Playing the set.
The Perform tab is the one you look at on stage: backing tracks, a setlist of sections, preset changes that fire themselves, a full-screen teleprompter for your words, and a recorder that captures the whole night in stems.
06.1Backing tracks
The + button in the SETLIST header (Import track) opens the Files picker. It is multi-select, so bring in a whole set at once, and it takes anything iOS can decode. Each file copies into backing/ and becomes a setlist section named after the file.
If a file cannot be read you get Could not import <name>.
Audio copied straight into On My iPhone → NAMper → backing/ with the Files app is adopted into the setlist the next time you launch NAMper — one paste on a laptop instead of twenty trips through the picker. See where your files live.
Names matter: re-importing a file with the same name replaces the audio already in backing/. Handy when you have re-bounced a track — and a trap if two different songs are both called Backing.wav.
06.2The player card
The top card is the transport. The name row shows the loaded track, or No track selected, with the time as m:ss / m:ss. Once NAMper has analysed the audio it adds the tempo — 120 BPM — and the key.
That analysis is not decoration. Selecting a track re-tunes the whole rig: the global tempo and key follow the song, so the delay and tremolo sync divisions, the looper's bar grid, the harmoniser and the autotune all land on the right song without you setting anything.
Five buttons sit under the name, left to right:
| Button | Does |
|---|---|
| Play | Play and pause the backing track |
| Stop | Stop and return to the start |
| Record | Start and stop the performance recorder (below) |
| Add preset marker | Drop a rig-preset change at the playhead |
| Lyrics | Open the teleprompter, or load a lyrics file |
Long-press Play or Stop to MIDI-learn them — MIDI Learn: play / pause, MIDI Learn: stop, MIDI Learn: next section and MIDI Learn: previous section are all offered there. See MIDI & control.
Backing level and routing
Below the buttons, a slider sets the backing level in dB from −60 to +12, reading -inf at the bottom. The chip beside it is the routing: DIRECT sends the track out after the master FX chain (Direct out (after master FX)), which is what you want live — your reverb and limiter never touch the backing. PRE FX (Through master FX) puts the track through the master chain instead.
The timeline
The waveform under the card is a mirror-bar display with the played part lit and a cursor at the playhead. Tap anywhere on it to seek. Seeking also re-applies the newest preset marker at or before that point, so jumping into the last chorus still gets you the last chorus's sound.
There is no A/B loop region, no speed change and no pitch shift for backing tracks. If you need a song in another key or at another tempo, bounce it that way before importing.
06.3The setlist
The unit of a NAMper set is a section: a name, an optional backing track, and a bar-clocked list of steps. Importing a file makes one section per song, so in practice one section is one song — but a section with no audio at all is just as valid, and that is how you build a song out of loops and pads.
The header carries the PRESETS chip, an AUTO NEXT toggle, Add section (which creates Section N) and Import track. With AUTO NEXT on, the set walks itself forward as each section finishes.
Before you have anything, the card reads Add audio files, or a loop/sample section — a section is an optional backing track plus a bar-clocked sequence of loops and samples.
Each row shows a play button (Play section), the name, small badges — backing, N steps, N bars, and a live bar N while it runs — and an edit button (Edit section).
Tap a section and NAMper loads its backing track, applies that song's tempo and key to the rig, and points the transport at it — without playing anything. Set up between songs, talk to the room, then hit Play when you are ready.
The list is always in edit mode, so the drag handles are permanently visible: drag a row to reorder the set, swipe a row to delete it. The row's context menu holds Load lyrics from file… — see lyrics.
06.4Building a section
The edit button opens the section editor. It has a Section name field, a backing picker whose first entry is None (loops/samples only) and which reads No backing track when nothing is chosen, and — when there is no backing — a N bars stepper from 1 to 128 that sets how long the section runs.
Then comes the STEPS list. Add step offers Loop track → Start loop 1…4 or Stop loop 1…4, and Sampler pad → Pad 1…16. Step rows read Start loop N, Stop loop N, Play pad N or Stop pad N, each with its own bar N stepper. The hint under the list says it exactly: Steps fire on the bar clock: start/stop loop tracks and trigger pads at the bars you set.
This is how NAMper plays a song with no backing track at all. Record your parts into the looper, load your hits onto pads, then write the arrangement out in bars: drums in at bar 1, bass at bar 5, the pad stab at bar 13, everything out at bar 33. It runs on the bar clock, so it stays locked to your tempo instead of a rendered file.
06.5Preset markers
A preset marker is a rig change written onto the song's timeline. Clean verse, crunch chorus, lead for the solo — placed once, then hands-free every time you play it.
- Arm the track and put the playhead where the switch belongs — tap the timeline to seek, or let it play.
- Tap the pin button (Add preset marker).
- Pick a rig from the menu of every preset, each row reading <pc> · <preset name>. The marker drops at the current playhead position.
Crossing a marker during playback fires that preset exactly as if a MIDI program change had arrived from a pedalboard. Markers draw as amber dots on the timeline with a generous touch area, and below the waveform a row of chips lists them as m:ss <preset name>. Long-press a chip for Delete marker.
A marker you have just created sits at the raw playhead, wherever your finger left it. Drag a marker and it snaps to the bar grid — so the way to tighten a rough placement is to nudge it. With no detected tempo there is no grid, and placement stays free.
06.6Lyrics and the teleprompter
NAMper carries your words for you. Give a track a plain text file and it becomes a full-screen teleprompter that opens by itself when the song starts and scrolls at the pace you taught it.
Loading lyrics
There are two ways in.
