Stuck doing absolutley nothing
By Alex · · 138 BPM · 909 · TC-303 · A3000
UntitledNo artist yet
Tempo
Swing
Volume
0 late
Project the song's information, saved to a file and opened again
Goes into every WAV file the lab saves, as its tags, and into the project file; it stays in this browser and your files, and a published mix leaves it out.
Arrange song mode is off: the patterns loop
None chosen
How it works
A press chooses a region; a double click (or Enter) opens its part under the tracks, and while one is open the region chosen opens in its place. A double click on an empty bar puts a region of the part chosen there (with ✎ a press draws one). A region plays its part round and round, each machine's own (a pattern on its steps, or a clip from its piano roll; name and save them on the machine). Drag it to move it, with Alt or Ctrl a copy; pull its end to play the part again, its start to cut in. Drag it up or down onto another synth's track (or a drum machine's onto another drum machine's) and it plays there, its part copied to that machine; Copy to does it for the chosen. The numbers set where Play starts. On a lane, press to put a point, drag it, double-click to take it away. A drag over tracks and bars draws a box that chooses regions, Shift and a press adds one; the chosen move together, and Delete, Ctrl+D and the arrows work on them all; Loop selection plays their bars round and round. ⌫ rubs regions out, ✂ cuts one in two at a bar. A Moves unit has a track under the machines': its regions play its lanes A–P (builds, drops, rolls, gates on the song's bars), and a region opened shows its steps under the tracks.
Bar
909
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern D
Pattern C
Pattern B
Pattern D
808
Pattern A
Pattern B
TC-303
Dobidido
Pattern B
Dobidido
Pattern B
TC-303 2
Clip A
Clip A
TC-8k
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern C
Pattern D
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern C
Pattern D
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern C
Pattern D
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern C
Pattern D
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern C
Pattern D
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern C
Pattern D
Nord
Pattern A
Pattern C
Pattern B
Pattern D
A3000
Pattern A
CS
Clip A
Loops
AirBase
Pulse
TC Stomp
TC-101
TC Ladder
TC Sampler
TC Flux
Mix 16 channels, 4 aux buses
Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Reso
Amount
Aux A
Aux B
Aux C
Aux D
Pan
−∞Feedback
Tone
Amount
Pan
−∞Space
Amount
Pan
−∞Amount
Pan
−∞Amount
Pan
−∞Gain
Width
Filter
Balance
Threshold
Ceiling
−∞– LUFSIts strip, dynamics and limiter
Dynamics master compressor, M/S, parallel, limiter and duck
Compressor
Threshold
Ratio
Attack
Release
Knee
Make-up
Mix
Stereo
Mid
Width
Limiter
Ceiling
Duck
Duck
Return
Multiband
Depth
Mix
Modulators 4 LFOs, in time with the tempo
LFO 1
Moves
Wave
Rate
Depth
Depth
LFO 2
Moves
Wave
Rate
Depth
Depth
LFO 3
Moves
Wave
Rate
Depth
Depth
LFO 4
Moves
Wave
Rate
Depth
Depth
Drive overdrive and distortion
Type
Shape
Drive
Tone
Low cut
Output
Mix
Level
Mod FX chorus, flanger, phaser
Type
Sweep
Rate
Depth
Feedback
Feedback
Output
Mix
909 drum machine
Accent
Tune
Level
Decay
Attack
Tune
Level
Decay
Snappy
Tune
Level
Decay
Skin
Tune
Level
Decay
Skin
Tune
Level
Decay
Skin
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Spread
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
808 drum machine
Accent
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Snappy
Tune
Decay
Level
Skin
Tune
Decay
Level
Skin
Tune
Decay
Level
Skin
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Spread
