hover anything for the why
bass and chords · 112 bpmThe spectrum under the filter: grey is the raw saw, blue is what passes. Drag the gold curve to move the cutoff.
Level
Play runs the sixteen steps round, a bar a pass. Hold: no filter opens the cutoff to 12 kHz while you hold it, so you hear what the filter is taking away. The space bar plays and stops.
Time134ms
112bpm↕tempo
swing 0%
a step, every one on the grid
The clock. A step is a sixteenth of a bar at the tempo, so the milliseconds change with it. Swing holds every second sixteenth back by a fraction of a step: the gold dotted lines on the grid are where those steps really sound.
Filter1.4 kHz
cutoff
res 30%
3.0 dB at the corner
One low-pass filter setting for every note. Cutoff is where the cut begins; harmonics above it lose level at 12 dB an octave. Resonance is the lift at the corner, in dB. The Filter sweep preset moves the cutoff itself; touch the dial and the sweep stops.
Env
320 ms
The amplifier's envelope: it opens in 6 ms and closes over the decay. On this bench the envelope is on the amplifier, not the cutoff, so the two can be told apart.
Keysnone yetlast key
play a key, or type its letter
The same voice the sequencer plays, from the mouse or the letters printed on the keys. Sequenced notes light their keys as they sound: gold for the bass, purple for the chord. Record arms real-time input: each key you play lands on the nearest step of the Bass row, quantised on entry.
What you should hear
23 litof 80 steps
6 · 2bass notes · chords
134 msa sixteenth at 112
no questionpress a preset to set one
all from the grid, the clock and the filter
Every number here comes from the state: how many steps are lit and of what, what a sixteenth is at this tempo, and where the pattern stands against the question the preset set.