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eseq user manual

Racks

An Instrument Rack layers several sources on one track. A Drum Rack holds a kit of pads, each backed by its own member track. A group is neither: it only sums existing tracks for shared processing. See Mixer.

Build a layered instrument

  1. Double-click Instrument Rack in the sidebar. A Layer Rack track appears.
  2. Select it. The panel shows Drop an Instrument or Sample.
  3. Drag an instrument or sample onto that area. Repeat for each layer.
  4. Play the track and balance the layers.

The drop area adds a layer. Dropping on a selected layer's instrument area replaces that layer. Double-clicking a synth in the sidebar replaces the whole rack.

Layers

Select a layer row to edit its instrument and effects. Each row has T transpose, G gain, P pan, V voices, plus M mute and S solo. The small toggles in the rack header show or hide the layer list, the selected chain, and the macros.

A rack with two sample layers and its macro controls. Each row has its own gain, pan, voices, mute, and solo.
A rack with two sample layers and its macro controls. Each row has its own gain, pan, voices, mute, and solo.

The track owns the pattern. Layers only decide what sounds.

Layer effects and Track FX

Drop an audio effect on a layer row to process only that layer. Track FX processes the summed rack. A good first patch: a bright short layer with distortion, a darker sustained layer, and one shared delay after the rack.

Macros

A macro is one knob that moves several controls.

  1. Show the macro view with the rack's dial toggle and name a macro.
  2. Click map. The number beside it counts destinations.
  3. Click a parameter in any layer. It highlights when mapped.
  4. Click done in the mapping sidebar. Turn the macro.

While mapping is armed, clicking a mapped parameter unmaps it. The sidebar sets each destination's Min, Max, and curve, and removes mappings with ×. Macros can be p-locked like any other control.

Build a drum kit

  1. Double-click Drum Rack and select the new rack.
  2. Drag a kick, a snare, and a hat onto three empty pads.
  3. Click a pad to hear it and edit its sound.
  4. Enter steps on the member tracks: kick on 1 and 9, snare on 5 and 13, hats on 3, 7, 11, and 15.
  5. Play and balance the member levels.

Each member is a full track with its own pattern, length, and effects. A drop lands on that pad's note; use the mini-map to reach pads beyond the visible grid.

Play the kit

Arm the rack header to play pads from the keyboard, one pad per key. Arm one member to play that sound across pitches. Arming a rack disarms its members and vice versa. Use Z and X to reach the loaded pads. See Recording.

Chokes, processing, and kits

Put closed and open hats in the same choke group so one cuts the other off.

Member effects process one drum; the rack's shared chain processes the whole kit. Member values follow patterns; shared chain values follow scenes.

Click the rack's save icon to save a Kit. A kit stores the rack and its pad sounds, not the patterns. Loading a kit replaces the selected drum rack, or creates one if none is selected.