but surround the chord with square brackets. Here is an example of this format:

Verse 1:
Amazing [D]Grace, how [G]sweet the [D]sound,
That saved a wretch like [A7]me.
I on[D]ce was lost, but [G]now am [D]found,
Was blind, but [A7]now I [D]see.

Bracketed chords are the preferred method of expressing chords in the OnSong File Format and in the ChordPro File Format.

Chords Over Lyrics

The other way to express chords in lyrics is to place the chords on a line above the lyrics and use space characters to align the chords with lyrics. This is supported since most music found in other formats use this technique. Here is an example of chords over lyrics:

Verse 1:
        D           G        D
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
                         A7
That saved a wretch like me.
  D                  G      D
I once was lost, but now am found,
               A7    D
Was blind, but now I see.

It's important to note that if non-chord words are found on a line of chords, that OnSong will reject that line and not detect the chords. Please move any musical instructions or notes to the following line to avoid this. One exception to this rule is if you surround instructions in parenthesis. This will allow the chord line to be detected. You can also start the line with a period or a back tick character to force the line to be detected as chords like this:

.I Am Chords
`I Am Also

Comments

If you want to create comments in your song that will not appear on the screen, prefix the line with a "#" symbol.

# This line will not appear in the song viewer, only in the song editor.

Line Formatting

Line formatting in OnSong lets you add characters to your lines in the song editor to apply basic formatting in your song viewer.

To do this, choose a song and open the song editor by tapping the pen icon in the menubar. You can then place special characters in front of lines to add formatting like this:

*This line will be bold
/This line will be italicized
!This line will be bold and italicized
&red:This text will be red
𞉀:This text will be a custom color using HTML color codes
>yellow:This line will be highlighted in yellow

If you want to use a custom color code, note that it starts an a # symbol. This is a hexadecimal representation of color used on web pages. Use a color picker website to compose colors and then type the 6 characters into this area in your OnSong document.

You can even also combine these line formatting commands for more complex scenarios.

Inline Formatting

Inline formatting allows you to format words and phrases within your text content. You do this by wrapping the text with angle brackets, and then use line formatting syntax to determine the change in style.

To do this, choose a song and open the song editor from the menubar. You can then place special characters after the beginning angle bracket to add formatting like this:

This will be <*bold> text.
This will be </italicized> text.
This will be <!bold and italicized> text.
This will will be <_underlined> text.
This will be <\backslanted> text.
This will be <&red:red> text.
This will be a <#6677F0:custom color> using HTML color codes.
This will be highlighted in <>yellow:yellow> text.
This will be a <!_&red:>yellow:combination of a few things> here.
This will be <^0.75:75% smaller> text.
This will be <^24:24 point> text.
This will be <$Courier:monospaced> text.

• Bold words by adding an asterisk character.
• Italicize words by adding a forward slash.
• Bold and Italicize words by adding an exclamation point.
• Underline† words by adding an underscore character.
• Backslant† or reverse italicize words by adding a backslash.
• Text Color can be changed by adding an ampersand followed by a color name or a color code followed by a colon in the beginning of the line.
• Highlight Color can be changed by adding a greater than symbol followed by a color name or a color code followed by a colon at the beginning of the line.
• Font Size† can be changed by adding a carat symbol, followed by a number and a colon. If the value is less than 6, it's considered a percentage of the base style. Otherwise, 6 and higher are treated as absolute sizes in points.
• Font Family† can be changed using a dollar sign followed by the name of the font to use before a colon.

You combine these line formatting commands in a series for more complex inline formatting scenarios.

† only available in the new R2 rendering engine.

Syntax

Below are the characters that you can insert into the front of the line, or surrounding words and phrases, to format your charts.

Bold

This can be accomplished by appending the line or adding an asterisk to the inline selection.

This <*word is bold> and this isn't.
*Or we can make the whole line bold.

Italic

This can be accomplished with a forward slash character like the following:

/This whole line will be italic.
Or just the word </italic> will be.

Emphasized

You can bold and italicize text with a single exclamation point like this:

!This line will be bold and italic.
Or <!just this phrase> will be.

Underline†

You can underline text using the underscore character like so:

_Underline the entire line of text...
Or just the <_thing you want> to.

Backslant†

This is similar to italics but in the opposite direction. You can do this using a backslash:

\This line will be backslanted.
Or make it only on <\certain words>.

Text Color

You can use an ampersand to make the text a color either with a named color, or using HTML color codes. For instance:

&red:This line contains red text.
This <�C6B3:word is a custom color> that's like teal.

Highlight Color

You can also highlight text using a similar syntax with the greater than sign.

>yellow:This line will be highlighted in yellow
Or I'll have a <>#0000FF33:very light blue Christmas> without you by specifying opacity as the last hexadecimal value.

Font Family†

You can change the font used by naming it:

$Courier:This line will be in Courier font.

Font Size†

You can also change the size of text. Use a number that is greater or equal to 6 as the size in terms of points. You can also use a number less than 6 to indicate a multiple of the base font size. For instance, "2" would be 200% the size of the base font.

^2:This line is 200% the size of the other lines.
Make <^42:forty-two points> in size.

Links†

You can type in a web address or URL into the chart and OnSong will automatically detect it and format it as a link. Links are displayed underlined in the app color and will open within the app in a Safari view or as a video player. You can also add a label to use in place of the URL by following the link with the text in parenthesis:

Make sure to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kKDXgn16JY(watch this tutorial on YouTube).

† Requires R2, the new rendering engine available in OnSong 2024.

Color Names

Line formatting can change the text color or the highlight color. You can use named colors to achieve this. Here is a line of named colors you can use:

Standard Colors

The standard named color can be used.

• black
• blue
• brown
• clear
• cyan
• darkGray
• gray
• green
• lightGray
• magenta
• orange
• pink
• purple
• red
• white
• yellow

Special Colors

The following are special colors that can be used:

• onsong is a bright teal color that matches the OnSong brand.
• paper is the color of the current paper background color.

