Play, trim and step the song's samples on pads

Held from the first release. The Pads view has no menu or header entry in this release; the sample-window and choke lanes it writes still work in source.

The 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.

The grid#

Open View ▸ Sound Views ▸ Pads (the route is pads). The view shows a 4×4 grid of pads with four pages (64 pads), and an inspector for the selected pad. The pads come from the source and the running song. Nothing is stored beside them.

• A pad is one sample that a track plays. Each distinct sample of a sound track gets a pad (kit = sound !"bd sn hh" makes three). A play track whose patch source is sample "…" gets one pad.
• Pads are listed in track order, then in the order each sample first plays.
• A track that is not written in this song has no pads. That includes an imported track, or one composed with stack and the like.
• Each pad shows its sample and track. It also shows the sample's outline, its key, and its cut group: a coloured band and cut N.
• A pad lights while the song plays one of its hits, and when you play it by hand.

Playing a pad#

• Click a pad to play it and select it.
• Keys 1 2 3 4 / Q W E R / A S D F / Z X C V play the page, laid out like the grid. They work while a pad has the keyboard focus (clicking a pad gives it the focus). They also work when nothing has the focus and the on-screen keys strip is closed.
• MIDI notes 36–51 play the visible page in reading order: pad 1 is note
  36. While the view is up, those notes go to the pads instead of the MIDI target synth.

A sound pad plays what its track would play for that sample: inside its begin/end window, at the track's speed, with its gain multiplied into the velocity (as the song's gain lane does), reversed when the track has |> reverse 1, and with its variant. A click or key plays at the song's own base velocity (0.85); a MIDI pad plays at its note velocity.

Pad auditions are polyphonic. Up to 16 ring at once; a 17th cuts the oldest one. A pad with a cut group chokes the pad auditions still sounding in that group, as an onset in the song does. Pads never cut a Library preview or the song, and the transport's Stop ends them.

A play pad plays its patch at the track's first note, with the track's gain multiplied into the velocity.

Dropping a sound#

• Drop a Library sound on a pad to replace that pad's sample. Every written atom of that sample on the track is rewritten (bd → kick). On a play pad the patch's sample "…" literal is rewritten instead.
• Drop on an empty pad to add a track, <name>Pad = sound !"<sample>". If the song's source writes out the playing scene's list, the track joins that scene. Otherwise it is added as a plain track, and the toast tells you to add it to a scene.
• Drop an audio file from the desktop on a pad to import it, as you can anywhere in the desktop app. The pad then takes the first imported sound, as above. The browser does not import dropped files.

The inspector#

The inspector edits the track's own lanes. Pads that share a track share these controls, and the inspector says so.

• speed is written as a plain number, the one-step lane (Control patterns for individual events); a one-step pattern an older edit left (speed !"1.2") still reads as an editable constant.
• Drag a handle on the waveform to set begin and end. Whole sample resets both.
• Each cut group has a colour. It appears on the group's chip, on the band across the top of each pad in the group, and on the step row. Under the chips, the inspector names the other pads in the group.
• A lane written as a pattern, such as |> cut !"0 1", is shown but never overwritten. Edit it in Source.
• A sound pad's reverse is the track's lane |> reverse 1, so it reverses every hit of the track (Control patterns for individual events). A patterned |> reverse !"0 1" is shown, not overwritten.

Step entry#

The step row is one cycle of the track in sixteenths. Toggling a step rewrites the track's pattern literal as one sixteen-step row per sample, joined with ,:

kit = sound !"bd ~ bd ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ bd ~ ~ ~, hh ~ ~ ~ hh ~ ~ ~ hh ~ ~ ~ hh ~ ~ ~"

A play pad writes its note instead of a sample name.

Hit length offers two forms. One sixteenth writes each hit one step long, as above. Until the next hit writes each hit weighted to hold until the next hit of its row, or to the cycle's end:

kit = sound !"bd@12 bd@4, hh@4 hh@4 hh@4 hh@4, ~@8 sn@8"

The row reads the form the pattern is written in, and a step edit keeps it. On a play pad this is the note length. A sound voice rings on up to two seconds past its event's end, or until its buffer runs out (The sampler). So the held form lets a long sample ring to its end when the gap to the next hit plus two seconds covers it.

The row is offered only when the track's pattern is one literal (or a name for one) that this track alone plays. Its pattern must repeat every cycle, every hit must fall on a sixteenth, and no hit may carry per-note controls. Otherwise the row says why and the pattern stays as written.

Before a step edit lands, the new source is compiled, and its hits must match the steps the row meant. If a track-level fast or slow would reshape the timing, the edit is refused rather than written wrong.

How an edit lands#

• Each edit is compiled before it is written. An edit that adds an error changes nothing, and the inspector says why.
• Each edit is one Undo step. While you hold a value bar or a waveform handle, it shows a draft. It writes once, when you let go.
• If the source on screen is what is playing, the edit is installed at once, as if you had pressed ⌘↵. Otherwise it is written as a draft.
• The inspector is read-only for a parked song, an import tab or a live room.

Layout#

The page chips and the play hint stay at the top. In the side panel the grid stays under them and the inspector scrolls below it. When the panel is too short for both, the grid and inspector scroll together. In a panel at least 760 points wide, the grid and the inspector sit side by side, and each scrolls on its own.

Notes & limits#

• A pad audition's cut chokes only other pad auditions, not the song's voices. Song voices do not choke pad auditions either.
• A pad whose lane is a pattern auditions that lane at its default (gain 1, speed 1, the whole window, forward).
• A play pad's audition applies its gain only. Its begin/end and cut apply when the song plays it.
• A sound hit with no |> reverse reads forward. The track lane also works on play tracks: it ORs with the patch's own |> reverse.
• When a shell has no decoded waveform for a sound yet, the inspector draws the Library thumbnail instead.