1 Introduction

Chop Deck is a sampler and sequencer that lives in your browser and works like the drum machines of the late 1990s: sixteen pads, a small green screen, six soft keys, a data wheel. You load or record sounds, put them on pads, play them into a sequence, arrange sequences into a song, and mix the result down. There are no menus outside the machine. If it is not on the front panel, it does not exist.

This manual follows the layout of the machine's screens. Every field name written in this typeface is what you will read on the LCD.

Quick start guide

Ten minutes from first visit to a beat of your own. The machine also walks you through these steps itself: press QUICK START in the header above the LCD. The tour opens by itself the first time you visit and never again unless you ask.

1. Play the demo. A two-bar beat called First Beat is loaded when you arrive. Press PLAY (or Space). Press STOP to stop. The green PLAY light in the header shows the sequencer running.
2. Hit the pads. Click a pad, or use the keyboard: Z X C V are pads 1 to 4, A S D F pads 5 to 8, Q W E R pads 9 to 12 and 1 to 4 pads 13 to 16. Strike near the bottom of a pad for a quiet hit, near the top for a loud one, or press FULL LEVEL to make every hit loud. The chopped break that sequence 2 plays lives in program BREAK CHOPS on DRUM2.
3. Read the screen. Every setting is a field on the LCD; the reversed block is the cursor. Move it with the CURSOR keys (arrow keys), change the value with the DATA wheel ([ and ]) or type a number and press ENTER. Put the cursor on the tempo and turn the wheel while the beat plays.
4. Press the words under the glass. The bottom line of the LCD names the six soft keys F1 to F6. On the main screen, TrMUTE opens a page where the pads mute and unmute the tracks of the running sequence.
5. Change mode. Hold SHIFT and press a number on the keypad: 3 LOAD, 4 SAMPLE, 5 TRIM, 6 PROGRAM, 7 MIXER, 0 SAVE. MAIN SCREEN always returns to the sequencer.
6. Bring your own sounds. Drag audio files (WAV, AIFF, MP3, anything the browser can decode) from your computer and drop them anywhere on the machine. They appear in the import tray of LOAD mode (SHIFT+3). Choose one in the File: field, press DO IT, audition it with PLAY, choose the pad in Assign to note:, and press KEEP. PICK opens the browser's file chooser instead of dragging. See Loading sounds.
7. Or sample something. SHIFT+4 opens SAMPLE mode. Turn REC GAIN until the meter peaks just below the top, press RECORD, and recording starts when the input passes Threshold:. Press STOP, then KEEP and name it. See Sampling.
8. Chop a break. SHIFT+5 opens TRIM with the waveform of the sound in Snd:. Set St: and End: around the part you want (PLAY X auditions it). Press ZONE, put the cursor on Zone: and press OPEN WINDOW to choose the number of slices, then EDIT and SLICE SOUND. Each zone becomes its own sound on its own pad in a new program. See Zones and slicing.
9. Record a beat. Back on the main screen, turn the Sq: field to an empty sequence, hold REC and press PLAY START. After a one-bar count-in the sequence loops and everything you play is recorded, timing-corrected to the Timing: value. Keep playing to add more layers. STOP when done; UNDO SEQ removes the last pass; hold ERASE and a pad while it runs to remove that pad's notes. See Recording and overdubbing.
10. Save. The machine autosaves to this browser, so closing the tab is safe. SHIFT+0 opens SAVE, which writes to the built-in drive or downloads a .CHOPDECK file holding everything. LOAD brings it back on any computer. See Disk.

Hover any control for a tip that links to its section here. The computer keyboard reference lists every shortcut.

The front panel

Hover any control on the machine for a short description and a link to its section here. Hold Alt and click a control to open that section directly.

The LCD

The display is a grid of 48 columns by 8 rows. The top seven rows belong to the current screen; the bottom row always shows the six soft keys. Values you can change are fields. The field under the cursor is drawn reversed (dark block, light text). Labels end with a colon and sit immediately to the left of their field: Sq:01, Now:001.01.00.

Positions are shown as bar.beat.tick. There are 96 ticks in a quarter note, so 001.02.48 is bar 1, beat 2, halfway to beat 3.

Soft keys

The bottom line names what F1 to F6 do on the current screen. Three styles tell you what kind of key it is:

• Reversed (dark block): jumps to another page of the mode, for example LOOP in TRIM mode.
• Framed (outlined): runs an action, for example DO IT, CANCEL, COPY.
• Plain: the page you are already on.

Almost every destructive action asks first, in a window with CANCEL on F4 and DO IT on F5.

Modes

Hold SHIFT and press a number on the keypad:

MAIN SCREEN always brings you back to the sequencer. STEP and EDIT on the main screen's soft keys reach the two sequence editors.

Cursor, DATA wheel and numbers

Move the cursor with the CURSOR keys. Turn the DATA wheel to change the field: one step per click, several per click when you spin it. Enum fields (for example Timing:1/16) cycle through their options.

Numeric fields also take typed numbers: press the digits on the keypad, then ENTER. Tempo is typed without its decimal point: 1205 then ENTER gives 120.5. Moving the cursor, turning the wheel or pressing MAIN SCREEN before ENTER cancels the entry.

For very large fields such as sample points, hold SHIFT and press CURSOR left or right to move in coarse steps.

Windows

Most fields have a window behind them with more settings. Put the cursor on the field and press OPEN WINDOW. The window's own soft keys replace the screen's; CLOSE or OPEN WINDOW again returns. Windows can stack: a confirmation may open on top of a settings window.

The Name window

Any name field (sequence, track, song, sound, program, file) opens the Name window when you turn the DATA wheel or hit a pad on it.