Color Code

You can use custom colors in line formatting using the HTML color code syntax. This requires a hexadecimal value preceded by a pound sign. This is an example of using a custom color:

>#00C6B3:This line will be highlighted in teal

HTML color codes divide a color into three parts: red, green and blue. Every two characters of the color code represents the amount of color to be applied. Colors are 24 bit which results in more than 16.7 million color combinations which far exceeds the eye's ability to perceive a difference in those colors. Each component is 8 bits which results in a value from 0 through 255.

Hexadecimal encoding uses numbers and the alphabetic letters A through F to represent numbers. A through F represent decimal values 10 through 15. Using this method, 0-255 can be represented in two characters. The first character in the two-character sequence represent 0-15 multiplied by 16. The second character is added to that in the range of 0-15.

In the example above, 00 is simply a red value of 0. That was easy, right? The value C6 is C or the decimal value 12 multiplied by 16 which results in 192 and then 6 is added to that for a final value of 198. Likewise, B3 is the value of B or 11 multiplied by 16 which results in 176 and then the 3 is added to that for 179. Thus, the RGB (red, green, blue) values are 0, 198 and 179.

Now that you know how to do this, you may be happy to know that there are utilities available to help you pick colors and give you that HTML color code without all the mental gymnastics. We recommend colorpicker.com to help you blend colors and use the resulting HTML color code.

Metadata

Metatags are a way to provide information about a song and is expressed in a metadata section. Metadata is expressed in the first section of the song before the first blank line or until no more metatags are encountered. Metatags are name/value pairs where the name is on the left and value on the right separated by a colon. Only one metatag can appear per line. Please reference the ChordPro File Format for details on how to express metadata in the ChordPro format.

OnSong automatically assigns the first line of a text file as the title of the song if it is not in the metatag format. In addition, the second line is considered the artist/byline of the song unless a metatag is defined. The following is an example of a typical song metadata section that sets the title and artist as the first and second lines as well as the key and tempo.

Amazing Grace
Daniel Thomas
Key: D
Tempo: 76

Lyrics and chords start here...

Supported Tags

The following tags are supported by OnSong:

• Title: The title of the song. This can also be expressed on the first line of the song content.
• Artist: The artist name or any other byline information. This can also be expressed on the second line of the song content. You can specify multiple artists by separating names with a semi-colon. - Kim Walker-Smith; Chris Quilala
• Author: The name of the person who created the chord chart. This is displayed at the bottom of the chord chart and in lyrics projection.
• Key: The key of the song written as a key with enharmonic preference and an optional "m" to indicate minor. - alphabetic, e.g. Bb or Em
• Capo: The capo to set as number of frets. - numeric
• Tempo: The beats per minute (BPM). - numeric
• Time: The time signature. - numeric beat over bar e.g. 3/4
• Duration: The song length for autoscroll. - seconds or mm:ss
• Book: The name of the book or books to place the song into. This is a comma-delimited list of book names into which the song will be placed. If the book does not exist, it will be automatically created as well.
• Number: The number of the song - numeric. Use for hymns, years, etc. You can sort songs by the number for reference.
• Flow: The arrangement of sections. - list of section labels. See Flow for details on arranging the flow of a song.
• MIDI: The MIDI commands to send when the song is viewed. See MIDI Syntax for how to express MIDI commands as text in OnSong.
• MIDI-Index: The MIDI commands that will trigger this song to be opened in the Song Viewer. See MIDI Syntax for how to express MIDI commands as text in OnSong.
• Keywords: or Topic: The list of tags to use with topic search. See Topics for more information on browsing by topic.
• Copyright: or Footer: The copyright information of the song. This will appear at the bottom of the chord chart and lyrics projection.
• CCLI: The CCLI number of the song. This will appear at the bottom of the chord chart and lyrics projection.
• Restrictions: These are restrictions that prevent certain actions from taking place within a song. See Restrictions for details on setting restrictions for your song.
• Pitch: The note or notes to play when using the Pitch Pipe feature. This is defined as a space-separated list of notes with optional octaves. - e.g. A3 C#4 E5

Note: Metatags are not case sensitive

Flow

Flow is a way to write the sections of a song once and then arrange the song in a top-down format. For instance, you may want the song to play the first verse, chorus, second verse and then repeat the chorus twice. Instead of rewriting the chorus multiple times, you can express this in a flow metatag or temporarily using the Flow field in the Playback Menu.

Expressing Flow

The first step to using flow is to create Sections and label them. You can specify a flow using a metatag in shorthand like this:

Flow: V1 C V2 C C B C C

You can also write them in a longhand form by writing out the full name of the sections in a comma-delimited list like this:

Flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus

OnSong creates the shorthand version by using the first character of each word in the section name. This means you do not have to use special names for this to work. In the case of a conflict, OnSong will use the first section matching the abbreviation.

Pages and Instructions

You can also use flow to add musical instruction and page breaks in the flow definition instead of in the song content. You can do this by entering flow information that does not match a section label. Because the values you may want to output may contain spaces, you will want to use the comma-delimited method. Here's an example of adding musical instruction and page breaks.

Flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, (Repeat 2x), ----, Bridge, Chorus, (Repeat 2x)

This will output the musical instructions (Repeat 2x) under each chorus. The four hyphens will force a page break between the first set of choruses and the bridge.

MIDI Syntax

OnSong uses a text-based syntax for expressing MIDI commands. While you can use the MIDI Events in the Metadata Editor, you can also express MIDI commands in text.

Delimited Values

First and foremost, multiple MIDI commands can be separated by various characters including: a tab character, comma, semi-colon, vertical pipe, or new line. The comma is the most common delimiter. For example:

1.2:0@0, PC1.2:3@0, N67@1, START, SS8

Channel

Each entry may contain an @ symbol. The numeric value after the symbol is the channel on which the command is to be sent. Since channels in MIDI start on zero, channel one would be a zero (0), channel two a one (1), etc.

If no @ symbol is used, the command is sent or received on all channels.

