Quick Start

Getting Started

Welcome to BackTrax! This article will give you a quick walkthrough of the main features of the app so you can get started quickly.

The first time you launch BackTrax you’ll see a new, empty set list.

empty set

Note: Screenshots here are in Dark Mode. On iOS 13, BackTrax follows the iOS Dark Mode setting. On previous versions of iOS, you can enable a custom BackTrax Dark Mode in the BackTrax Settings (tap the Settings button).

Importing Content

First, tap the Music Note icon at the top left of the screen to open the BackTrax Library.

empty library

The BackTrax Library opens on the right side of the screen, and it starts out empty. We’ll start with importing from the iOS Media Library, which would contain any tracks you’ve synced to the device from your computer or downloaded from iCloud Music Library.

Tap the Import button at the top right of the BackTrax Library panel, and choose iOS Media Library from the options that appear. Be sure to accept the permission request that comes up or BackTrax will not be able to import anything.

The other import options are discussed in depth in the Importing section of the documentation. If you're a BackTrax Classic user, that section also explains how to import your saved sets from BackTrax Classic.

The import screen for the iOS Media Library gives you several options for browsing and searching the library to select tracks to import.

import ios library

Here you can tap individual songs to import them one by one, or you can use the Add All button at the top of any list of songs to import everything in the list. Songs will be grayed out as they are imported, and when you’re done you can tap the Done button at the top right to close the import panel.

Building Sets

Now you’ll see the tracks you have imported in the BackTrax Library list. You can tap songs in the BackTrax Library on the right, and they will be added to the set on the left.

populated first set

You can create more than one set in a set list. If you tap the Menu button at the top right of the set list panel and select Add Set, a new, empty set will be opened. Tapping songs in the library (on the right) will then add those songs to the new set.

populated second set

You can switch between the two sets by tapping on the buttons showing the set durations at the top of the set list panel.

BackTrax represents times with quote marks indicating minutes or seconds. A single quote following the time, for example 12:34', means the second set of digits represent minutes, so the full time would be 12 hours, 34 minutes. A double quote, 12:34", means the second set of digits represents seconds, so the full time would be 12 minutes, 34 seconds.

You can use the red buttons on the left of each song entry to delete songs from the set, and you can use the handles on the right side to drag and drop songs into a new order.

Performance

When finished building the sets, tap the Music Note button at the top right of the screen to close the BackTrax Library panel.

The File button at the top left pops up a menu that allows you to save the current set list and to load it later. Tapping the Lock button at the top center of the screen locks the set list, so you don’t accidentally tap on delete, info or movement controls in the list during a performance. The nearby Lyrics button opens the lyrics and attachments panel on the right side of the screen.

Lyrics will be automatically loaded for iTunes content if available, but that can be unreliable. Lyrics may be entered directly into BackTrax, and this is discussed in detail in the Lyrics section of the documentation.

playing with next selected

You can tap on any song in the list to make it the current song that will play when the Play button is tapped, and it will be highlighted in green. When a song is playing, you can tap on another song to select it as the next song and it will be highlighted in yellow. When the current song is done playing, the next song will be automatically selected as the new current song but will not automatically start playing (optional).

Next Steps

That’s it for the basics of getting up and running with BackTrax. The rest of the documentation goes into detail about each area of the app. Also don’t be afraid to play around with the interface on your own; it can’t do anything to your iOS Media Library or other original import sources.