One instrument made from AFTERHOURS and Memory Machine. Liquid Halo is the starting point: sine and triangle oscillators, a plucky envelope, and liquid stereo echoes. The original factories are translated into HALO’s expanded engine, not promised as bit-identical copies.
01 / Find the pocket
Start with quiet speakers. PLAY enables audio and starts the synth, drums, bass and chords. Space toggles the loop when a control is not focused. Click a track’s small M to mute; its name selects its kit controls. Click the large arrow beside the kit to audition it. FILL adds a one-bar variation at the next bar, then returns to your pattern.
02 / A sound can take its time
FADE makes parameter edits arrive over 0.15–120 seconds or a tempo-derived number of bars. DIRECT responds immediately, with a tiny anti-click smoothing. Choose soft S-curve, linear, or bloom. A knob’s cap follows the live value; its outer marker is the destination. Each module can inherit the global mode, always fade, or always be direct. Right-click a knob for a custom duration or to pin it against preset changes. Hold Alt while turning a knob to bypass its fade.
03 / Nothing has to jump
Changing a destination during a fade starts from the current intermediate value. HOLD freezes every transition; ARRIVE finishes them. Waveforms and filter modes blend parallel audio paths, and patch cables fade their connection gain. Pitch selection, scale, ratchets and other logical settings affect subsequently scheduled notes; they do not pretend to be continuously blendable. Envelope edits affect new attacks and future releases, not already scheduled note tails. Reverb size blends four seeded stereo rooms.
04 / Build your heartbeat
The first row is the lead melody. Eight rows below it are synthesized drums. Click to toggle; Shift-click accents. Right-click a step to edit pitch, velocity, chance, and one to four ratchets. Touch users can long-press a step. The patch bay also has a button to edit the selected step. Kit controls change level, pan, tune, tone and decay. EUCLID distributes a chosen number of hits around the selected track.
05 / Remember something
Each scene has a STORE button and a recall area. Stores capture destinations, kit and patterns, not an in-flight automation recording. A/B directly blends your two saved scenes under your hand, independently of timed fades. Intermediate waveform and cable-gain blends are saved with your session. The performance pad moves brightness and space together. New feeling makes a bounded timbral variation, leaving the beat intact. Undo restores the preceding preset, variation or scene.
06 / The notes underneath
The four-bar progression supplies diatonic extended chords and a separate bass line. Turn BASS and CHORDS down to hear the original lead-and-drums approach. Chord pads audition complete voicings. Melody follows transposes scale degrees with the progression; off preserves the preset’s lead notes. Keys, touch and MIDI play the lead. Z/X changes octave. MIDI supports velocity, sustain, pitch bend, CC1 and CC74.
07 / Make real connections
Click an output socket then a compatible input, or drag. Click a cable to unplug it. The PATCH BAY is a keyboard-accessible alternative. Audio runs left to right to block feedback. Synth routes need a complete path to the master; bass and dry chords use their own buses. RESET restores the usual route. A bypassed VCA retains a safety gate but changes the amplitude contour.
08 / Take it with you
REC records your live master, never the microphone. AudioWorklet capture writes lossless PCM WAV when available; the browser-recording fallback may be compressed before WAV conversion. WAV renders 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars offline at 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo, with optional tails. It renders destination settings, not ongoing fades or live keys. Save session keeps scenes, kit, fade policies, cables and patterns. Legacy JSON imports are translated; Memory Machine’s individual oscillator outlets collapse into the combined source.