User Guide

Quick Start

New to Arco? Here is the whole flow in four steps.

That is everything you need to get going. Want more on any step? Use the contents below.

Getting Started

Arco works on iPhone, iPad, and the desktop web app. Your library, chats, Spaces, audio, Lesson Notes, transcripts, and settings sync across devices.

To begin, create a free account or sign in with Apple, Google, or an email and password. Your free account works right away, and there is nothing to pay for to start using Arco.

From there you can start in two ways: record a new lesson, or open chat and ask a broader music question. Chat works from day one. Once you add lessons, Arco can also answer using your own lesson notes and recordings.

Recording and Importing

Tap Record, save when you are done, and Arco turns the audio into clear lesson notes with accurate music terminology.

Recording on iPhone or iPad

1. Open Arco and tap Record.
2. Choose a Space if this lesson belongs to one, or create a new Space while recording.
3. Set the device aside and focus on the lesson.
4. Tap Stop when the lesson is over, then save.

If you need a break, you can pause and resume during recording, or discard a take you do not want to keep.

You do not need to keep Arco open while recording. Lock the screen, switch apps, or read from another app on iPad; recording continues in the background.

Arco works in any language automatically. Speak naturally; there is nothing to configure.

Recording on desktop web

Open Library, click Record, and allow microphone access when your browser asks. You can record into a Space from the web app too. Keep the tab open while the lesson is saving; after the save finishes, processing can continue while you keep using the app.

Importing older lessons

Use Import to bring in older audio files or transcripts from the mobile app or desktop web app. Arco accepts common audio files such as .m4a, .mp3, and .wav (plus .webm on the web), up to 100 MB per file, along with transcripts you paste, type, or upload as text.

During import, set the lesson date and choose a Space if the lesson belongs in one. You can also create a new Space during the flow or move the lesson into a Space later.

Have a backlog to bring in? On the web you can import several lessons at once, up to three audio files in a batch, and set the date and Space for each one before Arco processes them.

Reviewing Lessons

Each processed lesson gives you Lesson Notes, a transcript, audio player, and review tools in one place.

Lesson Notes

Arco creates structured Lesson Notes for what happened in the lesson: topics covered, advice given, exercises assigned, repertoire discussed, and moments worth revisiting. It is meant to feel like the notes you wish you had taken, with the musical detail preserved.

Lesson Notes remixes

You can generate optional Short, Youth, and Parent versions when another format would be more useful.

Transcript

The transcript is useful when you want the exact words, a specific explanation, or a detail that did not make it into the Lesson Notes. When the recording is available, tap any timestamp in the transcript to jump straight to that moment in the audio.

Audio player

Use the waveform to jump through the recording, zoom in on smaller passages, adjust speed from 0.5x to 2.5x, set A-B loops, and add bookmarks for important moments.

Editing

Lesson Notes and lesson details are editable. If Arco gets a piece name, fingering, assignment, or technical term wrong, edit it so your library stays accurate.

Chat with Arco

Arco can move naturally between broad musical questions and your own lessons. Just ask naturally. Sometimes Arco answers from its broader musical knowledge, and sometimes it brings in your lesson history when that is what matters most.

You can start using chat immediately, even before recording a lesson. As your library grows, Arco becomes more personal because it can bring in things your teacher said, patterns across students, and ideas that have come up over time.

Letting Arco choose the right context

Most of the time you can simply ask, and Arco decides whether your lesson history, broader musical knowledge, or both will help most. You can also attach specific lessons to a question when you want Arco to focus on them.

What Arco already knows

Arco has a broad understanding of technique, interpretation, repertoire, practice methods, and the teaching traditions behind them across instruments and voice. You can ask big musical questions, troubleshoot a technical problem, or ask for practice ideas even when the question is not tied to a specific lesson.

Try questions like:

• Technique on the violin — “My vibrato feels tight and mechanical. What should I adjust first?”
• Technique on the piano — “My hands tense up in fast passages. How do I stay relaxed?”
• Voice — “How do I keep my breath steady through long phrases?”
• Practice strategies — “How do I practice slow passages without them feeling boring?”
• Practice plans — “Create a 45-minute practice plan for my audition repertoire.”
• Exploring repertoire — “How should I approach a piece I've never heard before?”

These kinds of questions work from day one. Later, if you follow up with something like “What has my teacher said about this?”, Arco can bring your own lesson history into the same chat.

What Arco can find in your lessons

When your question is about something from your own teaching or practice history, Arco can look through your recorded lessons, transcripts, and Lesson Notes and answer from what was actually said.

To do that, Arco needs at least one processed recording or imported lesson in your library. If a student's lessons are organized in a Space, Arco can focus on that student's lesson history; you can also ask by date range or across your whole library.

