Manual

Setup

To get started with Tempo, navigate to the Download page.

macOS

You might have to go into macOS's Privacy & Security settings in System Settings to launch Tempo. Tempo also requires Full Disk Access on macOS, which is used to simplify the process of scanning plugins and copying referenced files into folders. You will be prompted to grant Full Disk Access on Tempo's first startup.

Windows

Windows support is coming soon!

Usage

Creating Folders

Tempo operates on folders, which can be used locally and/or shared with other users. You can think of a folder like a Discord server.

To create or add an existing folder, click the + button next to "Folders" on the home page. You will be prompted to select a folder.

When creating a folder, Tempo will create a tempo directory inside of the provided folder. This folder holds all of Tempo's data, including any project files, audio files or other files referenced in projects. Refrain from tampering with the contents of this directory, as you might accidentally corrupt your folder.

Adding Notes

Within folders, you can create notes. Notes are similar to messages that you'd send in apps like Discord or iMessage. You can optionally add attachments to your notes, which is covered in the following section.

Note that notes will not show up instantly on your collaborators' screen! Tempo's latency is based on the speed of your file sync service.

To create a note, simply type in Tempo's chat box and press the button. Writing a note body is optional if you've added an attachment.

A note can be a reply to a previous note. Press the button at the top right of a previous note to reply to it. Replying is how Tempo tries to address version management. Reference the Version Management section for more details.

Attachments

Since Tempo aims to help you manage your work as a music producer, attachments are a feature which you should use quite often.

You can drag and drop a file in the note input box to attach it to a note, or press the button to select a file.

Supported Attachments

∙ Ableton Live Sets (.als)

You can attach an Ableton Live Set/project file (an .als file) file to a note. Tempo automatically handles copying any referenced files in the project, removing any need for you to "Collect All and Save".

Tempo gives you information about whether it was able to find all files referenced in the project, and whether your project contains any plugins which your or your collaborators don't have installed. You can use this information to fix missing samples, freeze/flatten tracks, or adjust your project as needed. Alternatively, you can ignore any warnings.

You can also add a rendered version of your project to the project attachment. This enables you and your collaborators to use Tempo's audio player to quickly listen to your project.

∙ Audio Files (.mp3/.wav/.flac/etc.)

You can also attach audio files to notes.

Titles

Live Set attachments and audio file attachments provide the ability for you to write a title. This title is optional for audio files. (TODO: Titles could probably be optional for Ableton projects as well! They are required on projects as of now.) Titles are an opportunity for you to write a short description about your attachment. If you're using Tempo to manage versions of an Ableton project, you might use the title to summarize any changes you've made to the project.

Channels

Like Discord, you can create channels within folders. Channels can be used to further organize your work in Tempo.

Press the channel dropdown in Tempo's top bar to select or create a channel.

Version Management

Tempo aims to help you manage different versions of your tracks.

Say you create a rough draft of a song and you want to pass it off to your collaborators, so you attach it to a note and add it to a shared folder.

Using Tempo, your collaborators can save a local copy of your project and make their desired changes.

When your collaborators are done with their new versions, they can create new notes (with their versions attached), and add them in the folder as a reply to your note containing your original project.

Now, imagine that you and your collaborators repeat this process dozens of times. You'll end up with lots of notes, and it can be difficult to tell the relationships between them. To address this, Tempo provides a Tree View (accessible by pressing the button), which allows you to clearly see the reply relationships between any notes with attachments.

Writing Feedback

You can use Tempo to write feedback or take notes on your work.

Tempo provides commenting on notes with attachments.

Sharing Folders

Tempo can be used without sharing your folders with your collaborators. If you'd like to share folders with collaborators, you will need to set up a file sync service and share a directory with your collaborators. Tempo is designed to work well with any sync service, but many haven't been tested and could behave unexpectedly.

Sync Services

Carefully consider whether a peer-to-peer or cloud-based file sync service would work best for you. With peer-to-peer services, you and your collaborators need to have your computers turned on at the same time in order for your work to synchronize. This can be inconvenient if you or your collaborators use laptops. Setting up a constantly-running computer can remedy this. Cloud-based sync services avoid this issue altogether.

Recommendation: If you're using a cloud-based file sync service, enable settings to make sure that the sync service always downloads local copies. Very often, cloud-based sync services won't download local copies of files until they're opened, which can slow down Tempo.

Reference Wikipedia for more file sync services.

Sharing a Folder

Once you and your collaborators have set up your sync service of choice, you will need to share a directory between you and all of your collaborators.

When you have a directory shared, you can begin creating your Tempo folder(s). I recommend creating your Tempo folders as subdirectories rather than directly using the shared directory, since this will allow you to create multiple Tempo folders in the directory. An illustration is provided below:

Once you've created your Tempo folder(s), your collaborators should be able to hit the + button to add them to Tempo! In the example above, your collaborators would add the "my tempo folder" and "my other tempo folder" directories to Tempo.

Limitations

Tempo aims to enhance your workflow with Ableton. However, Tempo is completely third-party software. With this comes many limitations.

Project Files/Plugin Databases

Tempo is able to parse bits and pieces of Ableton's project file format and Ableton's plugin database to provide its features. Neither the project file or plugin database format are officially documented by Ableton. If Ableton decides to make significant changes to either format, this will probably break Tempo.

It's possible that Tempo improperly parses some parts of Ableton's project file format.

Tempo does not support very old versions of Ableton. Tempo should work with later versions of Live 10 (I think, haven't tested). Supporting old versions of Ableton is not a priority for Tempo.

Support for Other DAWs

Tempo will not support other DAWs until a comprehensive Rust library for parsing DAW project files is developed. I'm interested in working on this library and will update this section with more details in the future.

Mutability

Currently, you are not able to edit the content of notes or delete them, and you also can't delete or rename channels. These features will be implemented at some point.

Reporting Bugs

Please join the Tempo Discord or post an issue on GitHub if you encounter a bug. Please provide info about your OS version and Ableton version as well. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!