The controls

Every screen of Groove OS works the same way, so you only learn the controls once. ALGORITHM is the cursor, K1 to K4 change what the cursor is on, SEL opens it, HOME goes back, and while you hold HOME every control does its other job. This chapter names every control, explains the three kinds of screen (views, menus and editors), and covers HOME, undo, help and the keys.

The panel

Each knob on screen is drawn as a ring with its value, and the ring turns: bipolar values fill from the middle. If a knob has no job on the row the cursor is on, its ring is dark and the legend shows a dash.

Views, menus and editors

There are only three kinds of screen.

In a menu, a row can be one of four things:

HOME goes back one level. The cursor position of each menu is remembered. The STEP menu on SEQ reopens on the row you used last. The PAD menu on KIT finds that row by its name, so the same row comes back even though the step's rows come and go with the step; with a step under the cursor it opens on STEP VELO, the step's first row, unless the row you used last is further down.

The screen

The top line is the header: where you are (the view, and the project or track after it), the transport (a triangle while playing, a red dot while recording), the position as bar.beat, the tempo, four squares that flash the beat, the battery on the views (a cell with up to three bars; the bars climb while it charges, an empty cell blinks, and there is no cell until the first reading: see SETTINGS for the reading), and a small square after the title when the project has changes you have not saved. While you turn SELECT, six small marks replace the words after the title and show where you are on the wheel. The line under the picture is the hint: the next useful move. At the bottom, K1 to K4 show their value and name (the legend), and the tag at the right of the hint line says what the keys do. Short messages (toasts) appear at the top for a second or two and name what just happened, such as UNDO T3 TAKE. While a web page is linked over USB (remote control), a small link mark sits in the header (see MIDI and sync).

One rule for shortcuts

Every page follows the same rule: HOME + a control does its other action, and SEL held while you turn a knob moves a number ten at a time (a press of SEL opens or confirms). The hint line teaches the rest.

The hint line takes turns. It lists CONTROL: VERB pairs. When they do not all fit on one line, it shows them a line at a time, a new line every 3 seconds, in the order of the table below: a page's main moves first, then its hidden gestures. On a view or editor that is not TRACKS, PERFORM or PROJECT, the last turn is HOME+ALGO: TRACK, the way to change track from there. SETTINGS > HINTS OFF hides the hint line, not the footers of the menus and of PROJECT, which take turns the same way.

The undo toast. After anything undo can take back (a take, DICE, a pattern edit, a clear, a print, a longer loop, a deleted track), a toast says what HOME+REC would undo: HOME+REC: UNDO T3 DICE. It waits until the toasts before it are done and nothing is recording, and shows once for each new undo step. See Recording and undo.

Questions: everything destructive asks

Anything that can lose work stops and asks first. A question shows the action and what it costs, with two choices: ALGORITHM picks, SEL confirms, HOME cancels. The safe choice, CANCEL, is highlighted first.

There is one gesture for every delete: hold HOME and hold REC with the cursor on the thing you want gone. A ring fills and names it (CLEAR T2, DELETE NIGHT BUS); let go before it fills and nothing happens. It then asks. If the cursor is on something with nothing to delete, it says so (NOTHING TO DELETE HERE; on a track, NOTHING TO CLEAR ON T2).

Most things are also undoable: a tap of HOME+REC takes back the last thing you did on any track, and HOME+PLAY brings it back. On the SAMPLER a tap of HOME+REC takes back the last take, keep or chop. See Recording and undo.

HOME

HOME does two jobs. A quick tap is the back step. Hold it and every other control does its other action: HOME+SEQ rolls DICE, HOME+SAVE keeps the last loop, HOME+REC undoes, HOME+SELECT sets the tempo. You can use it without thinking about it, because the FM-1 shows what is on offer while you hold it, and the page stays whole:

• At once: a button, knob or key pressed with HOME down does its HOME job straight away, with no waiting. The keys are HOME keys from the moment HOME goes down; only a key you were already holding when you pressed HOME stays a note.
• After the HOLD TIME (300 ms): the header shows a HOME tag, the four knobs on the legend swap to their second row (their rings carry an arrow), and the key lights show the current values of the settings the keys set. PERFORM keeps its stage and shows a band over the tick line instead of lighting the keys.
• Every HOME + control says what it did: a toast names it (LENGTH 2 BARS, LAUNCH BAR, QUANT 1/16, CLICK ON, TAP 120).