Prefixes

Each entry in the list contains a prefix. This prefix determines what type of MIDI command to send. These include:

• PC or No Prefix is a program change event.
• N is a note event
• CC is a control change event.
• SS is a song select event.
• START is a start command.
• STOP is a stop command.
• CONTINUE is a continue command.
• F0 prefixes a SysEx message.

Values

The value of the command appears just before the @ symbol or at the end of the entry if no @ is given. This is the value of the program change, control change, note, or song select based on the prefix. In the case of SysEx entries, the hexadecimal value of the SysEx is provided directly after the F0 prefix which is used as a header to all SysEx commands.

Subvalues

In some cases, additional information is conveyed in the MIDI command as subvalues. For instance, MSB and LSB, as well as velocity of control values can be sent this way. This is expressed through the addition of a colon in the value portion. The subvalue has different context depending on the type of MIDI command sent:

• Program Change has subvalues aligning with the MSB/LSB of the program change. These values are separated by a period with the MSB on the left and the LSB on the right.
• Control Change has the value of the control set using this. The number can be between 0 and 127. If omitted, the value of 127 is inferred.
• Note Event has a subvalue relating to the velocity at which the note should be played. This can be set to a numerical value between 0 and 127.

Examples

Let's start with a simple program change. In this scenario we use program change 8 that also sends an MSB of 4 and an LSB of 2 on channel 1. The example starts with the most complex variation of this and removes the bank select and channel to become more broad:

PC3.1:7@0, 3.1:7@0, 3:7@0, 3:7, 7@0, 7

Control changes are similar except that the left side of the syntax is the control change number and the right side is an optional value. If the value is not provided, 127 is sent instead. We will send Control Change 106 with a value of 64 on channel 3.

CC105:63@2, CC105:63. CC105@2, CC105

Now let's take a look at note events. We want to play C4 on channel 8 at 75% velocity, we would enter the following because OnSong starts counting MIDI C0 as 0 on the MIDI note scale:

N60:95@7, N60@7, N60:95, N60

Again, it is important to remember that as values are removed from the MIDI syntax, the MIDI statement becomes more broad and less specific. For instance, the last version of the note event will send C4 at 100% velocity on all channels.

Restrictions

Restrictions prevent certain actions from being performed on a song. You can list these restrictions by name in a comma-delimited list as a metatag. For instance:

Restrictions: Print, Export, Distribute

The following are actions that can be set as a restriction. To remove restrictions, you can't just remove the metatag. Instead, set it to None. Also, if you want to prevent other users from changing your restrictions, add the Rights restriction as well.

• None removes restrictions from the metadata section. If selected, all other check marked restrictions are unchecked.
• Edit prevents the song from being edited.
• Print prevents the song from being printed.
• Export prevents OnSong from exporting the file.
• Share prevents the OnSong user from sharing the file in any manner.
• Email prevents the song from being transferred via email.
• Upload prevents the song from being uploaded to a remote server.
• Project prevents the song from being displayed in lyrics projection.
• Distribute prevents the song from being distributed to other sources.
• Rights prevents further rights and restrictions from being set.

Sections

The OnSong file format allows you to create different sections in your music. These sections are defined by inserting a blank line between lines of text. The first section of the song is considered the metadata section where you place your metatags. This is where you can set the key, tempo, and other attributes of the song. See Metadata for information on setting information about your song.

After the first blank line, each section contains Chords and Lyrics.

Labels

Each section can be labeled with a name. You can label your sections by typing a name on the first line of the section (followed with a colon), and then follow it with a new line. In the song viewer this appears above the lyrics in a bold typeface and can also be used to arrange the Flow of your song. The named section continues until another label is encountered, allowing you to divide a section further into stanzas.

Musical Instructions

You may want to provide musicians with instructions that you don't want to appear in lyrics projection. OnSong allows you to surround text on a line with parenthesis, allowing it to appear in a different color and not be output for lyrics projection. You can adjust the color of musical instructions under Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Instructions.

OpenSong

This format is used by a variety of open source lyrics and music programs. It stores metadata in XML and lyrics/chords as plain text. Chord lines are delineated by a period at the beginning of the line. The file extension is (.xml)

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

Portable Network Graphic or PNG files are used to replace older graphic image formats on the web. They are becoming more common in new devices because of their higher quality, lossless compression, and are not encumbered by third-party royalty fees.

About

While OnSong can read PNG files, it may not display properly depending on size and complexity of the image. OnSong recommends a scan setting of 100 DPI greyscale if you intend to use scanned paper documents in OnSong. Since a chord chart may span more than one page, you may choose to scan as a PDF document for better results.

Scanned Chord Charts

If the image is in a portrait orientation, or if the scan is landscape and the average color of all four corners has an average brightness greater than 93%, then the image is considered a chord chart.

Lyrics Projection Backgrounds

If the image is in the landscape orientation and not consider to be a paper scan, then the image is imported into your image media library. You can then use that background in the External Video Menu using the Background Image Picker toggle button.

Rich Text File

The Rich Text Format, or RTF for short, is an interchange format created by Microsoft and understood by many types of word processing applications. OnSong can read, view, and convert RTF files to text.

To learn more about the Rich Text Format, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format.

SongShowPlus

SongShowPlus is lyrics projection software for Microsoft Windows. OnSong can read and automatically convert files exported in the SongShowPlus file format.

To learn more about SongShowPlus, please visit their website at http://songshowplus.com.

TIFF

The Tagged Image File Format or TIFF is commonly used in scanning and desktop publishing applications due to it's scope of compression options. OnSong can view TIFF images, but it may not display properly depending on size and complexity of the image. OnSong recommends a scan setting of 100 DPI greyscale if you intend to use scanned paper documents in OnSong. Since a chord chart may span more than one page, you may choose to scan as a PDF document for better results.

Adobe PDF

Adobe PDF files are commonly used as digital versions of paper documents. The PDF format faithfully reproduces the printed page. OnSong can view PDF files, vertically scrolling through multiple pages. OnSong expects each song to be contained in a single PDF file.

