Concerto Shed documentation Practice by keyboard.

Concerto Shed is built for focused, repeatable practice: isolate the part, loop the phrase, slow it down, and transcribe what your ear cannot catch yet.

Workflow

From file to phrase.

Load a song

Drop in an audio file or use ⌘O. Concerto Shed keeps the work local on your device.

Find the hard part

Use the waveform, arrow-key seeking, and speed controls to get the section under your fingers.

Loop it precisely

Mark loop boundaries with I and O, shift the loop with Option-arrow, then slow it down without changing pitch.

Write it down

Press N on the loop, tap the beat with J, and play the part on the drum keys at whatever tempo you can manage.

Transcription

You're the click.

Concerto Shed doesn't guess what you heard. You tap the beat with one hand and play the part with the other, and your taps become the grid. That means a fill you can only play at half speed still comes out as the right rhythm, because the notes are placed between your taps, not against a clock.

Tap the beat

Tap J on every beat, at whatever speed you can actually play the part. Your first tap is beat 1 and starts recording. On iPhone and iPad, tap the Beat pad with one thumb and play the drum pads with the other. You can put the Beat pad on either side.

Play the part

While you tap, play the drum keys: Z kick, X snare, C hi-hat, and so on. Each hit lands where you put it between two taps, so the tempo never has to match the song.

Land on the 1

After the last beat, tap once more on the next downbeat to finish. Keep tapping and you go around again: each pass is a new layer on top of the last.

Count yourself in. Tap a bar without playing anything. A layer with no hits is thrown away, so the next bar becomes the real start.
Write down only what you need. Kick and backbeat is often enough to remember a groove. Add hats or a fill as another layer later, or never.
Melodic parts too. Switch Setup › Part to Melodic for a one-octave piano. Find the notes by ear first (they collect in an Up Next queue; click one to replace it), then tap J for the beat and press F where each note starts, holding it as long as it rings. Notes show as a piano roll or on a treble or bass staff with ties and accidentals.
Fix one part without redoing the rest. Switch to Replace and play just the snare again; the other drums stay put.
Read it your way. Flip between the step grid and standard drum notation. Change the snap or time signature after recording and the notes re-snap, because your raw taps are kept.

Keybinds

Keep your hands on the kit.

Most shortcuts are single-key commands when you are not typing in a field. Transcription keys take priority while the transcription tool is open, so drum hits do not accidentally control playback.

Transport & library

Space

Play or pause playback

⌘.

Stop playback

⌘←

Return to the beginning

←

Seek backward 1 second

→

Seek forward 1 second

Shift←

Seek backward 5 seconds

Shift→

Seek forward 5 seconds

Home

Jump to start

End

Jump to end

⌘O

Import an audio file

⌘ShiftO

Import a shedfile (sections, tempo grid, and patterns for a song)

⌘E

Export the selected song as a shedfile

⌘R

Rename the selected song

⌘ShiftM

Show or hide the stem mixer

Looping, speed, and notation

L

Toggle the loop region

I

Set loop start at the playhead

O

Set loop end at the playhead

OptionL

Clear the loop

Option←

Shift loop backward 1 second

Option→

Shift loop forward 1 second

[

Slow playback by 5%

]

Speed playback by 5%

\

Reset playback speed to 100%

N

Create notation from the current loop

P

Open or close practice mode: read each placed pattern as the song plays

Sections

S

Mark the current loop as a section (or four bars from the playhead when nothing is looped)

Option↑

Loop the previous section

Option↓

Loop the next section

Shiftdrag

Move or resize a section or pattern box without snapping to the beat grid

Metronome

M

Toggle the metronome

T

Tap tempo

OptionD

Set the downbeat at the playhead

A

Open or close metronome alignment mode

←→

In alignment mode, nudge by 1 ms

Shift←→

In alignment mode, nudge by 10 ms

[]

In alignment mode, change the beat count

ReturnEsc

Exit alignment mode

Transcription recording

J

Tap the beat. Your first tap starts recording on beat 1

R

Start or stop recording without tapping (drums; in melodic mode R and the number row are piano keys)

P

Play or stop the captured pattern

1

Set recording mode to Layer (add to what is there)

2

Set recording mode to Replace (drums: re-record only the drums you hit; melodic: re-record just the stretch you play over)

Z

Kick

X

Snare

C

Closed hi-hat

V

Open hi-hat

B

Ride

N

Crash

A

High tom

S

Mid tom

D

Floor tom

Melodic transcription

J

Tap the beat. Your first tap starts recording on beat 1

QWERTYUI

Piano white keys (labelled on the on-screen piano). Outside a take they add notes to the Up Next queue; during a take they record directly

23567

Piano black keys, on the number row between the white keys

F

Play the next note in the queue. During a take it places that note: press where it starts and hold it as long as it rings

Z

Piano octave down

X

Piano octave up

Delete

Remove the selected queued note, or the last one

Esc

Deselect the queued note

P

Play or stop the captured pattern

⌘S

Save or update the pattern

⌘ShiftS

Save the current pass as a pattern

⌘Delete

Clear the transcription session

⌘T

Add a tag to the loaded pattern

⌘W

Close the transcription tool

Editing selected transcription notes

←→

Move the selected note earlier or later by one grid step

↑↓

Move the selected note to the previous or next drum voice, or up or down a semitone

Shift↑↓

Move the selected melodic note up or down an octave

Shift←→

Make the selected melodic note shorter or longer

Delete

Delete the selected note

Esc

Deselect the current note

Woodshed tips

Make the loop smaller than your ego wants.

Start slow: drop speed with [ until the phrase feels boring, then climb back up.
Align the click: the tempo, meter, and bar 1 are detected when you first open a song (the ↻ button runs detection again). If the tempo reads at half or double speed, fix it with ½ or ×2, and add up to 6 clicks per beat with the subdivision menu (only the downbeat is accented). To set the tempo by hand, switch the tempo card to Manual, then tap tempo with T, set the downbeat, then use alignment mode for small nudges. Tempo changes stretch the grid around one anchor beat, which stays put: bar 1 of the loop if one is set, otherwise bar 1 of the song. To hold a different beat still, pin it at the playhead in alignment mode.
Capture only what matters: use N on the current loop when a fill or groove needs notation, and tap it in slower than the record if that's what it takes.