The song editor
Metadata
Song name, artist (with autocomplete from artists already in your library), and an optional URL — great for linking to the YouTube video you learned from. The URL field is single-line and has a clear-X like every other text field, plus a URL-appropriate keyboard. Every text field gets a floating clear-X while it has content — one tap to empty a field and start over.
Tuning & capo
Two structured fields for the two things every guitarist needs to know before they pick up the instrument.
Tuning uses a wheel picker with six string slots, low-to-high. Scroll each wheel to pick a note, or tap a preset — Standard, Drop D, Double Drop D, DADGAD, Open G, Open D, Open E, or Half-step down — to fill all six in one go.
Capo is a segmented chip row from None up the neck; tap the fret the capo belongs on.
When you import chords from a URL, Song Hive reads the tuning and capo out of the page and fills these fields in for you. Both values also drive the filter sheet on the song list, show up as read-only pills on the play page, and get used by the tuner on the Perform screen.
Familiarity ratings
Two separate 0–5 star ratings — one for Lyrics, one for Music. Tap a star to set the rating, tap again or swipe to zero it. These numbers drive the spaced-repetition schedule, so the more honest you are, the smarter the schedule gets.
In edit mode, each row has a switch next to its label — flip it off to hide that axis for this song. Disabled rows disappear from the editor in view mode, from the practice-rating modal, and from the per-song history chart; any previous rating is kept in case you flip the switch back on later. If you want most of your songs to start with one axis off, change the global defaults under Song defaults.
Tags
Tap the chip of any existing tag to add it to the song; tap a tag on the song to remove it. Type in the tag field to create a new one. Tags are used by the song list filter, so a good tagging habit pays off fast.
Practice settings
Flip Enable practice on and the song appears on the Practice tab and contributes to practice sessions. Pick the practice focus field — chords, lyrics, or notes — and that's the tab the song opens to during a session.
Practice history chart
Once a song has some practice on it, a small chart appears showing your progress on a timeline — Lyrics dots on one line, Music dots on another, coloured by the rating you gave. Each dot represents a recall cycle rather than an individual session, so multiple plays inside the same cycle fold into a single point and the chart reads as a clean arc of how the song's settling. The chart anchors to the date you first enabled practice on the song, so a song you added years ago but only started practising last month reads cleanly from left to right instead of being crushed against the right edge.
The practice-rating modal (during a session, or from the Practice tab) has a date picker for back-dating a session you forgot to log — and if you back-date further than the chart goes, Song Hive slides the anchor back so the new session still lands on the timeline.
The content tabs
Tabs across the top for Chords, Lyrics, and Notes. The order and visibility of tabs is controlled from Song Defaults — hide tabs you never use for a cleaner editor. Each tab floats its own compact Import button (with a small import icon) directly above the tab in the row, sized to match the tab width — so the import action is always one tap from the tab itself, without pushing the rest of the row down.
- Pinch in/outAdjust font size from 8pt to 40pt. A floating indicator shows the size as you pinch; Song Hive remembers the size per song.
- Play buttonStart auto-scroll. The speed selector goes from 0.25x to 4x in 0.25 increments; Song Hive remembers the speed per song. When the active tab is being driven by time-synced lyrics, the speed readout swaps to Synced with a clock icon and the +/- buttons hide — the song's own timing is what's driving the page.
- Chord searchOn the Chords tab, tap the search icon to pull chord tabs with ratings — Ultimate Guitar's Official tabs are surfaced as their own labelled type and sorted to the top. Pick one and Song Hive imports it with one tap. If an Official tab sits behind UG's paywall, Song Hive spots the redirect quickly and offers to save the tab's link to the chords field instead of leaving you waiting.
- Lyrics searchOn the Lyrics tab, tap the search icon to pull lyrics from LRCLIB and other sources. Imported plain lyrics come through with proper verse breaks rather than as one concatenated block, derived from the synced-lyrics timing data.
Leading URL pill in the chord field
If a chord field starts with a URL — most commonly a saved Ultimate Guitar Official link that we couldn't import directly — Song Hive replaces the raw URL with a tappable pill carrying a link icon and a label that names where it points (UG Official, Ultimate Guitar, or Open link). One tap opens the link in your browser; switch back and you're still on the same song. The pill shows up wherever the chord field is rendered: inline in the editor, in the expanded chord-modal, and on the play and Perform screens.
Synced lyrics
Songs with time-stamped lyrics from LRCLIB show a small clock icon next to the Lyrics tab label, so you can tell at a glance which songs in your library are ready for synced auto-scroll. Songs that have lyrics but no timing data get a small Sync pill floating above the Lyrics tab — tap it and Song Hive fetches the timing in place, leaving any manual edits to the lyric text untouched. More on synced auto-scroll →
Version history
Every edit creates a version stamp — manual edits, CloudKit pulls, and imports all appear in the song's history. Expand a past version to see what changed and, if needed, restore it.
Saving and cancelling
Changes are tracked as you type. If you try to leave with unsaved edits, Song Hive asks before discarding. Saving pushes the song to iCloud in the background — you'll see it appear in the Sync Log without ever having to wait.
