Instruments

An instrument makes the sound. It sits at the head of a World dimensionOne of an Orbiter's three World chains, I, II and III, each with its own modules and its own way of mapping X, Y and Z.'s chain: whatever comes
after it (audio effects, the StarThe Orbiter body on the main bus: after the Orbiter's Main mix blends the World and the Moon's return, the Star's effects play over everything.'s mixer, a MoonAn Orbiter body that works as a send and return: the World is sent to it, and it returns only its effect, which the Main mix adds to the dry sound.) hears it, and whatever comes before it (a
generator, MIDI effects) tells it which notes to play.

Move over the rack: the left half plays the audio, the right half plays the notes.

On the rack	In an Orbiter
The box with two reels	an Audio instrument: it plays the audio you choose
The box with a keyboard	a Notes instrument: it plays the notes that reach it
The small screen on each lid	the screen every instrument has in its panel
The lit box	the one that plays. An Orbiter is Audio or Notes, never both

World dimension (I, II or III)

Generator

Arpeggiator, Ephemeris, Drum Sequencer

notes

MIDI effects

Note Echo, Velocity, Scale, Pitch

notes

Instrument

Audio player, Sampler, Subtractive synth

sound

Audio effects

Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Flanger

Star

mixer · main effects

⇄

Moon

send & return · audio effects

You hear it

One World dimension. The instrument turns notes, or the audio you pick, into sound.

Audio or Notes

What World I holds decides what kind of Orbiter you are building:

	World I plays…	World II and III	Instruments
Audio Orbiter	the audio you choose, on the Audio player or Granular	audio effects that shape it	one
Notes Orbiter	a notes instrument, such as the Sampler, the Subtractive synth or the FM synth	one more notes instrument each, if you like	up to three

Audio or Notes, never both

An Orbiter is one or the other. Replacing World I's instrument with one of the other kind switches the Orbiter, and the Studio asks first. See Multiple MIDI instruments for how a Notes Orbiter plays two or three instruments side by side.

Replace with → Sampler on World I's Audio player. The Studio asks first; Switch to Notes puts the Sampler in its place, with a MIDI in slot before it.

What every instrument shares

• It is built in the Studio. Pick it in the Instrument step, or from the module picker of a
  World dimension.
• Its knobs map to the Orbiter. Any knob or switch can follow an axisOne of an Orbiter's three performance controls: X, Y and Z. (X, Y, Z) or a toggle, with
  its own minimum, equilibriumThe value a mapped control takes while its axis rests in the middle, between its minimum and its maximum. and maximum. See Edit.
• It shows its sound on a screen. Each instrument has a small screen in its panel; what it draws
  is described on the instrument's page.
• A notes instrument plays whatever notes reach it, from the keys, MIDI, the piano roll or a
  sequencer. In the chain it sits after any generator and MIDI effects, and before the audio effects.

Envelopes

An envelope is drawn above its knobs: Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release. Drag a
point, or type a value under it. Attack, Decay and Release can each be bent: the small hollow
handle in the middle of a sloped segment is its curve. Drag it across the segment, from −100 % to
+100 %: + is fast at the start (a quick rise, a quick drop and a long tail), − slow (a
swell, a fall that holds before it goes). Double-click a handle to straighten it. A curve can be
mapped to an axis like any other control.

LFO and Voice

Most notes instruments have these two groups, folded at first:

• LFO: a slow wave that moves things by itself, one of the Orbiter's
  LFOs. The menu on the tab picks which one (the
  instrument's dimension's X as it loads; a second LFO, the Y), the hexagon on the tab switches it on
  and off. Rate in (Hz, Beats or a value of the World), Rate, Shape and Depth are that
  LFO's own: turn them and everything reading it changes too, an axis included. Amount is the
  instrument's: how much of it gets through. What it moves is set in the Matrix.
• Voice: Voices (how many notes sound at once, 1 … 16), Mono (one note at a time) and
  Legato (with Mono, a note played over a held one slides there without a new strike, over
  Glide).

In a room

Everyone in a room hears the same notes and the same sound, the LFOs included: they are the
Orbiter's, on the same phase for everyone. Only noise can differ a little between players. The pitch bend, the
pressure and the mod wheel stay on the device that plays them.

Every instrument

Multiple MIDI instruments

Audio or Notes, and up to three notes instruments in one Orbiter.

Audio player

Plays the audio you choose. Speed, pitch and character, all mappable.

Sampler

Real recorded instruments under the keys: piano, marimba, percussion.

Hybrid drum synth

A synthesized drum kit: sixteen pads of eleven types, swap pads on its kit screen.

Pitched percussion

A mallet striking a body: marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, kalimba, tubular bells, bowl.

FM synth

Four operators and eight algorithms: e-pianos, bells, basses, organs.

Analog synth

Two complete paths in one voice: sync, ring and AM, two filters in series or side by side.

Analog drum synth

A drum machine whose sixteen pads are each a small synth; name them, play them from a Drum sequencer.

Subtractive synth

One oscillator, a sub and noise into a low-pass filter: the quickest way to a bass, a lead or a pad.

8-bit synth

The Commodore 64's sound chip: pulse leads, chip chords, sync and ring, noise drums, one filter and an analog boost.

Granular

Your audio as a cloud of grains: frozen moments, shimmers, scattered loops.

The Matrix

The Matrix is where you say what moves a knob: velocity, the mod wheel, an LFO. The Sampler, the
Subtractive synth, the FM synth, the Analog synth, the Wavetable synth and Pitched percussion share
it: a group in the panel that starts folded. It is a grid: what moves things across the top, what is
moved down the side, an amount in each cell.

It has two tabs:

• Modulation: the instrument's LFOs and own envelopes across the top. An instrument with none
  (Pitched percussion) has no such tab.
• MIDI: what you play, the same six columns in every instrument.

Column	What it reads
Vel	The note's velocity.
Key	Where the note is on the keyboard, around C3.
PB	The pitch bend wheel.
Press	The keyboard's pressure (channel aftertouch).
Mod	The mod wheel.
Rand	A value drawn once for each note.

A cell. A dot means nothing is routed. Drag a cell left or right to set an amount from
−100 % to +100 % (hold Shift for finer steps), or use the arrow keys; double-click puts it
back. The arrow in the cell points the way the amount goes. Key › Cutoff at 100 % follows the
keyboard exactly. Every cell of a row adds to its knob, and the result never leaves the knob's range.

The rows. A tab opens short: the instrument's few main rows, and every row that has an amount.
Turn one of the instrument's knobs while the Matrix is open and its row comes in, if it has one. A
row you leave empty is gone the next time you open the Orbiter. A row's label fills up to where its
knob stands, so you can read the starting point beside the amounts.

Three kinds of row are in the MIDI tab only (the Wavetable synth has no Vibrato or Level row: its LFOs and Gain rows do that work):

• Pitch holds the pitch bend: PB › Pitch rests at 16.7 %, two semitones. Set it to 0 and
  the wheel stops bending the pitch; another PB cell makes it move something else.
• Vibrato is the instrument's own vibrato, a fixed 5.5 Hz. Mod › Vibrato rests at 50 %, so
  the mod wheel does something on a fresh instrument. Level is the note's level.
• LFO (or LFO 1 and LFO 2) is that LFO's Amount knob, which scales everything the LFO
  moves. Amount at 0 % with Mod › LFO at 100 % is the wheel bringing the LFO in. Only PB, Press
  and Mod reach an LFO row.

Like any number, a cell can go on an axisOne of an Orbiter's three performance controls: X, Y and Z. in the Studio's Map mode: the axis then sets how
much the source moves its row.