E2 — Your First Graph

Connect nodes into a processing chain and hear the result

In E1 you loaded audio and explored the scopes. Now you’ll connect nodes into a chain, hear the processing in real time, and understand how signal flows through a graph.

What you’ll need

A session with audio loaded (pick up where E1 left off, or load a new file)
Something with clear texture works best — a drum loop, a vocal phrase, or a guitar riff

How signal flows

Every node has inputs (left side) and outputs (right side). Audio flows left to right:

Load Audio → [processing node] → [processing node] → ...

You connect nodes by dragging from an output port to an input port. A cable appears. That’s it — signal flows through the cable, and the downstream node processes whatever arrives.

Build a simple chain

Let’s filter and then add reverb to your audio. Three nodes, two connections.

Step 1 — Add a filter

Add a Multimode Filter node to the graph (right-click the canvas or use the node browser).
Connect the Load Audio output to the Filter input — drag from the output port to the input port.
Select the Filter node — the scopes now show the filtered audio.

Set the filter to Lowpass, cutoff around 2000 Hz. Listen (Space): the highs are gone. The spectrum scope confirms it — everything above 2 kHz drops away.

Try sweeping the cutoff up and down. Watch the spectrum change in real time. Move it to 500 Hz — the sound becomes muffled, dark. Move it to 8000 Hz — barely noticeable.

Step 2 — Add reverb

Add a Dattorro Reverb node.
Connect the Filter’s output to the Reverb’s input.
Select the Reverb node — the scopes now show the reverbed, filtered audio.

Set Decay to around 0.7 and Mix to 0.4. Play the audio. You hear the filtered sound sitting in a lush plate reverb.

Step 3 — Compare

Click each node in the chain to hear what happens at each stage:

Load Audio — the original, unprocessed file
Filter — high frequencies removed
Reverb — filtered audio with space added

The scopes update as you click. The spectrogram is especially revealing: select the reverb and you’ll see the tail extending beyond the original audio’s boundaries.

Branching the signal

Signal doesn’t have to flow in a single line. One output can connect to multiple inputs.

Add a Gain node.
Connect the Load Audio output to both the Filter input (already connected) and the Gain input.

Now you have two parallel paths from the same source. This is how you build complex processing: split, process differently, then recombine. You’ll use this pattern constantly.

Disconnecting and rearranging

Remove a cable: right-click the cable and delete, or drag the input end away from the port
Delete a node: select it and press Delete
Rearrange: drag nodes to keep the graph readable — left to right, signal flow visible

There’s no penalty for experimenting. Add nodes, try them, remove them. The graph is your sketchpad.

A/B with the scopes

Here’s a workflow you’ll use constantly:

Build a processing chain
Click the node before processing — hear and see the original
Click the node after processing — hear and see the result
Click back and forth to compare

The scopes make this visual. Switch to the 2D Spectrogram and A/B between two nodes — you’ll see exactly what the processing added or removed.

Sending to the Player

When you have a result you like, you can send it to the Player for sequencing:

Add a Memory Slot node at the end of your chain.
Connect the final output to the Memory Slot input.
Choose a slot number (1-128).
The processed audio is now available on a pad in the Player.

We’ll explore the Player fully in P1. For now, just know this is the bridge.

What you’ve learned

Nodes connect output → input, signal flows left to right
Selecting a node shows and plays its output in the scopes
A/B between nodes to compare before and after
One output can feed multiple inputs (branching)
Memory Slot nodes send processed audio to the Player

Next: E3 — Blend & Morph — combine two sounds into something new.