A tap of HOME shorter than the HOLD TIME, with nothing used, is the back step. A key pressed while HOME is down counts as used, so that tap does not go back. You can change the time in SETTINGS > CONTROLS (200 to 400 ms).

Careful: while HOME is down every key is a HOME key, so a note played then sets the loop's length, the launch or the click instead of sounding. Tap HOME between notes, not under them.

What HOME does

Between tracks: HOME + ALGORITHM

HOME+ALGORITHM changes the selected track from any screen, and the page stays where it is. While HOME stays down, a strip over the hint line shows every track (its chip and its name) with the one you are on filled, so you see where the next detent lands. It goes when you let go of HOME, and letting go after turning does not go back. On a page with a hint line, the last turn of the hint is HOME+ALGO: TRACK (The hint line takes turns).

The HOME keys

Hold HOME and the keys set how a loop records, from the first key. After the HOLD TIME their lights show the current value. They are in three groups, from the left:

On the SAMPLER, F3 to B3 set the bars of the next take instead (see Bars); on a sample track they say how many bars the track's sample is (2 BARS LONG). MIX and PERFORM do the mute and solo for any track.

Buttons that open tools

SEQ, ARP, FX, ENV, LFO, EDIT and GLO open their screens from anywhere, and most go back where you were when you press them again. (The sound browser is opened by turning PRESETS.)

A track plays its sequencer pattern or the arpeggiator, not both, and there is one arpeggiator in the project. The button you press wins: SEQ on a track whose arp plays switches the arp off and the pattern on (T1 ARP OFF · SEQ ON), and ARP on a track whose pattern plays does the reverse (T1 SEQ OFF · ARP ON). PLAY or REC on the SEQ page with the arp on switches over the same way. To stop a generator without leaving its page, turn the PATTERN menu's PLAYS row (first row) or the ARP menu's ARP row (first row) off.

On a KIT track, SEQ from anywhere else opens the drum step grid, and SEQ on the grid itself switches the kit's steps off (KIT STEPS OFF) and returns to TRACKS; the hits stay and play on (see KIT). HOME only changes the view: it never switches a pattern or the arpeggiator off, and it never stops the music.

Help on the panel

Hold any of FX, ENV, LFO, EDIT, ARP, SEQ, SAVE or PLAY for a second on a view and a card says in a line what it does and what HOME adds (PLAY's says HOLD + K1: TEMPO. HOME: REDO). Let go and nothing happens: the card is only a look. A SAVE held that long does not save (NOT SAVED: TAP SAVE).

GLO works the other way round: hold it for a second and let go, and the page's own card shows, and stays until you put it away. It is a few lines on what the page does and the moves worth knowing, ending ANY CONTROL: BACK. GLO or HOME puts it away; a knob or any other button puts it away and does its job. Inside a course the card is the step to do (see Learn on your FM-1).

The hint line gives the next useful move on every view but PERFORM. It is on by default; SETTINGS > HINTS switches it off. The keybed tag at its right stays.

The keys

The 27 keys always play something. A tag at the right of the hint line says what, and the key lights agree.

The octave belongs to the track: OCT- and OCT change the selected track's octave, and the keys and chords follow it. (A KIT track has no octave: it says DRUMS HAVE NO OCTAVE.) Every key plays at the same velocity, so a part sits at one steady level however you press: the keys are not velocity sensitive. For a louder or softer part, open KEYS, press SEL and set FIXED VELO (the KEYS menu).

Fast values

Knobs accelerate: a quick turn moves further. Hold SEL and turn to move a number ten at a time; the legend says X10 under each knob it works on. This works on every screen, MIX's strips and MAIN included, and on a knob that has a recorded lane too: it never clears the lane. A lane clears in the TRACK menu, under AUTOMATION (a lane, SEL), and HOME+REC brings it back (see TRACKS).

Every value that runs from 0 to 100 moves one unit a click, so you can land on any number: the macros (and their step locks), a track's LEVEL and its two sends on MIX, MAIN's four, a pad's LEVEL, REVERB and DELAY, CLICK VOL, a pattern's GATE, DICE SETUP's DENSITY and the arpeggiator's SWING. A pad's CHANCE still moves 5 % a click.

Troubleshooting