While PDF files maintain how a document should look, they can sacrifice meaningful text to do that. For instance, some PDF documents do not contain textural content but rather shapes and images. While this may appear as text to the human eye, it can be very difficult to extract from the document. OnSong attempts to do this when converting to text. If sufficient text cannot be extracted, OnSong will upload the document to an optical character recognition service (OCR) that will attempt to read the document using computer algorithms. This can have varying results depending on the original document.

For more information about PDF files, please visit the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/pdf.

Apple Pages

Pages is a word processing program available on the Mac OS X as well as on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. You can view Pages documents in OnSong as well as convert them to text.

For more information about Pages, please visit the website at http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages.

Note: Recently Apple has updated their iWork suite which has changed the file format used by Pages and other apps. This change has reversed platform compatibility, making the use of these files much more difficult outside of their native applications. OnSong no longer fully supports viewing or conversion of Pages 5.x files due to changes in the file format.

{flow: V1 C V2 C C B C C}

{flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus}

{flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, (Repeat 2x), ----, Bridge, Chorus, (Repeat 2x)}

{define: E5 base-fret 7 frets 0 1 3 3 x x fingers - 1 2 3 - - key E}

1.2:0@0, PC1.2:3@0, N67@1, START, SS8

PC3.1:7@0, 3.1:7@0, 3:7@0, 3:7, 7@0, 7

CC105:63@2, CC105:63. CC105@2, CC105

N60:95@7, N60@7, N60:95, N60

OpenOffice Text

OpenOffice is a free, open-source office suite available on nearly any operating system. This software includes "Writer" which saves word processing documents as "ODT" files. OnSong can view these files as well as convert them to text.

For more information about OpenOffice, please visit the OpenOffice website.

Transposition

Let's face facts. Sometimes a song is not performed in a key that is suitable for your vocal range. Or perhaps playing a song in the key that it is written in is too difficult for your guitarist and they don't want to capo. Music is best when it matches with your talent. OnSong provides a powerful transposition engine to make the music match your unique abilities and style.

How It Works

Chord charts can be expressed as text-based documents using the OnSong or ChordPro file formats. These files are designed to give musical meaning to characters in the document. This allows chords to be detected.

Transposition also requires the key of the original song to be known. You can declare a key using Metadata. If the key of the song is unknown, OnSong typically uses the first chord of the song as the key. You can change this behavior in Settings » Menu Settings » Style Preferences » Transpose and Capo » Detect Key By.

When transposition occurs, OnSong determines the new key and the enharmonic preference of transposed chords using the enharmonic preference of the new key. You can change this behavior in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Enharmonic.

Note: Transposition does not work with externally imported documents like Word or PDF because these files are designed to be printed and do not carry information about chords or metadata needed for musicians. The design goals of these types documents are different from OnSong's text-based chord charts. The content written in word processing documents are not in a standardized format and is often proprietary in nature.

How To Transpose

Once you have your song in a text-based document and chords are detected, you can transpose using the Transpose Slider found in the Style Preferences Menu in the Menubar. Just slide the slider to the left or right to adjust the key. You can even tap on the icons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the key.

If you want the chords to be displayed as they are written in the Song Editor, turn off transposition using the power icon to the right of the Transpose Slider found in the Style Preferences Menu in the Menubar.

Using Different Keys

The notion of dynamic transposition means that you can have one copy of your song and make changes in one place. However, you may need to have the song available in different keys when playing with different bands or at different venues. OnSong can use a different key for the song in a particular set while keeping the original key in the master song list.

To do this, turn on Separate Set/Song Styles when Adding or Renaming sets. This will now store changes made to the song when viewed in the set to the set. For instance you can change the tempo, autoscroll duration, flow, and style preferences and all will be applied to that song in the set.

Universal

OnSong is a universal app which means the same app runs on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The user interface adapts to the device platform that you are using. For instance on an iPad, OnSong will use popover menus to provide access to songs and transposition. On an iPhone, this happens using model screen and navigation. Let's take a look at some of these differences.

Popover Menus versus Navigation Screen

The first thing you'll notice is that things are organized a little differently on smaller screens. The first screen you will see is the Songs Menu which takes up the entire screen. Tap on a song or set to slide over to the song viewer.

Song Viewer Toolbar

Song Editor Changes

Other Tweaks

Compact Mode

OnSong works best on iPad as it has a much larger screen for viewing your music. But that doesn't mean you can't use an iPhone or iPod Touch. OnSong makes a view changes to adapt to the smaller screen size.

Songs Menu

Just like on the iPad, you access your songs and sets by tapping on the Songs button in the upper left corner. Instead of a popover, the menu will open full screen and be hidden once you select a song.

Heads-Up Display

The title of the song appears in the middle of the top menubar. You can change what is viewed there by swiping right or left, just like on the iPad.

Utilities Menu

Just like on the iPad, the gear icon provides access to the Utilities Menu where you can access editors, tools and settings.

Toolbar

The tools that are normally found in the menubar at the top of the screen are moved to a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. This allows easier access when using OnSong on a handheld device and also makes more room at the top for the heads-up display.

The toolbar removes the Foot Pedal Menu, but that is still available under the Utilities Menu » Editors » Navigation » Pedals. The Messages Menu may also be removed on very small screens.

Song Editor

While most of the menus are the same or similar, the Song Editor makes some more changes due to the compact size.

Toolbar

When using OnSong on iPhone or iPod Touch, access to many menus is moved to the bottom of the screen via a toolbar. The following items can bet accessed:

Share Menu

This icon looks like an up arrow in a box and allows you to share the current song or set in a variety of ways including exporting, emailing, printing, and sharing wirelessly.

External Video Menu

This menu button looks like a computer monitor and lets you configure an external monitor or projector for use with OnSong. Using an Apple Dock Connector to VGA Adapter, Apple Digital AV Adapter, or AirPlay and an AppleTV, you can use OnSong to project lyrics for an audience, or to display chord charts on a monitor on stage.

Playback Menu

This icon looks like a pair of headphones and lets you set an audio track to play along with while viewing the chord sheet. It also lets you configure the metronome tempo and time signature, as well as setting a duration of the song for autoscroll. You can also find new versions of that song through the integrated iTunes search.