The reliable one: Load lyrics from file…, either from the lyrics button's long-press menu or from a setlist row's context menu. It takes plain text. If the file cannot be read you get Could not read the lyrics file.
The automatic one: when you import audio, NAMper looks for a plain .txt (or .text) file with the same base name sitting next to it — Song.wav and Song.txt — and picks the text up as that song's lyrics. Prepare a folder that way on a computer and a whole set arrives with its words attached.
The file picker's permission scope does not always cover the file next to the one you chose. When it does not, nothing is picked up and no error appears — the track simply has no lyrics. Check the lyrics button after importing, and fall back to Load lyrics from file… for anything that came up empty.
The lyrics button carries a quote-mark icon and is tinted when the track has words. A tap opens the full-screen lyrics if there are any and otherwise opens the file picker; a long-press gives you Show lyrics, Load lyrics from file… and Remove lyrics.
Loading new lyrics onto a track resets the window to the whole song and clears every anchor. Fix typos in the file before you spend a rehearsal anchoring it, not after.
The lyrics strip
Once a track has lyrics, a tinted band called Lyrics range appears under the waveform. Its edges are the lyrics window: where the text starts scrolling and where it finishes. Drag an edge to move one bound, drag the middle to slide the whole span — useful when a song opens with a long instrumental intro.
Anchors are drawn on the same strip as small diamonds. Drag one to retime it; long-press one for Delete anchor.
The teleprompter
The teleprompter is a full screen, and it opens by itself when playback starts on a track that has lyrics. Its header holds a back button, the track name, the m:ss / m:ss readout and a play/pause button. Tapping anywhere on the screen toggles play/pause — you do not have to find a small target with a guitar in your hands.
Anchors
An anchor is how you teach the text your song. Hold a line for about a third of a second and it is pinned to the current moment. Hold an already-anchored line to remove the anchor. An anchored line is marked with a filled bar in its left margin.
An anchor means one thing: at this time, put this line at the top of the screen. Between anchors the text glides at a constant speed from one to the next. It can never scroll backwards, even if you place anchors out of order — a teleprompter that jumps back mid-verse is worse than one that is slightly early.
In practice: play the song once in rehearsal and hold each section's first line as you reach it. Four or five anchors are usually enough for a three-minute song, and they are saved with the track.
With no anchors the text glides at one constant speed: the first line at the start of the lyrics window, fully scrolled at the end of it. A hint reads Hold a line to pin it to the current moment until you place your first one. If the text is shorter than the screen it does not scroll at all — it is centred.
Taking over by hand
Drag the text and you take control: the auto-glide stops and the words follow your finger. The moment that happens an AUTO chip appears in the header (Resume auto-scroll); tap it to hand control back and the text re-aims at the playhead. That chip is only visible while manual scroll is active, so if you cannot see it, nothing is being held. Leaving the screen and coming back also resets to automatic.
Text size
Settings → LYRICS holds a text-size slider from 16 to 34 pt, default 22 pt, with a live preview reading This is how your lyrics will look. Changing it re-aims the teleprompter live. Set it for the distance the phone actually sits from your face on a mic stand. See the settings reference.
06.7Perform presets
The PRESETS chip in the setlist header opens Perform Presets. A saved perform preset carries the whole setlist: every section with its steps and bars, the AUTO NEXT state, and the lyrics — text, window and anchors — of every track that has them.
What it does not carry is the audio. Backing tracks are stored as file-name references, so a preset stays small and can be shared. Load it on another device and the sections whose backing file is not present fall back to steps only; the lyrics for the tracks that are present are written back to disk as usual.
Copy your backing/ folder across first, then load the perform preset. Same file names, same set.
06.8Recording
The record button in the player card captures the performance as three aligned stems. It refuses with Audio is off — tap the power button before recording. if the engine is not running.
| Stem | What it holds |
|---|---|
| mix | The master: rig, looper, sampler pads and backing together |
| input | The dry sound-card input, at whatever channel count your interface delivers |
| backing | The backing track alone, when one is attached |
The dry input stem is the one that saves a good take with a bad amp choice — re-amp it later. Looper tracks are not separate stems; they are inside the mix.
Files land in recordings/ named Perf yyyy-MM-dd HH.mm.ss mix, … input and … backing. They are .m4a normally and .caf for high-rate or multichannel material. Switching backing track mid-take opens a numbered segment — … backing 2.
Three errors can stop a take: Recording could not start: the take file could not be created., Recording stopped: the device is out of storage space. and Recording stopped: the take file could not be written.
06.9Recording projects
The RECORDINGS card groups the stems of one take into a project, by their shared Perf <date> name. Newest first, and the five newest projects are shown — older takes stay on disk in recordings/, reachable through the Files app.
A project row has a preview button that plays the mix stem, the project name, a share button (Export DAWproject), a delete button (Delete project) and a chevron (Show stems). Tapping the row expands it too.
Expanded, each stem gets its own row labelled mix, input, backing or backing 2, with Share recording and Delete recording. Share a stem to send someone a rough mix; share the project to open the take in a DAW.
06.10DAWproject export
The share button on a project row — not on an individual stem — exports the whole take as a .dawproject file through the normal iOS share sheet: Save to Files, AirDrop it to a Mac, drop it in a cloud folder. DAWproject is an open interchange format, so any DAW that reads it will open the take without a converter.
Inside you get one track per stem, named after the stem, each with a single clip starting at 0 — so everything lines up the moment the project opens. The audio is written as 24-bit WAV at the original sample rate and channel count.
No tempo and no time signature — the timeline is in seconds, not bars. No preset markers, no setlist, no plugin state and no automation. It is a clean multitrack of the audio you played, and you will set the session tempo yourself at the other end.