Students might ask:

• Recalling specific advice — “What has my teacher said about improving my tone?”
• Reviewing assignments — “What pieces have we worked on in the last month?”
• Finding details — “What fingerings did my teacher recommend for the Brahms?”
• Planning practice — “Create a practice plan based on my recent lessons.”

Teachers might ask:

• Tracking a student over time — “What have I worked on with Sarah in the last three months?”
• Date-range review — “What did Sarah's lessons focus on between January and March?”
• Preparing for a lesson — “Recap where Alex left off last week and suggest what to cover next.”
• Spotting patterns across students — “Which students have I discussed sight-reading with recently?”

These answers can quote or paraphrase your own lesson history and point you back to the relevant passages, so it feels like searching your musical life without leaving the conversation.

A natural conversation

One of the best parts of chat is that you can stay in the same thread while the focus shifts. For example:

Deep Dive

Deep Dive gives Arco more room to reason through complex questions. It does not change what Arco can reference; it only changes the reasoning depth. Each Deep Dive message costs 1 credit. Regular chat does not use credits.

Library and Spaces

The Library is your full lesson archive. Spaces are how you group lessons around a real teaching or learning relationship.

A Space is a shared lesson notebook for you and a teacher or student. It keeps everything organized.

Your Library

In the Library, you can open lessons, search your archive, sort and filter by date, star important lessons, edit lesson details, export files, and see whether a lesson belongs to a Space. You can also select several lessons at once to act on them together.

Lessons that are not in a Space still stay in your library. You can assign them to a Space whenever they become part of a teacher, student, family, ensemble, or studio history.

Creating a Space

Create a Space when you want lessons to stay together over time. Common examples are one Space per student, one Space for a teacher-student relationship, one Space for a family, or one Space for a studio or ensemble context.

When creating a Space, choose your role and add members as Teacher or Student. A member can be a named person who is not on Arco yet. When they are ready to join, send an invite link from that Space. If they already have Arco, they can join right away. If not, the link helps them get Arco first.

Viewing a Space and its members

Open a Space to see its lessons, member list, member roles, member status, and common actions. Once someone joins, their row shows an Arco member status. Until they join, the row is a saved name with an Invite action — so you can organize a Space around someone before they are on Arco.

Assigning and removing lessons

You can record directly into a Space, import directly into a Space, or choose Assign existing lesson to move an older lesson into that Space. If a lesson does not belong there anymore, remove it from the Space; the lesson can remain in your own library unless you choose to erase it.

Normal Space features

From a Space, you can review its lesson history, record or import new lessons for that context, assign older lessons, create lesson plans, generate progress reports, and ask Arco questions about that Space's history.

Sharing Through Spaces

Spaces are Arco's main sharing model. Instead of sharing lessons one at a time, you invite someone into a shared lesson notebook.

How shared lessons are delivered

Once a member has joined the Space, lessons recorded there are delivered into both libraries, including the Lesson Notes, transcript, and audio when available. What you record shows up in their library, and what they record shows up in yours — so only one of you needs to hit record. They also get the lessons already in the Space, and no one needs to download a file or manage a separate link.

If a member has not joined yet, the Space still works as an organizer for you. You can add the person by name, set their role, assign lessons, and invite them whenever they are ready to join.

Free accounts can receive up to 5 shared lessons. If you reach that limit, additional shared lessons appear as unavailable until you upgrade.

Invite links

An invite link belongs to the Space it was created from. The recipient can preview the invitation and join. If they already have Arco, they can join right away. If not, the link helps them get Arco first. Each link can be used once and expires after 30 days, so generate a fresh link if an invitation goes unused.

Roles and member details

Space roles are Teacher and Student. Roles keep the relationship clear and help the Space read correctly. You can update a member's display details or role when the Space changes.

Managing members

• Add members to include another teacher, student, parent, family member, or collaborator.
• Invite members with an invite link when they are ready to join Arco.
• Edit member details or roles when a name or role changes.
• Remove members when they should no longer be part of the Space.

Managing the Space

• Rename space when the title should be clearer for you.
• Archive space when a teaching relationship or project is finished. You can choose whether to erase that Space's lessons from your own library.
• Leave space when someone else created the Space and you no longer need access. You can choose whether to erase the Space's lessons from your own library.

Lesson Plans and Progress Reports

Spaces make longer-term teaching history useful. From a Space, you can generate lesson plans and progress reports grounded in that Space's lessons.

Lesson plans

Create a lesson plan when you want help preparing for the next session. Arco reviews the Space history and suggests what to focus on now, what to watch over the next few weeks, and what longer-term goals may matter.

