The grid

The grid is where you write notes: one row per step in time, one column per track. Rows are grouped by the meter into bars; Page Up / Page Down move by a bar, Home / End go to the first and last row.

Entering notes

Enter notes on the keyboard as a piano: the Z row (Z S X D C V G B H N J M, continuing , L . ; /) plays from the selected octave and the Q row (Q 2 W 3 E R 5 T 6 Y 7 U, continuing I 9 O 0 P) from the octave above. Move with the arrows, and clear with Delete (Backspace deletes the row instead, as in Renoise).

Step sets how many rows to advance after note entry (0–256): 4 at four rows per beat enters notes on consecutive beats, 16 on consecutive bars, and 0 stays on the current row. Arrows still move by one row. Octave is adjustable. Entered notes play while stopped and connected.

Space plays and stops when the grid is focused; F6 switches between the grid and the instrument’s code. Code editing keeps its normal shortcuts, and Space in code does not affect playback.

Record mode

Record mode (● Rec in the toolbar, or Escape from anywhere) controls editing. With it off, note keys play the selected instrument from any grid column, including during playback, and typing, Delete, cut and value editing do nothing. With it on, a red frame surrounds the grid and notes and values are entered at the cursor. Corner brackets and a tinted header always mark the selected track.

The cursor’s row is highlighted across every track, and the grid scrolls to keep it in the middle of the view. A click moves the cursor to that cell in either mode, and dragging or shift-clicking selects a block. With record mode on, a click on a command, velocity or other value cell also starts editing it. The arrows stop at the edges of the pattern and the columns rather than wrapping round.

Follow (in the toolbar) decides what the grid does while the song plays. Ticked, the pattern changes with the song and the cursor is the play position: it moves down the pattern with the music, the grid scrolls beneath it, and when you stop it stays on the row where playback ended. In record mode notes land on the nearest row as it passes. Unticked, the cursor stays where you put it: move around and edit freely while the music loops.

Space plays the pattern from its first row and Shift+Space from the cursor’s row. Both loop the pattern.

Moving and copying cells

In record mode, drag a block of selected cells to move it: grab any cell inside the selection and drop it where you want it, and the notes and values go with it, leaving blanks behind. Hold Alt/Option as you let go to copy instead. The block stays inside the pattern and over columns of the same kind, so a note never lands in a velocity column, and one undo step reverses the move. A plain click inside a selection just puts the cursor there.

Right-click a cell for a menu of what you can do with the selection (copy, paste, clear, transpose, interpolate, repeat below, reverse, randomize), with the keys beside each item. Everything but copy needs record mode on, and says so if it is off.

How long a note lasts

Notes are held until the next note, an OFF or a CUT in the same column. Press A in a note column to enter an OFF, which lets the note release (an instrument with a release stage fades out), or the minus key to enter a CUT, which stops it at once with no release. Neither takes an instrument or makes a sound as you enter it, and both advance by the Step like a note.

A faint line (│) runs down the empty rows of a note column for as long as its note sounds, up to the next note, OFF or CUT, so you can see where notes end and where they run on. There is no fixed note length, so leave a gap with OFF for staccato. A looped pattern holds a lone note for the whole pattern, and a song holds the last note until it ends.

Note columns and sub-columns

The ⋯ button in a track header adds up to eight note columns (for chords; shared by every pattern), up to four command columns, and shows or hides the Vel, Pan and Dly sub-columns beside each note (the menu calls them Velocity, Panning and Delay). The Ins column is always there. Cells take plain numbers, edited like any other cell (click one or just type a digit, then Enter to save and move down):

Column	What it holds
Ins	An instrument’s number (shown before its name in the browser’s Project folder), which plays that note and the notes below it in the column until another is set.
Vel	Velocity: how hard the note plays, 0–100. The track’s own volume is an automation lane.
Pan	−50 (left) to +50 (right), or C for centre.
Dly	Starts the note that many percent of a row late, 0–99.
Fx	A command, for the note or for the track.

Hidden sub-columns still play.

Commands

A command is a letter and two hex digits, as in Renoise’s effect commands: type S80, g10 or R03 (letters are made capitals). The same column also takes the track commands Lxx, Pxx and the four-digit xyzz, so a cell holds up to four characters. Each note column can have up to four command columns (each track starts with one), set under Command columns in ⋯; commands in the same row combine, and a later column’s wins if two of the same kind meet. Each acts on the note in its own row, or on the note held above it in the same column, until an OFF or CUT ends that hold. Whatever a command needs, the instrument has to have the parameter it sets: a start offset needs begin, backwards needs rate.

