GigShed User Guide

1. Beat Grids & Looping — Overview

GigShed is a practice tool. Once you have added a song and separated it into stems, GigShed can find the song's beat grid — the underlying pulse and bar lines — so you can loop a section cleanly, snap loops to bar boundaries, and practice against a beat-locked metronome.

These features all live in the Loop tab of a song's workbench.

What the Beat Grid Is

The beat grid is a tempo map, not a single fixed tempo. GigShed detects the time of every beat and downbeat in the recording, so a song that speeds up, slows down, or breathes is represented faithfully. The tempo number you see (for example, ♩ = 77) is a convenient average for display — the real information is the position of each individual beat.

Detected vs. Manual Grids

A grid carries a source. When GigShed finds the grid automatically, it is labelled Detected. As soon as you correct it by hand — moving bar 1, halving or doubling the felt tempo, nudging it, or tapping in a tempo — it becomes a Manual grid. The readout in the grid editor always tells you which you are looking at, for example:

♩ = 77 · 4/4 Detected grid · 306 beats · 78 bars

The Audio Never Moves

This is the most important idea to keep in mind. Correcting the grid never moves the audio. When you nudge the grid or set a new bar 1, GigShed slides the grid lines against the recording — the recording itself, and where it starts, stay exactly where they are. The metronome click simply re-schedules itself to the corrected grid. This means you can experiment freely; you are never editing or damaging the song.

2. Detecting the Beat Grid

2.1 Running Detection

1. Open a song and go to the Loop tab.
2. Find the Beat grid card. Before a grid exists, it reads: "Detect tempo & downbeats to unlock bar/beat snapping and a beat-locked metronome."
3. Tap Analyze grid.

A spinner and the message "Analyzing beat grid…" appear while GigShed studies the recording. Detection runs on the full mix — you do not need to solo or mute any stem for it to work.

When detection finishes, the card shows the grid readout and two new buttons, Re-analyze and Edit grid.

2.2 When Detection Is Unavailable

Detection uses an on-device model, and GigShed only runs one model at a time. If the song is still separating into stems (or another model task is running), the detect controls are dimmed. In the grid editor you will see the note: "Unavailable while another model is working (e.g. stem separation)." Wait for separation to finish, then run detection.

2.3 When There's No Steady Pulse

Some recordings — free-time intros, rubato ballads, very soft fingerpicking — have no steady beat to lock onto. Rather than invent a grid that would be wrong, GigShed tells you honestly:

Couldn't find a steady pulse. This track may be free-time. Tap the tempo instead of a guessed grid.

You can then tap the tempo in yourself:

1. Tap Tap in time with the music a handful of times. A running estimate (♩ ≈) and a tap counter appear as you go.
2. Choose how many beats per bar you want (2 through 6; the default is 4).
3. Tap Use tempo to lay down a steady manual grid from your taps.

Tap Reset to clear your taps and start over.

3. The Grid Editor

Once a grid exists, tap Edit grid on the Beat grid card to open the full-screen Grid Editor. The screen title shows the song name followed by · Grid.

3.1 The Beat-Grid Strip

At the top is a horizontally scrollable strip that shows your grid laid out over time:

• Tall, thick lines are bar lines (downbeats), each labelled with its bar number (1, 2, 3, …).
• Short, thin lines are the individual beats between bar lines.
• A moving playhead tracks playback position.

The strip is sized so each bar is comfortably wide — for a long song it extends well past the screen, so swipe left and right to scroll through all the bars. The wavy backdrop is decorative; the bar lines and beats are what matter.

3.2 The Readout

Below the strip, a two-line readout summarizes the grid: the tempo and meter (for example, ♩ = 77 · 4/4), then whether it is a Detected or Manual grid and how many beats and bars it contains.

3.3 The Transport Bar

A full playback transport is pinned at the bottom of the editor so you can audition the grid without leaving the screen. It provides a scrubber, a back-to-start button, play/pause, a jump-to-end button, the elapsed and total time, and a loop indicator. Press play and watch the playhead move across the bars while you listen for the click landing on the beat.

4. Correcting the Grid

The Grid Editor gives you four whole-grid corrections. Each one is applied to the entire grid at once, and each one turns the grid into a Manual grid that GigShed saves and immediately uses for the metronome and loops.

4.1 Set Bar 1 — Fixing the Downbeat

The detector almost always finds the beats correctly but can occasionally place bar 1 on the wrong beat (for example, hearing a strong backbeat as the downbeat). Set bar 1 fixes which beat is counted as "one":

1. Tap Set bar 1 under Move the bar line. The button arms, and the helper text changes to "The bar line snaps to the nearest beat; beats don't move."
2. Tap the beat on the strip that should be bar 1.