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
Level
Tone
Tune
Decay
TC-303 bass line
---Own sound
Age
Tuning
Cutoff
Reso
Env mod
Decay
Accent
Drive
TC-303 bass line 2
---Own sound
Age
Tuning
Cutoff
Reso
Env mod
Decay
Accent
Drive
Velocity
None chosen
Vel
TC-8k polysynth
---Own sound
Mix
Key fol
Detune
Spread
PW
PWM
Range
Fine
Balance
X-mod
Detune
Width
Level
Cut
Res
Dep
A
D
S
R
A
D
S
R
Depth
A
D
Rate
Fade
Pitch
Filter
Amp
Rate
Pitch
Filter
Amp
Time
Feedback
Level
Bass
Treble
Level
Chord A C3 · G3 · A3 · D4 · E4
Nord lead synth
P08Glide lead
Fine
Kbd
F.A
F.D
F.S
F.R
Semi
Pulse
FM
Mix
Amount
Attack
Decay
Cutoff
Reso
Env amt
Dist
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
Rate
Amount
Rate
Amount
Detune
Spread
Glide
Vibrato
A3000 sampler
Loop The built-in break
Pitch
Fine
Length
Cutoff
Q
Gain
Env
Decay
CS Mk III control synthesizer
CS Mk IIIPERF AFat saw+SineARP OFFSCENE 0%
P04Deep bass
Coarse
Spread
Cutoff
Resonance
HPF
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
EG depth
Assign 1
Assign 2
Morph
Gate
Velocity
None chosen
Vel
Loop player the band's remix kit
PAT AROLLFITLP 20.0 kHz
Pitch
Smoothing
Cutoff
Resonance
Velocity
None chosen
Vel
The sounds are from the band's remix kit of Imported Nightmare, April 2004, as the band made them, at 140 BPM. The song.
AirBase analogue and 8-bit drums
Accent
Tune
Level
Decay
Harmonics
Tune
Level
Decay
Snappy
Tune
Level
Decay
Sweep
Tune
Level
Decay
Sweep
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Spread
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Tune
Level
Decay
Tone
Pulse mono bass synth
P01Rolling bass
PW
Semi
Semi
Osc 1
Osc 2
Osc 3
Noise
Cutoff
Reso
Env
Key
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
Time
TC Stomp drums designed from layers and curves
Accent
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Tune
Level
Decay
Drive
Bass drum: Ninety-Eight
Start
Length
Gain
Shape
Scatter
Phase
Pitch: 1.10 kHz → 43 Hz
Level: 0.0 dB → −∞
Cutoff
Cutoff to
Reso
Drive
Bias
Tone
Out
TC-101 mono synth
Tune
Mod
PW
Pulse
Saw
Sub
Noise
Freq
Res
Env
Mod
Kybd
A
D
S
R
Rate
Time
Accent
Age
TC Ladder ladder bass
Tune
Detune
Detune
Osc 1
Osc 2
Osc 3
Noise
Feedback
Cutoff
Emphasis
Contour
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Time
Accent
Age
TC Sampler keyboard sampler
Sound Trance Stab · 1.40 s · root C3
Root
Tune
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
Velocity
Cutoff
Reso
Env
Decay
Glide
TC Flux pwm polysynth · 12 voices
P01Rave Siren
Width
Osc 1
Osc 2
Osc 3
Sub
Rate
PWM
Vibrato
Drift
Dive
Time
Glide
Cutoff
Reso
Env
Key
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
Amount
Rate
Make it yours
In place of what your lab holds in this browser.
A saved mix is public: anyone who finds the lab can play it, give it a thumb up or down and comment on it. It keeps the title, the name and the machines' settings, nothing else (privacy). All saved mixes are in the mixes.
How to play it
- Play starts the sequencer, and so does the space bar. A pattern chosen while it plays starts at the next bar.
- Knobs turn when dragged up or down; hold Shift for small steps, double-click to put one back. With the keyboard: Tab to a knob, then the arrow keys. While the lab plays, a knob an LFO, a duck or the song moves turns with it, and a mark on its ring stays where you set it; a knob the song's lane holds is framed in green.
- Undo: Ctrl+Z takes back the last change to the lab, a run of changes without a pause being one step, and Ctrl+Shift+Z (or Ctrl+Y) puts it back; ↶ and ↷ on the rack's bar do the same. A right-click on a region, a note, a lane's point, a track's name or a channel gives what can be done to it. ? shows every key.
