What’s new in OnKey

Watching a stream or a podcast? Pause OnKey's listening, and it stops hearing anything until you resume. Nothing is followed, named or learned in the meantime.

• Press ⌘⇧P, click the Live chip on the Sing page, or choose OnKey → Pause Listening
• A small "Listening paused · Resume" pill stays at the top of every page, so you don't forget
• It stays paused after a restart, until you resume

Pause mid-song and OnKey waits a minute in case you carry on. It now tells you, and lets you skip the wait.

• The Sing page counts down: "Paused · scored in 0:45 · Finish now"
• History shows the song you're singing as its first card, so a play you just paused never looks lost
• Every song card in History draws your scores from the second play

OnKey now takes your voice from the input it's actually on, so a mic on input 2 of a Focusrite (or any interface with several inputs) just works.

• No setting needed: OnKey follows the input your voice is on
• Virtual devices other apps add (Krisp, Loopback, BlackHole, Zoom) are listed apart from your real mics

If you skipped ahead while singing, "Play with the song" could play the part before the skip out of time. Every part of the take now plays in step with the song.

Things that could go wrong mid-song, now fixed.

• Finish no longer throws a take away if pressed while OnKey checks the player
• A song can no longer stay at "Waiting" or "Scoring" for good after a rare failure
• Library's Delete all no longer sticks, and "Stop learning and delete" only deletes the song you picked
• Keyboard shortcuts no longer reach the music behind dialogs
• The score arrives straight away when a song ends paused
• A radio stream or hours-long mix stops at 20 minutes rather than running on as one take
• Quitting is instant: OnKey disappears at once and finishes saving what it learned out of sight

Pressing Sing on a card could start the music twice, or play a blip of the song before it restarted. One press now means one clean start.

Settings now links to these docs. A new guide, Beyond pitch, covers what OnKey can't hear (tone, breath, style) and free teachers to learn it from.

Fixes for the first things our testers ran into.

• Setup's music apps step goes straight on when there's nothing for macOS to ask
• A YouTube tab that Chrome put to sleep no longer holds OnKey up
• A music app you don't have installed shows as off, rather than on

If a song's lyrics or notes slip, have OnKey learn it afresh: its next play learns it, and replaces the old copy once it's heard enough.

• Choose Learn again from the Library's ⋯ menu or the song's page
• OnKey suggests it when a song's words drift the same way on two plays

Each take gets a clearer report, and Sing, History, Library and Settings are easier to find your way around.

• Sing offers "Pick up where you left off": your last few songs, each with its last score and a Sing button
• Library's Play starts the song for you, and Sing shows it starting (or says why it can't)

Choose how strictly your takes are scored in Settings. Relaxed is how OnKey has always scored; Steady and Pro ask for more.

• Vibrato is judged on the centre of the note, so a good vibrato isn't marked down at any level
• Each take shows the level it was scored at

If OnKey picked up a backing vocal or an ad-lib instead of the tune, mark that stretch "Not the melody" on the take's page. It's left out of every score for that song, past takes included.

OnKey works out your range from the songs you sing, and shows how each song fits it.

• History shows your range on a strip of keys, with your comfortable middle marked
• The Library shows each song's fit, with a filter for songs in your range
• When a song sits high or low, it says whether singing it an octave away would fit you better

From a take, copy a link that says what you scored and asks a friend to beat it. It carries only the song, the artist, your score and, if you like, your first name.

• After a best on a song or a big step up, the take's page offers "Share this take"
• A shared clip ends on an OnKey card: your voice, never the music

Turn it on in Settings, and on songs you already sing well your pitch line fades while you're on the note, so you sing by ear and not by eye. It comes back the moment you drift.

Lines and words now light up closer to when they're sung, including lines that open on an "oh" or "whoa".

Free, open source, and everything on your Mac.

• Learns the melody of any song you play in Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube, the first time you play it
• A live pitch line over the singer's notes, with synced lyrics and a score for every take
• Takes to hear back, and a short video of a take to share: your voice, no music
• Starter songs, a library of what you've learned, and updates that install themselves