A tempo reference for the set. Every song in the list has an agreed tempo, and you can hear a click at that tempo in your headphones before you count off. It's a web page that installs like an app, and it works with no internet connection at all.
Nothing to download and nothing to configure. Works on a laptop or a phone.
Install it rather than bookmarking it. Browsers throw away saved data for ordinary web pages you haven't opened in a week or two, and an installed app is exempt. If you go a few weeks between gigs, that icon is what keeps your running order and settings from vanishing.
On an iPhone or a Mac, use Safari to install it — that's the only browser there that can.
The first time you open it, the whole app saves itself onto the device. After that it never needs a connection — it doesn't even try. A bar with dead wifi, a venue with no signal, airplane mode: it behaves exactly the same.
Worth proving to yourself once before you rely on it. Open it from its icon, then turn wifi off (airplane mode on a phone), quit it completely, and launch it again. Everything should still be there and the click should still work. If it doesn't, say so before the next gig rather than after.
Updates arrive on their own. A new version installs quietly in the background and takes effect the next time you launch the app — never in the middle of a set.
Pick a song — tap it in the list. Its title and tempo fill the panel at the top.
Start the click — hit the big Click button, or the space bar on a laptop. You get two bars and it stops on its own. Hit it again for another two.
Move through the set — the Prev and Next buttons under Click, or on a laptop hold Option and press the up or down arrow.
On a phone the panel stays pinned to the top while the list scrolls underneath, so the tempo and the Click button are always where you left them.
The big number is the tempo. It flashes on every beat and the panel edge glows amber on the downbeat, so you can see the time as well as hear it. The row of dots under the number shows where you are in the bar.
Volume is just the device's own volume — there's no separate control in the app.
Four settings, behind the gear in the top right corner. Set them once and forget them — the device remembers. Hit Done or Escape to close.
You don't have to open it to check them: the line under the Click button always reads back how the click is currently set up.
Five click sounds. Pick whatever cuts through best in your headphones. Changing it plays one click so you can audition without starting anything.
| Stick | Sharpest attack, like a stick tip on a rim. The default. |
| Woodblock | Rounder, still percussive. |
| Cowbell | Loudest and most audible. Also the most annoying. |
| Clave | A clean pitched ping. |
| Beep | A plain electronic beep. |
How long the click lasts. 2 bars is the default and probably what you want. Until stopped keeps it going if you ever want to play along to a click rather than just take a tempo off it.
On the one makes the first beat of each bar higher and louder, so you can hear where the bar starts. Straight makes every click identical. Either way the screen still shows you which beat you're on.
What happens when a count-off finishes. Cue next song means the next song in the list is loaded and ready, so playing a set in order needs nothing but the space bar — count off, play the song, hit space again for the next one. No clicking, no scrolling, no finding your place.
It only does this when the count-off runs its full length. If you stop one early, or you're on Until stopped, the cue stays where it is. The last song in the list stays put too.
Choose Stay put if you'd rather pick every song yourself.
The app is locked when it opens, every time, no matter how you left it. There is nothing you can do with a stray keystroke that changes a tempo.
Where you live on a gig. Pick songs, run the click, move through the set.
Click Reorder set in the set header. Drag handles and up/down arrows appear and you can rearrange the running order. This is the one you want on a break: rearrange the next set, hit Done, and you're locked again. Escape also gets you back to locked.
The running order is the only thing you can change, and it's yours — it stays exactly as you leave it.
Tempos aren't stored on your device. They're a band decision, so they live in one shared list and every copy of the app reads them from there. There's no tempo field to type in and nothing to knock out of tune by accident.
If one's wrong, say so and it gets corrected in the shared list. You'll pick up the change the next time you open the app with a connection.
On a laptop. On a phone, use the Click button and the Prev / Next buttons under it.
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| space | Start / stop the click — and with Cue next song on, all you need for a set in order |
| ⌥ ↑ ⌥ ↓ | Previous / next song |
| esc | Close the settings, or get back to locked |
Two things live on your device, in that browser: your running order and your four click settings. They don't follow you to another computer, and opening the app in a different browser gives you a fresh copy in the list's own order. Pick one machine and one browser and stay there.
Nothing needs backing up. The songs and their tempos come from the shared list every time the app loads, so they can't be lost from here — and a running order takes a few seconds to drag back into shape.
The starting numbers were estimated from the original recordings, not measured. They're close but not gospel, and some will feel wrong once there's a crowd in the room — bands tend to drift faster than the record. Expect a fair few to need nudging over the first several gigs. Note which ones and they'll get corrected in the shared list.
A tempo can also be right while a straight quarter-note click fights the feel — shuffles and swung tunes especially. That's worth reporting too; it can be handled differently for those songs.