Getting started
SONGUIDE is a songbook for musicians. You keep your songs with lyrics and chords in one library, organize them into setlists, and perform straight from your phone, tablet, or laptop.
Songs
A song in SONGUIDE holds lyrics with inline chords, plus metadata like artist, key, tempo, and time signature. Songs are stored in the ChordPro format, a widely used plain text format for songsheets. You do not need to know ChordPro to use SONGUIDE, the Text editor lets you work with plain lyrics and chords. When you want full control, the ChordPro format guide explains everything the format can do.
Create a song from scratch, or import existing files from other apps and services. See Adding songs.
Folders
Folders keep your library tidy. They are one level deep, so a folder holds songs but not other folders. Typical uses are grouping by band or by project. A song does not necessarily need a folder.
Organizing your library covers folders in full, including the fact that deleting a folder deletes the songs inside it.
Setlists
A setlist is an ordered list of songs, in the order you play them. It can hold songs from any folder, the same song can appear more than once, and dividers cover the non-song moments like a welcome or a break.
Reorder the set by dragging. On a tablet or larger you can drag songs straight from your library into the setlist.
When a setlist is active, swiping or paging through songs follows the setlist order, so on stage you always land on the next item of the set.
Search
The search field filters your whole library as you type, and it looks well beyond the title. It matches artists, lyrics, and most of a song's other details, it forgives typos in titles and artists, and it finds dividers alongside songs.
Search covers exactly what it does and does not match.
Sync and offline
SONGUIDE is built local first. Your library is stored on your device, so on iPhone, iPad and Android everything works without an internet connection, in the mountains, on the high seas, or in a basement rehearsal room. In a browser, treat SONGUIDE as online only. When you are online, changes sync automatically to your account and to all your signed in devices. You can use up to 5 devices at the same time.
There is no save button and no sync button. Edit a song on your laptop, and it is on your tablet moments later. The Sync and offline guide explains the details, including working offline and the device limit.
Next steps
- Editing songs shows how the editor works.
- Performing covers transpose, capo, and remote navigation on stage.
- Platforms and layout explains why the app looks different on a phone and on a laptop.
- Settings maps every settings screen.