Playing notes

So you'd like to hear sound! While the "how-to" on writing a composition is described on the "Creating patterns"-page, it helps to hear what sound you're working with / tweaking before writing down a pattern.

In Efflux you can trigger playback of your synthesizers notes in various manners, as described below. For each entry type, it's important to understand that the instrument used to play your notes is the one that is currently selected in the pattern track list / instrument editor.

Playing notes using the keyboard

You can use the following keys:

 S D   G H J   L ;
Z X C V B N M , . /

and:

 2 3   5 6 7   9 0
Q W E R T Y U I O P

...which mimic the layout of a 1.5 octave piano keyboard. You can adjust the root octave by using the "[" (octave down) and "]" (octave up) keys for the lower keyboard and "-" and "+" for the higher keyboard.

NOTE: When playing from the pattern track list, first be sure that your caret is positioned in the first slot of a patterns row column (as otherwise the keys are used to enter module automation instructions).

using on-screen keyboard / touch

On touch screen devices an on-screen keyboard can be docked below the pattern track list:

Above note selector is laid out as a standard keyboard and shouldn't be too surprising! You can select the 12 notes that are available within a single octave, starting on C.

By default the pitch of the note will be at the third octave, you can however specify any octave between 1 to 8, allowing you to go from the lowest rumble to the highest shriek.

Playing notes using a MIDI controller

If you are using Google Chrome / Microsoft Edge and have a MIDI controller (like a piano keyboard), you can enter notes directly by playing the keys on the controller.

In order to do so, connect the controller to Efflux in the Settings-menu.

If your MIDI controller supports sending CC (Control Change) messages, you can also assign controls to the instrument module parameters.

Now you know how to trigger sound, when you are ready to start writing your compsition, you can use this knowledge to record notes directly into the pattern track list.