Song SHIFT + R2

The scenes in the order they play, and the transport follows it: press PLAY here and the box plays the arrangement. Every step lasts four bars, so a longer section is the same scene in several steps. It opens on SHIFT + R2 — the step parameters’ layer, the other end of the same work — or on the panel’s SONG button.

• Top four rows: the 32 scenes, as in Scene mode — grey empty, blue holds a scene, green sounding. This is the palette to build from.
• Bottom four rows: the 32 song steps. A filled step takes its scene’s colour: scenes 1–8 get the eight track colours, and the later banks the same colours dimmed. An empty step is nearly dark.
• Hold a song step and tap a scene to put that scene there. While the step is held, the scene it already plays lights up in the palette, so you can see what is in it before changing it.
• PLAY pressed here plays the song. It starts at the step the marker is on, each step holds its scene for four bars, empty steps are skipped, and it loops back to the beginning at the end. The step playing is bright white; press PLAY again to stop.
• Tap a song step to go there. While the song is playing it jumps, and that section starts its four bars from the jump; while stopped it just marks the place and plays its scene.
• Tapping a scene takes over. The song stops moving on — the music keeps playing, and the marker dims to show it is only where you left off. Press PLAY twice (stop, play) to hand it back.
• CLEAR + a step empties it, leaving a hole the song will skip. DUPLICATE + step + step repeats a section, which is how a chorus gets its second half.
• Tapping a scene on its own launches it on the next bar, blinking until it lands, exactly as in Scene mode, so the palette stays live while you work. Tapping a song step, on the other hand, goes there at once: that is navigating, not performing.
• A scene has to hold something before it can go in the song: capture it in Scene mode first.
• The song is saved with the project. It opens on SHIFT + R2 — Shift + F2 in the simulator, or SONG in the mode bar — and on the panel’s SONG button. R2 lights while you are here, since this is its Shift layer, and a tap of it on its own goes back to the step parameters.

Writing one

1. Build your sections in Scene mode — intro, verse, drop.
2. SHIFT + R2, or SONG on the panel, for the song.
3. Hold the first step, tap the intro scene. Hold the next, tap the verse. Keep going.
4. For a sixteen-bar section, put the same scene in four steps in a row — or fill one and use DUPLICATE to repeat it.
5. Tap any step to hear the song from there, and press PLAY to let it play itself.

Not yet

• Every step is four bars, and a bar is 16 steps. Per-step lengths can come later without disturbing a song written now.
• The song loops rather than ending. When it runs out of filled steps it goes back to the first one, so it never leaves silence.
• Playing from elsewhere ignores the song. PLAY outside this mode is the plain transport — a loop of whatever each track has selected.
• A scene carries which tracks are silent and which pattern each one plays, so a song step is a real section. What it doesn't carry yet is the tempo or the key.