MaestroLive - Community. Music. Game.

This user guide has not yet been fully updated to reflect the changes that occurred since the release of MaestroLive 1.5. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to update it shortly. In the mean time you can find up-to-date documentation in the MaestroLive “Quick Help”.

Opening Songs
Playing Songs
Score and Statistics
Playing Tips
Trouble Shooting
Hot Keys

The Open Song window

Click on the title columns above the song list to sort the songs in the list according to that particular column. (The "L" column indicates whether that songs contains lyrics or not).
Use the search field to search for song name/artist/genre/language/song ID.
Choose a song and "double click" it or press Enter for the song to load. Wait until the Rhythm Radar fills before trying to play the song.
You may click the Play button to sample the selected song before deciding to open it.

Any letter key on the keyboard will play the next note or notes of the song. These notes are called Events. You can play an entire song with the same key but you will find it easier to use 2 or more keys.
By pressing keys in the “correct rhythm" you will be playing the song.
The “Rhythm Radar” visually shows you “correct rhythm". Each time you press a key the Timer starts moving from bottom to top - to be on time you should press another key when the Timer reaches the Target line. (See picture below).

Rhythm Radar

The bars in the Rhythm Radar will scroll left as you play. This way you "see" the rhythm of the coming events before they actually arrive.
When a green bar reaches the Timer the Target line will appear immediately. Press any keyboard key when the Timer is about to cross the Target line. This will play the current Event and reset the Timer, starting it all over again.

Green Timer: be alert
(press key when Timer reaches Target)

When a blue bar reaches the Timer there is no Target line. The Target will appear only after the Timer completes a full round (this gives you at least one full round of rest before its time to hit another key).

Blue Timer: medium wait
(Target will appear when Timer reaches the top)

When a red bar reaches the Timer there is no Target line. The Target will appear only after the Timer completes 2 or more full rounds - wait until the Timer changes to blue and then wait a full round (this gives you at least two full rounds of rest before its time to hit another key).

Red Timer: long wait
(Target will appear only after Timer turns blue and then reaches the top)

Maestro rates your performance as you play along and also provides an overall score for your performance. In addition it also displays statistical information that will show you if you have a tendency to be early or late when playing.

Score overview

Each time you play an event Maestro will measure your timing and compare it to what it should have been (timing is accurate to 1 millisecond - one thousandth of a second). It will then display the result of the recent event as a bar with a color - the color indicates whether the event was early (blue), on time (green) or late (red). Beneath the bar is a number that is the actual "miss time" in milliseconds for that event.

Note: Currently any "miss time" that's between -100 and +100 is considered to be "on time" and thus will display a green light. Future versions of Maestro may let you change the "on time" tolerance.

Event scores

The performance statistics tells you how many events in the current performance were early, on time and late and what percentage these numbers are from the total number of events played.

performance statistics

The overall score is the average of all the "miss times". The smaller the score the better the result (your average "miss time" was smaller and thus better)

current overall score

If you play all the events in the curret song the score will turn green (all events as opposed to skipping some...). Only green scores are considered an "official" score. In future versions of Maestro your "official" high-score for each song will be saved to the Maestro network and will also be compared to the high-scores of other players for the world high-score of each song.

official score

When playing it is always better to be late than early - this is because if you're early the next Event notes will be mixed with the current notes, creating a musical mess...
Keeping this in mind a beginner should aim to be a little late when playing (aim for the Timer to cross the Target a couple of lines) - then, gradually, when you feel more confident aim at the Target)

Beginners: aim to be a little late

For currently unknown reasons notes can sometimes get "stuck" during playing (a "stuck" note is a note that keeps on playing and never fades off). To stop a "stuck" note all you need to do is press the <Space Bar> or click on the "Panic! Sound Off" button at the top of the Maestro main window.
Sometime you may find that you're pressing your keyboard keys but Maestro is not responding. This can happen if the Maestro window is not the front window. This can be fixed by left-clicking on the Maestro window (thus, bringing it to the front).

<Space Bar> Turn off all sound. If a note gets “stuck” it will turn it off.

Home Brings the song back to the beginning (Event No. 1) and reset the score and statistics.

Arrows Increase or decrease the song position by one using the left or right arrows.