One space: the levels

PERFORM, PATCH, EVOLVE, TASTE and LEARNING are not pages. They are levels of one space around the sound you’re playing: zoom out to hear it among every sound, zoom in to see what it is made of, and step beside it to breed what it could become. ⌘K finds anything in any of them.

Where each level is

The menu bar names the level you’re at, with its line beside it:

The levels at the right edge of the stage draw this as a cross: a stop for each level, out at the top, in at the bottom, and EVOLVE’s stop branching left of PERFORM’s. The stop you’re at is lit. The app opens at PERFORM, or at the level you were at last time, and a link that ends in a level’s name (…/play/#taste) opens that level.

Move between them

1. Click a stop on the levels.
2. Or press ⌥↑ to zoom out and ⌥↓ to zoom in, ⌥← to go beside it to EVOLVE and ⌥→ to come back. From EVOLVE, out goes to TASTE and in to PATCH.
3. Or press ⌥1 to ⌥5 to go straight to PERFORM, PATCH, EVOLVE, TASTE or LEARNING (Alt off Apple platforms).
4. Or hold ⌥ and turn the wheel, one level a turn; a trackpad’s pinch does the same, except over PATCH’s patch, which it zooms instead.
5. On a touch screen, spread two fingers to zoom in and pinch to zoom out.
6. On a phone held upright the levels are the bar along the bottom: tap a stop to go there.

As you move, the face of the sound you’re playing flies from where one level draws it to where the next does: PERFORM’s well, the face at OUT in PATCH, its mark on TASTE’s map, its ring on LEARNING’s, and the card in EVOLVE that holds it, if one does. Where a level doesn’t draw it, the face fades instead of flying. Played as it flies, the face keeps drawing what you hear over it (while you play it). A light travels along the levels from the stop you left to the one you reach, and at either end of the zoom the levels nod and nothing moves. With reduced motion set on your system every move is instant.

The keys work with a knob or a list focused, but not in a text field, where ⌥← moves by a word, nor under a dialog that asks you something. Every key and gesture is in the keyboard map.

The model view

Hold ⌥ for a moment, at any level, and what the model believes comes up over it (MODEL’s light in the menu bar comes on halfway as you press, and fully when the view comes up; ⌥ with an arrow or a digit moves a level, and the view never shows): each bank row’s guess and the pool in the model’s order, TASTE’s halos, EVOLVE’s guess before you pick, PATCH’s belief line and which way your taste leans on each module, and which way your taste leans along each of PERFORM’s controls, from the sound in your hands (it leans brighter). Let go and it goes. MODEL in the menu bar does the same held, and a tap on it keeps the view up until you tap it again or press Esc. Reading what it learned says what each mark means.

⌘K: find anything

⌘K (Ctrl K off Apple platforms), or Find or do anything in the menu bar, opens one list of everything the instrument can do and every sound it holds. So does ?, anywhere but over one of PERFORM’s controls, where ? shows what that control does instead.

1. Type part of what you want: a sound’s name, a level, or what to do (taste, octave, download).
2. Choose with ↑ and ↓, and press ↵ to do it, or click it.
3. Esc closes the list and puts the focus back where it was.

It lists, in three groups:

• THIS LEVEL: what the level you’re at does, its pads and buttons: at PERFORM, OFFER, TAKE, PASS, KEEP, BACK, ARRANGE, stage mode and What does BRIGHT do?; at PATCH, ADD MODULE, the camera, the layouts, the locks and NEW PATCH; at EVOLVE, PLAY and PICK for each card and ANOTHER PAIR.
• ANYWHERE: the levels; play the sound you’re playing; save or cut the sound you’re on; the bank’s previous and next; ⌘Z; the model view; the keys bar (the octave, VOL, MIDI, ● REC and every setting in KEYS ⋯); your files (your data); the scope; the warm start again; Reset your taste; Show measurements; booth mode; What are the three banks?; Learn: what a filter does; Record again for each sound kept safe; and links to the films and to this guide’s keys and gestures.
• SOUNDS: the pool, then the presets, each with its face. With nothing typed it shows five; with a query, the eight that match best. Choosing one puts it in your hands at the level you’re at, as a click or Enter on its row in the bank does.

Each command prints its key beside it, where it has one, so the list teaches the keys as you use it, and a setting that is on says on. A name’s start ranks first, then a word’s start, then the letters anywhere, then the letters in order with others between: dyt finds Download your taste.

While the list is open, what you type goes into it: no note plays, no level moves, and ⌘Z takes nothing back. It is drawn from what the page already holds, so it opens and narrows at once: a sound’s face is the one the bank has drawn, or for a preset the one shipped with the app, and a sound whose face it hasn’t got yet keeps an empty place for it.

What to try next

• Play the sound under your hands: PERFORM.
• See what it is made of: PATCH.
• Teach the model what you like: EVOLVE.
• Every key in one place: the keyboard map.