Messages Menu

Using this menu, screen taps and foot pedal presses can send messages to your team. Use these to communicate more effectively in live performances.

This button may be removed on smaller screen sizes.

Organizer Menu

The organizer menu is used to place the currently loaded song into a set, book or to mark a song with an icon such as a star. When the song has an icon associated with it, the star icon in the menu bar is enabled.

Song Editor

This icon opens the song editor. The song editor allows you to make changes to the song's chords, lyrics, and metadata as well as tools to assist you in editing songs, or even writing them from scratch.

Annotations Menu

This icon looks like a sticky note and allows you to easily add sticky notes or drawings to your chord chart. These can help remind you of things such as who starts the song or how it is played.

Style Preferences Menu

This icon looks like a series of sliders and allows you to quickly change how your song sheet looks and acts. In this menu you can change font sizes and styles, highlight colors, and transpose/capo the song. You can also turn portions of the song on and off such as the header, lyrics, chords, tablature, and whether the capo should be applied.

Gestures

You can use gestures to quickly show and hide the menubar as well as show the songs menu. These gestures are only available on iPad.

Close Screens

If you've opened a modal screen in OnSong, you can close it by swiping down on the top navigation bar.

Scroll To Top

Depending on the number of songs you have, you may have very long lists. If you want to quickly get to the top of most lists, tap on the title in the navigation bar at the top to be taken to the top of the list.

Show Songs Menu

The songs menubar can be displayed by swiping from the left or right edges of the screen depending on the orientation of the menubar. If the Songs button is on the left, then swipe from the left. If the Songs button is on the right, then swipe from the right. The swipe must originate off of the screen.

Hide Menubar

You can tap in the middle of the screen to toggle the menubar visibility. However, you can also swipe up on the menubar to hide it.

Show Menubar

You can use the overscroll gesture to show the menubar when it is hidden. Pull down on the song viewer as you would when refreshing a list in other apps. This will trigger the menubar to show again.

Live Bar

Playing live uses all of your concentration and usually most of your limbs as well. Triggering events for live performance needs to be easy. The live bar in OnSong is designed to provide large buttons for controlling live performance events, as well as a visual status of each function.

Tapping on a live bar button starts or stops its function. Tapping and holding on a live bar button will open a menu allowing you to configure properties. The following buttons can be contained in the livebar. You can also turn these buttons on or off in the Utilities Menu » Editors » Navigation » Screen Tab. You can also accomplish this in Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » On-Screen Buttons.

The live bar consists of:

Audio

The audio live bar button is used start, pause or stop backing tracks. Tap and hold to choose a different track, or to link to a custom track from your Apple Music library.

Autoscroll

Playing live necessitates using all your hands, feet and fingers. But what if your chord chart is longer than the screen can contain? Autoscroll provides a solution by slowly scrolling the chord chart from top to bottom over a duration.

Metronome

Playing with a click track is great for practice, or to get your band started on a song. The metronome in OnSong stores the BPM for each song letting you start at the right tempo every time.

Networking

OnSong can be used to share and stream what's on your screen wirelessly to your team. The networking livebar button lets you turn sharing on and off.

Audio

The audio playback live bar button is flexible to meet the needs of live performers. By default, the button is designed to start and pause a backing track. Double-tapping on the audio live bar button when playing or stopped will cause the song to beginning at the beginning of the track as a repeat function.

OnSong automatically selects a track from your libraries with the same name as the chord chart. This means the only requirement is to have an audio track with the same name of your chord chart in your music library. OnSong searches both your Apple Music library as well as it's internal OnSong audio media library. See Adding Tracks to your Apple Music Library for details on how to accomplish adding audio tracks to your Apple Music library. Your OnSong audio media library can be completely managed from inside of the app using the OnSong Audio Media Library.

Picking Audio Tracks

If you have multiple tracks available in your libraries and need to choose a different track, or if you need to choose a track with a different name, tap and hold on the audio live bar button to open the Audio Track Picker and choose a different track, or link to a specific track using the Choose Custom Track option.

Configuring Audio Playback

You can configure how OnSong plays backing tracks in settings. For more details on these options, please see Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Audio.

Apple Music Library

OnSong can link chord charts in your OnSong library to audio tracks in your iTunes Music Library on your device. You can browse your iTunes Music Library using the built-in Music app from your device's home screen. Apple provides tools and services to help you get your music onto your device.

History

In the days of the iPod music player as well as the first iPhone devices, you put music on your device using iTunes. iTunes is free software that was required to instantiate and manage your device. Since that time, Apple has moved away from requiring you to connect your device to a Mac or PC, making the iPad and iPhones standalone products.

iTunes

Most users who purchase iPad or iPhone are familiar with iTunes. In fact, the App Store is an extension of the iTunes store which sells apps instead of music, videos, and more. The iTunes application not only acts as media management software, but also as a portal to this large ecosystem of music, TV shows, movies and of course apps.

Misconceptions

That being said, there's a misconception that you need to purchase content from iTunes in order to use it on your iPad or iPhone. You can use iTunes to manage your own audio tracks or tracks from other vendors such as Amazon. However, Apple has made it very easy and convenient to purchase music legally through their iTunes store which is why many believe that is the only way.

Transferring Music

There are a few ways to get music onto your iPad or iPhone. The first and original way is to plug your device into a computer running iTunes. Next, add music in your iTunes library. Remember that you can do this either by purchasing content on the iTunes store, using software that bounces or adds tracks to iTunes (such as GarageBand), or by simply dragging MP3, AAC or other supported file formats into the iTunes window.

iTunes sorts and manages your tracks from any source. You can then use choose your device from the iTunes user interface and synchronize or "Apply" your music to the device. Learn more about adding, importing and converting music using iTunes

Music in the Cloud

With the advent of iCloud, Apple has made getting music to play on your device even easier with iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Music Match. These services allow you to access your music on your device without having the music physically stored on the device. For most people this is convenient because their music collections are large, not always listened to, and would take up significant space on their device.