A tick is a twelfth of a row, as in Renoise. As in Renoise, 00 on G, U, D, I and O repeats the last value of that command above it in the column (U10 then U00 slides twice), and does nothing if there is none.

Command	What it does
Sxx	Starts a new note’s sample xx/256 of the way in: S80 is half way (the instrument’s begin).
B00, B01	Plays the new note’s sample backwards (rate of −1) or forwards.
Gxx	Glides: instead of starting a new note, the note held in the column slides to this row’s pitch at xx sixteenths of a semitone per tick (G10 crosses an octave in a row; GFF jumps at once). The sound carries on unbroken, pitch moving evenly in semitones.
Uxx, Dxx	Slides the held note up or down by xx sixteenths of a semitone per tick for the row (U10 is an octave). Repeat down the column for a longer slide.
Rxy	Retriggers: the note plays again every y ticks (1–6, so 12 to 2 hits in the row), each hit’s level changed by x: 0 and 8 keep it, 1–5 lower it by 3, 6, 12, 25 and 50%, 6 and 7 by 33 and 50%, 9–D raise it by 3, 6, 12, 25 and 50%, E and F by 50% and 100%. Unlike Renoise every change builds on the last hit. The last hit is held as the note would be.
C0y	Cuts the note y ticks (1–11) into the row, for staccato notes. Blank holds the note until the next note or OFF. Renoise’s Cxy can also drop the level to x instead of 0; only C0y is supported.
Nxx	Releases the held note xx/256 of the way through the row, keeping its release tail. MIDI recording uses this for notes that start and end in the same row. This is a niminal command.
Yxx	Plays the note with probability xx/255 (Y01 to YFF). Each time the pattern plays, every note with a probability rolls afresh, so loop passes and restarts differ. A note that does not play leaves the note before it sounding, as if the cell were empty, and drops its commands with it. An export draws once for the whole song, and the mix and every stem share the same draws.
Ixx, Oxx	Fades the held note’s level in or out by xx volume units (00–80, out of 128) during the row, starting from the note’s Vel.

A glide keeps one voice and a retrigger restarts it, so a row cannot have both, even in two command columns: entering one where the other is refused with a message, and a project that has both is rejected. A slide and a retrigger can share a row.

Hover a command to read what it does in words (S80 starts the sample 50% of the way in); the status line says the same as you type one and when you save it, and says why if it cannot be played.

Type into them like any other cell: click it or just start typing, Enter to save and move down by Step, Escape to cancel, and clearing the cell removes the command. Entering an S, B or R command plays the note it acts on at once, through the track’s effects, so you can try a start point or a stutter without playing the pattern. Glides and slides are heard when the pattern plays.

Cells are stored as the text you typed, so they copy, paste and save as G10; they move with their note when a block is inserted, deleted or pasted, and undo covers them.

Sliced samples

Cutting is done in the Sample view, in one place: Find hits makes a new instrument from the current sampler’s sample cut where its hits begin (up to 48, at least 60 ms apart, each cut a millisecond before the hit so the attack is whole), and Cut equally cuts it into any number of equal pieces from 2 to 48. Neither touches the sampler itself.

Each key plays a piece, counting up from C-4 (C#4 the second, and so on), at its recorded pitch; keys outside the pieces are silent. Write a pattern of keys to rearrange a break, and add Rtg and Start to the pieces.

The Sample view

The waveform fills the view, with a ruler of seconds along its bottom edge. Above it are Find hits (with its sensitivity in %, 50 the usual: higher finds softer hits and more of them) and Cut equally. The settings are a column on the right, a label and a value on each row: Plays, the loop’s Loop start, Loop end and Crossfade (shown only while the sampler is a loop), Root note and Finetune with Match tempo, Fit to tempo, Lasts … beats and Fit by, Stretch ×, Algorithm, Release and Interpolation. Root note and Finetune (up to ±50 cents) set the note at which the sample plays as recorded, which is .root(...) in its code: a plain note is written as a note (.root(a3)), anything with cents as a frequency. Lowering the root plays every note higher, and so faster. Match tempo does that once: it retunes the root so the sample lasts its Lasts … beats at the song’s tempo now (the beat count is worked out from the hits if you have not entered one). It changes the pitch and does not follow later tempo changes, which Fit to tempo does, so it asks you to untick that first. Fit by appears while the sample is fitted: Stretch keeps the pitch as the tempo changes, Repitch plays faster or slower, as tape would, and the pitch follows (it changes the note’s rate, so Stretch × still applies on top). Release is how long the sample takes to fade out when its note ends, which softens the end of a held sample or loop. Interpolation chooses how the sample is read between its frames at another pitch: Linear (.interp(linear), the lightest and roughest at low pitches), Cubic (the default), or Sinc (.interp(sinc)), which aliases least and costs the most CPU.

