Getting Started

Create your account, write your first song, and learn the interface.

Welcome to Nitesong. This guide walks you through everything you need to know to create your account, write your first song, and find your way around the app.

What is Nitesong?

Nitesong is a web app for capturing, organizing, and collaborating on songs. Whether you are jotting down lyrics on your phone or building out a full arrangement with bandmates, Nitesong gives you one place to keep everything together.

How songs are structured

Songs in Nitesong follow a simple hierarchy:

Song
└── Sections  (Intro, Verse, Chorus, ...)
    └── Elements  (the actual musical content)

• A song holds your title, key, tempo, and metadata.
• Sections break the song into parts you would recognize from any arrangement — verses, choruses, bridges, and more.
• Elements live inside sections and contain the actual notation. Each element can hold one or more of five notation types:
  • Lyrics — a text editor with line numbers
  • Chords — chord progressions with optional guitar voicings and a CAGED-based fingering library
  • Guitar Tab — a six-string tablature grid with keyboard navigation
  • Drum Sequencer — an FL Studio-style step sequencer with Web Audio playback and MIDI export
  • Piano Roll — a MIDI-style note editor with click-to-place, drag-to-extend, and playback

Tools at your fingertips

A collapsible sidebar on the right side of the song editor gives you quick access to seven music tools without leaving the page:

Collaboration

Nitesong supports real-time collaboration. Invite other users to your songs as editors, chat in the sidebar with @mention support, and stay on top of activity through the inbox notification system.

Projects and workflow

Songs can be organized into projects (think albums or EPs). Each project has its own kanban board where you can track songs through status columns — from initial idea all the way to finished.

Pricing

Nitesong offers three tiers:

Song limits count against the creator only — being added as a collaborator on someone else's song does not count toward your limit.

Creating Your Account

Sign up

1. Navigate to the sign-up page.
2. Enter your email address and choose a password.
3. Submit the form. Nitesong uses secure email/password authentication.

Once your account is created, you will be taken into the app where you can set up your profile.

Set up your profile

After signing up, visit your profile page to personalize your account:

• Display name — the name other collaborators will see.
• Avatar — upload a photo or image.
• Visibility — choose who can see your profile: public, limited (activity visible but song names hidden), or private (only you).

Sign in

Already have an account? Head to the sign-in page and enter your email and password.

Forgot your password?

If you need to reset your password:

1. Go to the forgot-password page.
2. Enter the email address associated with your account.
3. Check your inbox for a reset link.
4. Follow the link and choose a new password.

Note: Auth endpoints are rate-limited to prevent abuse, so if you are having trouble, wait a moment before trying again.

Your First Song

Let's walk through creating a song from scratch.

Step 1 — Open the workspace

Navigate to the Songs page. This is your kanban workspace where all your songs live. If you have projects set up, you will see project tabs along the top; otherwise you will land on your default board.

Step 2 — Create a new song

Click the create button to open the new song form. You will need to fill in three fields:

• Title — give your song a name.
• Key (required) — select the musical key from 25 options covering all 12 major keys, 12 minor keys, and enharmonic equivalents (for example, both F# and Gb are available). The key drives the scale reference tools, diatonic chord suggestions, and Roman numeral analysis throughout the editor.
• BPM (required) — set the tempo in beats per minute. This syncs with the metronome, drum sequencer playback, and piano roll playback.

Key and BPM are required because many of Nitesong's tools depend on them — the metronome needs a tempo, the chord picker needs a key to suggest diatonic chords, and the scale tools need to know what notes to highlight.

Step 3 — Add sections

Once your song opens in the editor, you will see an empty canvas ready for sections. Add sections to outline the structure of your song. Nitesong supports 11 section types:

• Intro
• Verse
• Pre-Chorus
• Chorus
• Bridge
• Hook
• Breakdown
• Solo
• Interlude
• Refrain
• Outro

Sections appear as tabs across the top of the editor. You can reorder them with drag and drop to rearrange your song structure at any time.

