A world of sound, one idea at a time
Make your first sound, build an instrument, write a groove and finish a track. Explore Volta with playable examples and practical guides to synthesis and music production.
New to Volta?
You can begin without programming experience or music notation. Hear what a few lines can do →
Already making music? Try the sound recipe book, or explore the guided course.
Start here#
- Make sound with VoltaVolta is a musical instrument you can write. Describe a sound, give it a rhythm, and change it while it plays. A few words can become a bass line, a…Audio examples included
- Find your way around ReferenceBrowse musical guides, look up commands and try code without leaving Reference. Start with Make sound with Volta, or search for the sound or technique you…
- Your first soundYou can make music in Volta with one line. Choose an instrument, write a few notes, and press Play. Then change one thing and hear what happens. No patch…Audio examples included
- Build a synth soundA synthesizer creates sound from changing signals. You do not need a circuit diagram to begin: choose a starting tone, shape how bright it is, and decide how…Audio examples included
- Rhythm and grooveA rhythm is a pattern of events and spaces. Volta makes both easy to see: words or notes make events, and makes a rest. You can begin with an even pulse, then…Audio examples included
- Melody and harmony by earA melody is a sequence of pitches you can follow. Harmony is what those pitches suggest together, whether they sound at once or across time. You can explore…Audio examples included
- Bring a sound to lifeModulation means changing one part of a sound with another signal. An envelope can close a filter after each note, an LFO can create a repeated wobble, and a…Audio examples included
- Modulation recipesName a musical gesture once, then pass it different controls. These recipes are ordinary editable library functions: the compiler expands them into existing…Audio examples included
- Make music from samplesA sample is a recording you can play as musical material: a drum hit, an instrument note, a loop, or a sound you recorded yourself. Volta can sequence it,…Audio examples included
- Shape space, color and impactEffects change a sound after it is made. Some suggest a room, some add movement or roughness, and some help parts fit together. Start with a clear musical…Audio examples included
- From loop to finished trackA compelling loop is a starting point. A finished track gives its ideas an order, creates contrast, leaves room for each part, and ends deliberately. Volta…Audio examples included
- The sound recipe bookEight small instruments, each ready to play and change. Every example is a complete program. Replace the whole previous example when comparing them. The…Audio examples included
- A musician's glossaryYou do not need to memorize these words. Use this page when a term gets between you and the sound. The explanations describe the musical idea first, followed…
- When something does not sound rightStart with the smallest observation you can make: did the program run, did an event happen, and did audio reach the output? Change one thing at a time. Keep a…Audio examples included
- Learn with guided exercisesFollow short, editable lessons with musical goals, starting with a first sound and building toward more complete pieces.
Design a sound#
- Ready-made instrumentsBrowse a palette of playable instruments when you want to start from a sound and spend your attention on the music.
- Voice signal flowUnderstand how an instrument's source, filter, envelope and output connect, and when to define that path explicitly.
- Filters: shape brightness and resonanceSculpt a sound's frequency balance, from a gentle darkening to a resonant sweep, and choose a filter character for the job.Audio examples included
- Analog characterAdd the small variations that give synthesized sounds character: drift, noise, detuning, pulse shape and changing attacks.
- Unison and layered voicesStack related voices to make a sound fuller or wider, balancing detuning, stereo spread and processing cost.
- FM, phase and ring modulationLet oscillators interact to create glassy keys, metallic bells, animated basses and more complex tones.Audio examples included
- Wavetable synthesisMove through a collection of waveforms to change a tone continuously, using stock tables or tables you define yourself.Audio examples included
- Additive synthesisBuild a tone from individual sine-wave partials, then let their strengths and frequencies change independently.Audio examples included
- Strings, bells and resonating objectsMake sound by exciting modeled strings and resonators, then shape how they vibrate, decay and interact.Audio examples included
- Design a drum kitMake kicks, snares, hats, claps and resonating percussion with synthesized drum voices you can tune and shape.Audio examples included
- Vowels, voice and pitch effectsShape vocal-like resonances and process pitched material with Volta's voice and pitch toolkit.
- The AS3340 oscillatorUse a triangle-core oscillator with adjustable circuit character, sync, linear FM and optional high-quality rendering.
- Analyze and rebuild a soundSeparate a recording into sinusoidal components and residual sound, then reshape the analyzed material during resynthesis.
