Drop in
Drag in files or whole folders. No beat-gridding, no cue setting, no warping by hand.
Private betaMacWindowsLinux
Skip the prep.
Play it live.
Grit plays like a carefully built Ableton Live set, minus the hours of building it. Drop in a track: Grit finds the beat grid, key and every section, sets the cues and splits the stems, all on your own computer. Then launch, loop and mix, always on the beat.
- One clock, one key
Master tempo with tap, Key Sync to a master key, and launch quantize from a beat to the end of a section, with bar juggles on their own grid.
- Stems on tap
Full, acapella or instrumental with one key, or drums, bass, vocals and other one by one.
- Every section a pad
Grit finds the sections of each track. Q to P fire them, and they land on the beat.
- Mixer and FX per deck
Gain, three-band EQ and filter, plus Roll, Chop and Fade.
Track analysis
Drop it in.
Grit does the prep.
On-device AI listens to every track you import and does the work you’d otherwise do by hand, before you ever load it.
- 01
Grid and key
Tempo, every beat and downbeat, and the key on the Camelot wheel.
- 02
Song structure
AI on your computer hears where the intro ends and the chorus hits, and names every section.
- 03
Cues on the phrase
Every cue snaps to the phrase, so each section starts on the one.
- 04
Ready to play
Each section becomes a pad and the stems are split. Load it and play.
Playground
Play it right here.
A simplified browser sketch of the idea, with four Creative Commons house tracks. It runs on your browser’s Web Audio, not on Grit’s native audio engine, and leaves out most of the app. Grit itself gives you eight decks and your own music.
Scenes
Stopped
5A+0 st A Cue FX
Stopped
5A+0 st A Cue FX
Stopped
5A+0 st B Cue FX
Stopped
5A+0 st B Cue FX
- Space Play / stop
- 1–4 Focus a deck
- QWER Launch a section
- ZXC Full / Acap / Inst
- ⌥1–4 Scene
Music, split into stems, cut and retimed by Grit: “Art Now” by AlexBeroza feat. Snowflake (CC BY 3.0), “All I Need” by Malk & Starjam feat. DaKooka (CC BY 3.0), “Runnin'” by Square a Saw (CC BY 3.0), “Preoccupied in Thoughts (Craig Ferrier Remix)” by DJ DeadSheakerz feat. HunterSynth (CC BY 3.0).
Stem separation
One track in.
Four stems out.
Grit separates every imported track into drums, bass, vocals and other parts, locally on your computer’s graphics chip. No uploads, no cloud. When the demo above is playing, this view follows its audio.
Most DJ software plays one track after another. Grit plays them against each other.
The drums from one song, the bassline from another, a vocal from a third. Live, in key and on the beat.
How Grit works
Grit preps
On your computer, Grit finds tempo, grid, key and sections, sets the cues on the phrase and splits drums, bass, vocals and other parts.
Perform
Fire sections across eight decks. Mix with EQ, filters, scenes and your MIDI controller.
Inside the desktop app
An instrument, not a playlist.
Eight decks. Every section a pad.
Load up to eight tracks side by side. Detected sections become pads you can fire in any order, from the mouse, the keyboard or a controller.
Stems on tap.
Full, a cappella or instrumental with one key. Or switch drums, bass, vocals and other parts one by one.
Launch on the beat.
Hit a pad early. Grit waits for the next beat, bar or phrase and lands it exactly there.
Key Sync.
Pick a master key. Connected decks follow with the smallest possible pitch shift, and a minor track finds its relative minor. Keylock keeps tempo and pitch independent.
Scenes.
Capture tempo, playing sections, stems and the mix of every deck. Recall it on the next boundary with one key.
A proper mixer.
Three-band EQ with full kill, a sweepable low- and high-pass filter, and a crossfader you assign per deck. Go on, turn them.
high 0
mid 0
low -12
Filter LP 40
Headphone cue
Pre-listen before the room hears it and blend cue with master. Route master and cue to separate outputs.
Cue level 0.0 dB
Cue / Master Cue only
Keyboard scratching
Eight tempo-synced scratch patterns under Shift. Hold O or P for half or double speed.
MIDI Learn + APC40
Map any controller, or plug in an Akai APC40 MK1 with pads, LEDs, knobs and faders ready to go.
A library that listens
Search by tempo and key, build playlists and sets, and find tracks that match the deck you’re on.
Built for performance
Native to the core.
Grit is written in Rust around a hard real-time audio engine. No Electron, no browser engine, no bundled Python. One codebase for Mac, Windows and Linux. Stem separation and analysis run locally on the graphics chip, with Apple’s MLX on Metal on the Mac and Vulkan on Windows and Linux, and a performance never depends on a server.
- Rust
- Real-time audio
- Mac · Windows · Linux
- Metal · MLX · Vulkan
- Plays offline
- No license keys
Private beta
Get in early.
We’re inviting DJs and producers in small groups. Testers get Grit for Mac, Windows and Linux, the beta channels on our Discord and a direct line to the people building Grit.
Join the Discord ↗- Join the waitlist. We send one email to confirm your address.
- Get your invite. We invite testers in small batches and email you.
- Play and tell us. Download Grit from your account and send feedback right there, or in the beta channels on Discord.
Only news about the Grit beta and launch. Leave anytime. Privacy
Questions
How does the private beta work?
Join the waitlist and confirm your email address. We invite testers in small batches; then you sign in with your email address to download Grit for Mac, Windows or Linux. On our Discord, testers get the beta channels, and the public channels are open to everyone.
Do I have to prepare my tracks?
No. Grit analyzes every track when you import it, on your computer: tempo, beat grid, key and song structure, with a cue on the phrase for each section, and it splits the stems. Want a cue somewhere else? Move it in the track editor and Grit keeps your edit. Tracks with an uncertain beat grid are marked for review.
What will Grit cost?
We’ll announce pricing before the public launch. Everyone on the waitlist hears it first.
What am I hearing in the demo?
A simplified sketch that explains the idea, not the Grit app. It plays four house tracks released under Creative Commons licences, credited below the playground. Grit split them into drums, bass, vocals and other stems ahead of time, and the demo loops four four-bar sections of each, brought to one tempo and key. It runs on your browser’s Web Audio rather than Grit’s native real-time engine, so sound, timing and features differ from the app: it cannot prepare your own tracks and has four decks instead of eight, without Key Sync, scratching or MIDI.
Can I use my own tracks?
Yes, in the desktop app. Import audio you have permission to use and prepare it on your computer. The browser demo plays only the included tracks.
Does Grit replace my DJ software?
Grit is built for stem mashups and live remixing: playing parts of many tracks against each other, like a carefully built Ableton Live set without the prep. Use it on its own or alongside the setup you already know.
Which computers can run Grit?
Macs with Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later, and 64-bit Intel or AMD computers with Windows 10 or 11 or a current Linux desktop. Windows and Linux need a graphics card with a Vulkan driver. The Windows and Linux versions are earlier test builds than the Mac version; the system requirements have the details. Hardware and performance qualification are being finalized before launch.
Where can I get help?
The documentation covers setup, keyboard shortcuts, MIDI controllers and audio routing. Ask the community on Discord, or get in touch.
Latest
All posts →Blog · 29 September 2026
Introducing Grit
Grit is a live stem-mashup instrument for Mac. It splits your tracks into parts and lets you play them against each other, on the beat.
Blog · 29 September 2026Why Grit is native
Grit started as an Electron app. It is now a Rust application with a hard real-time audio engine. Here is why, and what that changes on stage.
Changelog · 8 November 2026
Steadier on Windows
Notes from the latest development build.