TAPE

TAPE is the home page: your tracks (1 to 8) of recorded notes and knob moves, each looping over its own length under its own playhead. You record here, set each track's length, add and remove tracks, and reach the tape's settings and actions. Levels, mutes and solos are on MIX. HOME always leads back to TAPE.

The page at a glance

Notes you have just recorded show white until the playhead comes round again. A muted track, or one at level 0, draws its notes as grey outlines. While any track is soloed, the others are dimmed.

The cursor

Turn ALGORITHM to move the cursor (the white outline). It has one position for the ruler and one per track.

Moving the cursor onto a lane selects that track. The selected track is the one REC records onto, the keys play, and PRESETS changes. A toast names it and its sound.

SHIFT + ALGORITHM selects the next or previous track from any page, without moving to TAPE. If the preset browser is open, it keeps the previewed sound first.

More than four tracks

TAPE shows four lanes at a time. With five or more tracks, the lanes scroll as the selection moves, just enough to keep the selected track in view, and a bar at the far left shows which part of the track list you see. MIX's strips scroll the same way.

To add, duplicate or delete a track, use Actions. See also Tracks.

Tape settings (position 0)

The same values appear on SETUP > RECORD (see Settings) and on the SHIFT keys. They are one setting, shown in three places.

SHIFT + SELECT changes the tempo from any page, 1 BPM per detent; a toast shows the new tempo, for example 120 BPM.

Defaults at power-on: 120 BPM, click on, count-in on, quantize 1/16, launch on the bar.

Track settings (a track's lane)

The track's level is on MIX. See Levels.

Track length

Every track is a loop of 1 to 8 bars. Tracks start 2 bars long.

What a length change does to the notes:

When it lands:

• On a track with notes, while the tape plays and LAUNCH is BEAT or BAR: on the next bar line. A toast shows it outlined, for example T2 4 BARS @ NEXT BAR, and fills when it lands. The length digit and the LENGTH value blink until then.
• On an empty track, while stopped, or with LAUNCH OFF: at once.
• Asking for the current length again before it lands cancels the change.

The length you choose last is also the length an empty track takes when you first select it (if the tracks can share it; otherwise the previous track's length, or 1 bar).

Polymeter

Tracks of different lengths run together. Each one restarts on a bar line that is a multiple of its own length, so a 1-bar and a 2-bar loop stay locked, and a 3-bar loop drifts against a 4-bar one until they meet again.

The tape runs through one combined cycle: the shortest number of bars that every length divides (4 bars for 1, 2 and 4; 12 bars for 3 and 4). The header's bar.beat counts through that cycle, so it can read 10.3 with no track longer than 4 bars. A few mixes of odd lengths (for example 5, 7 and 8 bars together) would need more than 168 bars to line up; the OS refuses them with TOO LONG.

Pro tip: Record a 1-bar drum loop, then use SHIFT + K1 to set a bass line on 3 bars. The combined pattern takes 3 bars to repeat while each part stays short.

Recording

REC records onto the selected track. PLAY starts and stops the tape.

The count-in shows a large numeral per beat (4, 3, 2, 1), dots for the beats gone by, and REC T2. It always clicks, even with CLICK off.

While recording:

• The lane's border is red and shows REC. The header's transport glyph is a red dot and the track badge turns red. The ring at the top right fills red.
• Recording is an overdub: what the track already has keeps playing and your new notes are added. The loop keeps going round; each pass adds to the same take.
• One REC session is one take. UNDO removes it as one piece.
• You can't change track. Trying shows RECORDING T2 - REC TO STOP.
• Notes from the arpeggiator are recorded at their exact grid time. See ARP.
• Knob moves are recorded too: the four SOUND macros and the track level. See Automation.

The REC light: lit while recording, blinking while a recording waits to start, flashing each beat during the count-in.

To record a first loop:

1. Turn ALGORITHM to the track you want.
2. Choose a sound with PRESETS (see SOUND).
3. Press REC. Wait for the count-in.
4. Play. The loop goes round; keep adding notes if you like.
5. Press REC to stop recording. The tape keeps playing.
6. Press PLAY to stop the tape.

