Stage mode

Overview

Stage mode shows one song at a time, full screen, with controls that stay out of the way. Open it from a setlist to move through the whole set without touching your library.

This topic describes Stage mode in the web app. The iPhone and iPad app has its own Stage tab with a Pages / Scroll picker, pinch zoom, and pedal and MIDI settings; the app's Help section includes a Stage Setup guide for those.

On the web, Akordo asks the browser to keep the screen awake while Stage mode is open. Not every browser allows this, so check your device's sleep setting before a show. Chords are inert in Stage mode, so a stray tap cannot open a dialog mid-song.

Opening Stage mode

• On a setlist, press Perform to start from the first song.
• In the setlist sidebar on the Songs page, the pinned Next card for your upcoming event has its own Perform button.
• On a song, press Perform in the View toolbar to open just that song.

Press Escape or the close button to leave.

Scroll and paged layouts

The Paged toggle switches between two layouts:

• Scroll shows the chart as one long page. This is the default and the layout that supports auto-scroll.
• Paged lays the chart out on screen-sized pages that you turn. Tap or click the left and right edges of the screen to move between pages. At the last page, moving forward goes to the next song in the set.

The layout you pick is remembered. In paged layout, Akordo also remembers which page you were on for each song.

Text size and zoom

The two A buttons make the chart smaller or larger. In scroll layout they step through text sizes. In paged layout they zoom the page, and the chart re-flows onto pages at the new size instead of shrinking.

Auto-scroll

In scroll layout, use the play button to start and pause auto-scroll and the slower and faster buttons to adjust the speed. Speed is remembered per song.

Full screen

The full-screen button hides the browser chrome. Press F to toggle it and Escape to leave.

Moving through a setlist

When you open Stage mode from a setlist, the control strip shows your position, such as "3 of 12", with previous and next song buttons.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Space: start or pause auto-scroll
• Right arrow or Page Down: next page, or next song at the last page
• Left arrow or Page Up: previous page, or previous song at the first page
• Down arrow: next song
• Up arrow: previous song
• M: show or hide markup
• F: toggle full screen
• Escape: leave full screen, then leave Stage mode

Bluetooth page-turn pedals that present themselves as keyboards, which is most of them, send these same keys and work without any setup.

MIDI pedals and page-turners

MIDI input is in preview. Enable MIDI pedal / page-turner input under Stage input in Settings asks the browser for MIDI access and lists the devices it finds, but there is not yet a way to assign MIDI messages to Stage actions on the web, so a MIDI-only pedal does not control Stage mode today. Use a pedal that acts as a Bluetooth keyboard instead. MIDI input is off by default so Stage mode never asks for a permission you did not expect.

Markup

Markup is available in the paged layout only; switch to Paged first. If the arrangement has markup, a Markup button shows or hides it. Marks made in the PDF preview or on an iPad belong to the printed page layout, so showing them pins the chart to that layout. Marks made in Stage mode belong to the screen-shaped pages and show in the layout they were drawn on.

Choose Edit markup to add to it. Place text notes, or switch on Ink to draw freehand. Choose Done to finish. Stage markup is saved for your account on that arrangement and follows you between devices, but it is not printed; to mark up the PDF, draw in the PDF preview instead. If another device edited the same page, Akordo asks whether to Keep mine or Reload.

Tips

• Test the layout before the gig. Paged layout with a larger zoom is easier to read at a distance. Scroll layout with auto-scroll suits songs you play at a steady pace.
• Fill in durations and set the setlist order first. Stage mode follows the setlist exactly.
• Keep a PDF as a backup in case the venue's connection fails. See PDF export.

Next steps

• Setlists to build the set you will perform
• Songs for transposing and arrangements
• Account settings for MIDI input and display preferences