- Parts: every machine has sixteen, A–P, each played from its own steps or from a piano roll; the letters under its name choose the one it plays and shows. Give it a name, and Save as new part copies it, steps, roll and all, to the first free part and goes on there, so a pattern you made is kept to use in the song. Solo lets only that machine be heard: with Patterns on, it loops the part you are writing. Opening a region in the arranger (a double click) puts its machine on the region's part, and Loop this region plays its bars round with the rest of the song; Loop in the transport turns that off and on.
- Piano roll: Steps or Roll beside a machine's parts says how that part is written. In the roll, a double click on the grid puts a note there (with ✎, press and drag to draw one as long as the drag); press a note to choose it, drag it to move it or its end to lengthen it, double-click it away; with a note chosen, the arrow keys move it and Shift with them lengthens it. The grid is a quarter down to a thirty-second, or triplets; a clip is 1 to 512 bars, and in the song a region as long as its clip plays it through once. Velocities are under the notes, lanes for the machine's own knobs under those. Read MIDI takes a MIDI file's track (its controllers 74, 71, 1 and 72 become lanes, its pitch bends a Pitch bend lane), Save MIDI writes the clip out with its bend, and with Rec on, what you play while the lab runs is written in.
- Pitch bend: every synth and the TC Sampler bends, every note sounding and every new one, as a keyboard's wheel does. Bend on its panel says how far, 1 to 24 semitones up and down (2 to start). A MIDI keyboard's wheel bends the machine touched last. In a roll, a Pitch bend lane bends it through the clip, the middle no bend; draw a swoop down for a hoover. An LFO on Pitch bend, at a small depth, is vibrato.
- The CS: a sound is two elements, or with the analogue board on a Mk III two saws and a square an octave down. Its knobs (six on the first model, eight on the second, grouped on the third): on the first, Cutoff, Resonance, Attack, Release, Assign 1 (the elements' balance) and Assign 2 (how far they are tuned apart). With Scenes on, the knobs set scene A or B and Morph moves between them. Spread puts the first element to the left and the second to the right. Arp plays the notes held: the keys you hold, at the lab's tempo even while it is stopped, or else the roll's. It is played from its piano roll.
- The loop player plays the band's remix kit of Imported Nightmare (2004). Each pattern names one of its sounds, which runs round on its bars from where the pattern starts, through the gate's sixteen steps (Open, every other, the offbeats, a trance gate, or your own); Smoothing softens the gate's edges. In a piano roll each row is one of the kit's sounds, played as long as the note. The pads, the keys and MIDI play them on their own. Eight more pads take sounds of your own: an empty one (or Load a sound…) reads a file in your browser, kept there and never sent; one whose length makes whole bars at a dance tempo loops, any other is a single sound. The filter is a low-, high- or band-pass with Cutoff and Resonance; Fit keeps the sounds at the lab's tempo, and without it Pitch turns them.
- Sounds: the display over a synth's knobs is its bank. The arrows and the list choose a sound, which sets the knobs and leaves the patterns; a star means a knob has moved since. Save keeps the sound in your own bank, in this browser, and with the song: a mix you save carries it, and whoever opens the mix finds it in that synth's bank under This song's, to play and Keep among their own. Export and Open… take a sound as a file of its own (and open the originals' SysEx files); Share… puts it in the site's list for its synth, which every bank shows under The site's and the sounds page lists.
- Step programs: beside a machine's parts, a list of programs to put into the part chosen (‹ › go through them; Undo puts the steps back): the lab's own, with the riffs and beats of the band's remix kits, yours, and the site's. Save steps… keeps yours in this browser, Export and Open… take them as a file, and Share… puts them on the step programs.
- Pads sound a drum and choose it; its steps and knobs are shown. With Rec on, pads struck while the pattern plays are written into it.
- The 909's Engine chooses its voices: Model works the original's circuits out sample by sample (six-bit hi-hats, crash and ride of the lab's own making read at its 30 kHz clock; a bass drum whose Tune sets how far its pitch falls from, not where it rests; a clap of four hands and a reverb; an accent that fills out the kick, opens the snare's high noise and lifts the toms' skin), Classic the lab's first, as a lab saved before played it. A new lab starts on the model; both are equally loud. The closed and open hi-hats share one circuit, as on the original, so each cuts the other.
