Scale mode R6

Choose the key the note keyboard plays in. R6 opens it, and that button is the only way in from the grid — no Shift layer hides it; the panel’s SCALE button is the other. R1 returns to Note mode.

The top device is Scale mode, with the pads labelled as the simulator labels them. The one below is what Note mode’s keyboard becomes: the note each pad plays, printed on it, from the root in the track’s octave (2 by default, so C2 = MIDI 36) at bottom left, rising one scale note per pad to the right and then upwards. Roots are tinted in the track colour. Tap a key there to see what it writes.

• Top two rows pick the root note. A piano from C to C, black keys above white keys. The keys glow lightly and the selected root is green. Either C pad selects C.
• Bottom four rows pick the scale, in reading order starting with Major. The selected scale is green, the rest dim blue.
• The root and scale belong to the project and are saved with it. They set the keyboard of every track that follows the song’s key.
• Picking a scale also lines the keyboard up: rows of a 7-note scale each hold one octave, so the same note can sit on two pads and both light up together.
• Steps that already hold notes outside the new scale keep playing them; they are just no longer on the keyboard.
• Bottom row, last two pads: the selected track’s keyboard. Pad 7 is Drums and pad 8 is Own scale. In use, Own scale lights in the track’s colour and Drums in amber, and the other stays dim; picking one replaces the other, and tapping the lit pad again goes back to the song’s key. Each track keeps its own setting, saved with the project.
• Own scale lets a track play in a different scale from the song, say a lead on minor pentatonic over a bass on natural minor. Each time you turn it on it starts as a copy of the song’s key, so nothing changes until you pick. While it’s on, the piano and scale list change only this track: its root and scale light in the track’s colour, and the song’s key stays as a faint green hint so you can see both. Turning it off drops the track’s scale, and the track follows the song again.
• For a keyboard with every note, turn on Own scale and pick Chromatic; pick root C to start on C.
• Drums turns the keyboard into two 4×4 blocks of drum pads, like a drum machine. See Note mode.
• Bottom row, pads 5 and 6: TRIAD and 7TH. With one of them lit, a single key of the Note mode keyboard plays a whole chord — three or four notes of the scale, stacked in thirds from the key you pressed — so the chord always belongs to the key. They light violet, one at a time; picking one replaces the other, and tapping the lit one goes back to one key, one note. Per track, saved with the project. SHIFT + a key still plays the single note. Chords, Drums and Piano roll are three ways to use the same grid, so picking any one drops the other two — a drum track has no scale to build a chord from, and the roll has no keyboard to play one on. Own scale is not in that group: a chord is built from whatever scale the track uses, so the two go together.
• Bottom row, pad 1: Piano roll. It sits alone at the left end of the row, with dark pads between it and the four on the right: those four say what the keys play, while this one puts a different grid on screen altogether. Note mode then shows the selected track as a piano roll, steps across and notes of its scale up the grid. The pad lights white when on; tap it again for the steps and keyboard. It works together with Drums or Own scale — its rows then follow that keyboard — but not with chords, which need a keyboard to play from. Each track keeps its own setting. See Note mode.
• Learning the pads: the simulator prints on each pad what it picks: the note names on the piano, the scale names (long ones broken over two lines, such as MIXO-/LYDIAN), and PIANO ROLL at one end of the bottom row, TRIAD, 7TH, DRUMS and OWN SCALE at the other.

Drum pads

With DRUMS on, the track has no scale at all: the keyboard becomes two 4×4 blocks of consecutive semitones, laid out like a drum machine’s pads. Each block rises left to right and then bottom to top, so the bottom-left pad is the lowest note — C2, a kick in General MIDI. The left block is C2–D#3 (MIDI 36–51), the right E3–G4 (52–67), and the left is brighter so the two read apart. Tap DRUMS above to see it.

• The root tint and the octave rows are gone, because there is no root: every pad is just the next note up. Nothing on the grid is out of key, because the track is not in one.
• The left block is a GM kit in order: kick, side stick, snare and clap along the bottom, then the hats and toms, with the cymbals at the top. The default note of each track is a GM drum sound too.
• A drum track ignores the song’s key and its own scale: picking a root or a scale while DRUMS is on changes what the track would play if you turned DRUMS off again, and nothing else.
• SHIFT + the top-left or bottom-left pad still moves both blocks an octave.

One key, one chord

With TRIAD or 7TH lit, one key plays three or four notes instead of one: the key’s own note, and the rest taken from the same scale two steps at a time. Turn one on above and tap a key — the whole chord lights, every second pad, which is what “stacked in thirds” looks like on this keyboard.

• Nothing decides the chord but the scale, so it is always in key and its quality follows the degree you played. In C major the keys give C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor and B diminished; in C minor the same keys give C minor, D diminished, E♭ major, F minor, G minor, A♭ major and B♭ major. In a five-note scale the same rule gives wider chords. Tap through them above.
• A seventh is four notes, exactly what a step holds, so a seventh fills a step and a second key held with it adds nothing.
• It works wherever a key does: press one to hear the chord, hold a step and press a key to write it onto that step, press the same key again on the held step to lift it back out, or play it in while REC is on.
• SHIFT + a key plays that one note, for a line inside a chord track. The outer two columns still move the octave.
• The keyboard carries a hint of the track colour while chords are on, so you can see the track is in chords before you play one.
• Per track and saved with the project, and exclusive with Drums and the piano roll — a drum track has no scale to build a chord from, and the roll has no keyboard to play one on. Try it above: turning one on turns the others off. Own scale is not in that group, since the chord is built from whatever scale the track uses.