- Draw a waveform with a functionDefine a waveform mathematically when a standard oscillator shape does not describe the sound you want.
- Match timbre to tuningExplore how a sound's partials and a scale's intervals interact, and shape them together for different kinds of consonance.
- Polyphony and voice managementControl how many notes can sound together, how release tails overlap, and what happens when a voice pool is full.
- Coupled bodiesDesign: Coupled Bodies. Related: Physical Modeling.
- Pulsar synthesisMake independent windowed sound particles repeat as rhythm, voice-like tones or bright, broken subharmonics.
Patterns and harmony#
- Patterns: events over timeDescribe what happens when with notes, samples, rests, subdivisions and transformations of a repeating pattern.Audio examples included
- Combine patterns and controlsLayer patterns, align their structure and merge control information using Volta's pattern operators.
- Control patterns for individual eventsGive hits and notes changing strengths, positions, playback speeds and other values without rewriting their main rhythm.
- Velocity and accentsGive individual events different strengths and let an instrument respond with changes in level or tone.Audio examples included
- Patterns with unitsWrite a sequence of frequencies, durations or other physical values and keep its meaning clear through transformations.
- Chords, scales and harmonyWrite chords, scale degrees and progressions, then transform their register, rhythm and melodic motion.Audio examples included
- Interweaving melodiesWrite independent melodic lines that work together, and use musical constraints to explore their spacing and motion.
- Theory tools and composition workflowVolta provides the musical operations; Studio makes them available from pattern cells. Native and browser Studio use the same Rust implementation. Musical…
- The harmony atlasThe harmony analysis run over the whole song corpus: which progressions the songs use most, a harmonic fingerprint per song, and the songs that share a…
- Tuning systemsExplore different ways of placing pitches within an octave, from familiar equal steps to adaptive and custom tunings.
- Patterns that respond to playbackUse feedback from the running music to influence later choices and explore responsive generative patterns.
Samples and recording#
- The samplerPlay recordings as hits, loops or instruments, with controls for regions, pitch, speed and sample selection.Audio examples included
- Choose sample variantsSelect alternate recordings from a sample bank to add contrast, variation and changing articulation.
- Multisampled instrumentsUse recordings from different keyboard regions and dynamics so an instrument keeps its character across the keyboard and across velocities.
- Slice a recording at its attacksDetect attack points in a recording and rearrange the resulting slices into new rhythms.
- Time-stretching and pitch-shiftingChange a recording's duration and pitch with the available stretching controls, and understand the tradeoffs of each mode.
- Keep a loop in timeUse a recording's source tempo to keep loop playback aligned with the project's tempo.
- Granular synthesisTurn a recording into overlapping grains, with independent control over their position, duration, pitch and timing. The same Rust scheduler and readers run on…Audio examples included
- Resample your own soundsRender a musical idea into audio you can reuse as a sample, turning synthesis and processing into new source material.
- Freeze a track to save CPURender one track once in the background and play that print in its place, so a slow machine spends its CPU only on the tracks you are still changing.Audio examples included
- Play a complete imported songA complete-song source lets one score play another score's full arranged performance through its own filters and effects. Design: Complete Song Source.
- Create samples from synthesisRender a defined sound into a sample value and reuse that material in a different musical role.
- Recording and takesRecord several passes, choose the best phrases and combine them into a new performance. Recorded audio takes are separate from source-history snapshots and…
- Save ideas, compare versions and record takesUse History to keep musical ideas, hear alternatives and recover an earlier song or one part. History is the song's journal: every change you hear is…
- Record a loopCapture audio into a reusable loop and bring that recording back into the musical flow.
- Capture an instrument as samplesTurn an instrument into a reusable sample bank by recording notes across its range and keeping their root pitches organized.
- Remote samples: a streaming track as a sampleName eight seconds of a track on Spotify in your song, and each desktop that plays the song captures that span locally and plays it like any sample.
- Pin a print: keep a bounce as a song-local sampleKeep a bounceOf or sampleOf render you like as a file beside the song, so it plays exactly as it is however the source above it changes.
- Import an SFZ instrumentTurn an existing SFZ instrument into a Volta sample bank you can play by name.