- A TC-303: choose a step and play its note on the keyboard, or on the computer's keys A to K; the next step is chosen for you. Rest, Down, Up, Accent and Slide change the chosen step. In Play, the keyboard sounds the TC-303 while it is stopped and moves the running pattern to another key. Dice makes a new line. Engine chooses its voice: Circuit is a TB-303's circuits worked out sample by sample (its diode filter, its envelopes, its accent sweep that builds over accents in a row, its slide), Classic the lab's first, as a lab saved before played it. The circuit's Unit is one set of parts drawn from their tolerances, so that no two sound quite alike; Age ages them. Both are equally loud.
- The TC-101, the TC Ladder, the Pulse, the TC Sampler and TC Flux are written like a TC-303: choose a step and play its note on the keyboard, or on the computer's keys A to K; Rest, Down, Up, Accent and Slide change it.
- TC Flux: three oscillators, the second and third an octave or two under the first (or one over), each a PWM saw, a saw or a pulse; Width and the LFO's PWM move their width, Drift lets them wander a few cents. Dive turned right starts every note up to two octaves above and lets it fall onto the note in Time; turned left it scoops up from below; Glide slides between notes, and a slid step glides on the same voice. Gate puts the amplifier on the key, for tight basses. Poly plays chords (from the roll, the keys or MIDI), Mono one note struck anew each time, Legato one note gliding while notes overlap. The chorus's Amount and Rate make it wide: fast for the rave lead, slow for pads. Its screen shows its voice and how far its pitch is from the note.
- The TC-8k: each pattern is a chord. In Write, the keyboard puts notes in it and takes them out; Chain plays A to D a bar each. Pad holds the chord, Gate chops it on the lit steps, Arp plays its notes in turn. In Play, the keyboard sounds the TC-8k, and in Gate or Arp the keys you hold are the chord, at the lab's tempo even while it is stopped. The sliders are its two envelopes, attack, decay, sustain and release: the filter's (opened as far as Env says) and the amplifier's. Spread sets the notes of a chord, or a Super Saw's saws, apart in the stereo field. On the model engine: Unison stacks each note as layers (alike, or an octave up and down); oscillator 2 has its square, triangle and noise, Sync, Ring and X-mod; LFO 1, LFO 2 and the pitch envelope move it; Tone, Delay and Multi FX are the patch's own effects; Law chooses the seven saws' mix as measured or as read from the chip. Each rests off.
- The Nord: its steps are written like a TC-303's, from C4. Sync restarts the second oscillator with the first, so that turning Osc 2 or the Sweep changes its tone rather than its pitch; FM bends the first by the second, Ring multiplies them. Glide slides every note into the next. Spread sets a note's Unison voices apart in the stereo field (in Poly, the notes of a chord too). On the model engine: LFO 1 and LFO 2 move the pulse width, the filter, the pitch, FM, the level or oscillator 2's fine tune, free or in step with the lab's bar (Sync); Dist drives the filter, Notch cuts just under the cutoff; the mod envelope has an attack, goes to oscillator 2, FM or PW, and Inv turns it over; Detune spreads Unison, and Auto glides only between notes played legato. Each rests off.
- The A3000: say how many bars the loop is, and it is cut into sixteen slices a bar; pattern A plays the first bar, B the second, and Chain plays them in turn. Choose a step and strike a slice to put it there. Remix makes the pattern again with blocks of the loop moved: Type says how small the blocks and how many move (1 to 5), Vari whether the first stays first (A, C) and whether some play backwards (C, D); Original puts them back. Keep pitch lets the slices follow the lab's tempo without changing their pitch. Fine tunes in small steps, Rate plays the loop at a half, a quarter or an eighth of its rate (LoFi without the filter against aliasing), and the filter (low-, high-, band-pass or a notch) has its own envelope, struck with each slice, and a gain that overloads it when turned up. The kit's list loads one of the loops from the band's remix kit of Imported Nightmare. Resample the lab records the lab itself into it.
