Download

The live-performance rig for musicians — setlists, multitrack stems, click, sync, and a stage display on every iPad.

Requirements

Buy

This beta is free — no license until 1.0, when the 30-day trial starts. A license is €139, one time — a year of updates included — for two Macs (a studio Mac and a stage Mac); €93 until 1 February 2027 (the launch price). The store shows the price in your currency. The iPad, iPhone and Apple TV apps are free.

Buy BarBeatCue

Then in the app: BarBeatCue ▸ License… opens the license window; Activate… there opens the store in your browser and the Mac takes the license. A Mac without internet activates offline with a device file (the same window says how).

Install

1. Open the disk image and drag BarBeatCue to Applications.
2. On the first launch macOS asks for the Documents folder (your shows), the microphone (only used to read incoming timecode from your audio interface) and the local network (the iPad displays). Allow them.
3. From then on the app looks for updates once a day and installs them when you say so — never on the stage page or while the music plays.

BarBeatCue Satellite (iPad and iPhone) and BarBeatCue Display (Apple TV) are on TestFlight — ask for an invitation at support@barbeatcue.live.

Stream Deck

Ready-made profiles for the stage — Play / Stop, songs, parts, vamp, click, Stop All — drawn in the app's colours:

Stream Deck XL Stream Deck Classic Stream Deck Mini The icons

How to put them on the deck, and every button's key: the Stream Deck page.

What's new

In 1.0 (832)

• Printed parts from Dorico read as printed: a bar of rest written as a bare forward is a rest (the Sarid bass had 48 empty bars), multi-bar rests keep the file's own count, drum notes keep their printed noteheads, a restated clef is not drawn twice, and every system but the last fills the page.
• Over the staff, one skyline: chord symbols, rehearsal marks, words, tempo marks and segno / coda signs stand over the highest thing under them instead of on it; a chord symbol's width counts in the bar's spacing (four chords over one bar no longer pile up); a rehearsal box fits its words; "To Coda" and "D.S. al Coda" come through from Dorico in their place. The words are measured in the part's own text face.
• The score's text as the file sets it: section labels bold as Dorico prints them, the part name with its accidental ("Cl. (B♭)"), no number on a pickup bar, and bar numbers in the text face under the staff.
• Endings, 8va and hairpins: a 1st / 2nd ending runs from its start to its stop across systems with its number under the line; an 8va / 8vb moves the notes into the staff under a dashed line, "(8)" repeated at a system start; crescendo and diminuendo hairpins sit under the staff on one line with their dynamics.
• Slurs and ties as printed: a slur breaks level at a system's end and goes on after the next system's clef, sits on the noteheads' side, and rises over the notes, beams and accidentals between its ends; a tie goes to the next note of its pitch, a chord's upper ties bending up and the lower ones down.
• Dorico's slash chords read as the notes they are: a bar written as one note plus seven chord notes at their own places is eight eighths on the beats, beamed as printed, with the chord symbols where Dorico put them; Diagnostics › Scores names the bars read that way. A drum part draws no chord symbols by default (they still feed the charts).
• Correct Bars on a MusicXML part: with Correct Bars on, every measure carries the song bar it starts on; click a label and type where that measure is (a pin; the measures after follow until the next pin), ⌫ unpins, Tab walks the labels, every edit one undo step, the iPads following at once. The Scores list's Start box shows where the file's first measure really falls, and a typed Start moves the whole part.
• Chords from a score moved to where the chords go: the Chords list's + menu (Chord at Playhead, then From Score ▸ the score ▸ the staff ▸ Master or Secondary, each saying what it replaces) and Song ▸ Lanes ▸ Chords ▸ From Score…. The Scores list's form keeps only what a score is.
• The iPad's chord chart scrolls smoothly: the chart is drawn once per row and only moved by the scroll (it used to repaint the whole screen for every point of the ease).
• A player's score when a song has both a PDF and a MusicXML part of one instrument: the Band list's Instrument per song box and the iPad's player menu list each lane tagged PDF or XML, the one shown checked; a per-player PDF or XML preference sits under Display, a song's own pick first. The Score pane follows the Band list's selected player, with a link icon that breaks and re-links the follow; a player sitting a song out shows TACET there.
• The iPad's page, denser: an empty hand of a grand staff is hidden on the systems where it only rests (the first system keeps both, with a small brace beside the lone hand as Dorico prints it), every system is fitted to its own ink with the bar numbers right under it, and the brace and start line open each system — the Sarid piano part holds about seven systems a page instead of five.
• A held press on the iPad's band menu no longer picks: the menu opens on a tap and every choice takes a tap of its own, so a held press on stage cannot switch who the iPad is.
• A written key past six accidentals is respelled: Dorico's C♯ major with double sharps reads as D♭ with five flats, every note of the stretch with it, the chords too.
• On the Mac: a mode switched on outside the layout's set gets its own lit button while the bar has room (the » only when the window is too narrow); several Band rows selected give a tile each in the Screens pane; a staccato dot on a slash sits over or under the slash.
• Small fixes: Change… on a score aligns the new file by its own bar numbers like Add… does (a Dorico part with a half-bar pickup was two beats early); a MusicXML lane that still ignores its bar numbers shows a dot with what to press; the Score pane's current-bar shade stops under the staff; a track row scrolled out of view no longer answers a right-click on the Score pane; "B Flat" in a part's name matches "B♭".

The whole history is on the changelog.

Tell us

This is a beta: things will break. Help ▸ Send Feedback… in the app opens a mail to support with your versions and the Diagnostics log attached — nothing leaves your Mac until you press Send. Or write to support@barbeatcue.live.