Meet Zak: From "The Binder" to the App Store

The Story Behind Set Sidekick

Hi, I'm Zak. Here’s why I built Set Sidekick.

The Gig That Sparked It All:

I’m a working musician. If you’ve ever played 3- or 4-hour sets in noisy bars, outdoor festivals, or dark basement venues, you already know the drill: you need fast access to your lyrics, instant chord transpositions, and zero technical friction.

A few years ago, I was relying on standard PDF readers and digital binder apps during my shows. But gig after gig, the same frustrations kept popping up:

Lyric pages wouldn't scale properly, forcing me to squint or scroll side-to-side mid-song.
Apps would freeze or lag because they were trying to sync with the cloud over terrible venue Wi-Fi.
Simple features were buried under bloated menus, or locked behind expensive monthly subscriptions.

My Mission: "I set out to build a close-to-perfect, rock-solid stage app for the working musician—and offer it at a flat, incredibly fair price. No greed, no bloat. Just a tool built by a musician, for musicians." - Zak Ward

Built for the Stage (Not the Boardroom)

I didn't design Set Sidekick in a corporate vacuum. I built it in my workshop and tested it live on stage, week after week. Every single feature in the app exists because I needed it during a gig:

Local-First Storage: Because venue Wi-Fi is notoriously unreliable, I made sure your entire library, backing tracks, and setlists live directly on your iPad. No internet required, ever.
Smart Auto-Scrolling & ChordPro: I needed lyrics to scroll naturally at the right tempo, with chords locked to the exact syllables and instant key transposition when a singer changes keys on the fly.
Router-Free Band Syncing (Jam Mode): When playing with bandmates, we needed a way to sync setlists and scrolling wirelessly without dragging an external Wi-Fi router to the gig.

Why I Left Out MIDI (For Now)

During development, I collaborated with musician friends all over the world to build the ultimate feature list. One major, intentional decision we made was to leave out MIDI.

While MIDI is great for some, for the vast majority of solo and acoustic acts, it is a massive resource hog that clutters the UI. I wanted Set Sidekick to be a lean, lightning-fast machine. (Don't worry, I’m as nerdy as they come—so we might add it as an optional toggle down the road! But for now, we chose stability over bloat). Instead, I channeled that nerdy energy into fun features like performance analytics and achievements!

My Favorite Feature: The "Red Flag" System 🚩

We’ve all been there. You’re playing a grueling 4-hour gig, and somewhere in the middle of set two, a song falls apart. Maybe the chord chart is wrong, the lyric spacing is weird, or the band missed a cue.

The next day, you sit down to practice and ask the band, "Hey, what song did we mess up last night?" Nobody ever remembers.

Set Sidekick solves this with the Red Flag feature:

Flag it on the fly: While you are actively performing, if something goes wrong, simply tap the Red Flag icon next to the song title.
Choose your issue: Instantly tag it (e.g., Chords, Lyrics, Tempo).
Fix it later: The song is highlighted in red in your library. When you get home, you have an instant, visual to-do list of exactly what needs to be ironed out before the next gig.

My Promise to Working Musicians:

Set Sidekick isn't backed by venture capital, and it isn't run by a team of marketers. It’s just me, building the exact tool I use every time I step on stage.

My goal is simple: keep the app fast, indestructible on stage, and affordable. That’s why Set Sidekick is $8.99 a year—less than the cost of a single pack of guitar strings—with zero ads and no hidden fees.

If you ever have a question, a feature idea, or feedback from one of your own gigs, drop me a line at setsidekick@gmail.com. I read every message, and I'm constantly refining the app based on real feedback from musicians out in the field.

Thanks for stopping by, and break a leg at your next show!

— Zak Ward

Musician & Developer of Set Sidekick

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse