Instruments and effects

The project’s instruments

A panel at the top of the right-hand side holds the project’s instruments, always in view and scrolling when there are many: numbered as the Ins column counts them, with a ×n for how many tracks use each, and the current one highlighted.

Option+↑ / ↓ (from anywhere except a text box) moves to the previous or next instrument and plays a note, so you can pick a sound without the mouse; clicking one, or ↑ / ↓ with the list focused, does the same, Enter or a double-click opens its code, and Escape returns to the grid.

+ Add above the list opens a menu: a blank instrument, a sampler from audio files, a kit from audio files, or the instrument library. Each row has a ⋯ button (and a right-click does the same) with Edit code, Duplicate and Delete. Cutting a sampler into pieces is done in the Sample view (see Sliced samples). Delete or Backspace with the list focused removes the current instrument. Drop audio files from Finder anywhere on the window to import them: one file becomes a sampler, and several ask whether you want a sampler each or one kit. Each imported audio file is copied into the project’s folder and becomes a sampler instrument written as ordinary code (sample("samples/kick.wav").root(c4)), so root note, looping and tuning are edited in the editor. The engine resolves sample paths against the project folder, so it needs to run on the same machine.

The browser below holds the library only: the project’s own instruments are the panel above it, and its effects are on the tracks (open one from its track’s FX chain). + New effect, under the Effects tab’s list, makes a blank one.

The sound browser

The panel on the right stays open beside the grid. Instruments, Samples and Effects tabs list the ready-made instruments, the project’s samples (loose ones at the top, kits as folders) and the ready-made effects, with a search box. The folders start closed, except Favourites; the arrow keys move over folders and items alike (→ or Enter opens a folder, ← closes it) and clicking a folder toggles it.

The Samples tab lists the audio files of the project’s samples folder (kits as sub-folders), each with a small waveform and its length; landing on one plays it at its recorded pitch. Import files… and Import as kit… sit under the list. Enter or double-click makes a sampler of the sample, and Shift+Enter puts it in the current slot (swapping the sample of a sampler, or turning another instrument into a sampler of it).

Every row has a ☆ to keep it under Favourites at the top of its tab, and a ⋯ menu (also on right-click). Drag an instrument or sample from the browser onto a slot of the project panel to replace that slot, or onto the empty space below the list to add it.

Move through the sounds with the arrow keys (or click): each one plays as you land on it, an instrument as a note on the selected track and an effect added to that track’s chain while you browse (and over the song if it is playing), without changing the project.

Instruments are slots, as in Renoise. The current instrument is the one chosen in the project panel: its code shows in the code pane, and every note you enter in record mode gets its number in the Ins column, which you can edit afterwards. Enter or double-click on a ready-made instrument adds it as a new slot and makes it current; Shift+Enter or Shift+double-click loads it into the current slot instead, replacing that slot’s name and code (so the notes already using the slot change sound). Either way the cursor returns to the grid. Enter on an effect puts it on the end of the selected track’s chain and opens its code. Escape returns to the grid. Cmd/Ctrl+B moves to the browser, and hides it when you are already in it.

Names

An instrument or effect has one name, and its code is written to match: Warm saw is instr warm_saw. Renaming one in the code pane’s name box rewrites the name in its code too (a name another definition’s code already uses gets _2, _3…).

Ready-made instruments and effects

The folders in the browser (drums/kicks, drums/snares, synths/bass, … for instruments; filters, equalizer, echo, reverb, chorus, phaser, tremolo, compressor, overdrive, lo-fi, soft clip for effects) come from the language’s own library, std/instruments and std/fx (see the standard library), so niminal-live can use the same ones by name.

+ Add effect… in a track’s FX view opens the same list for effects. Adding one copies it into the project, so its code is yours to edit in place and a later change to the library does not touch your song.

Applying code

Open an instrument from the project instrument panel, an effect from its track’s FX chain, or double-click a ready-made sound. Hover for compiler documentation, Ctrl+Space for completion, and Shift+Alt+F to format. Change saw to sawz to try error diagnostics.

Click Apply (or Cmd/Ctrl+Enter in the editor, which also plays a note through it) to compile code into the engine. Rejected edits leave the last applied source sounding. Apply updates every track using an effect with a short crossfade.

What a slot holds

An instrument slot currently needs one instrument with a freq: hz parameter. An effect slot needs one fx name { … }, using in for incoming audio. Helper functions and constants may accompany either. Top-level sound names must be unique across slots.

Effect chains

Each track has volume, pan, mute, solo and an effect chain of up to eight devices, run in order. Returns and the master have their own volume, pan and chains; see mixer, returns and sends.

Click FX in a track header (or FX on the master strip in the Mixer) to open a chain. + Add effect… runs an effect from the project’s Effects library, or makes a new one from a preset or a blank. A device is a card with bypass (⏻), move (↑ ↓) and remove (×) buttons; click one to edit its code and see its sliders and LFOs. Removing a device keeps the effect in the library; − under EFFECTS deletes an effect that no device uses.

Effects are shared code

An effect used on several tracks, or on the master, is one piece of code: editing it and pressing Apply changes every device running it, while each device keeps its own slider values and LFOs.

What a note’s end does to a sample

Every sampler row in the instrument list carries a small tag (one-shot, hold, loop or ping-pong), and the Plays choice in the Sample tab changes it. A sampler made by the tracker has a gate parameter and a release. With gate at 0 the sample plays out whatever the note, which suits a drum hit. With gate at 1 the sample ends, fading over release (10 ms by default), where its note does: at an OFF or CUT, or when the next note starts in the same column. That is what a loop, pad or held vocal needs, and it makes OFF work on a sample. On import the name decides first (loop, pad, drone, ambience, atmos or texture make a loop; kick, snare, hat, clap, hit, shot, perc, tom, rim, stab, crash or cymbal a one-shot), and otherwise samples of two seconds or longer start with gate at 1 and shorter ones at 0; pieces of a sliced sample start at 1, and a kit at 0. Change it with its slider, a parameter lane, or the default in the code.

Kits

Kit from audio files… in the Add menu, File → Import Samples as a Kit…, or Import as kit… on the Samples tab asks for several WAV files and makes one instrument that plays them: they are copied into a folder of the project (samples/<name>, named for the folder they came from) and each file gets a key, counting up from C-4 in the order of their names. The code lists the keys (/// C-4 hat · C#4 kick · D-4 snare), uses the language’s kit("samples/drums"), and takes the same begin, rate, gate and release as any sampler, so O, V and R work on its hits. A kit holds 1 to 48 samples; sample names may use letters, digits and underscores, and a name that starts with a digit gets an s in front. Rename a file before importing to change which key it gets.