Recordings in a session
A song you host can carry recordings: the track you’re all learning, a video of the performance. They can be hundreds of megabytes, so they travel differently from edits. Everyone sees a recording’s waveform at once; its sound follows, over your Wi-Fi.
Recording your own parts together is here too: one press of Record, and each device records what its player plays.
The web app doesn’t play recordings: in a session, a recording’s lane shows, but its sound plays on the devices running Stab.
Recording together
Available on Mac and Windows. Not on Web.
This isn’t on Web.
Recordings the song already has
When someone joins, the host’s recordings come in two steps:
- The waveform comes with the song, for everyone, wherever they joined from. The lane draws, sync pins stay usable, and the song’s parts follow the recording’s timing on every device, even before its sound is there.
- The sound comes over the Wi-Fi, to those on the same network as the host. While it does, Stab says “Getting the recordings…” with how far it’s got, and edits keep flowing beside it. Once a recording has come, it plays as it does on the host’s device.
Recordings never go through Stab’s relay. Someone who joined from elsewhere sees the waveform and plays the song without the recording’s sound.
A video’s picture stays on the host’s device: guests get its sound. A video or a large file is sent as its sound alone.
Sampled kits and instruments
A song’s sampled kits and instruments aren’t sent: each device plays its own copy. A kit from the Sound Library that a guest hasn’t installed plays as the track’s built-in kit until they download it. A kit the host loaded from a folder of their own isn’t on other devices, so they can’t play it.
Adding a recording as a guest
Choose Import Recording… (⌘I)Import Recording… (Ctrl+I)Import Recording… (not on Web) while you’re in someone’s session: the file goes to the host, who adds it to the song for everyone, as their own. The file is kept in the Recordings folder of the host’s library. While it goes, Stab says “Sending the recording…” with how far it’s got. A recording you sent isn’t sent back to you.
It’s refused, with the reason, when:
- you joined through the relay: “Recordings travel on the Wi-Fi only: join from the same network to send one.”
- your role doesn’t include the Arrangement (see Roles and copies);
- it’s too big (over 2 GB): “That recording is too big to send.”;
- too many are already on their way: “Too many recordings on their way: try again in a moment.”
If the connection drops on the way, send it again.
Recording together
Choose Record (⌥⌘R)Record (Ctrl+Alt+R)Record (Ctrl+Alt+R (⌥⌘R on a Mac)) in a session and everyone plays from your caret, counted in together, and each device records its own armed tracks, yours included. A device someone else started records only if it has a MIDI instrument on.
- Armed tracks show: a dot in each person’s colour marks the tracks they’ve armed, beside your own red one.
- Notes as they’re played: someone else’s notes appear on their track in their colour while they play, and become notes in the song as they’re released.
- Two people on one track are merged, never cleared: each keeps what the other played.
- Stopping: when anyone stops, what everyone played up to then is kept.
You record only the tracks your role lets you change. How recording works on its own is in Playing and recording MIDI.
After the session
When a guest keeps a copy of the song (if the host allows it), the recordings that came from the host are kept with it, in the Recordings folder of your library. See Roles and copies. Rejoining the same host’s session uses the recordings that already came, rather than fetching them again.