Pulse
The music studio: arrangement, piano roll, instruments and VST, a mixer, and a live read-out of what the audio engine is costing.
In one line#
Write, arrange and mix a track: instruments and VST plugins on an arrangement timeline, with a piano roll underneath and a mixer down the side.
The layout#
| Menu bar | File · Edit · the VST menu · View · Plugins |
| Transport | play, stop, the position clock, BPM, the time signature, the metronome |
| Top right | the project name and save state, undo/redo, save, open, export, share, master volume, the audio-engine switch, the track count, VST Browser, Mixer |
| Left | Instruments, Tools, Master, Record |
| Centre | the arrangement, one row per track |
| Bottom | Piano Roll · Waveform · Quick Mix |
| Right | Mixer · Drums · FX · Auto |
| Bottom right | the system read-out: CPU, RAM, latency, active voices |
What you do here#
Tracks and instruments#
+ Add Track, then give it a sound: pick one of the fourteen built-in instruments from the browser, or + VST to load a plugin. They have a chapter of their own.
Each track row carries S (solo), M (mute) and R (record-arm).
Write notes#
The Piano Roll is the bottom pane. Draw notes with the pencil, erase, move,
and set the grid: 1/4 by default, with Snap on. The velocity control sits
next to the zoom. The read-out says how many notes are on the selected track,
which is the fastest way to notice you are editing the wrong one.
Waveform is the same pane for audio rather than MIDI; Quick Mix is a fast level pass without opening the mixer.
Arrange#
Clips on the timeline, with Loop and Snap on the bar. + Marker drops a section marker; Automation opens the automation lanes.
Mix#
The Mixer tab on the right gives every track a strip: volume, pan, mute, solo. Drums, FX and Auto are the other three tabs over the same tracks: the drum editor, the effect chain, and automation.
Master is on the left, with its own level and a ready indicator.
The extra tools#
| Score View | notation rather than a piano roll |
| Slice | chop a sample into playable pieces |
| Comping | assemble one good take from several |
| Spectral | frequency-domain editing |
| SFX Forge | designed sound effects rather than musical notes |
Record#
ARM on the left, and R on the track you want to capture.
Watch the system read-out#
Bottom right: CPU, RAM, latency in milliseconds, and the number of voices currently sounding. When playback starts to crackle, that panel says which of the four ran out.
The instrument rack#
Fourteen instruments ship with Pulse, in nine categories, and they are not fourteen presets of one synth, each is a different synthesis method, which is the part worth knowing when you are picking one.
| Instrument | Family | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|
| ORB Synthesizer | synths | wavetable, with morphing between tables |
| SynthWave | synths | the 80s: analogue-style, bright, nostalgic |
| Helios FM | synths | 4-operator FM: bells, e-pianos, brass stabs, metallic leads |
| TESSERA | synths | four-corner vector synth: morph sine, triangle, saw and pulse through a resonant motion filter |
| Ragnarok Bass | bass | aggressive, heavy bass |
| AmbientPad | pads | atmospheric, spacious |
| Choir Voices | vocal | choir and voices, with harmonies |
| Chiptune | retro | authentic 8-bit, 4-channel engine |
| DrumEditor | drums | drum machine with a sample library |
| Vault | drums | 808/909, a 16-step sequencer and twelve synthesised drums |
| Freya Harp | strings | Karplus-Strong physical modelling, with body resonance |
| Aria Strings | strings | ensemble string machine, 3-phase chorus, delayed vibrato |
| MATERIA | mallets | struck modal resonator: wood, glass, steel and stone bodies → marimbas, bells, tongue drums, gamelan |
| SFX | fx | layered sound-effect designer: stack procedural sfxr sounds and real samples into one patch, then play it pitched from the piano roll |
Three of them are physical or spectral models rather than subtractive synths Freya, MATERIA and Helios, which is why they respond to how hard you play rather than only to how loud.
+ VST loads a plugin beside them, and the browser sorts everything by category with a size and a version.
The chiptune engine, specifically#
The Chiptune instrument is a 4-channel 8-bit engine, and it exposes the period-correct controls rather than hiding them behind a modern envelope: duty cycle, bit depth, detune, an arpeggiator with up / down / up-down / random, a drum channel, delay with feedback, and its own BPM. It is the instrument to reach for when the piece is for Pixel or a retro Engine build.
SFX Forge#
The sound-design half of Pulse, and a studio in its own right rather than a preset list. Six panels:
| Patch Editor | build the sound itself |
| Mod Matrix | route any modulator to any destination |
| FX Chain | the effect chain on the patch |
| Variation Lab | generate variations of one sound, twelve footsteps rather than one played twelve times |
| Preset Browser | what ships, and what you save |
| Batch Export | render the whole set in one pass |
The Variation Lab plus Batch Export is the pair that matters for a game: a library of non-identical variants, exported together.
The other tool panels#
| Spectral Editor | edit in the frequency domain: remove a cough from a take, not just duck it |
| Comping | assemble one good take from several |
| Slice | chop a sample into playable pieces |
| Score View | notation instead of a piano roll |
| Audio Tools and Audio Options | the processing utilities and the engine settings |
| Level Meter | metering, next to the mixer |
Files it reads and writes#
| Native format | .daw |
| Imports / exports | .wav, .mp3 |
Sending work to other studios#
Produces an audio project. Accepts audio projects.
Audio also reaches Fusion for a video soundtrack and Engine for a game's audio, through the file library.
Shortcuts#
Space plays and stops · Z undoes · S saves. They are printed at the bottom
of the window.
Working with someone else#
Pulse syncs operation by operation: tracks created, deleted, updated and duplicated; notes added, deleted and updated; clips; tempo; the transport state; and the master.
Limits and common snags#
- Crackling is a budget problem, not a bug. Read the CPU / voices panel; freeze or bounce a heavy track.
- Latency depends on the browser and the device, and is reported live.
- The metronome follows the time signature, so change the signature before recording, not after.
- A VST is loaded per track. The VST browser is reachable from the top bar.