P1 — Your First Player Session

What you’ll need

• A few sounds in memory slots (from E1-E3, or imported directly)
• If you’re starting fresh: you can import audio files directly into the Player’s Slot Bank — no Editor session required

The bridge: Editor to Player

Sounds move from Editor to Player through memory slots — a bank of 128 positions that hold audio.

Two ways to fill them:

• From the Editor: connect a Memory Slot node at the end of your graph (covered in E2)
• From the Slot Bank: click Import Audio in the Slot Bank panel to load WAV or FLAC files directly

For this tutorial, make sure you have at least 3-4 sounds loaded. A kick, a snare, a hi-hat, and something textural works well. But anything goes.

The seven panels

The Player screen has seven panels. Here’s what you need right now:

Assigning sounds to pads

1. Open the Pads panel — you see a 4x4 grid of pads.
2. Right-click a pad to open its settings in the Parameter Panel.
3. Assign a memory slot to the pad.
4. Click the pad — you hear the sound.

Do this for 3-4 pads. Tap them to audition. Each pad shows the color of its assigned slot.

Building a beat on the Grid

1. Open the Grid panel. You see 8 rows (tracks), each with a sequence of steps.
2. Assign a pad to a track by clicking the pad-assignment button on the left of each row. Pick your kick for Track 1, snare for Track 2, hi-hat for Track 3.
3. Click steps to toggle them on or off. Lit steps trigger on playback.

Press Play. The playhead sweeps across the grid and your pattern fires.

Adjusting the mix

Open the Mixer panel:

• Volume knobs set relative levels between tracks
• Pan knobs position sounds in stereo — kick center, hi-hat slightly right
• Solo a track to hear it alone
• Mute a track to temporarily silence it

The Master strip on the right controls the final output level. Watch the VU meter — keep peaks below 0 dB.

Adding effects

1. Select a track in the Grid.
2. Open the FX Slots panel — you see 8 empty slots (A1-A8).
3. Click a slot and choose an effect from the dropdown.
4. Tweak parameters in the panel.

Try this on your snare track:

1. Slot A1: Reverb — Decay 0.5, Mix 0.3. Space around the snare.
2. Slot A2: Compressor — tighten the dynamics.

On the textural sound:

1. Slot A1: Delay — feedback 0.4, sync to tempo. Rhythmic echoes.
2. Slot A2: Phaser — slow rate. Movement.

Each track has its own independent FX chain. 27 effect types are available — the same engines documented in the Lexique.

Per-step control

Here’s where the Player gets interesting. Click a step in the Grid to select it, then look at the Parameter Panel:

• Velocity — how hard the step hits
• Pitch Shift — detune individual hits
• Decay — shorten or lengthen the tail
• Pan — move individual hits in stereo

Try this: On your hi-hat track, lower the velocity on every other step. Instant groove — the “and” beats sit back behind the “one” beats.

Or pitch-shift a single snare hit up by 2 semitones for a fill.

Using the scopes

Open the Scopes panel. It shows real-time visualizations of the audio output:

• Waveform — see transients and dynamics as they happen
• Spectrum — check frequency balance in real time
• Spectrogram — watch patterns scroll past as the sequence plays

The scopes react to everything: your pattern, your effects, your mix changes. They’re your eyes on what your ears are hearing.

What you’ve learned

• Memory slots bridge the Editor and Player
• Pads trigger sounds, tracks sequence them on a grid
• The Mixer balances levels, pan, and provides solo/mute
• FX Slots give each track up to 8 serial effects
• Per-step parameters (velocity, pitch, decay, pan) add groove and detail
• Scopes provide real-time visual feedback

What’s next: You’ve completed the minimum set. You can now load audio, process it, blend sounds, sequence them, and add effects. From here:

• Explore more nodes in the Lexique
• Try different color modes to see your audio in new ways
• Experiment with longer patterns, different clock divisions, and substeps (covered in P2)