Pro tip: To add to a track, leave the tape playing, select the track and press REC. With LAUNCH on BAR, recording starts cleanly on the next bar line.

Launch quantization

While the tape plays, LAUNCH decides when REC, mute and solo take effect.

Stop, track select, undo, redo, clear and levels are always immediate.

While a recording waits to start, the REC light and the lane's border blink red, and the header's red dot blinks. Press REC again before the line to cancel the wait. A note you play up to 1/32 before the line still belongs to the new take (with QUANT on, it lands on the line).

Changing LAUNCH drops anything that is waiting. Setting it to OFF lands a waiting length at once.

Capture (SAVE)

Play without recording, then press SAVE: the last loop of what you played becomes a new take on the selected track.

1. Select a track and press PLAY. Leave REC off.
2. Play along until you've played something you like.
3. Press SAVE right after it. The notes of the last loop of the selected track (its length, ending now) land on the track, each where you played it, quantized like a recording. So do the knob moves you made on that track in the same loop (the SOUND macros and its level): they become its automation, exactly as if REC had been on.

The toast says T2 CAPTURED 2 BARS and the SAVE light flashes. The capture is one take, notes and knob moves together: UNDO removes it.

What capture remembers: the last 64 or so notes you played on the keys, the chord pads or the arpeggiator on the selected track, and its last 64 knob moves. It forgets them when you stop or start the tape, change track or change the tempo.

On the ARP and SEQ pages, SAVE prints the arpeggio or the pattern onto the track instead. See ARP and SEQ.

Pro tip: Capture is the fastest way to keep a happy accident. Loop the tape and just play; when a pass works, press SAVE.

Automation

The tape records knob moves as well as notes. The knobs it records are the performance knobs:

• the four SOUND macros, K1 TONE, K2 ATTACK, K3 DECAY and K4 CHARACTER (while a knob is the macro, not a value you assigned to it; see SOUND);
• the track LEVEL, on MIX (a strip's level, or K1-K4 on the MIX row).

Each track has one lane per knob, in its own loop, like its notes.

Recording. With REC on, turn a performance knob of the selected track. The move is written where the playhead is, and plays back the next time round.

• Touch mode: while your hand is on the knob (it moved in the last half second), what the lane had there is replaced. When you let go, the lane goes back to what it had, so the rest of the loop stays as it was.
• The move plays back smooth: the knob's steps are joined into ramps.
• The knob moves of a REC pass belong to its take, with its notes. UNDO removes both; undoing a pass also brings back what its knob moves overwrote. REDO brings both back.
• Without REC, SAVE captures the last loop's knob moves with its notes (see Capture).

Playing back. A macro lane shapes each note from its note-on, as the voice starts: a long note keeps the value it started with. A level lane sets each note's level at its note-on, and plays notes even if the knob's own level is 0. The knob's value on screen follows the lane while the tape plays. Turning an automated knob with REC off overrides the lane while you turn it; then the lane takes over again. Your turn does set the knob's own value, which the track goes back to when the lane is cleared.

Seeing it. A lane shows as a thin line across its track's lane on TAPE (the one you touched last, else the first: TONE, ATTACK, DECAY, CHARACTER, then the level), in the knob's colour. A white dot by a knob's legend circle means it is automated; it turns red while that knob is being recorded. On MIX, a dot by the fader marks an automated level.

Clearing a lane. Hold SEL and turn the knob: its lane is cleared (T2 TONE CLEARED). The held legend says CLEAR over every automatable knob (the SOUND macros, the track levels), with a lane or not. It is one undoable step: UNDO brings the lane back. A knob without a lane says NO AUTOMATION and doesn't move: hold SEL never means x10 on these knobs. Once a knob has acted, it does nothing more until you let go of SEL. On other numbers hold SEL is x10 (X10); in the deep editor's ASSIGN mode it assigns (ASSIGN). Clearing the track (SHIFT + hold REC) clears its lanes too.