Where cuts are close together the waveform names only some of them, so the labels stay readable; the selected and hovered cut always show theirs.

The Sample view (the bar above the grid, or View → Sample) draws the waveform of the current sampler. For a sliced instrument it marks each cut with the key that plays the piece after it. Click a piece to hear it. Drag a marker to move a cut (the code is rewritten when you let go, and applied), double-click the waveform to add a cut, double-click a marker (or select it and press Delete) to remove it. The first cut stays at the start and a sample keeps at least two pieces. Find hits moves the cuts to where the hits begin, and Cut equally starts again with that many equal pieces. On a sampler that is not cut yet, Find hits and Cut equally make a new instrument that plays its sample in those pieces (the original is left as it was), and the Sample view shows the new one, ready to adjust. Click the waveform of an uncut sampler to hear it. A kit has no single sample to show.

Stretch × changes duration while preserving the selected pitch: 2 lasts twice as long, 0.5 lasts half as long, and 1 uses ordinary playback. Choose Granular for fixed grain positions and a lower CPU cost, or WSOLA to align neighbouring waveforms for smoother joins. Transient WSOLA protects detected forward attacks and stretches the bodies between them. Changing either control rewrites and applies the instrument code; the choice is saved with the instrument. The range is 0.25 to 4, and sliced instruments stretch each piece. A kit exposes stretch and stretch_mode through its instrument parameters and code.

Fit to tempo plays the sample in time with the song at any tempo, keeping its pitch. The first time you press Fit to tempo, the number of beats the whole sample lasts is worked out from the hits in it (if they are not regular enough, you are asked to type it in lasts … beats and press again). If it sounds half or double speed, halve or double that number: once the sample is fitted, changing it refits at once. Fitting sets the instrument’s from_bpm to the tempo the sample was recorded at, and every note is stretched by that tempo over the song’s tempo at the note, on top of its own Stretch ×. A four-beat loop that lasts two seconds is a 120 bpm loop, so it fits a 100 bpm song by lasting 1.2 times as long, and it follows tempo changes, pattern tempos and ramps from note to note (a note keeps the stretch it started with). Unticking Fit to tempo sets from_bpm to 0, which leaves the sample alone, and remembers the beat count for the next fit. The stretch is held between 0.25 and 4. In a sliced instrument each piece is stretched the same way, so a rearranged break stays in time and each piece still starts on its hit; that is a better way to fit a break than stretching it whole. A fitted instrument is stretched when it is auditioned and when MIDI plays it too.

WSOLA can reduce beating on sustained sounds. Transient WSOLA protects up to 15 ms of detected attacks; quiet or closely spaced hits can still be missed, and reverse playback uses ordinary WSOLA. If gate is 1, a note can end before the stretched sample does: lengthen the note, or set gate to 0 to hear the whole sample.

The Plays choice at the top of the Sample tab says what a sampler does when its note ends: One-shot plays to the end and ignores OFF and CUT, Hold plays while the note is held and ends with it, and Loop and Ping-pong repeat a region while it is held. A kit can be a one-shot or held, but not looped. A cut instrument can be looped too, but a loop repeats the whole sample, so choosing Loop or Ping-pong asks first and then turns it back into a plain sampler of its whole sample: its pieces go, and notes written for them (C-4, C#4, …) will each play the whole sample from its start. Play as one sample, in the bar above the waveform while the instrument is cut, does the same without choosing a loop. It rewrites the sampler’s gate and .loop(...), so the code stays the thing you can read and edit. For a whole sample, choosing Loop or Ping-pong lets you set Start and End as percentages, or drag their markers on the waveform. The shaded region repeats after the intro has played. This edits the existing sampler rather than making slices. Looping enables gate so OFF or the next note can end it, and switching to One-shot or Hold keeps the points for later. Points are saved in the instrument code. Edits also reach held playback and MIDI notes, taking effect at their next loop wrap or ping-pong turn. Start must be before End; Crossfade sets the overlap in milliseconds of source audio (0 turns it off). It smooths wraps and ping-pong turns, including reverse and stretched playback, and is capped at half the usable loop span. The overlap shortens each repeat; longer fades can soften attacks.