Step 4 — Add elements with notation

Inside each section, click the add button to create an element. Elements are where the actual music lives. When you add an element, use the Add Notes Menu to choose what kind of notation to attach:

• Lyrics — opens a text editor with line numbers. Just type your words.
• Chords — opens a chord progression editor. Pick chords from four groups: In Key (diatonic), Secondary Dominants, Borrowed (modal interchange), or All Chords. Each chord can have a guitar voicing attached from the built-in library of 120+ fingerings.
• Guitar Tab — opens a six-string tablature grid. Navigate with your keyboard, type fret numbers, and choose a length preset (8, 16, 32, or 64 positions).
• Drums — opens a step sequencer with an 8-sample drum kit (kick, snare, hi-hats, clap, rimshot, toms). Set beat length, adjust velocities, and hit play to hear it back through your browser. Export to MIDI when you are ready.
• Piano Roll — opens a MIDI-style grid. Click to place notes, drag to extend them, right-click to delete. Playback uses pitched piano samples through Web Audio. Export to MIDI for use in your DAW.

A single element can hold multiple notation types at once — for example, you might have lyrics and chords on the same element to keep words and harmony side by side.

Step 5 — Use the sidebar tools

While you are working, the activity bar on the right edge of the editor gives you quick access to reference tools. Click any icon to open its panel:

• Open the Fretboard to see your song's scale laid out on a guitar neck.
• Open the Keyboard to see and play scale notes on a piano.
• Open the Metronome to practice along at your song's tempo.
• Open the Circle of Fifths to explore key relationships and modulations.

The bottom half of the sidebar always shows your collaborators and the chat, so you can stay in touch while you work.

Navigating the Interface

Nitesong has five main areas. Here is a quick tour of each one.

Nav bar

The nav bar sits at the top of every page . From left to right:

• Logo — click to return to the workspace.
• Theme toggle — switch between light and dark mode.
• Inbox bell — a bell icon that shows an unread count badge when you have new notifications (mentions, invites). Click to open the notification popover where you can read and dismiss items or mark all as read.
• User menu — access your profile, settings, and sign out.

Kanban workspace

This is your home base. The workspace is organized around projects and status columns:

• Project tabs run along the top. Each project is like an album or collection of related songs.
• Kanban columns show songs grouped by status: Idea, Draft, In Progress, Finished, and Archived. Drag song cards between columns to update their status.
• Song cards display the title, key, BPM, and other metadata at a glance. Click a card to open the song editor.

Song editor

The song editor is where you spend most of your time. It is laid out in layers from top to bottom:

• Header — a two-column layout:
  • Left side: Song title, action menu (edit, manage collaborators, delete), inline-editable badges for status, key, and BPM, tags, and an audio player for uploaded tracks.
  • Right side: The Song Key Panel — a compact reference showing all seven scale degrees with their note names, and the diatonic triads and seventh chords built on each degree. This gives you an at-a-glance harmonic map of your song's key.
• Section tabs — tab navigation across your song's sections. Click a tab to switch between Intro, Verse, Chorus, and so on.
• Element cards — the content area shows each element in the active section as a card. Each card contains its notation editors (lyrics, chords, tab, drums, piano roll) along with controls for the element name, color, and notes.

The main content area scrolls independently while the sidebar stays pinned, so you always have your tools within reach.

Right sidebar

The sidebar lives on the right edge of the song editor and has two parts:

• Activity bar a vertical strip of seven icons. Click an icon to activate that tool. The active icon gets a highlighted accent bar on its right edge. Hover over any icon to see a tooltip.
• Flyout panel slides open when a tool is active. The panel is split into two zones:
  • Top half: The active tool's content (fretboard, keyboard, circle of fifths, tuner, metronome, or notes). This area scrolls if the content is tall.
  • Bottom half: A collaborators list (collapsible) and the chat pane. Chat supports @mentions for users, sections, and elements, with a suggestion popover that appears as you type.

Your last active tool is remembered between visits , so the sidebar opens right where you left off.

Profile

Your profile page is a bento-grid dashboard that gives you a snapshot of your songwriting activity:

• Profile card — your avatar, display name, and member-since date. Click "Edit Profile" to update your name, photo, or visibility setting.
• Creator stats — a grid of counts: songs created, elements, chords used, notes written, collaborations, and drum beats programmed.
• Top keys — your three most-used musical keys across all your songs, shown as a small bar chart.
• Activity timeline — a scrollable feed of your recent actions (created a song, added a drum pattern, invited a collaborator, and so on).

Next steps

Now that you know your way around, here are some things to try:

• Experiment with notation types. Add a chord progression, then layer lyrics on the same element to see words and harmony together.
• Explore the sidebar tools. Open the Circle of Fifths to discover related keys, or use the Fretboard to visualize scales while writing riffs.
• Invite a collaborator. Open the song action menu, add a collaborator by email, and start chatting in the sidebar.
• Organize with projects. Create a project for your next album and drag songs between status columns as you make progress.