Play Mode
The play mode is designed to assist you during your live performance. Lyrics can either be auto-scrolled or displayed one page at a time. Bluetooth page turner pedals and MIDI footswitches may be used to move about the lyrics and go to the next song of a 'Setlist'.
To activate Song One's play mode select a song in the 'Library' (or a 'Setlist') and tap/click on the play button. (See library panel to learn more.)
Note: The play button above the library will initiate the playback of a single song. Create a set to play a collection of songs and navigate between them via the touch zones of the screen and/or foot pedals:
To play a set instead of a single song:
- tap/click on a song in a 'Setlist'
- and tap/click on the play button above the 'Setlist'.
The library panel will slide out to the left, the lyrics of the selected song will fill the entire screen. A playback slider appears at the bottom of the screen as the song begins to play.
If desired a 'smart scroll' chord chart can be shown above the slider. (See 'Smart Scroll' Chord Chart at the bottom of this page to learn more.
Song One's settings/preferences offer the option to display a legal rights footer instead of a playback slider. Show the legal rights footer whenever you are projecting songs in public.
Song One offers two options to advance the lyrics. You may choose between 'Auto-Scroll' and 'Page Flip' in Song One's settings (preferences).
When 'Auto-Scroll' is selected Song One will automatically scroll the entire lyrics from the beginning to the end in a specified time frame. The time frame is entered in the 'Duration' field of the song info side panel. (See song info to learn more.)
You may jump several lines forwards (or backwards) while the lyrics are being auto-scrolled by...
- pressing the 'down' (or 'up') key of an external keyboard.
- tapping/clicking on Song One's 'touch zones' in the upper half or lower half of the screen.
Jumping forwards or backwards will not affect the playback of the optional audio backing track linked to the song. (See song info to learn more about backing tracks.)
When jumping forwards Song One will indicate the end of a song by outlining the icons of the bottom toolbar. Jumping forwards when the end is reached will open and auto-scroll the next song of a 'Setlist'. A linked backing track of the next song will start playing automatically. (See library panel to learn how to create setlists.)
When 'Page Flip' is selected in Song One's settings (preferences) the lyrics will not be scrolled. PDF documents will be 'flipped' one page at a time. Native Song One document will be advanced according to the zoom level.
Go to the next (or previous) page by ...
- pressing the 'down' (or 'up') key of an external keyboard.
- tapping/clicking on Song One's 'touch zones' in the upper half or lower half of the screen.
Flipping pages will not affect the playback of the optional audio backing track linked to the song. (See song info to learn more about backing tracks.)
Song One will indicate the end of the last page of a song by outlining the icons of the bottom toolbar. Using a 'down' command when the end is reached will open the next song of a 'Setlist'. A linked backing track of the next song will start playing automatically. (See library panel to learn how to create setlists.)
When 'Page Flip' is active the slider above the bottom toolbar indicates the playback position of a linked audio backing track.
Move the slider to stop and restart the playback of the backing track at a desired position. The position of the lyrics will not be affected.
The playback slider appears when the lyrics are being auto-scrolled. The slider represents the scrolling position of the document and may be used to move about the lyrics.
Move the slider to jump to a specific part of the lyrics and auto-scroll from that position onward.
Dragging the slider to a new position will stop the playback of the backing track. The playback of the backing track will restart at the slider's new position.
Tap/Click on the play/pause button to (re)start or pause auto-scrolling the lyrics.
Rotating the iOS device will pause the playback/auto-scrolling of a song. The scrolling speed needs to be recalculated.
When auto-scrolling is paused the lyrics can be scrolled manually (via swipe gestures). The slider will disappear to provide access to additional buttons:
Tap/Click on the button with the audio wave icon to add an audio backing track:
- Perform a long tap/click to import an audio track directly into Song One.
- Perform a short tap/click to create a link to an audio track in your music library (maintained by the Apple Music app).
Once an audio track has been added the wave icon will change into a chain link icon. You may tap on the chain link icon to (un)mute the added backing track.
Tap/Click on the button with the rectangle to show or hide the 'smart scroll' chord chart. (See 'Smart Scroll' Chord Chart learn more.)
Tap/Click on the two inward pointing arrows to de-activate Song One's play mode and re-open the library panel.
Deprecated:
Auto-scroll actions allow you to change the scrolling speed or pause the scrolling of the song temporarily. (Backing tracks will continue playing while the scrolling is paused.)
Access the auto-scroll actions window by tapping/clicking on the slider icon. (See last image above.)
You may add up to 9 auto-scroll actions per song. To create more than one action tap on any of the numbers. (Song One arranges the sequence of the entered auto-scroll actions automatically according to their scroll positions.)
To add an action:
- Scroll the song by moving the slider to the position where the action is to be executed.
- Make a selection from the scroll action pop-up menu.
When 'Pause Scrolling' is active you may continue scrolling the song by using the up/down commands of a page turner/external keyboard (or by using the touch zones of the screen).
You may skip to the next (or previous) song of a 'Setlist' at any time regardless of whether 'Auto-Scroll' or 'Page Flip' is selected . (See library panel to learn how to create setlists.)
When playback is active skip to the next (or previous) song of a 'Setlist' by tapping/clicking on Song One's 'touch zones' in the left half or right half of the screen.
You may also skip to the next (or previous) song of a 'Setlist' with swipe gestures. Swipe gestures may be performed regardless of wether playback is active or paused.
Note: When 'Auto-Scroll' is selected Song One will automatically go to the next song of a 'Setlist' when both the lyrics and a linked audio backing track (optional) have reached the end.
Traditional chord sheets feature the chord chart at the beginning of the song. This causes the chord chart to scroll out of view as the song progresses. Song One's 'smart scroll' option allows you to view an automatically updating chord chart while the lyrics are advancing. It is displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Pause playback and tap/click on the button with the rectangle to show or hide the 'smart scroll' chord chart.
Smart scroll will also update the bottom chord chart when the playback of the song is paused and the lyrics are scrolled manually.
While smart scroll is optimized for native Song One documents it also generates chord charts for text-based PDF lyrics sheets. Song One analyzes the text of the PDF document by looking for chords that are placed above the lyrics and generates the diagrams.
The chord diagrams of an entire PDF page are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Convert the PDF document to a native Song One document to limit the chord diagrams to the viewed section of the page.
You have the option to export a native Song One document as a PDF document. However, this is not advisable if plan to re-import the document. A Song One generated PDF document includes chord symbols that are not saved in plain text format. If you re-add the exported PDF document to your song catalog Song One will not be able to generate chord diagrams.
Song One uses section labels/tags to identify song sections (Intro, Verse, Chorus, etc.). When writing songs it is common practice to omit the lyrics of repeated song sections and refer to the previous sections with only the section label.
Song One offers a feature in its settings/preferences that automatically fills in the lyrics of the corresponding previous section: 'Auto-Fill Tagged Repeated Sections'.
Auto-Fill is automatically disabled when you exit the play mode.
You may wish to hide the playback slider/play mode footer when you work with PDF-based sheet music or when the 'Smart Scroll' Chord Chart and 'Auto-Scroll Actions' are not used.
To do so open Song One's app settings and:
- ...select 'Show Legal Rights Footer Instead Of Playback Slider' in the 'Play Mode Footer' section of the 'Rights' category.
- ...disable all other display/formatting options of the 'Play Mode Footer' section.
Last modified 1mo ago