The code is ordinary (chops = amen.slices(16), or amen.slices([0, 0.18, 0.43]) for pieces that start at those shares of the sample, with a small wrapper), so use .beats(4) and .choke(...) on the sample as the language reference describes. An instrument is sliced when it has a sample parameter and the code cuts one sample into pieces.

MIDI note entry

Choose a keyboard under MIDI, then Ch (All or 1–16). ↻ refreshes inputs after connecting a device.

With record mode off, keys play the selected instrument on the cursor’s track, and a note sounds for as long as its key is held and stops when the key comes up (a one-shot sample plays out). Previews support held chords and hardware velocity.

With record mode on, each key press writes its absolute pitch, instrument and hardware velocity. Overlapping keys go into separate note columns on the same track, adding columns automatically up to eight. Releasing a key frees its column for the next note. Live taps in the same row use separate columns so a later tap does not overwrite the earlier one. The same pitch on different MIDI channels is treated as separate keys. If all eight columns are held, another key still previews, but is not recorded and a message explains why.

• Step entry (stopped, or Follow off): hold the keys of a chord to enter them on one row. The cursor advances by Step once for the chord; release all its keys before entering the next chord. Releases do not insert OFF.
• Live recording (playing with Follow on): with Quantize off (the default), note starts and releases keep their timing to the nearest 1/256 of a row. The track’s Dly columns appear automatically. They display rounded percentages; copying and pasting retains the full recorded precision, and you can type fractional percentages. A release on a later row writes a delayed OFF; a note that starts and ends within one row gets an Nxx release command beside it, so short taps work even on the final row. Its release tail still plays.
• Quantize snaps live MIDI starts and releases to the nearest 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 rows. A tap whose start and release snap to the same row lasts at least one grid interval. Quantization does not change stopped or Follow-off step entry. The toggle and interval are remembered separately from the song.

Recording past a pattern boundary goes into the next song pattern, the start of the sequence’s loop range, or the start of the current pattern when looping it. Events beyond the end of a non-looping song are not written. Releases never replace an existing note or end a later note in that column. Reused patterns share their recorded edits, as they do for other pattern changes.

A sub-column or parameter lane targets its track’s note column; returns and the master use the last musical track. Pitches C-0 through B-8 are supported. Device and channel changes, unplugging, window blur and Stop release previews and clear pending recording. Turning record mode off also clears pending recording. MIDI is off until an input is selected, and the input selection is separate from the saved song.

Sustain pedal

A sustain pedal (MIDI CC64) holds released keys while it is down. Values 64–127 mean down; 0–63 mean up. Lifting the pedal releases only notes whose keys have already been released; keys still pressed keep sounding. Each MIDI channel has its own pedal state.

During live recording, note ends are recorded when the pedal comes up, using the note’s recording quantization setting. Re-pressing a sustained pitch ends its previous recorded note and starts a new one. In step entry, pedal-held notes stay together as a chord until released.

Stop, engine disconnection, input or channel changes, unplugging and focus loss clear the pedals and release previews without adding recorded note-offs. MIDI All Sound Off/All Notes Off clears its channel; Reset All Controllers (CC121) lifts that channel’s pedal while keeping physically pressed keys held. Sustain applies to MIDI keyboard input, separately from the computer keyboard.

MIDI Learn and hardware controls

Select a MIDI input, click MIDI Learn, then click a volume fader, pan slider, instrument parameter or effect parameter and move a hardware knob. You can also focus the control and press Enter while learning. The first CC assigns it without changing the control’s value; subsequent movements control it. Escape cancels learning.

Bindings use the MIDI channel and controller number and are saved with the project on their track, return or master strip. They follow track reordering; duplicating a track leaves the copy unbound. Learning a new assignment replaces that knob’s previous binding and the chosen control’s old binding. Mappings lists assignments; choose one to remove it. Deleted or unavailable effects/parameters stay inactive until removed or available again.

Controls use absolute 7-bit CC values (0–127), scaled across the control’s range. Pan centres exactly at 64. Tempo-division controls snap to their available divisions. Relative encoders and 14-bit CC pairs are not supported. Sustain (CC64) and channel-mode messages are reserved. Disable an LFO or macro driving a parameter before controlling it with MIDI.

With Record and Follow on during playback, knob movements write the mapped strip’s automation envelope at their live positions, without advancing the cursor. Quantize applies the chosen row interval; with it off, points keep 1/256-row timing. Moving a knob while stopped, with Follow off or with Record off changes its value without adding automation. Continuous movements are grouped for Undo. Note previews and sustained keys are unaffected by ordinary CC movement.