- Generate samples with Magenta RealTime 2Design: Magenta Realtime and Magenta Instruments. Create sounds locally in Volta Studio on an Apple Silicon Mac, then use the results as ordinary samples in…
Movement and control#
- Macros and automationConnect controls to sound parameters, automate their movement, and shape several musical changes with one gesture.Audio examples included
- Draw a change, and record oneA filter that opens once over twenty-four bars is one gesture. A reverb that comes up in the breakdown is one curve on the reverb, not a scene per bar. A…
- Glide between notesConnect pitches with a slide, from a quick bass scoop to a long portamento, and control how notes retrigger.
- Make one sound follow anotherUse the changing level of an audio signal to control a parameter, creating musical movement between parts.
- Motion from physical simulationsUse simulated motion as a control source for musical changes that evolve differently from a simple repeating LFO.
- Musical time for patterns and signalsConnect musical durations, pattern transformations and continuous controls using the supported time rules.
Effects and mixing#
- The effects referenceLook up the processors that add space, movement, color and dynamics, with their arguments, placement rules and detailed behavior.Audio examples included
- EQ and frequency balanceShape the balance of bass, mids and treble, inspect a spectrum, and make space for different parts of a mix.
- Mixing tracks and busesBalance levels, place sounds in stereo, route shared effects and shape the combined output of a song.
- Mastering and deliveryPrepare a finished mix for export, with controls for dynamics, loudness, peak level, format and the final tail.
- Tape echo and tape colorAdd repeats with tape-like movement and softening, or use the tape model's color without an echo.
- Bucket-brigade chorus and delayExplore the blurred repeats and moving pitch of bucket-brigade effects, including classic chorus modes.
- Convolution: recorded spaces and colorsApply a recorded impulse response to a track to borrow the reflections of a space or the color of a system.
- Spectral effectsTransform sound in the frequency domain, including effects that reshape or retain its spectral character.
- Position sounds in spacePlace a sound in a modeled listening space and explore how position affects its output.
- Build a feedback loopFeed part of a signal back through a processor to create resonances, repeating textures and evolving tones.
- Route audio between tracksUse one track's audio inside another sound, from layered processing to vocoding and other interactions.
Compose and perform#
- Arrange a songChoose when each part enters, create contrasting sections, and shape the transitions that give a piece its form.
- Write a song as a timelineSay where each part plays and how long it lasts, instead of listing every combination of parts as a scene. A pad that runs for sixty-four bars is one region;…
- The production handbookA detailed working handbook for sound design, rhythm, harmony, arrangement, mixing and checking a finished Volta piece.
- Tempo changes and independent clocksShape tempo over time and understand how tracks with different clock behavior fit into the song.
- Schedule events on a timelinePlace an event at a particular point or play it once when a repeating pattern is not the right description.
- Tape stops and spin-upsSlow audio toward a stop or bring it up to speed as a transition or expressive gesture.
- Timed live processesSchedule a sequence of actions over musical time, alongside the repeating patterns in a song.
- Change music while it playsDevelop patterns and sounds during playback, using live editing and visual feedback to keep track of the result.
- Deterministic renderingThe same song renders the same samples every time — on first play, on replay, after a reload and on another machine — because every random value is computed…
- Continuous mixes with Auto-DJSequence tracks into a continuous listening session using the available automatic mixing controls.
Work in Studio#
- Find your way into StudioChoose a starting activity and learn how the first-run experience leads into the Studio workspace.
- Make a song by writing only patternsThe Produce workspace is Studio's DAW workflow, Volta-flavoured: the only thing you type is the pattern each track plays. Everything else is a one-to-one…Audio examples included
- Arrange — write and arrange with the agentThe Arrange workspace is Studio's agentic-DAW view. The arrangement is drawn in the colours of the song's patterns, which are listed down the left; the…
- The Studio workspaceFind your way around the workspace for writing, hearing and shaping a song, from Source and the notebook to the mixer, Rack and timeline.
- Workspace layoutsMove panes and save layouts. Workspace arrangements stay independent of the selected theme and the music in your song.
- Interaction preferencesTune how knobs, faders and the XY pad respond to your hand, and keep a strip of your own command buttons. These preferences are yours. They do not change with…
- SkinsGive the workbench a new look from a small JSON file that stays readable by construction.
- Skin artwork and format-2 packsGive a skin its own pictures: an illustrated window frame, pane-header artwork and knob ornaments, carried in one portable pack.
- Skin control facesDraw your own knob, fader, display and meter faces in a skin. The faces change how a control looks, never how it behaves.
- Designing a workbench packBuild a whole workbench look — artwork, control faces and a matching workspace layout — and review it before anyone installs it.
