How to think about Tactus: macro to micro
The home screen.
The Library lists every passage and Work you’ve made. Each passage row shows its name, meter, tempo, bar count, and a six-dot preview of the accent structure.
Passage gestures
- TapOpen the passage in the Editor.
- Swipe leftDelete the passage.
- Swipe rightAdd to a Work, or remove from one if it's already grouped.
- Long-pressShare, Move to Work, Reorder, or Delete.
Works
Works appear as expandable sections holding an ordered collection of passages. Tap a Work to open its detail view, where you can add, remove, reorder, and export its passages. Long-press a Work to rename or delete it.
Creating & reordering
- New passage: tap +. A blank passage opens immediately in the Editor.
- New Work: tap +, choose New Work, and enter a name.
- Reorder: tap the reorder icon in the toolbar, then drag rows by their handles.
From empty bar to full map.
A new passage opens in the Editor with one empty bar. The Editor is the main workspace, a vertical scrollable list of bars with the focal bar centred on screen.
- Add bars by tapping + to open the Meter Keyboard.
- Name the passage by tapping the title at the top of the Editor.
- Set the tempo with the BPM controls in the transport bar.
- Edit beats by tapping any bar row to open the Beat Inspector.
The Meter Keyboard
Tap meter buttons to queue them up. A preview of the queue appears at the bottom. Tap Add to append the queued bars, or the undo arrow to remove the last one. Denominators available: /2 /4 /8 /16. Custom meters support any numerator from 1–32 over any of those denominators (plus /1 and /32).
Selecting & editing ranges
Tap Select in the toolbar to enter selection mode, then tap rows to select a contiguous range. With bars selected you can Copy, Paste (inserts after the last selected bar), or Create a tempo ramp across the range.
A passage must keep at least one bar. The last remaining bar can’t be deleted. Delete others by long-pressing a row, or swiping it left.
Where each beat gets its shape.
Tap any bar row to open the Beat Inspector, a detail editor for that bar. A horizontal strip at the top shows every beat; tap one to focus it, or use the ← → arrows to move between bars.
Editing accents
The central cluster shows the selected beat. Tap individual dots to cycle the accent for that pulse: Strong → Normal → Soft → Silent → Strong. Each state is visualised by dot size and opacity.
Subdivision & tuplets
- Notes per beat: the Notes stepper (1–9) sets how many pulses subdivide the beat into equal parts.
- Subdivisions per note: each pulse can be divided again (Off, or 2–9). A tab appears per pulse so you can edit sub-pulse accents individually.
- Group as Tuplet: select consecutive beats and tap to place N notes over M beat durations, shown in bracket notation (e.g. 3:2). Select and tap Ungroup to undo.
- Bar preview: tap the play-bar button to hear that single bar in isolation.
Each beat reads as a die face. A five always looks like a five; a seven always looks like a seven, so you recognise the structure instead of counting dots.
Every bar carries its own time signature.
There is no global meter. Each bar defines its own, so a passage can change as often as the score does.
Changing a bar’s meter
Long-press a bar row and choose Change Meter, or use the meter display in the Beat Inspector toolbar. Picking a new meter adjusts the bar’s elements: excess beats are trimmed from the end; new default beats are added if the meter grows.
Display bar numbers
Tap any bar number to set a display offset. If your excerpt starts on bar 12 of a score, set the offset to 12 so bar numbers line up with the page.
Fixed, per-bar, or a drawn curve.
The passage’s base tempo lives in the transport bar. From there you can override any single bar, or draw a continuous curve across a range.
Global tempo
- − / + adjust BPM by one.
- Tap the BPM field to type a value on the digit pad.
- Tap Tempo: tap the metronome icon repeatedly; the average of recent taps applies. The counter resets after 2 seconds of inactivity.
Per-bar tempo
Long-press a bar and choose Set Bar Tempo (or use the Beat Inspector). A small tempo pill appears on the row; the bar plays at that tempo regardless of the global setting. Tap the pill to clear it.