While OnSong can play music from iCloud, there may be a delay as the song is streamed and buffered for playback. Make sure that you download music for live performances to your device before playing. That will ensure that network problems do not inhibit your performance and provides for smoother and immediate playback of your audio. Learn more about iTunes in the Cloud

Audio Track Picker

The audio track picker displays all tracks that match the current chord chart by name. In addition, this menu will display a custom track that you've picked. For each track, the album artwork is displayed (if available) as well as the track name and artist.

Audio Playback Settings

Tapping on the wrench icon will open a screen allowing you to change audio playback settings. Tap Done to save changes and close the screen, or tap on Cancel to close the screen without saving changes.

Linking To Matching Audio Tracks

Tap on the audio track you want to associate with the chord chart. By default, OnSong will link the first found track when matched by name. A checkmark will appear next to the track to indicate the currently linked track. If you would like to unlink the track from the chord chart, tap on the checked track to uncheck it. This will result in no audio track being associated with the chord chart.

Linking To Custom Audio Tracks

To choose a track from your Apple Music Library or OnSong Media Library, tap on the Choose Custom Track row in the menu. This will open the Choose Custom Track menu that allows you to browse for music.

iCloud Music Matching

Please note that tracks found by matching the name of the chord chart to the audio track may include audio tracks found in iCloud. You can remove these as options in Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Audio » Show Music in iCloud.

Choose Custom Track

If you want to link a custom audio track to your chord chart, you must first decide which library to pull from for playback. OnSong provides access to the following libraries.

Apple Music Library

This option provides access to shared audio tracks that you can play using the Music app on your device. Linking audio tracks from your Apple Music library has some advantages.

• Tracks that are stored in iTunes in the Cloud or Apple Music match can be accessed using the Apple Music library.
• Tracks that contain digital rights management may need to be played through the Apple Music library.
• Tracks are not stored within your OnSong library making the storage requirements of your app and backups less.
• Tracks are shared between multiple apps and can be played back from the Music app on your device.
• Tracks can have playback metadata associated with them as configured in Apple Music. For instance, you can adjust the output volume as well as start and end time points.
• While OnSong does support background audio when playing music, if OnSong were to crash for any reason, the audio would stop. When using Apple Music library assets, the song can keep playing even in the event of an unlikely failure.

OnSong Media Library

Choose this option to manage audio files directly inside of OnSong without needing to use Apple Music to manage your backing tracks.

The OnSong media library is stored inside of your OnSong library. This lets you import and manage audio tracks without using Apple Music, but does require that the audio tracks are stored inside of the OnSong app. This means that your backup files will increase in size to contain the audio files.

Apple Music

Apple Music is where you can access any song that you have access to through the Music app on your device. If you subscribe to Apple Music, all of your songs are available for playback. You can use this Apple-provided interface to select songs to play or import as backing tracks. Once you find a song, select it to link it to your song in the OnSong library, or to import into the library.

This interface is controlled by Apple and may require you to sign into Apple Music to access your tracks. We recommend that you download tracks for performance use through the native Music app so that the track can be played in OnSong without interruptions. Streamed backing tracks and tracks with digital rights management can only play using the Apple Music app which OnSong controls remotely. Certain features like crossfading are not available for tracks played through the Apple Music app.

iTunes Music Library

You can choose any available song in your iTunes Music Library to link to a chord chart. When you tap on the "iTunes Music Library" option in the Audio Track Picker, a modal window will appear. This gives you options for browsing your iTunes Music Library. Choose a tab on the bottom to determine how to browse your songs. You can also search songs in the Songs tab.

Once you've found the song you are looking for, tap on it to select it. The song will be added the Audio Track Picker and checkmarked. This links the custom track to the currently viewed chord chart.

If you do not want to pick a song, simply tap on the Cancel button at the top.

Spotify Library

The Spotify Library screen let's you link Spotify tracks to your song in OnSong. You can access saved songs as well as followed artists in Your Music. You can also search the entire Spotify music catalog by song title, artist or album.

Authentication

If you haven't signed in yet, you'll be prompted with a Spotify login screen. Tap the Log In To Spotify button to login with your credentials.

If you don't have a Spotify account, you can create one at spotify.com or by signing in with Facebook on the Login Screen.

Spotify Library

Once you've authenticated into your Spotify account, you'll see the following tabs to access Spotify tracks:

• Playlists browses for songs in all the playlists that you've created in Spotify.

• Songs views all of the tracks that you've saved to Your Music under your Spotify account.

• Artists displays all artists that you are following.

• Albums shows albums that you have saved to Your Music under your Spotify account.

• Search allows you to search for tracks by track, artist or album.

Note: You can tap on the close button in the upper right corner to close this screen at anytime.

Albums

The Albums tab lets you quickly browse albums that you've saved to Your Music in Spotify. Tap on an album to view its songs.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Songs

Tap on an album in the list to view a list of the songs contained in the album in the order they appear.

Songs

Once you've tapped on a album, you can view all of the songs in the album to link a song to the active chord chart.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

The list of songs that is displayed and the songs found in the album. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Artists

The artists tab displays all artists that you are following on Spotify.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking to a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Albums

Tap on an artist row to view a list of albums you can use to browse to a Spotify track.

Albums

Tapping on an artist will reveal every album they have in the Spotify music catalog. Tap on an album to view its songs.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Songs

Tap on an album in the list to view a list of the songs contained in the album in the order they appear.

Songs

Once you've tapped on a album, you can view all of the songs in the album to link a song to the active chord chart.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

The list of songs that is displayed and the songs found in the album. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Log In To Spotify

You can log into Spotify using either Facebook or your Spotify username and password.

Facebook

Tapping on the Log In With Facebook button will display the Facebook login screen to let you authenticate using your Facebook account. Once complete, you will be signed into your Facebook-linked Spotify account.

Spotify Login

You can also type in your Spotify username and password in the fields below. Checking the Remember me option will retain your login information in the web page that is used by Spotify to authenticate you. This has no no effect on OnSong unless authentication occurs automatically.