- Songs and filesKeep several songs open, identify the one that is live, and organize sources, versions and library material.
- The live notebookExplore a song through notebook cards that combine source, visual tools, inspection and listening.
- Try an idea in the notebookUse the notebook prompt to inspect a value, transform a pattern or audition an idea alongside your song. Keep a successful experiment as a named definition.
- Type what you want doneThe command bar turns a short sentence into a mix move, an effect, a tempo change — or takes you somewhere: a view, a control, a page of this manual, a bar of…
- Edit music in the notebookUse the notebook's visual tools to change notes, envelopes, grooves and samples. Edits update the song's code, so you can move between a control and the…
- Pattern rolls and phrase editingSee how a pattern unfolds, edit a phrase together, and compare the result by ear. Open roll on a notebook pattern or choose Roll in Bay Compose.
- Read a rhythm as a circleSee a repeating pattern around a wheel to compare event positions, accents and relationships between cycles.
- See what is playing nowWatch only the sounding parts scroll past a fixed play-head.
- Patch Bay and RackExplore how a sound is connected and edit its modules, parameters and signal flow in the visual patch workspace.
- Inspect a patchExplore a patch's parameters and structure to connect a control change with the sound it produces.
- Keep and reuse patchesSave useful sounds on the patch shelf and bring them into later musical ideas.
- Morph between patchesExplore intermediate sounds between compatible patches and decide which parameter relationships should move together.
- Play a track through MIRAOpen MIRA, the synthtoys polysynth, in a floating window on any track of the running song. The window is MIRA's own page, with its knobs, blocks, scenes,…
- Shape modulation in RoutesOpen Rack → Routes to see which controls move each parameter, then change literal modulation depths directly. Desktop and browser use the same controls.
- See a signal on its controlRead a control's changing value directly in the workbench using the signal overlay.
- Link a note to its sourceClick a Timeline note to see where it was written and what transformed it. It also shows where else the same written note sounds, and lets you change it in…
- Measure a kernel case by caseThe kernel lab shows why a filter responds the way it does, one case at a time. Feed a DSP subject of your song an impulse, a step or a seeded noise burst,…
- The harmony LensSee the harmony of the compiled song where you work — a chord lane on the Map, hints in the source, a chord chip in the transport, and a Lens panel with a…
- Play, trim and step the song's samples on padsThe Pads view puts every sample your song plays on a pad you can hit, trim, choke and step, and writes each change back into the song's source.
- Visual synthesisDraw with the same source that plays. vis. builds an image from fields of space and time, musical controls move it, feedback remembers it, and a fixed…
- See patterns and signalsInspect Volta values with viewers that reveal timing, waveforms, spectra and other properties of the music.
- Edit source through musical structureMake supported changes through structural tools while keeping the song's text as the editable source.
- Tell a story with a songPresent music as a readable notebook of prose, code and musical views that explain how the piece unfolds.
- Write music with explanationsCombine a song's source with prose so the musical decisions and the code can be read together.
- Versions, history and comparisonsKeep useful stages of a song, compare alternatives, and return to an earlier idea without losing the current one. Designs: Versioning, Take History and Takes…
- Create with CopilotAsk a producer, sound designer and language guide sitting inside the workbench. Have it explain a patch you inherited, say why the bass is muddy, critique the…
- Explore choices with constraintsLeave a musical choice open and ask Volta to find a value that meets the constraints you write.
- Accessibility and keyboard controlsFind the keyboard, focus, contrast and screen-reader support available in Studio.
- Doctor: trace a silent signalFollow the audio path to investigate why a part is silent or why an expected signal is missing.
- Production tools in StudioFind the production-oriented workbench tools and the detailed references that describe their current behavior.
- Read Studio's visual feedbackUnderstand the visual cues that connect controls, patterns, signals and musical state across the workbench.
- Render on every coreVolta can render each audio block's tracks on several CPU cores at once. The audio is bit-for-bit the audio one core renders — the same samples, the same WAV…
- Run DSP on the GPUOn an Apple-silicon Mac, two kinds of work can go to the GPU: the tail of a long convolve reverb, and a modalCloud — a bank of up to 32 768 tuned resonators…
Connect and share#
- Live audio inputBring a microphone or line input into Volta and process the incoming sound with a patch.
- Send MIDI to instrumentsUse Volta patterns to send notes and controls to MIDI instruments, with timing and device setup made explicit.
