Spectrascope Play // Field Guide

01 / THE FIRST MINUTE

Find a loop you want to hear again

Open Play and tap Play scene. The first tap also lets the browser start audio.
Try a few scene pads. Each scene holds a chord and bass pattern. Switch banks to hear more; visit Drums to try drum patterns on their own.
Find a loop you like and use its ★ to keep it. Open Chords or Bass from the bottom bar and change one thing while it plays.

Think in three parts: the harmony says which notes are available, the gates say when to play them, and the synth says how they sound. You can work on any one of those without starting over.

02 / HARMONY + TIME

Change the rhythm without losing the harmony

Chord stages: Pick the notes and voicing for each stage. Invert to move voices between octaves, or use Negative harmony to reflect the pitches. In a pad’s degree text, a minus sign (like 1, -4, 5) calls for a reflected chord on that degree.
Path and timing: Change the order or spacing of stage changes. A single chord can last through several different stabs. The bass can follow the chord root while the chord plays without doubling it.
Chop / Breath and Strum: Use the gate view to see where notes start and stop. Set the Euclidean hit count for an evenly distributed starting rhythm, then move the hits with swing or rotation. Use strum to spread a chord’s notes apart. Wide spread and fewer, longer notes can let only part of the chord speak on a hit.
Gate Recorder: Open Chop / Breathe and select one of the pattern’s four Gate slots. An empty slot copies the groove you are editing, including any saved roll and shaper lanes. Edits to the new slot save separately. While it plays, choose Gate, Velocity, Inversion, or Pressure at the XY pad and press Record gesture. Touch and move on the pad. Lift to save the gesture into the Gate bar where you touched down. Tap a lane’s button to bypass it or bring it back. Hit count and timing edits save with the slot, and Revert slot restores its starting settings. Previously saved Roll Memory takes are available under Earlier Roll Memory recordings.
Pattern bars and Gate phrases: Set Pattern bars above the main display to change the base pattern length. The Gate slot has its own length. Use Loop start and Loop end to choose the bars that play. Back to 2 bars loops the first two and keeps the other bars in storage. Double phrase builds a new phrase from the active loop, up to 32 bars. The lit bar shows what is sounding. Arm the recorder once. Touch down during the bar you want to punch into, then lift to save. The next touch records another punch until you disarm or stop playback. Tap a numbered bar to inspect or bypass its shaper lanes. Use Copy Gate slot, switch pads, and Paste to selected slot to apply the rhythm and shaper lanes to the destination’s harmony.
Step chain: Press Step record chain and tap Gate slots in order. Tapping 2, 2, 4 plays the full phrase in slot 2 twice and the full phrase in slot 4 once. Finish step recording, then press Play chain to loop. Each slot brings its own rhythm and enabled lanes. Stop chain returns to Live settings.
Gate Preset Slots: Give Pluto-773 and Seer-528 four presets each in Preset Hot Swaps. In Euclidean Gate, tap any of the eight step buttons to cycle from the current synth sound to slots 1–4. A held gate uses the setting at its first step. Bleed leaves the outgoing voice’s envelope in place. Choke fades that voice out as the next preset starts. These swaps change the browser synth. MIDI still exports the notes and gates.
Gate Arp: Hold the XY surface to repeat the whole chord. Neighboring lit boxes form one held gate. Drag left or right to change the spread, or move vertically to choose a rhythm. Lift to return to the underlying part. Use the Gate Recorder when you want those moves to keep playing.

When a groove feels crowded, take a hit out first. Use probability to make an occasional stab less predictable, and adjust the synth release separately to let notes ring after their gates end.

03 / TWO HANDS

Play the 8 × 8

Open Chord Tap on the Chords page for the current key’s chords and variations. Select a pad to inspect and shape it. On the Bass page, the pad surface addresses the bass part instead. With an attached Launchpad Mini MK3, use Connect Launchpad above the scene pads and choose the matching MIDI ports when asked. The on-screen pads work without a controller.

Audition: Hear an idea without writing it. Hold the pad to sustain the gate; release it to let the synth envelope release.
Tap Overwrite: Play new hits in place of the original lane’s hits. Copy the pattern first if you want both versions handy.
Tap Overdub: Add hits to the lane while keeping the underlying part. Use the quantize setting when you want taps to land on the grid.
Computer keyboard: Enable keyboard play and use its legend for the four groups of pads. Hold Shift to reach the bottom half.

04 / LIVE SOUND

Make moves you can play back

Try a synth preset as a starting point. Move a filter or envelope while the loop runs; use the preset reset if you want that patch back. Preset reset changes the instrument sound, while Undo is for recent edits.

