Compatibility

GrooveDojo runs in a web browser. What works depends on your browser, your device and how your kit is connected. This page says what has been tested, and what hasn’t been yet.

Browsers and devices

Use a current version of your browser.

Other browsers that support MIDI, such as Chrome or Edge on Windows, may work too, but they haven’t been tested yet.

Safari, and every browser on iPad and iPhone, can’t receive MIDI, so a kit can’t connect there. GrooveDojo says so when you try. Editing, playback and playing along without a kit are still offered there, but they haven’t been tested on those devices yet.

Firefox asks you to add a site-permission add-on before GrooveDojo can use MIDI. That’s Firefox’s own step, and the add-on only lets this site use your MIDI devices. Choose Continue to Installation, then Add.

Kit input on Android has been tested in Chrome on one phone, with the kit connected by USB through a cable or adapter that fits the phone. Other Android phones and tablets may work, but they haven’t been tested. On a phone, the editor’s grid scrolls when you swipe it, and a tap adds or removes a note.

Drum kits

GrooveDojo reads the notes your kit sends over MIDI.

• Tested: Roland TD-27KV2, connected by USB, with its factory note map. Set the module’s USB mode to GENERIC, its factory setting, so your computer sees it as a MIDI device.
• Listed from the makers’ documents, not tested yet: Roland TD-07, TD-17, TD-25 and V71, Alesis Nitro, Nitro Max, Nitro Pro, Surge, Nitro Ultimate, Nitro Ultimate XL and Crimson III, Alesis Strata Prime and Strata Core, EFNOTE 3, 5 and 7, Simmons Titan 50 and Titan 70, and Yamaha DTX402K, DTX432K and DTX452K. If the module reports the name its maker documents, GrooveDojo uses that kit’s factory note map. If it doesn’t, GrooveDojo asks which kit it is, as for any other kit. On the Nitro family, the Crimson III and the Strata, whether the hi-hat was open or closed is checked only once you calibrate the hi-hat pedal in Settings, Drum mapping, and not at all on the Nitro Ultimate XL, whose pedal can’t be calibrated.
• Any other kit: GrooveDojo asks once which kit it is. Until then you play along as usual, with nothing scored. Choose “Something else” to use a standard map after a quick check of the kick, snare and hi-hat, or General MIDI. The pad check in Settings, Drum mapping shows which drum each pad lands on, and MIDI learn fixes any that are wrong.
• What your kit can’t send isn’t judged. If its map has no rimshot or ride bell, say, those strokes are counted by the drum only, and the results say they weren’t checked. Notes played on pads the map doesn’t know aren’t counted as hit or missed.
• Connect by USB. Bluetooth MIDI and MIDI interfaces haven’t been tested.
• The hi-hat: until you calibrate the pedal, open and closed come from the notes your kit sends. After a short calibration in Settings, Drum mapping, GrooveDojo reads how open it is from the pedal itself, half-open included.

Importing sheet music

• What it opens: photos and screenshots as JPEG, PNG or WebP, and PDFs, a page at a time. HEIC photos from an iPhone open only in browsers that can show them, such as Safari. Elsewhere, GrooveDojo says so, and a screenshot or a JPEG of the same page works.
• It needs a connection. The lines of music are found on your device, but reading them needs the internet.
• Clear printed drum notation reads best: a PDF, or a sharp photo taken straight on in good light. Handwritten music, unusual notation and small images, such as copies sent through chat apps, often read poorly or not at all.
• It makes mistakes. Check each bar against the original before you practice it. The most common mistake is the wrong cymbal, such as a ride read as a hi-hat, which you can fix for the whole groove at once.
• Limits: up to 2 lines at a time, and a limited number of lines a day on each device and each network. Reading pauses if its monthly budget is used, and says when it opens again.
• Tested in Chrome on a Mac, with PDFs and phone photos. Other browsers haven’t been tested yet.

Hearing the click

Listen through wired headphones, your computer’s speakers, an audio interface or your drum module. Bluetooth headphones and speakers add a delay that’s long and keeps changing, so timing results would be off by an amount GrooveDojo can’t know. Tell GrooveDojo how you listen in Settings, Timing.

What timing results can and can’t tell you

• A hit’s time is when it reached GrooveDojo. That includes the time your kit, its cable and your computer take to deliver it. GrooveDojo doesn’t measure or remove that delay.
• The click is placed at your computer’s audio output, using the output delay your browser reports. If your browser reports it wrongly, every hit shifts by the same amount.
• So a single number, such as “12 ms late”, can carry a steady error from your setup. How even your hits are, and how runs on the same setup compare, are more reliable than one number.
• A busy computer can affect playback and timing. Close heavy apps while you practice, and keep GrooveDojo in front.
• The timing check in Settings, Timing lets you play along to see how your playing and your setup line up together. It saves nothing.

Timing results are practice feedback, not laboratory measurements.

Keeping your library safe

• Your grooves, practice history and settings are saved in this browser, on this device. They don’t sync. Another browser, another device or a private window starts with an empty library.
• In a private window, everything is deleted when you close it. GrooveDojo can’t tell that it’s in one, so it may not warn you. If the browser refuses to save at all, GrooveDojo says your changes aren’t kept.
• Data can be lost. GrooveDojo saves as you go and is built to protect your work through updates, but a browser crash or a storage failure can still lose recent changes. Browsers delete a site’s data when you clear browsing data, and can remove it when the device runs low on space. In Safari browser tabs, this can also happen after 7 days of Safari use without interaction with that site. Other browsers on an iPad or iPhone can also remove site data. Apps opened from the Home Screen count their use separately. Adding GrooveDojo to the Home Screen and opening it from there helps keep it. GrooveDojo asks the browser to keep its data after your first save, but the browser decides.
• Back up regularly. Export a backup on the Dashboard, or Export backup… in the Library’s ⋯ menu or in Settings, Library & backup, saves a .groovedojo file. It holds your grooves, folders and practice plans, and your practice history, settings and MIDI mappings unless you untick them. Keep it somewhere safe, such as a cloud drive. To read it back, in any browser, use Open a GrooveDojo file… in the Library’s ⋯ menu, or Import a GrooveDojo file in Settings, Library & backup.
• I can’t recover a library. It never reaches me.

Working offline

After your first visit, GrooveDojo can open and play without a connection. This has been tested in Chrome on a Mac, with GrooveDojo installed from Chrome. Other browsers, and kit input while offline, haven’t been tested yet. When an update is ready, GrooveDojo tells you, and reloads only when you choose.