stab Help

21. Platform guides

Stab on the Mac

Stab on the Mac is a Mac app in the usual sense: a window per song, the menu bar, the Dock, Settings with ⌘,. This page covers what is particular to the Mac: installing it, where your songs go, the permissions macOS asks for, and how sound and MIDI reach it.

Stab on the Mac

Available on Mac. Not on Windows and Web.

This isn’t on Windows.

This isn’t on Web.

Installing Stab

Stab runs on macOS 14 or later, on Macs with Apple silicon and with Intel.

  1. Download Stab from stab.audio: a disk image, Stab-version.dmg.
  2. Open it and drag Stab onto the Applications folder beside it.
  3. Open Stab from Applications. The app is notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it after asking once whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet.

You can eject the disk image afterwards. To remove Stab, drag it from Applications to the Trash; your songs stay where they are.

Closing the last window doesn’t quit Stab: the home stays, and clicking Stab’s icon in the Dock brings it back.

Where your songs are

Your songs are in Documents › Stab, one file each, and the home says where under the Stab name at its top. To keep them elsewhere, choose another folder in Settings › General › Library: see The library folder. A song renamed or moved in the Finder while it’s open keeps saving to its new place.

When macOS keeps Stab out of Documents

The first time Stab opens, macOS asks whether Stab may access files in your Documents folder (“Stab keeps your songs in a Stab folder inside Documents.”). Choose Allow. If it was declined, Stab can’t open its folder, and the home shows a card in place of your songs: “Stab can’t open its songs folder”, saying “Stab keeps your songs in Documents › Stab, and macOS didn’t let it in.”

Until it can, Stab doesn’t create new songs or import files: when you try, it says “New songs can’t be saved yet” and offers the same ways on. Stab Cloud, the demos and songs opened from elsewhere still work.

To let Stab in:

  1. Select Open Privacy Settings on the card. It opens System Settings › Privacy & Security › Files & Folders.
  2. Find Stab in the list and turn on Documents Folder under it.
  3. Come back to Stab. It tries the folder again each time it comes to the front, and your songs appear.

Or select Choose Another Folder… to keep your songs somewhere else. If the folder is on a drive that isn’t connected, the card says “Stab can’t find its songs folder” instead, with Try Again.

Other permissions

  • Microphone: asked the first time something listens, such as the tuner or recording. See The microphone isn’t heard.
  • Local network: asked the first time you play together on the same Wi-Fi (“Stab finds and joins the people you play together with on this Wi-Fi.”). Turned off, people nearby can’t find you; see Can’t join or host a session.

Updates

Stab from stab.audio updates itself. The second time you open it, it asks whether to check for updates automatically; if you agree, it checks once a day. Check for Updates…Check for Updates… (not on Web) in the Stab menu checks now. See Updates.

Sound and MIDI

Stab plays through the output chosen in the Audio & MIDI pane’s Audio tab, the system’s default at first, and records and tunes from its input: see The audio input. Every open song plays through the same output, and starting one stops the others.

MIDI devices appear as you plug them in, in Settings › Audio & MIDI and the Audio & MIDI pane. Stab also appears to other music apps as a MIDI source named “Stab”: send a track to Stab (to Other Apps) to play another app’s instruments from your song (MIDI out and clock).

The Instrument pane (⌃⌘K) plays the caret’s track with the mouse or, with Musical Typing, the computer’s keyboard. Audio Buffer at the top of Settings › Audio & MIDI keeps the output’s buffer short while you play live.

Stab plays its own instruments and effects, and your effect plugins in VST3 and Audio Unit formats (Plugins). It doesn’t load CLAP plugins or plugin instruments.

What’s particular to the Mac

  • A song can open in a window of its own, and so can a pane (Windows). Window › Bring All to Front gathers them, and Home (⇧⌘H)Home (Ctrl+Shift+H)Home shows the home.
  • File › Open Recent lists the songs you opened lately.
  • File › Import iReal Pro Link… makes a song from an iReal Pro link you copied.
  • A YouTube video as a reference works on the Mac (and the web).
  • The Mac has no Mirror on Display for an external display; drag a window to the other screen instead.

Keys

Stab follows the Mac’s keys: ⌘ for commands, ⌥ and ⇧ to vary them. See Keyboard shortcuts, and Shortcuts on each platform for the full list.