Setlist Generator

This tool combines your repertoire with your particular ideas for how your sets should be constructed, to generate set lists.

Creating set lists is a tedious chore for the professional musician. Some shows have specific requirements. Some shows need a bit of variety over a seven-night stand. You might (should) have ideas on how the show should be structured - for example, start with a bang, ease back, bring it to a peak in mid-set, ease off with some power ballads, then finish the set with a bang (the W-pattern). Or start the night with originals from the new album. Bring in some hot covers for the second set, and finish the night with your "best-of" originals.

Whatever your approach, your shows should be structured. And it's a boring job. You need an up-tempo original to finish the first set. What do we have? Um, how about "XYZ"? Yes, but you've forgotten the other eight up-tempo originals you could have used. You will find you're leaving out songs that deserve a place in the line-up, and including songs that really don't.

Setlist Generator starts with your entire repertoire. Put in EVERYTHING you can perform with a a particular line-up of musicians. Include keys, BPM, singers, whatever. You're not limited to the categories provided. Change them to suit your needs. Don't need "Singer"? Change it to "Mood". Also set the competency for each song - how well do we do it. This allows you to include everything you can perform, including raw new material, and the competency is taken into consideration automatically when generating the set lists.

The Repertoire page is a useful tool on it's own. It's a handy reference for each of your songs, and you can sort by any of the categories. Want to know what songs Pete sings, or what songs are in Am? Sort.

The Structure page is where the magic happens. Put in your show and set headings and add the criteria for each song. For example, "I want a slow Em song that Billy sings". The criteria are prioritized. So the first criterion has the highest priority.

The Setlist page is where your set lists are automatically generated. Each time you tap "Regenerate" a new set list using your Structure page criteria is generated. With "Show Stats" you can see the results of every calculation. In cases where there are no songs left to fulfill a particular criteria list, you can choose to either repeat a song or sacrifice criteria.

You may find that there are holes in your repertoire. Your desired set list structure may highlight that you don't have enough slow songs, for example. You now have a songwriting/rehearsal target.

Making up set lists doesn't have to be a chore. You want the best possible show structure to showcase your material. Doing it by hand is just sub-optimal and time-consuming. With Setlist Generator, keep your repertoire list up to date, fiddle and finesse your set structures, then just tap "Regenerate". Spend more time performing and writing.