The plan opens as a chat so you can refine it: ask for a different emphasis, add repertoire, make it shorter, or turn it into a student-friendly plan.

Progress reports

Use Create Report to generate a progress report from a Space. Choose a time window, then Arco creates a parent- and family-friendly PDF covering progress, repertoire, technique, musical development, practice habits, focus areas, and next goals.

Reports download to your device. Arco does not automatically send them.

Exports

Exports are for user-controlled files. Use them when you want a document outside Arco.

• Lesson PDF export creates a polished lesson document from a processed lesson.
• Markdown export creates a plain-text lesson file that is easy to edit or archive elsewhere.
• Bulk download (on the web) lets you select several finished lessons and download their Lesson Notes and transcripts together, as PDFs in a single ZIP file or as individual Markdown files.
• Chat PDF export saves a web chat conversation as a PDF.
• Progress report PDF export downloads a report generated from Space history.

Exports are not automatically sent by Arco. You decide where the file goes.

Credits and Plans

Everyone starts with a free plan that includes 2 credits each month.

• Each lesson Arco processes — whether you record it, import audio, or import a transcript — costs 1 credit.
• Each Deep Dive message costs 1 credit.
• Regular chat does not use credits.
• Spaces and invite links are organization and sharing features, not credit-consuming AI actions.

Monthly plan credits are Free (2), Starter (8), Pro (30), and Studio (80). A one-time Founding Lifetime option is also available with non-expiring credits. One-time top-ups come in 5-credit and 15-credit packs and do not expire.

Higher plans also unlock Google Drive backup. See the Pricing page for full plan details, and Settings and Account for how to manage or cancel a subscription.

Settings and Account

You will find Settings on every version of Arco, on iPhone and iPad and in the web app. It is where you manage your account, preferences, subscription, and backups.

Account

Set your preferred name, see your current plan and remaining credits, and sign out. Your plan badge and credit balance are always visible here.

Learning preferences

Tell Arco your instrument and genre so Lesson Notes and answers are tailored to what you play. You can change these any time.

Managing your subscription and credits

On iPhone and iPad, subscriptions are billed through the App Store and managed there; you can also restore purchases from the paywall. On the web, billing goes through Stripe and is managed from Settings. When you need more credits, buy a top-up; top-up credits do not expire. Arco shows the right billing options for your account automatically.

Google Drive backup

On Pro, Studio, and Founding Lifetime plans, you can connect your own Google Drive to keep a copy of your lessons. Arco backs up Lesson Notes and transcripts, plus audio if you turn that on. Once connected, backups run automatically about once a day; you can also back up on demand or disconnect Drive whenever you like.

App preferences

Choose whether Arco opens on Chat or your Library, and whether chat starts with shorter, focused replies. On iPhone and iPad you can adjust haptics (the gentle taps you feel); on the web you can pick a light, dark, or system theme. You can also replay the welcome tour any time with Reset Quick Start.

Deleting your account

Account deletion lives in Settings → Account → Delete Account and asks you to type a confirmation. Deletion removes your lessons and data from Arco's cloud, with cleanup running in the background. On Apple devices you may need to confirm your identity first. Cancel any App Store or Stripe subscription separately, and remember that files already saved to your own Google Drive stay there until you remove them. See Privacy Policy for details.

Privacy and Sync

Arco keeps your devices in sync automatically. Record on your phone and review on the web; your library, chats, Spaces, and settings follow you.

Your lessons are private unless you share them through a Space or export a file yourself.

Arco uses lesson data to make the app work: transcripts, Lesson Notes, AI chat, search, Spaces, cloud sync, support, billing, and reliability. AI, cloud, payment, and support providers may process data as needed to operate Arco. Your content is not sold or shared for advertising.

If your plan includes Google Drive backup, backup files live in your own Drive (see Settings and Account to connect it). If you disconnect Drive or delete your Arco account, you may still need to remove files directly from Google Drive.

For the full policy, see the Privacy Policy.

Tips for Students

Tips for Teachers

For teachers, Spaces are the center of the workflow. Create a Space for each student or teaching relationship, then record or import lessons into that Space.

• Prepare faster by opening the student's Space before the next lesson.
• Share automatically by inviting the student or parent with an invite link.
• Keep history organized by assigning older lessons to the right Space.
• Create lesson plans from the Space before a session.
• Generate progress reports for families, studios, schools, or your own records.
• Ask Arco about patterns across one student, one Space, or your full teaching library.

Troubleshooting and FAQ

More questions? See the full FAQ on Support.

Sending Feedback

If something is broken, confusing, slow, or unclear, use Support to reach support chat or email.

When reporting an issue, include:

• What you were doing
• What happened
• What you expected
• A screenshot or short screen recording, if possible