- The mixer: each channel as a desk has it. Gain trims what comes in (±24 dB), Ø turns its polarity over, Mono sums it and Width spreads its stereo (to 200 %). The fader is printed in dB: 0 dB at the line, +6 at the top, a double click back to 0. Under it are the fader's dB and the channel's loudest peak of the last two seconds in dBFS; the line across the meter is -12 dBFS, where a kick is anchored before the rest is set around it. The meter has a column for a mono channel and two, left and right, for a stereo one (a channel is stereo while its two sides differ, not merely panned; Mono keeps it one), the master three: left, middle and right. In each the RMS lights its LEDs fully, the peak above it dimmer, and the highest peak of the last two seconds stays lit. Comp puts a compressor of its own into the channel, after its filter, with its gain reduction lit beside it: Amount lowers the threshold and raises the ratio together and makes up half of what it takes; in focus it is slow or fast. Each channel sends to four aux buses, Aux A to D: each aux plays what it is sent through its effect (a delay, ping-pong or not, Reverb Mk II, the classic room or hall, or one of the rack's effect units, chosen on its return) and back through its return's fader; Pre takes the sends before the faders. An aux's name opens it in focus: its delay's repeats on the beat, or its reverb's echo as it dies away, its scopes, its knobs and a long fader. The master has a channel's strip of its own (Gain, width, mono, EQ, filter, balance), its dynamics in or bypassed with their gain reduction, threshold and ceiling, its fader and under it its loudness (LUFS, the last three seconds); its name opens it in focus with its EQ, its dynamics, its loudness (momentary, short-term and integrated since Play or Reset, and the last 30 seconds) and its scopes. The filter is one knob, open in the middle, a low-pass to the left and a high-pass to the right. Channels on side A or B of the crossfader fade against each other. The curve on a channel is its EQ: press it, or the channel's name, to open the channel in focus beside it (to its right on a wide screen, under its row of strips on a narrower one; the same press, × or Escape closes it): its EQ on a screen, where the numbered handles drag each band, an oscilloscope and a vectorscope of its sound, every knob, and a long fader down the right; ‹ and › go to the channel before or after. Slim shows each channel's fader alone. A drum machine's Outs sends each voice into a channel of its own (the hi-hats share one), folded out after its channel with ▸ and in with ◂; its channel is their group. + Bus adds up to four buses, sub-groups with a strip of their own, and Out sends a channel after its fader to the master or a bus. A channel's insert slots, at its head, are the effects it goes through first, each with its wet/dry, and a new one gives another free slot. Comp's Key lets a compressor listen to another instrument, to pump with a kick. Each aux return has its own EQ and compressor.
- Modulators: each LFO moves one knob of the rack at a rate counted in bars and beats: choose the device, then its knob (a drum's decay, the TC-8k's detune, the drive). Its screen shows its wave at its depth, where it is while the lab plays, and what it moves; its wave is chosen on the keys with the shapes drawn on them. There are four, and room for four more.
- The transport: Tempo (138 to start) and Swing; Time sets 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 6/8, 7/8 or 5/8 (a bar of 3/4 or 6/8 plays twelve of a pattern's sixteen steps); Click is the metronome, never in a recording. The DSP meter shows how hard the audio thread works (where the browser tells it), how busy the page is, the sixteenths that came late and the voices sounding; its tooltip says more. Audio sets the sample rate and the buffer the sound starts with (a reload takes them), the bit depth of the WAV files, and shows the latency now. Comp, Limiter and an effect's On take it in or out.
