Groove OS · Mixer and effects
Mix it like a record.
Give the bass some weight, the chords a little space and the lead room to shine. Shape each track, then bring it all together in stereo.
$29, once. 1.4 and 2.x updates included. Already own it? Update to 2.0
01 · Mixer and effects
A mixing desk, inside the groovebox.
Give every part its place. Balance the levels, shape individual tracks and add space around the whole song. Your mix stays with the project.
02 · Mix
Bring the bass up. Drop the drums out.
Balance the song while it plays. Bring a bassline forward, listen to the chords alone or drop the drums out and hear what the other parts are doing.
- Find the balance. Set the level of each part, from a quiet background texture to a lead up front.
- Mute and solo. Silence a track, or hear only one. Switching a solo on switches the other solos off.
- Changes on the beat. Queue mutes and solos for the next beat or bar, or make them happen immediately.
- Samples and kits too. A sample track, or a kit made of your own sounds, has a strip like any other, with its sends and its track effects.
The meter beside a fader shows that the track is playing, not a measured level
03 · Track FX
Give each track its own effects.
Rough up the chords, soften a lead or make a pad pulse with the beat. Each track has its own effects, so you can change one part without changing the others.
- DRIVE pushes the track into a soft clip for grit. A full-level sound stays about as loud, and a quiet one comes up.
- CRUSH makes the sound coarser and lo-fi, and grainier as you turn it up.
- FILTER is one knob: turn left to close the sound down to a rumble, right to thin it out to a hiss.
- Rhythm from a held sound. Gate a track in time with the beat to turn a sustained pad into a pulsing part.
Record filter and send movements as automation. MIDI OUT tracks play external instruments and have no onboard audio effects.
04 · Sends
Room for the chords. None for the bass.
Put the chords in a big room and leave the bass dry. Each track has its own reverb and delay sends, so you choose how much space each part gets.
- REVERB sets how much of a track goes to the shared reverb. A bass at 0 stays dry and tight, and chords at 45 sit in the room.
- Echoes with their own space. Set the repeats, timing and level of the delay to add a little bounce or a longer trail.
- Space for each drum. Give the snare some reverb and leave the kick dry, with separate sends for every pad.
- Record the move. With REC on, turn a send and the move is written onto the track.
Each track controls how much it sends; the main mix controls how loud the shared reverb and delay return.
05 · Main
One reverb and one delay for the whole song.
A shared reverb and delay help the parts feel like one song. Shape the room, set the repeats and let the echoes feed into the reverb.
- REVERB has a DECAY, a LEVEL and a TYPE: ROOM, HALL or PLATE. The picture draws its tail as you turn.
- Echoes with their own space. Set the repeats, timing and level of the delay to add a little bounce or a longer trail.
- Echoes into the room. DLY>REV sends the echoes into the reverb too, so they fade into the room. It is on by default.
- Four moves at hand. The MAIN strip puts REVERB, DELAY, DRIVE and FILTER on the four knobs. PERFORM throws the same four, live.
A track's own send sets how much of it goes in, and the reverb's and delay's LEVEL set how loud they come back, for every track at once. Changing the reverb's type fades the mix for a moment
06 · Finish
Finish the whole mix.
Add some warmth, width or movement to the finished mix with drive, chorus, phaser and a filter. Bypass them together to hear the difference.
- DRIVE is a soft saturation made for a whole mix, the kick included. It keeps the mix's level and never clips to a wall.
- CHORUS and PHASER sweep across the whole mix. Keep their MIX modest when drums play too.
- FILTER is a master filter, LP, BP or HP, with its own CUTOFF and RESO.
- Try a different chain. Change the order of the main effects, then bypass them together to compare with the original mix.
A soft limiter sits after the effects and keeps the loudest mixes from clipping hard, without pumping. Some changes fade the whole mix for a moment, and the screen says so
07 · Pan
Pan each track left or right.
Move the hats a little to one side and the keys to the other. Panning gives each part some space and opens up a crowded mix.
- Place each part. Move a track anywhere between the left and right speakers, or keep it in the centre.
- Keeps its loudness. A panned track gets louder on its own side as it leaves the other.
- See it at a glance. A small mark over the fader shows where a track sits.
- Every kind of track. FM, VA, samples and kits pan, a kit as a whole. A track's reverb and echoes hear it before its pan, so they stay wide.
Panning is saved with the song and can also be controlled over MIDI.
08 · Space
Echoes that bounce. Rooms that open.
Let echoes bounce between the speakers, open up the reverb and widen a pad with chorus. Hear the stereo mix through headphones, speakers or an interface connected to the jack output.
- Echoes that move. Send delay repeats from left to right, fading as they bounce between the speakers.
- Reverb width. 0 keeps the reverb in the middle and 100 makes it as wide as it goes: big, airy pads and drums with space around them.
- Chorus width. Spreads the chorus's voices across both sides, so pads and keys get wide and shimmering.
- Through the stereo jack. Connect headphones, stereo speakers or an audio interface to hear or record the full stereo mix.
The jack output carries the stereo mix. USB recording and internal resampling are mono.
09 · Questions
Questions before you start.
Is the mix in stereo?
Yes, through the stereo jack. Connect headphones, stereo speakers or an audio interface to hear track panning, ping-pong delay and the width of the reverb and chorus. The built-in speaker, USB recording and internal resampling are mono.
What does each track get?
Four effects of its own, DRIVE, CRUSH, FILTER and SLICER, before its level, and two sends to the shared reverb and delay. A kit track has the same page, and its sends apply to every pad left on TRACK. A MIDI OUT track has no effects: its notes leave the FM-1.
Why can't I hear my track effects?
On FM tracks and FM kits, the four effects are not heard while the AMP ENV switch in SOUND, which is shared by all tracks, is on. Switch it off and they come back.
Can I move them from a controller?
Yes. A track's pan, its reverb and delay sends and its DRIVE, CRUSH, FILTER and SLICER each have a MIDI control change, sent on the track's own channel, so a controller with a strip for every channel gives each track a strip of its own. The delay's ping-pong and the widths are set on the FM-1.
Can I play the effects live?
Yes. On PERFORM, four knobs sweep the whole mix's filter, reverb, delay and drive, and keys play punch-ins such as DIVE, LIFT, ECHO and WASH. A throw only works on an effect that is switched on.
Does it cost anything?
The mixer and its effects are part of Groove OS. A new purchase is $29, once, including Groove OS 1.4 and 2.x updates.
What do I need?
An FM-1, a USB data cable for the install, and Chrome or Edge on Mac, Windows, Linux or ChromeOS.
Anything I should know about?
There is no clip light: a soft limiter after the effects keeps the loudest mixes from clipping hard. CHORUS and PHASER work on the whole mix, so turn their MIX down if one is too strong. Some changes fade the whole mix for a moment, and the screen says so.
Mix it. Shape it. Finish it.
A whole mix, from the first fader to the last effect, on the FM-1 itself. Included for every Groove OS owner.
Installs from Chrome or Edge over USB · your samples, projects and pairings are kept · Already own it? Update to 2.0
More of Groove OS
- SamplerPlay a sound in from your phone or the FM-1 itself. Chop it, play it and build your song on the spot.
- Tracks and sequencerWrite notes step by step, tap out a beat or play a part in, and build a song track by track.
- SoundsFM and virtual analog on every track, with sound packs for every genre to add.
- PerformDrop parts out on the bar, punch in effects, throw the mix and launch scenes.
- ConnectPair a phone with no code, play tracks from your music program and put effects on your controller's faders.