Foldback is a band logistics app: scheduling, setlists, expenses. Useful stuff. But the features that actually build your career — AI-powered setlist parsing, board recording archives, PRO royalty exports, persistent crew history — aren't in Foldback and never will be. Showfile covers the overlap and fills the gap.
Where the features overlap, Showfile does them better. Where Foldback has gaps, Showfile fills them. Where Foldback does something Showfile doesn't — you already have a tool for that.
| Capability | Foldback.app | Showfile |
|---|---|---|
| WHERE THEY OVERLAP — SHOWFILE DOES IT BETTER | ||
| Setlists | Manual builder with Spotify import — you type every song | AI — photograph the setlist, OCR + catalog matching does the rest |
| Crew & contacts | Flat contact book shared per band | Persistent crew registry — every engineer, LD, TM indexed by show, city, and year across tours |
| Venue history | Venue listed as a gig contact with notes | Venue tied to the full show record — settlement, crew, board mix, setlist, same-bill artists |
| Show documentation | Notes attached to an event | Settlements, contracts, stage plots, tech riders, guest lists, photos — all attached to the show record |
| ONLY IN SHOWFILE — FOLDBACK CAN'T DO THIS | ||
| Board recording archive | — | ✓ Lossless WAV/FLAC, per-show, passive cloud ingestion |
| AI setlist parsing from photos | — | ✓ AI — OCR + LLM reads handwritten and printed setlists |
| Audio fingerprinting | — | ✓ AI — identifies songs, timestamps boundaries in board mixes |
| PRO export (ASCAP / BMI) | — | ✓ ASCAP OnStage + BMI Live packets, auto-generated |
| Legal metadata (ISRC / IPI) | — | ✓ Full ISRC, IPI, and Work ID tracking on Pro |
| Passive cloud ingestion | — | ✓ Watches your Dropbox / Google Drive folder overnight |
| Same-bill artist tracking | — | ✓ Openers, co-headliners, festival billing — full live context |
| ONLY IN FOLDBACK — ALREADY SOLVED WITHOUT IT | ||
| Gig & rehearsal scheduling | ✓ Calendar, availability polls | Google Calendar, When2meet — tools you already use |
| Band expenses | ✓ Shared expenses, per-member balances | Splitwise, Venmo — built for this |
| Task management | ✓ Assign tasks per event | Group chat, shared notes — where tasks already live |
| Gear tracking | ✓ Inventory, assignment per event | Spreadsheet or notes app — low-frequency task |
Foldback and Showfile both handle setlists, crew, and venue history. But Foldback's versions are flat, manual, and disconnected from the show record. Showfile's are AI-powered, tour-indexed, and attached to everything that happened that night.
In Foldback, you type every song by hand or import from Spotify. In Showfile, you photograph the piece of paper taped to the monitor. OCR reads it, the LLM resolves shorthand against your catalog, and audio fingerprinting timestamps each song in the board mix. The setlist is done before you leave the venue.
Foldback stores contacts per band — a shared address book. Showfile indexes every FOH engineer, monitor engineer, LD, TM, and promoter by show, city, and year. Three tours later, you can search "who mixed our DC shows" and get an answer. Foldback can't do that.
In Foldback, a venue is a line in a contact book with notes. In Showfile, a venue is tied to the complete show record — the board mix, the parsed setlist, the settlement sheet, the crew who worked it, and the other artists on the bill. Context that compounds over years.
These aren't features Foldback does poorly — they're features it doesn't have. No amount of updates to a band logistics app will produce a board recording archive, AI setlist parsing, or PRO royalty exports. These require a different product.
Lossless WAV/FLAC, indexed per-show, ingested passively from the cloud folder your FOH engineer already uses. Foldback has no audio storage of any kind.
OCR reads the handwritten setlist. The LLM matches against your catalog. Audio fingerprinting timestamps each song in the board mix. Zero manual entry.
ASCAP OnStage and BMI Live packets, generated automatically. Independent artists leave thousands on the table every year. Foldback has no concept of publishing royalties.
Add one collaborator address to your Dropbox or Google Drive folder. Showfile indexes new files overnight. No upload step, no new workflow.
Settlements, contracts, stage plots, tech riders, guest lists, and photos — attached to the show record, not scattered across four apps.
Full ISRC, IPI, and Work ID tracking on Pro. The identifiers your PRO and distributor need — connected to the show, not in a spreadsheet somewhere.
Foldback has no API and no data export — your gig history, contacts, and setlists are locked inside their app. Showfile doesn't ask you to move any of it. It starts capturing forward from the moment you connect, alongside whatever you're already using.
Your FOH engineer already drops board mixes into a shared Dropbox or Google Drive folder. Nothing changes. Add one collaborator address to that folder — that's the entire setup.
From that moment, every new show is archived overnight — board mix, setlist, crew, and PRO export. You don't migrate old data. You start building the archive Foldback was never going to give you.
Unlike Foldback, Showfile offers full data export on every tier, always — JSON, CSV, your raw files. If you ever want to leave, everything comes with you. Try getting that from Foldback.
Already have years of recordings on hard drives? Upload them. Showfile indexes existing files the same way it indexes new ones. Move a tour's worth of recordings into the watched folder and they'll be archived overnight. Three years of lost history, recovered in a weekend.
Foldback charges for scheduling, expenses, and task management — problems that Google Calendar, Splitwise, and your group chat already solve. Showfile charges for things no other tool can do: AI-powered archiving, royalty recovery, and a career record that compounds with every show.
One of these makes your Tuesday rehearsal slightly more organized. The other makes sure three years of live work doesn't disappear.
Board recordings. Setlists. Crew contacts. Settlement sheets. PRO royalties. They're all recoverable right now — and they get harder to find with every passing month. Foldback won't save them. Showfile will.
Switch to ShowfileFree for 15 shows. Pro at $25/month for unlimited.