Forgot Username or Password

If yo have forgotten your username or password, tap on the Forgot your username or password link to recover your information.

Note: If you are not a Spotify user and choose to sign in with Facebook, you will automatically be registered and automatically agree to the Spotify Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Playlists

The playlists tab displays all playlists that you have created on Spotify.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking to a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Songs

Tap on a playlist to view a list of songs in that playlist in the order that they appear.

Playlist Songs

Once you've tapped on a playlist, you can view all of the songs in the playlist to link a song to the active chord chart.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

The list of songs that have been added to the playlist are displayed. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Search

Use the Search tab to search the entire Spotify music catalog for a track.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking a track.

Search Bar

The search bar in the upper-right corner of the screen lets you enter keywords to search for. In addition, a menu to the right of the search bar allows you to search either the album, artist or track title.

Linking Songs

Once you've performed a search, the results appear in list format. This list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to active chord chart.

Songs

The Songs tab lets you quickly browse tracks you've saved to Your Music in Spotify. Once you've found a song, tap on it to link it to the active chord chart.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

Songs that you've saved to Your Music appears in list format on this screen. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Audio Media Library

The OnSong audio media library screen features audio tracks that you've imported.

Adding Tracks

You can add tracks by importing audio track files just like any other file type. You can also import directly inside of the audio media library screen by tapping on the + button in the upper right corner to open the Import Files Menu.

Browsing Tracks

You can browse your tracks by artists, songs and albums with the default view being the songs list.

• Artists groups your tracks by artist.
• Songs displays a list of all songs in your OnSong audio media library indexed alphabetically by the track name.
• Albums groups your tracks by album name if available.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks in the OnSong audio media library by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Track Editor screen. The Delete button will delete the audio track from your library.

You can also tap and hold on a row containing an audio track to open the Track Editor if you are not running iOS 8.

Sort

When you open the sort method menu, you can see ways that you can sort the audio tracks as well as an arrow indicating the current sort method and direction. Tapping on a selected attribute will invert its direction. You can sort audio tracks via a variety of attributes found below:

Title

The title of the audio track in alphabetic sort order.

Artist

The artist of the audio track, if provided.

Duration

The duration of the audio track.

Size

The file size of the audio track. When sorted by size, the file size is displayed on the right instead of the duration.

Created

The date and time the audio track was created, or added to the media library. When sorting by created date, that date is displayed on the right side instead of the duration.

Modified

The date and time the audio track was modified, or changed to the media library. When sorting by modified date, that date is displayed on the right side instead of the duration.

Reduce File Size

This screen presents available file formats that can be used to downsample media to reduce file size in storage. For instance, if you've imported large WAV files, you can downsample within OnSong to M4A file formats and reduce the size of your OnSong library.

Audio

OnSong provides compression into the M4A file format to reduce the size of audio files.

Video

If you are compressing a video file format, OnSong can encode into a low resolution video using the built in H.264 encoder.

Share

The share menu is the built-in activities menu in iOS/iPadOS which provides access to all available apps and actions.

Apps

Here you some standard apps available to share the media items to:

• AirDrop the files to another device over peer-to-peer WiFi.
• Messages to send as an iMessage attachment.
• Mail to email the attachments.
• More allows you to pick other apps that have been registered to open these sorts of files.

Actions

You can also select from actions available in the system or through OnSong:

• Copy will place the content into the clipboard for pasting.
• Export will open the Export Menu allowing you to export using the OnSong export interface.
• Add To OnSong will import the files into your OnSong library which would be an odd choice, but you're free to choose!
• Save To Files allows you to save the reports to storage locations or drives connected to the Files app.

Editing Mode

When you tap on the Select button in the upper right corner of the menubar, you enter selection mode. This will allow you to tap on songs, artists or albums to select each item, placing a checkmark on the left side of each item to indicate it has been selected.

Export

To export, tap on the action button that looks like a square with an up arrow in the upper right corner to open the Export Menu.

Delete

To delete selected tracks, tap on the trash can icon in the upper right corner.

Cancel

If you do not want to export the selected songs, tap on the Cancel button to cancel out of selection mode.

Export Menu

The export menu lets you choose a location where exported content should be saved. If you have more than one file to export, the number of items is displayed in parenthesis in the title.

OnSong supports four general locations with the last option allowing for future expansion to web services that implement standard access protocols.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file storage service that allows you to place your important documents in the cloud. This means that they are near-instantly available on all your devices, making the service a great candidate for backing up your library. Tapping on the Dropbox option allows you to select a folder in your Dropbox where you would like your files exported.

Google Drive

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage service that allows you to store documents in the cloud. This means that they are near-instantly available on all your devices, making the service a great candidate for backing up your library or storing files. Tapping on the Google Drive option allows you to select a folder in your Google Drive where you would like your files exported.

File Sharing

This option allows the user to export to file sharing. This is a special folder contained inside of the OnSong app which can be accessed through the Finder (macOS) or iTunes (Windows) when connected with a sync/charge cable. This means that the file is stored on your device until it is saved off of the device onto a computer.

Files

iOS has the ability to export files to apps from storage providers that support integration with the iOS Files app. Use this option to select a location and folder where the file should be exported.

Other

Some online storage services have support for open standards, allowing files to be securely stored and retrieved without individual configurations. Use this option if you would like to add an online source that supports Amazon S3, FTP, or WebDAV protocols.

Albums

The albums tab in the audio media library groups all tracks by album if available. This allows for faster browsing of larger music libraries. Albums are indexed alphabetically.

The album artwork is displayed on the left followed by the album title and artist name. The number of songs and total album duration in minutes are displayed on the far right side.

Tap on an album to display songs performed on that album in the Album Track List.

Album Track List

The album track list displays the selected album's information above a list of tracks. Album information includes a thumbnail of the album cover artwork, the album name, number of songs and length of time of all tracks.

Each track is displayed in order of track number. The track number is displayed on the left followed by the track name and duration of the track.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks in the OnSong audio media library by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Audio Track Editor screen. The **Delete* button will delete the audio track from your library.

