PhraseMaker Beta

The piano roll has three views. Harmony holds the chords, Rhythm holds when notes play, and Phrase is the melody the two make together. Change the chords or the rhythm and the phrase is written again straight away.

Pick an algorithm to decide how the melody moves. Hook over Chords and Euro Hook carry one motif across the progression. Approach, Run-up and Suspend & Resolve lead the melody into each chord change. Arp walks each chord, with its own order, grid and options.

Play Chords skips the editing: hold a chord on your keyboard and the phrase is rewritten over it as you play.

Placement decides where the phrase plays around each chord change. Put it before the change, after the stab, or in call-and-response pairs, and the zones show in a strip under the roll where you can drag them around.

The first zone becomes the motif and the others are written from it. An answer plays the zone before it upside down and comes to rest on the chord's root. For a call-and-response melody, tick Placement and Window in the list under Randomize’s ▾ and press Randomize.

Each device has its own amount and its own dice. Move Accent and only the accents change. ⟲ gives one device fresh dice, ⚄ gives it new settings, and switching off its R keeps its roll while you re-roll everything else.

The rhythm devices (Rhythm Generator, Rhythm Shift, Density, and the Add half of Passing Notes) decide when notes play. Octaves, Accents, Slides, Passing Notes and Shape then work on the pitches. Shape gives the phrase a pitch arc and dynamics, rising, falling or arching over a bar, a chord or the whole loop.