- The effects: the Drive overdrives, distorts, fuzzes or takes bits away, its Low cut a high-pass on the driven sound alone (off, then 20 to 400 Hz) for parallel drive that keeps a kick's weight under Mix; the Mod FX is a chorus, a flanger or a phaser; the Delay repeats on the beat, each repeat darker, ping-pong if you like; the Reverb is Mk II, a cinematic reverb (a lab from before keeps the classic room or hall; Mk II on its front switches): a room, a hall, a vast space, a plate, or a rise (a reverse reverb that swells to its end, with no delay); Size, Decay (on into ∞, in seconds or bars) and Pre-delay, free or on the beat with triplets; Bloom, how slowly it builds, and above 60 % a swell of up to two bars from each phrase; Air, dark to airy; Motion, drifting above 80 %; Width, its bass kept in the middle; Clear, the tail ducked while the sound plays; Freeze, the tail held while new notes pass by it, taken on the beat. Its trance moves: Climb, an interval laid under the tail, and above the middle the tail climbing on it; Wash, the breakdown's wash on one knob; Pump, the tail dipped on each beat, eighth or kick (of one drum machine, or every one); Throw, held down, the sound thrown into it from the next sixteenth (Only: nothing else goes in); Drop, the tail cut dead on the next bar line, a beat's rest after. More opens its fine page: Echo on the beat before it, its repeats from clean to melted in by Smear, ping-pong if you like; Stop, a shorter decay once the sound stops; Gate, the tail cut a note value after it; the decay map's own bands (or drag the handles on its screen; a double click gives them back to Air); Freeze's Catch and Release; what Clear ducks (the return, the send or both) and what it listens to (the send, or a channel); Climb's interval (+12, +7, +19, −12, ±12 or Organ) and Glass; Diffusion, Density, the motion's rate, Vintage; the cuts and Mono X. Its screen shows its echo, its decay map, and live what comes out with what Clear and Pump take. Its presets are named after what trance does with a reverb, a decay in bars following the tempo. It answers what it is sent, from the first sound: a held note's tail is under its dry, so a reverb seems to begin when the note is let go; send more to hear it while the note holds. Add them from the rack's bar. Put one into a channel from its front, or patch it on the back between any machine and any channel, one effect after the other if you like; or choose it as an aux's effect, where a delay or a reverb is the effect alone and Mix waits. An audio track, a bus and the master have insert slots on their strips too. Moves plays trance's arrangement moves on what goes through it, each on the song's grid and back to the dry on it: hold a pad and it plays (its height is how hard: the top the loudest). Roll repeats the slice from the grid point it was pressed on, its division from the Roll pads (move along them while rolling for a roll-up), backwards with Reverse, back and forth with Rebound; Gate is the trance gate on the bar; Filter sweeps to Sweep to over its length and back after; Drop cuts the gap before the next bar line (a noise falling through it, if you like) and comes back on the one with a sub boom, the tails cut; Build, held, climbs in rungs over its length (the roll doubling on its last rungs, the high-pass, a noise and the space rising, the pitch climbing) and let go lands into Drop on the bar, and its big knob plays the same climb by hand; Wash rises into a hall (TC Verb Mk II's, inside) and lands on the bar, the tail cut; Break takes out the lows, the middle or the highs while held; Throw sends from the next eighth into an echo or the hall for its length, and it rings on; Boom held booms each move's landing. Tape slows the sound to a stop; Half plays the first half of each beat, two beats or bar at half speed; Hover holds the moment in the air in grains; Sweep is the flanger's jet before a drop. Held with a move, Pan sends Roll's repeats left and right, Rise climbs them in pitch, Shuffle draws them from the bar before, Hack crushes, Smack punches, Wobble sweeps the low-pass on the beat. Its presets are named after what trance does with them; Land brings everything back on the next beat or bar. Climb over says how many bars Build climbs; the lane's Library has worked examples, chaos among them; its two LFOs move a target (Roll's rate, the filter, the pan…) on the tempo, LFO 2 able to move LFO 1's rate. The manual has all of it. A pad chosen shows its move's Length (what a tap plays) and landing (at once, on the beat, on the bar, its whole length, or held until pressed again). With its Keys on, the home row plays it (A Build, S Drop, D Gate, F Wash, G Roll, H Break, J Filter) and a MIDI keyboard its whole key map (C2 up Roll's divisions, C3 the moves, C4 the modifiers, C5 Land). Its lane holds moves on the steps you light, one to four bars round and round with the song; Keep take writes in what you just played; Played by gives the moves to another machine's