Lengths. As for notes: shortening a track hides the lane beyond the new end, lengthening repeats it.

Tracks. A lane belongs to its track: duplicating a track copies its lanes, adding or deleting tracks moves them along with their tracks.

Room. A track holds 96 breakpoints of automation, shared by its lanes and what undo keeps. When it runs out, the oldest undo history goes first; T2 AUTOMATION FULL means a move could not be written (you still hear it).

Automation is saved with the project.

Undo, redo and clear

All three work on the selected track, from any page, at once.

Hold HOME, then press REC. After half a second a card appears with a red ring that fills; at 1.5 seconds the track is cleared (T3 CLEARED, in red). Let go of REC before the ring is full to cancel. The REC light flickers while the ring fills. You may let go of HOME first; the hold goes on.

How far undo reaches:

• UNDO removes takes newest first, as far back as the track goes.
• REDO has one level: only the take undone last comes back.
• Recording a new take on the track drops what undo and redo were keeping for it.
• UNDO while recording ends the take first, then removes it.

Undo and redo toasts: T2 UNDO, T2 UNDO CLEAR, T2 NOTHING TO UNDO, T2 REDO, T2 NOTHING TO REDO. Clearing an empty track says T2 EMPTY.

Actions

With the cursor on the ruler (position 0), SEL opens TAPE > ACTIONS. Turn ALGORITHM to a row, SEL to do it, HOME to go back.

The rows that name a track (CLEAR T2) act on the selected track: choose it first with SHIFT + ALGORITHM, or with the cursor on its lane.

A row that opens another level ends in a chevron (›); a row that does something ends in a return arrow (↵).

While recording or counting in, adding, duplicating and deleting are refused (STOP RECORDING FIRST).

From MIX, SEL on a strip opens the same track's rows (MIX > T2): the track itself (its LENGTH and BARS stay on the knobs), CLEAR T2, DUPLICATE T2, DELETE T2, and TAKES, the take list, not built yet (SOON, last).

Questions

Anything that deletes asks first. The question fills the screen, with CANCEL chosen.

1. Turn ALGORITHM to choose CANCEL or the red verb (CLEAR, DELETE).
2. Press SEL to confirm the choice.

HOME cancels. The SEL light blinks while a question waits. PRESETS does nothing until you answer.

SHIFT

Hold HOME to use SHIFT. A quick tap is BACK; held past 300 ms (the BACK TAP time in Settings) with nothing else pressed, the SHIFT map fills the screen and the keys become commands.

The top of the map shows each button's SHIFT meaning, laid out as on the panel. > means it opens a page.

The keys, counted from the lowest key (F):

On the map and on the key lights, the current values are lit: the track's length, the launch mode, the quantize mode, click and count-in when on, the selected track's mute and solo, and ALL OFF while any track is muted or soloed. Each command shows a toast with the new value, for example LAUNCH BAR or COUNT-IN OFF.

To tap a tempo: hold HOME, then tap the highest black key in time, three or four times. The first tap shows TAP; from the second on, the tempo follows the average of your last three intervals (TAP 118). Taps more than 2 seconds apart, or closer than 0.15 s, start over.

As soon as you use a SHIFT combination, the map gives way to the page, with the header's SHIFT arrow and the legend's second row: a dot in each knob's ring, labels in the knobs' colours.

The header

The header is the same on every page; on TAPE it reads, left to right:

Toasts

Short messages appear under the header for about a second. A toast in a track's colour is about that track; a red one deleted something or blocked a change. An outlined toast is waiting for the launch line; it fills, without its @ ... part, when the change lands, and disappears if the change is dropped.

Memory

A track holds up to 192 notes, including what undo keeps for it, and all the tracks together share room for 768. A track also holds 96 automation breakpoints. Everything on the tape lives in memory: switching the FM-1 off loses what you haven't saved.

Save it as a project with SHIFT + SAVE. See PROJECT.

Troubleshooting