- Connect controllers and other softwareBring MIDI controls, synchronized clocks and messages from other tools into your music-making workflow.
- Turn audio into musical eventsLet attacks in one audio signal trigger another instrument, connecting a recorded or live rhythm to new sounds.
- Follow the pitch of live audioEstimate the pitch of an incoming signal and use it to guide another sound or control.
- Host instrument and effect pluginsUse installed plugins in the supported desktop host, save useful states, and understand their playback and export requirements.
- Explore plugin sounds with CopilotExplore an installed instrument in a separate session, compare candidate sounds, and keep the ones you choose as presets.
- Use Volta from your own AI agent (MCP)Connect Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex or any other Model Context Protocol client to Volta. It gets the compiler, the renderer and this reference as…
- Neural sound transformationExplore model-based audio transformation and generation, with the required model packages and supported host paths made explicit.
- Invite someone to VoltaVolta is in a private beta, so making an account needs an invite. An invite is a link you send to one person; they open it, sign in with GitHub or Discord,…
- Share music and collaborateExplore the sharing and collaboration workflows, with availability and account requirements described for each service.
- Import and export music filesMove musical material between Volta and other tools using the supported file formats and export workflows.
- Use Volta as a pluginRun Volta as an instrument inside a supported plugin host and connect the song to its musical environment.
- Export a patch as an instrument pluginPackage a Volta patch as a CLAP instrument for use in another music application, within the supported export limits.
- Send feedbackReport a problem or share an observation from Studio, with enough context to make it useful.
Language and libraries#
- Language referenceThe complete guide to Volta syntax, values and commands, with links to musical explanations and detailed feature pages.Audio examples included
- Read and write pattern pipesRead a chain from its starting pattern through each transformation, and use named arguments when a call needs more clarity.
- Named options and parameter valuesWrite optional settings by name, reuse groups of options, and choose values with the units a command expects.
- Name and reuse tracksBuild variations from a named track while keeping the original part and its musical identity clear.
- The standard libraryImport reusable instruments, patterns and helpers, then adapt them to your own songs.
- Reuse sounds and patterns with importsReuse sounds and patterns by importing their definitions. A module is an ordinary Volta file: you can share a few voices, a pattern collection or a complete…
- Names and library importsKeep names clear when combining modules, and qualify a name when more than one library defines it.
- Configurable library modulesReuse a module with a chosen configuration so one library can serve several related sounds or musical roles.
- Functions and reusable ideasGive a repeated musical idea a name, turn it into a function, and combine it with other values.
- Generate and transform musical structuresUse list operations, functions and records to build reusable musical structures beyond handwritten patterns.
- Define your own value typesFor advanced authors: describe reusable kinds of values so functions and modules can communicate their intent more clearly.
- Format and modernize sourceKeep a song's text readable and preview supported syntax migrations with the formatter.
For contributors#
- Temporal coreThe volta-time Rust crate implements Stage 0 of Unified Timeline: reusable content, independent regions of every anchor domain, bounded queries, per-receiver…
- Read Reference on the webRead the same musical guides on the public site, hear featured examples, and continue into Studio when you want to edit.
- Language server and editor supportFor editor users and contributors: connect Volta's diagnostics, completion and navigation to a supported code editor.
- Embed Volta in another applicationFor developers: use Volta's C interface to compile and render music from a host application.
- Contribute a language featureA contributor checklist for connecting a new command to the compiler, audio engine, editor and documentation.
- Write a custom audio processorFor advanced authors: define a small DSP kernel when the built-in signal processors do not cover your idea.
- Write a spectral effectFor advanced authors: write your own frequency-domain effect as a per-bin law — gates, tilts, freezes, blurs, robot voices, bin shifts and cross-synthesis in…
- DSP cookbookShort, tested recipes for writing your own filters, delays, reverbs, dynamics and distortion in Volta — each with the reason it is written that way.
- Understand audio processing costUse cost N to compare patches before playback. Click the DSP cell of the transport readout (dsp N%) while playing to investigate measured engine load.
- How Volta checks audio qualityFor contributors: the automated render checks for silence, numerical failures, clicks, decay and repeatability.
- One audio engine across hostsFor readers comparing hosts: the shared audio engine contract and the historical compatibility differences it replaced.
- Build and release processFor contributors: the packaging, verification and release process for distributing Volta.