piano roll. Pump ducks it on the beat, the eighth or the key's hits, and the key can open its gate too: a drum machine's kicks, or any channel's sound. A song's lane on one of its Hold knobs plays that move while it is over half. Its Shape page draws Pump's or the gate's shape by hand, a level over an eighth to four bars of the song: click a point in and drag it, drag a segment's dot (or turn the wheel over it) to bend it, double-click a point away; or start from a ready shape (pumps, a hard duck under the kick, the rolling bass with the first sixteenth of each beat left out, gates and swells). The kick its key hears is drawn behind the curve, so the duck can be drawn to it. Its band split gives the lows, the middle and the top each their own share of the dip: the sub ducked hard, the middle lightly. Put it on the master for the whole mix, or on a channel. Squeeze splits what goes through it into three bands (the lows, the middle, the top; Low X and High X set where) and keeps each in a window: above its Top it is pressed down (Down, up to 50:1), under its Bottom it is lifted up (Up, up to 5:1), so a saw bass, a lead or a drum bus comes out dense and even, its tails brought up. Depth is the whole squeeze on one knob; Time makes all three bands faster or slower; each band has its own Gain. Drag a band's Top or Bottom line on its screen (or choose one with the arrow keys and move it); the screen shows each band's level coming in, where the gain takes it, and the last seconds of each band's gain. Match keeps it at the loudness it came in with, so Depth makes it denser, not just louder (the screen says how much louder it comes out either way); Mix blends it under the dry, which comes from the same split, so it never combs. Its presets are named for what they do (Saw Bass, Lead Up Front, Drum Bus, Master Glue, The Heavy One…). It has no latency. Dynamics is the master's compressor and limiter, with their gain reduction lit; its screen draws the curve, what goes in against what comes out, and the gain they took away over the last seconds; its duck lets a bass drum pump every channel but its own drum machine's. Its Multiband group is TC Squeeze as the master's multiband stage, after the master's EQ and before its compressor, as the all-in-one mastering processors had theirs: Bands switches it in (it starts as Master Glue), Depth and Mix are at hand, Open shows its screen and every knob. Off, it is not in the sound at all.
- The arranger: with Song on, each machine plays the regions on its track, and rests between them. A region plays one of the machine's parts round and round for as long as it is: A–P are its parts, each on its steps or in a piano roll of up to 512 bars, and a song is up to 512 bars. A press chooses a region and a double click (or Enter) opens it; while one is open, the region you choose opens in its place. Choose the part new regions play, then double-click an empty bar to put one there (with ✎, press on a track to draw one, or drag along it for a longer one). Drag a region to move it, with Alt or Ctrl held to copy it; pull its end to play the part again, its start to cut in. Nothing in the part changes, and a clip made shorter keeps its notes past the end, silent. A region put over another cuts it back. With a region chosen, the arrows move it, Shift with them makes it longer or shorter, Ctrl+D repeats it and Delete takes it out. Opened, a region shows its part in the dock under the tracks (the arrangement then scrolls on its own over it; pull the line between them for more room, and Escape or × closes it): write in its roll, or in its steps as on its machine's panel, the machine's keys and MIDI going there meanwhile; give its part a name, choose what it plays, repeat it, make its part its own (Make unique), copy it as a new clip to this machine or another of its kind, or play another part instead everywhere. Read a MIDI song gives each of a file's tracks to a machine, as a clip from the first bar. Each Moves unit has a track under the machines': its regions play its lanes A–P (Part on its Lane page), its builds, drops, rolls and gates pressed on their steps; opened, a region shows its lane under the tracks. A lane moves one knob through the song: press on it to put a point, drag a point, double-click it away. The bar numbers set where Play starts. With Patterns on, every machine loops its own pattern as before.
- Project: write what your song is (its title, artist, who wrote it and plays on it, a website, a contact) and it goes into every WAV file the lab saves, as its tags. Save project (or Ctrl+S, ⌘S) saves the whole lab as a .trance file of your own, with your audio tracks' sounds, the A3000's loop, your own pads, the TC Sampler's own sound and TC Stomp's samples; Open project brings it back, here or in another browser. New songstarts from nothing: no parts, arrangement, automation or mixer settings, and an empty rack to put your instruments in. Both ask first, and Undo brings back what was there.