The bar lines re-phase so your chosen beat becomes a downbeat, and every bar line follows from there. The beats themselves do not move — only the count shifts.

4.2 Half-Time and Double-Time

If the detector locked onto a pulse that feels twice or half as fast as you count the song, fix it under Felt tempo:

• Half-time — keeps every other beat (retaining bar 1), so the grid counts at half the speed.
• Double-time — inserts a new beat halfway between each pair of beats, so the grid counts at double the speed.

4.3 Nudge — Sliding the Whole Grid

If the whole grid sits a hair early or late against the audio, slide it under Nudge the whole grid:

• ◀ −10 ms moves every tick 10 milliseconds earlier.
• +10 ms ▶ moves every tick 10 milliseconds later.

The current offset is shown below the buttons, for example "Offset +0 ms — slides every tick; the audio never moves." Tap repeatedly to build up a larger shift. Because nudging only changes a single offset, the tempo and the spacing between beats are unchanged — the entire grid simply slides as one piece.

4.4 Re-detect

The Re-detect beats button under Re-detect runs automatic detection again from scratch.

5. Looping a Section

Looping lives in the top card of the Loop tab. A loop is defined by a start point (A) and an end point (B); GigShed repeats everything between them.

5.1 Choosing How Points Snap

Before you set a loop, choose a Snap mode:

Snap	Behaviour
Bar	Set A / Set B snap to the nearest bar line (downbeat). Default.
Beat	Set A / Set B snap to the nearest beat.
Off	Set A / Set B land exactly at the playhead, with no snapping.

Bar and beat snapping rely on the beat grid, so detect a grid first for musical loops. With snapping on, you don't have to be precise — tap roughly where you want the loop edge and GigShed lands it on the nearest bar or beat.

5.2 Setting a Loop by Hand

1. Move the playhead to where the loop should start (scrub on the transport, or tap the strip in the grid editor).
2. Tap Set A. The status line updates to show A's position and prompts you to set B.
3. Move the playhead to where the loop should end and tap Set B.

The status line now shows the loop's start, end, and length, with a ⟳ on indicator. The loop is active immediately — press play and it repeats. Tap Clear to remove it.

5.3 Looping a Set Number of Bars

When a beat grid exists, two shortcuts appear: Loop 4 bars and Loop 8 bars. Each one creates a loop that starts at A (snapped to the nearest bar) and spans exactly that many bars. If you haven't set A yet, the loop starts at the bar the playhead is currently in — so you can drop into a song, tap Loop 8 bars, and immediately drill that phrase.

6. Metronome & Count-In

Once a grid exists, the Beat grid card adds two practice controls.

6.1 Metronome

Turn the Metronome toggle on to hear a click locked to the beat grid. Because the click follows the grid's actual beat times, it tracks the song even when the tempo drifts, and it accents the downbeat so you can feel the bar. The click plays on its own audio channel, so it is audible even if you have muted or soloed stems.

6.2 Count-In

Use the Count-in control to play a lead-in before the music starts:

• Off — no count-in.
• 1 bar — one bar of clicks before playback.
• 2 bars — two bars of clicks before playback.

The count-in uses the local tempo at the start of the song (or the loop), so the clicks lead you in at exactly the right pace.

7. Tips & Troubleshooting

The click sounds a little ahead of / behind the beat

Open the Grid Editor, turn the metronome on, and use ◀ −10 ms / +10 ms ▶ to slide the whole grid until the click sits on top of the drums. The audio doesn't move — only the grid.

The downbeat is on the wrong beat

Use Set bar 1 in the Grid Editor and tap the beat that should be "one." This re-phases the bar lines without moving any beats.

The grid counts twice as fast (or half as fast) as the song

Use Half-time or Double-time under Felt tempo in the Grid Editor.

"Analyze grid" / "Detect beats" is greyed out

Detection shares the on-device model engine with stem separation, and only one runs at a time. Wait for separation (or any other model task) to finish, then try again.

Detection said it couldn't find a steady pulse

The track is likely free-time or very soft. Use the tap-tempo panel: tap the beat a few times, pick the beats per bar, and tap Use tempo to lay down a manual grid.

I corrected the grid by hand and want the automatic one back

Tap Re-analyze (Loop tab) or Re-detect beats (Grid Editor) and confirm Replace & re-detect when prompted. This runs automatic detection again and replaces your manual grid.

My loop has a gap or the click drifts at the loop point

It shouldn't — GigShed loops are gapless and the click stays locked across the seam. If you ever hear otherwise, make sure your loop edges were set with Bar snapping so the loop spans whole bars, and that a beat grid has been detected for the song.