Artists

The artists tab in the audio media library groups all tracks by artist if available. This allows for faster browsing of larger music libraries. Artists are indexed alphabetically.

The album artwork of the most recent album is displayed on the left followed by the artist's name. The number of albums and songs are displayed on the far right side.

Tap on an artist name to display songs performed by that artist in the Artist Track List.

Artist Track List

The artist track list displays the selected artist's information above a list of tracks. Artist information includes a thumbnail of an album cover artwork, the artist's name, number of albums and total number of songs.

Each track is displayed in order of track number. The track number is displayed on the left followed by the track name and duration of the track.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks in the OnSong audio media library by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Track Editor screen. The Delete button will delete the audio track from your library.

Import Files

The import files menu provides a list of common import locations with the ability to import audio tracks from those sources. These import screens are similar to those found in the Songs Menu except that only audio files are selectable.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a popular cloud-based storage service that works great for importing documents from your computer.

iTunes File Sharing

iTunes File Sharing allows you to import files from your computer using a USB cable and iTunes software.

Other

The other options lets you import from other remote sources using standard communication protocols.

MultiTracks for Worship

MultiTracks for Worship makes it easy and affordable to get started with using MultiTracks. When you use the MultiTracks for Worship option in the audio media library, we open the their website where you can sign in with your account to access your purchases, or to buy MultiTracks with your subscription credits.

Sign In

In order to access your purchases and credits, you'll need to sign into the MultiTracks for Worship website.

My Orders

Once you are signed in, you an access your purchases by tapping on the menu icon and choose My Orders from the menu. From there you can view available files and download the ZIP file to be processed as a MultiTrack in your library.

Using MultiTracks

Once you've downloaded the MultiTrack, OnSong will extract and process the ZIP file to create the MultiTrack in your Audio Media Library. From there you can link it to a song to play it and use the Mixer Widget to mix and control output settings.

My Orders

Once you're signed in, you can access your orders. This can be done by tapping on the menu icon (three lines) in the upper left corner of the web site and then choosing My Orders. These are MultiTracks that you've purchased on the website or using subscription credits.

Browse Orders

You can scroll through your orders here and see the album artwork as well as the title of the song. Tap on the Download button on the right side to view available downloads for the order.

Download

Each order contains files that can be downloaded. If you're using the purchase in OnSong, you'll want to import the ZIP file. Like other websites, MultiTracks are delivered as a ZIP file. Locate that file and then tap on the Download button. This will start the download process. If OnSong detects that a ZIP file is being downloaded, it will capture that download request to import the ZIP file and process it into a MultiTrack. Once processed, you can access and play the MultiTrack.

Sign In

When ever you attempt to view your customer information, orders, or redeem credits on the MultiTracks for Worship website, you'll need to sign in with your customer account.

Email Address

Enter your email address in the first field.

Password

Enter your password in the password field.

Remember Me

Since this is a web browser viewed within the OnSong app, we recommend checkmarking this option. That will ensure that future browsing and downloading will happen without requiring login each time OnSong is restarted.

Sign In

Tap or click on the sign in button to authenticate with MultiTracks for Worship to begin browsing and downloading MultiTracks.

Forgotten Password

We all do it sometimes. Tap or click on that option if you need help remembering or resetting your password.

MultiTracks for Worship is a third-party website and OnSong cannot provide support for the use of this site or any billing inquiries that may arise. You will need to contact MultiTracks for Worship or Wayopay directly for assistance.

Songs

The songs tab in the audio media library shows all songs contained in your library. Songs are indexed alphabetically by track name.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Track Editor screen. The Delete button will delete the audio track from your library.

Track Editor

The track editor is accessed by swiping from right to left over audio tracks and choosing the Edit button. This present you with editable fields. When you are finished making changes, tap on the Done button to save your changes and have audio adjustments gradually implemented in a track being played from the live bar.

Track Information

This is information related to the track metadata.

• Title is the name of the track, typically the name of the song.
• Artist is the name of the artist.
• Album is the name of the album.
• Copyright is the provided copyright information.

Note: Changes made here is saved in the OnSong audio media library record and does not get written back to the underlying audio file.

Preview

Use this scrubber and play button to listen to the track. This is useful for other adjustment sliders below.

Volume Adjustment

This will adjust the output volume of the track allowing for custom volumes to normalize track volumes. Changes to the volume here are reflected in the audio output if you preview the track, but not to the track if it is being played from the live bar. Tap on the target icon on the right to return to the original value.

Pan Adjustment

This will adjust the pan settings for the track. Changes made here are elected immediately to the track that is being previewed, but not to the track if it is being played from the live bar. Tap on the target icon on the right to return to the original value.

Key Chooser

Audio in your media library can be played in a specific key. You can set a key for the media using the key chooser to provide OnSong with information about the track. The key chooser is divided into two tabs, one for major keys and one for minor keys. Use the tab bar at the bottom to toggle between your options and then tap on a key to choose it. If you don't want a key assigned to your audio, tap on the None option at the top of either list of keys.

This property will not transpose your audio. If your audio is a MultiTrack, the key is used to transpose the audio. The key you set here must match the key that the track is in when played. Do not set this property to the key you want the track to be output as.

Tempo Chooser

The tempo chooser lets you choose a tempo to assign to your backing track or MultiTrack. This is the natural tempo of the track and can be used to various things. For instance, if you link a song to a chord chart or sheet music, OnSong can automatically get the tempo for the metronome. You should not use this to shift the tempo of the backing track. This is metadata about the track only.

To set the tempo, drag left and right or up and down to quickly get to the desired tempo range. You can then tap on the edge of the control to increment the tempo by one beat per minute. Tapping on the top or right will increment the tempo. Tapping on the left or bottom will decrement the tempo.

You can also tap in the middle of the control in time with the song. OnSong will determine the tempo by averaging the taps.

You can also acquire the tempo from MIDI click by enabling the switch at the bottom if you are connected to MIDI equipment emitting a clock. Tap on the options menu to view Metronome Settings