Read The Bleepin’ Manual
Tap That Tempo
ZOMG, okay, so like… everything in music needs to be locked down tighter than your mom's WiFi password. The metronome click, the drum groove, that delay slap, tremolo pulse, arpeggio — all of it. OnSong figured this out & built a shared beat clock that's basically a type-A micromanager. It's obsessed with tempo, time signature, & exactly which measure you're murdering. Beat Sync? That's the bouncer that makes sure all the chaotic stuff in OnSong stays together & doesn't ruin the vibe.
One Tempo. One Incredibly Bossy Clock.
There's literally one clock running the whole app. It's got three thoughts in its tiny brain: the tempo, the time signature, & where you are RIGHT NOW in the bar — which beat, which teeny subdivision. Usually the song's tempo runs the show, but OTHER stuff can muscle in on the action too. Buckle up:
- Song Tempo is the boring default way tempo & time signature get set when nobody else is screaming louder.
- Ableton Link is how you get OnSong to play nice with other apps & gear so everybody's locked in together like a boy band that actually practices.
- MIDI Clock now hears the difference between regular beats & downbeats & flexes that knowledge to keep tempo tight.
- Backing Tracks get fed through the AuxDock to figure out their groove, shifting tempo on the fly if the track's feelin' spicy.
Keep Up Or Get Left Behind
Everything in OnSong® subscribes to the beat clock now. First thing that syncs wins & sets the downbeat. Like, if you fire up the metronome, everyone hears it immediately & falls in line. If you're getting beat info from Ableton Link or MIDI Clock, the metronome waits politely & joins on the next beat, but everyone's downbeats match up. First in, everyone else follows. Democracy? Nah. Autocracy? Absolutely.
Metronome
Duh. This is the most obvious place the beat clock shows up, count-in & all.
AuxDock Atmosphere
Plays ambient fluff that starts, stops & morphs — all locked to the current beat so your zen doesn't sound like a car crash.
AuxDock Pedalboard
What if your guitar pedals actually knew what song you're playin'? The AuxDock's got timed pedals that snap to musical subdivisions. Quarter notes, dotted eighths, whatever — they follow tempo changes like a puppy: - Delay - Tremolo - Phaser - Wah
AuxDock Chordboard
Let literally anyone play chords (even you, don't be shy). Arpeggiator, strumming patterns, the whole nine. Beat Sync makes sure each chord lands when it's supposed to, not when your clumsy fingers decide.
AuxDock Drum Rack
A full drum machine that makes sure your grooves, fills & endings land exactly where they belong instead of wherever your rhythm is garbage.
AuxDock Virtual Instrument
A guitar that strums or picks the chords in your song. Beat Sync keeps it all in time instead of sounding like a raccoon caught in a blender.
The clock only ticks when somebody's actually listenin'. No pointless burnin' of battery — it's lazy like that.
Tempos Change. Meters Too. Deal With It.
Your song doesn't gotta stay boring & stuck on one tempo anymore. Each section can have its own directives & the beat clock updates when you hop to that section:
- {tempo: 72} yeets the tempo to whatever BPM you typed.
- {time: 6/8} switches the time signature to 6/8. The new meter starts clean on a downbeat, not halfway through a messy bar.
- {ramp: 4} slides from your current tempo to the new one over a few measures, beats, or seconds instead of a jarring jump. Just a number? That's beats. Syntax like 1,2? That's a measure & two beats. Throw an "s" at the end like 2s & you're talkin' seconds, tempo be damned.
These are live changes, not edits! They shuffle the tempo everywhere without messin' with the song file itself.
Turnin' On Beat Sync
Beat Sync shows up wherever it matters as a tiny LED that pulses & displays the BPM next to it. The LED blinks on beat, so at a glance you can see it's actually on & what speed it's cruisin' at.
Tap it to toggle that surface's sync. When you do, a lil' chip pops in the dock — armed, it suggests Ableton Link… as your way to broadcast tempo to other gear. Or it confirms Beat Sync is officially off if you ditched it.
When It Actually Matters
When the metronome's countin' you in, beat-synced instruments stay quiet through the boring count & pop in right on the real downbeat. They don't play along with the count-in & they don't come in late—it's pre-scheduled so it hits exactly.
Why The Beat Doesn't Sound Like Trash
Two things do the heavy liftin', & they're worth knowin' because they're why OnSong® keeps beats tighter than your ex's grip while everyone else drifts like a sad boat:
The clock's grid is pinned to your device's monotonic hardware clock, not some wimpy software timer. Timers rack up tiny errors every tick; an anchored grid calculates precisely when each beat should land, so beat ten thousand is just as spot-on as beat one.
Beat-synced audio gets scheduled way ahead of time instead of bein' played when the tick shows up. The clock knows exactly when an upcoming beat lands, so a drum hit gets handed to the audio engine with a timestamp attached. Even if the app gets lazy for a sec, the audio's already scheduled & still lands perfect.
If somethin' sounds like it's driftin', double-check that Sync is actually on — an effect with Sync off runs on its own tempo knob, which is totally legit & looks the same from the back of the room.
