Every feature, and
the problem it solves.
Everything NOVIQ does to get a show built and played, and all of it is in the free version - what each feature does, and the gig-night snag it takes away.
Building the show
The set, the levels and the routing - set up once, saved as you go.
Drag and drop
Drop wav, mp3, flac, ogg or aiff files onto the set and each becomes a song, in the order you dropped them. No import wizard, nothing to rescan.
Twenty minutes of importing before every rehearsal.
Many setlists, one library
Friday's set, the acoustic set, next month's tour. Songs live once and appear in as many sets as you like, in any order.
Copies of the same song drifting out of step.
Backing, click and guide
Each song can carry a backing track, a click and a guide track, each with its own level - and a level for the whole song so the quiet one isn't quiet.
Riding faders between songs because the files were mastered differently.
Notes and colours
“Capo 2”, “half-time feel”, “encore” - notes and colours on each line, shown large in Show Mode where you'll actually read them.
A paper setlist taped to the floor.
Duplicate lines and sets
Most sets after the first are the one before, edited. Duplicate a whole setlist, or a line within one.
Rebuilding a nearly identical set from nothing.
A set travels as one file
Export a setlist and its songs as a folder or a single .noviqset, and import it on the other laptop. Songs already there are reused, not copied twice.
Getting the show onto the backup machine the night before.
Separate outputs
Backing to the PA; one shared monitor mix for the band where you choose whether backing, click and guide are included. Set once for the rig, not per song.
The audience hearing the click.
Soundcheck, not showtime
If a mix points at an output your interface doesn't have, or a line names a song that's gone, NOVIQ says so plainly, at soundcheck.
Finding a routing mistake on the first song.
No Save button
Every edit is written to disk the moment you make it, safely. Closing the window loses nothing.
Losing an afternoon's set-building to a forgotten save.
Footswitch & keyboard
Hands on the instrument; the set follows your feet.
MIDI learn
Pick a command, press the switch - done. Control Change, Note and Program Change all work, and every binding is listed with an Unlearn button.
Editing a config file to map a pedal.
Hot-plug and Bluetooth MIDI
A controller plugged in - or reconnected over Bluetooth - mid-soundcheck is picked up by itself.
Restarting the app because the pedal was plugged in late.
Mappings travel with the library
Copy the library to the backup laptop and it already knows your pedalboard.
Re-learning every switch on the spare machine.
Only safe commands on a pedal
Play, pause, stop, restart, next, previous, pick a song or a set, click and guide on or off, volume and panic. Nothing that could reconfigure your rig is on a footswitch - and a song never starts by itself.
One mis-step changing the whole setup mid-show.
Keyboard shortcuts
Play, restart, nudge, next, previous and the click on or off - listed in one panel, and yours to change.
Mouse trips in the middle of a take.
Show Mode
The screen you look at from three metres away, and the lock that keeps the night safe.
The whole set, huge
The song title fills the screen, with the artist, its note, a steady monospaced countdown, the next song, and the rest of the night below - played songs dimmed.
Squinting at a laptop from behind a mic stand.
Everything locked
Nothing can be created, deleted, renamed, reordered or rerouted while Show Mode is on - not from the screen, a shortcut or a pedal.
An accidental click deleting the next song.
PANIC
Stops all audio at once and sends All Sound Off and All Notes Off to every MIDI device. Always one press away.
A stuck note or a runaway track with no way out.
Always dark on stage
Dark, light or colour everywhere else, remembered across launches - but Show Mode is always dark.
A bright screen blinding you and lighting up the front row.
Stage video & subtitles
The screen behind the band, run by the same app that runs the music.
A video per song
Attach an MP4 to any song from the film icon on its line, and preview it from the set. Best square at 30 fps; anything else still plays and says why it may look off.
A second laptop just to play the visuals.
Locked to the backing track
The video follows the transport's own play head: seek lands on the right frame, pause holds it, and it's warmed up before you press Play.
Video drifting out of step by the second chorus.
Out of the HDMI socket
Choose the screen in the Video panel; the stage window opens full screen there by itself when the show starts.
Dragging a player window onto the projector with the audience watching.
Fades and loops
Fade in from black at the top of a song and out at the end - a cut, or up to ten seconds each way. A video shorter than its song can loop.
Hard cuts to a frozen last frame.
Subtitles over the screen
Lyrics or a translation from an .srt or .vtt file, drawn large over the video - or over black when a song has none.
An audience that can't follow songs in another language.
Write subtitles in the app
Paste the lyrics, play the song, press Mark as each line begins. Timed on the transport, so a seek shows the right line.
Needing subtitle software to time a lyric sheet.
An idle loop, with sound
A video, and a sound if you give it one, for around the show. The sound plays through the PA at its own level and is gone the instant a song plays.
A dead screen and silence while the room fills.
Ready, stop, and after
Ready for show cues the first song and loops until it's played. Stop & idle puts the loop up over a stop. After the last song it comes back by itself.
Scrambling to fill the screen when something goes wrong.
Reliability & ownership
The things you never think about - until the night they matter.
Crash recovery
Reopen after a crash and NOVIQ is back on the same song and position - stopped, with a note saying why. It never starts playing by itself.
Rebuilding your place in the set in front of an audience.
Sample-accurate
Backing, click and guide are locked together to the sample, through every seek, at the file's own sample rate.
Click and track slowly drifting apart.
Offline
No account, no login, no telemetry. NOVIQ never needs the internet to play - not at start-up, not on any screen.
A venue with no signal, an hour before doors.
A licence that can't lapse
Checked on your machine with cryptography. Nothing expires and nothing reads a clock.
Software that deactivates itself the night of a show.
Your library is a folder
Songs, sets, videos and mappings are plain files you own. Back them up or copy them like anything else.
Your work locked inside somebody's database.
Remembers how it looks
Dark, light or colour, chosen once in Settings, and the window put back where it was.
Setting the app up again every launch.
Looking for the loop, the slow-down, the tuner or the guitar rig? The practice room is becoming an application of its own, NOVIQ Practice - coming soon.
All of this is in the free version
Free holds one setlist of five songs, forever. $9.99 once removes the limits on one computer.