Mix Cubes: Choose a colored layer in the main or drum cube. Drag its point to shape the mix, or record a gesture and set that layer’s loop length in bars. Every layer stays visible and keeps playing its own automation as you switch layers or scenes.
Native synth motion: Open the synth’s Mod Matrix and set Native motion amount. Roll spare routes adds motion around the patch’s existing routing. Replace routes rerolls the matrix.
Modulation Box: Open it below the chord effects and waveform. Set the vertical Modulation complexity fader and press Randomize modulation for anything from one subtle route to eight deeper routes with more varied shapes. Draw a repeating shape for one of four LFOs or a contour for one of two envelopes. Envelopes start with each note and release from their current value when its gate closes. In the eight routes, pick a source, destination, signed amount, and synth. Connect and Disconnect cue to the next bar while playing. The box follows Pluto-773 and Seer-528 across pattern and preset changes and is saved with the song.
Expanded routing: The Modulation Box and native synth matrices can use note-triggered or clocked sequencers, filter and amp envelopes, auxiliary envelopes, noise, a fixed DC value, and the previous post-VCA audio sample. Pitch bend, pressure, breath, foot pedal, and expression come from a selected Web MIDI input or the manual controls. Routes can also modulate LFO rates and depths, envelope times, other route amounts, or the engaged chord effects. Chord FX parameter 2 maps to feedback where the effect has it and to LFO depth otherwise.
Chord pressure: In the Velocity panel, open Chords / Pressure Shaper for a repeating contour. In the Gate Roll, use Pressure mode to perform and record pressure accents over existing notes. Assign Pressure / aftertouch to a destination in either modulation matrix to hear it. MIDI downloads and the Mac companion (0.3.3 or later) carry polyphonic aftertouch.
Knob performance: Pick a slot and press Record. Move the controls, then press Finish & play. The take saves and begins looping at the next bar. A fixed-length take closes automatically. Use the automation play/stop button to cue changes and the chain to arrange takes.
Mute / Solo FX: Use the bottom-bar shortcut to choose Beat repeat, Tape rewind, or both. A queued mute applies the effect to the track leaving the mix. A solo applies it to the other tracks that drop out. Select Always to hear it outside a Master Audio recording.
Output: Start with headroom. Use channel effects for the individual sound, then the master filter and EQ for moves that affect the whole mix.
Vox: Use the microphone or an available audio input to record a phrase, slice it, and play it back as another part. Browser input choices depend on the device.

05 / KEEP THE GOOD PART

Turn a few bars into a track

Use the Song chain to choose the order of your scenes and how long each repeats. Use Play song to hear the arrangement; use Play scene to work on one loop.
Star individual patterns. Sign in by email and find them in Favorites. Copy a favorite to My Pattern Banks to keep editing it. Clone keeps another copy; Alter copy makes a small variation without replacing the source.
Save the whole song under Saved tracks, or export a local song file. Browser session recovery is useful, but an export gives you a portable copy.

Free accounts have seven favorites, seven saved tracks and seven beat recordings of up to seven minutes each. DJ mixes have a separate seven-slot library.

06 / TAKE IT WITH YOU

Choose notes, a render, or a performance

MIDI: Use scene or Song MIDI when you want editable notes in a DAW. The file carries note timing and velocities, not the synth sound or audio effects.
WAV export: Render the arrangement as audio when you want the sequence without performing it again.
Record DJ Mix: Open DJ Mode and use Record DJ Mix to capture the master output. Recording starts and stops on a downbeat. At the one-hour limit, it ends on the last full bar. Each deck can browse Beat Recordings or DJ Mixes independently. Tap a recording pad to queue it on the next beat. Under Cues, tap an empty pad to save a cue on the nearest grid beat. A saved cue restarts that recording on the next master beat. Each saved recording keeps its own cues in your private library, so edits follow it across browsers after you sign in.
Record Master Audio: Use the bottom bar for a live take, including the moves you make during it. With the transport running, start and stop cue to a bar boundary. Choose Master + stems before recording if you want aligned tracks from before the channel effects, before the mix and after the mix. The master is a 24-bit stereo WAV at the session sample rate.

Preview the take against its scrolling waveform, download it, or save it under Beat Recordings or DJ Mixes in your private library.

07 / OUT TO THE STUDIO

Keep Live and Play on the same beat

Link shares the beat and tempo. MIDI sends the notes. Pick the connection that matches where Play is running.

Play and Live on the same Mac: Start the Mac companion, enable Link in Live, then use Link + MIDI in Play to connect. Select the MIDI output you want to use and enable that input’s Track switch in Live.
Play on iPhone or iPad, Live on Mac: Open the companion on the Mac. Create a QR code, scan it with the iPhone or iPad Camera, tap Connect Mac, then approve the pairing on the Mac. In Live, enable the Spectrascope MIDI input and route it to the armed or monitored track. Keep the devices on the same network and use Reconnect Mac if Play still has your approved session.

08 / CHECK THE SIGNAL

When something goes quiet

No browser sound: Tap Play once, then check the master level, channel mutes and solos, and your device’s audio output.
Live follows transport but gets no notes: Check the MIDI input’s Track switch, the track’s channel and monitoring, and the instrument loaded on that track. Use Test MIDI connection to separate routing from a sequencer issue.
Pairing or timing drops: Open Link + MIDI → Connection diagnostics. Mark the problem and copy the report before reconnecting. For help, email hello@spectrascope.net.