Tempo ramps, the Tempo Shape editor
Select two or more consecutive bars and tap Tempo Shape. The canvas plots time (beats) against BPM, with a dashed line marking the entry tempo.
- Add nodes: tap the canvas to place a control node (snaps to the nearest beat). Up to 5 per ramp.
- Move: drag a node; horizontal snaps to beats, vertical is free.
- Edit BPM: tap a node and use the slider or type a value.
- Segment curve: select a segment and drag the bias slider: 0 linear, +1.0 accelerando (convex), −1.0 ritardando (concave).
If a bar has both a per-bar tempo and falls inside a ramp, the ramp wins. A warning badge ! flags the conflict; tap it to resolve.
Every pulse and sub-pulse holds one of four accent states. The state drives both the dot’s appearance and the click’s volume and pitch. Tap a dot to cycle Strong → Normal → Soft → Silent → Strong.
Default accent rules
If a pulse has no manual override, accents are assigned automatically:
- Bar downbeat: Strong (if Strong Downbeats is on) or Normal.
- Beat downbeat (first pulse of a beat): Normal.
- Subdivisions & tuplet inner notes: Soft.
Use Clear Accents from the long-press menu to reset overrides for a bar or the whole passage. Strong Downbeats (a passage setting) forces beat 1 of every bar to Strong when on; off, downbeats default to Normal and are freely overridable.
A conductor’s beat, laid over the grid.
Conducted feel adds a visual layer of pulses reflecting how a conductor would beat the meter, independent of the notated subdivision. A 6/8 bar might be conducted in 2, or in 6.
Open the Beat Inspector for a bar, choose Conducted, and pick 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 beats, or Off. Conducted beats are visual only; they make no extra click. During playback the bar’s top edge flashes at each conducted pulse.
The transport bar holds play/stop, loop, count-in, BPM, and note value. Playback starts from the manual start bar if one is set, otherwise from the first bar.
- Start bar: long-press a bar and choose Set As Start Bar (a teal flag marks it). Playback returns here after each loop or stop.
- Loop: tap the repeat icon; playback restarts from the start bar when it reaches the end.
- Focal scroll: the Editor keeps the currently playing bar centred.
- Beat animation: active dots scale up on each click, then decay.
Count-in
Toggle the count-in button in the transport. It adds one or more bars of clicks before playback, using the meter and tempo of the bar immediately before the start bar (or the first bar’s meter, if you start at the top). Count-in uses Strong on beat 1 and Normal elsewhere, so you walk in feeling the meter, not counting it.
Practice tempo
A global speed multiplier applied on top of every tempo without changing any stored value, ideal for slow practice. Drag the Practice Tempo slider in passage settings; range 50%–125%. The current scale shows next to the BPM readout (e.g. 120 80%).
Switch between them in passage settings. Both respect all four accent levels.
Ableton Link syncs start and stop with other Tactus users or any Ableton Link‑enabled app on the same local network. No password or pairing; devices find each other automatically.
Enabling & status
Toggle Ableton Link on in passage settings. Once active, Tactus advertises to other Link-enabled apps.
- Off: Link is disabled.
- Active: enabled, listening for peers.
- Connected: at least one peer detected.
Tempo & transport sync
Toggle Start/Stop Sync to broadcast play/stop across all connected apps, and vice versa. If everyone is using the same tempo map, this keeps the whole room together.
Your library, backed up automatically.
On iOS, passages sync through iCloud Drive on their own, nothing beyond your Apple ID required. On Android, Tactus offers the same idea through your own Google Drive, opt in whenever you like.
Signing in on Android
Open Settings and tap Sign In under Google Drive Sync. Tactus creates a folder in your own Drive and backs up passages there as you work. Sign out any time; your local passages stay on the device either way.
Tactus only ever requests access to the folder it creates for itself, not your whole Drive.