- Full screen, in the transport, takes the lab out of the site to fill the screen (Escape brings it back). Install, where the browser offers it (on an iPhone or iPad: Share, Add to Home Screen), makes it an app of its own, opening in its own window, and it opens without a network once it has been used.
- More instruments and effects: Add, in the rack's bar, puts another of a kind in the rack (up to four of a kind and sixteen in all; each A3000 with a loop of its own, the loop players sharing your own pads), with a channel in the mixer and a track in the arranger of its own. In its head, press its name to give it one of your own, the arrows move it up or down, and × takes it out with its track, parts, lanes and cables, asked first; Undo, in the rack's bar, puts it back. A phone plays eight at once: the ones heard after them in the rack wait, marked "Waits". Drives and modulation units are added the same way, each with its own settings, put into a channel from its front or patched on the back. A drive's display shows its curve, the part of it the signal reaches lit, and its HEAT ladder how much of what comes out the curve has added: the higher, the harder it drives. The Dynamics show what the lab gives out, left, middle and right, the RMS lit fully and the peak above it, with each side's figures below; press them to let the peak holds go. Each channel shows its level on a bar of LEDs beside its fader, and the master under its knobs; folded away, the mixer shows them all in its head. The synths share the voices this device can sound together; past them, the note that started first lets go. A MIDI keyboard plays the one you touched last; a MIDI song's tracks can each go to one in the rack or to a new one, made as it is read in.
- Audio tracks (+ Audio track, up to sixteen) play sound in the song, beside the machines, each with a channel of its own in the mixer and lanes like any knob. Press a track's name to open it: read a sound file in (it lands at the bar Play starts from), or record a take from a microphone, a webcam's or an audio interface, or from the master or a channel of the lab. The song plays while the take is made, and a take from an input is moved earlier by its latency (the browser's figure, or yours in milliseconds). Drag a clip to move it, with Alt or Ctrl to copy it; pull its ends to trim it (on sixteenths, or freely with Shift); a clip put over another cuts it. Opened, a clip can be renamed, turned up or down, looped (pulled longer, it plays its stretch again), split where the playhead is, repeated, saved as WAV or taken out; Pre-verb makes its reverse reverb, the studios' old trick: its start played backwards through Reverb Mk II (a vast hall, or a preset), the tail turned round, a swell of a beat to four bars that rises into the clip and ends where it begins, on a track of its own beside it. The whole track can be saved as WAV too. A track is in bars (its clips stay on the beat when the tempo changes) or in seconds. What you take out comes back with Undo. The sound stays in this browser: a saved mix leaves the audio tracks out.
- The rack: the round button on a machine folds it away to its top strip and brings it back. Back, or Tab with the pointer over the rack, turns it round. There each machine's output is patched into a mixer channel, the bass drums' triggers into the channels they duck (the TC-8k pumps with the 909), and the LFOs into what they move. Pull a cable from one jack to another, or press one jack and then the other; a cable pulled out of an input hangs loose until it goes in again.
- WAV records whole bars of what plays, from the start of a bar, and saves them as a WAV file that loops.
- MIDI: in browsers that have it, the MIDI button lets a keyboard play the machines. Channel 10 strikes the drums by General MIDI's drum notes; the other channels play the machine touched last, and a TC-303 note struck hard is written with an accent. Controllers 74, 71, 1 and 72 turn the cutoff, resonance, envelope and decay of the machine touched last, where it has them, and the pitch wheel bends it; Start and Stop start and stop the lab.
Every sound is made in your browser as it plays, from the lab's own arithmetic, the band's remix kit and what you load yourself, which is never sent anywhere. What you make is kept in this browser and follows you from machine to machine. Saved, it is the lab's for others to play. The band's studio had machines of these kinds from its first synthesizer in 1997 on; each machine's page says which, and what was made with them. Everything else is in the manual.
Comments
Nothing written here yet.
What you write is shown at once, under the name you give. How Talk works · everything written on the site · to write to the band privately: alex@trancecontrol.com