                 Name
      New name:Sequence01
      Press PADs or use DATA knob.
          COPY   PASTE   CANCEL  ENTER

The pads type letters, two per pad as printed in the corner of each pad: pad 1 AB, pad 2 CD and so on to pad 13 YZ; pad 14 &#, pad 15 punctuation, pad 16 digits. Hit a pad again within a moment to get its second letter. 16 LEVELS types a space, FULL LEVEL switches between upper and lower case, the DATA wheel steps through the whole character set at the cursor, CURSOR left and right move along the name. COPY and PASTE carry a name between fields. ENTER keeps it; CANCEL throws it away.

2 The Basics

Terms

Pads and banks

The sixteen pads play the program of the current track's DRUM slot. Pad 1 is bottom-left, pad 16 top-right, as on the panel. Velocity depends on where you strike: near the top of a pad is soft, near the bottom is hard; a pressure-sensitive screen or pen uses real pressure. PAD BANK A to D switches to the next sixteen notes, so one program spans 64 pads.

The small letters on each pad are for the Name window; the letter in the bottom-left corner is the computer key that plays it (see Computer keyboard).

FULL LEVEL

While its LED is lit, every pad hit plays at velocity 127 regardless of how you strike. Handy for even hi-hats and for step recording.

16 LEVELS

Spreads one sound across the sixteen pads in steps. Press 16 LEVELS to open the window, hit the pad with the sound you want, then choose:

• Param:VELOCITY: pad 1 is the softest, pad 16 the loudest.
• Param:NOTE VAR with Type:TUNING: each pad a semitone apart, the Original key pad at the original pitch. DECAY, ATTACK and FILTER spread that parameter across the range set in the ASSIGN screen.

TurnON engages it; press 16 LEVELS again to go back to the normal program.

Note variation

Hold SHIFT and press AFTER to open the ASSIGN screen. Hit a pad to pick the note, choose a Parameter (tuning, decay, attack or filter) and the Low range and High range the slider covers. From then on the slider position is applied to that note when you play it, and is recorded with the note (you will see it as Tun: in step edit). With AFTER lit, the slider also shapes the note during playback. Assign NV slider to ctrl change lets a MIDI controller drive the slider.

Computer keyboard

Keyboard pads play at velocity 100 (127 with FULL LEVEL). The mouse wheel over the DATA knob also turns it.

3 Recording Sequences

The MAIN screen

Sq:01-(Sequence01)                 Now:001.01.00
♩:120.0(MAS)  Timing:1/16      Tsig: 4/ 4
Count:OFF  Loop:OFF  Bars:  0
Tr:01-(Track-01)        ON:YES   Pgm:OFF
S:DRUM1:OFF  STARTER               Velo%:100
▪ · · · ▪ · · · ▪ · · · ▪ · · ·
■ STOP      4 notes
  STEP    EDIT   TrMUTE   SOLO    Tr -    Tr +

The row of squares is a step grid of the current bar for the current track; the reversed cell is the playhead. Below it the transport status and the number of notes on the track.

Soft keys: STEP and EDIT open the editors, TrMUTE toggles the track, SOLO solos it (press again to release), Tr - and Tr + step through tracks.

Transport

PLAY plays from Now:. PLAY START plays from bar 1. STOP stops and leaves the position where it was. The first pad hit or key press after loading the page also switches the audio on, as browsers require.

Recording and overdubbing

1. Pick a sequence and set Bars: (two bars is a good start) and Loop:ON.
2. Press REC (its LED lights: armed), then PLAY START.
3. Play the pads. Notes are quantised to Timing: as they land.
4. When the loop comes round, recording switches to OVER DUB by itself so you can add layers. Press STOP when done.

REC replaces what was on the track as the position passes over it; OVER DUB adds to it. Either key pressed during playback punches in, and pressed again punches out. With Loop:OFF the sequence grows by a bar whenever recording runs past its end.

Notes keep the duration you held the pad. Bad hit? Hold ERASE and the pad while overdubbing (see Erasing), or press UNDO SEQ after stopping.

Looping

The Loop window (OPEN WINDOW on Loop:) sets First bar, Last bar and Number of bars; the three are linked. Last bar:END follows the sequence length as it changes.

Count-in and metronome

The Count/Metronome window: Count IN plays one bar of clicks before recording and playback (REC+PLAY) or only before recording (REC ONLY). In play and In rec switch the metronome on during playback or recording, Rate sets its note value. Wait for key starts a recording on the first pad hit instead of immediately. SOUND opens the Metronome Sound window: a click with its own volume, or a drum program's accent and normal notes.

Timing correct and swing

Real-time recording quantises to Timing:. The Timing Correct window (OPEN WINDOW on Timing:) also quantises what is already recorded: choose the Note value, a Swing% from 50 (straight) to 75 for 1/8 and 1/16 grids, an optional Shift timing earlier or later by a number of ticks, the Time range and, on a drum track, one pad or ALL. DO IT moves the notes on the current track. Swing delays every second grid position; 62 to 66 is the classic feel.

Tap tempo and note repeat

Tap TAP TEMPO on the quarter notes; the tempo is the average of the last few taps (Tap averaging in OTHER mode). While the sequence plays, hold the key and hold a pad: the pad repeats at the Timing: value with swing, and the repeats are recorded when you are overdubbing. Pressure on the pad sets the velocity of the repeats.

Locating

BAR << and >> move one bar; STEP < and > move one Timing: step. Hold GO TO with BAR to jump to the start or end, or with STEP to jump to the previous or next event on the track. Tap GO TO alone for the Locate window: type or dial a position in Go to:, or move to one of nine memories, STORE the current position into it, and GO TO it later.

Erasing

While overdubbing, hold ERASE and hit the pad to erase: that sound disappears as the position passes over it. While stopped, ERASE opens the Erase window: a Track (0 means all), a Time range, and either ALL EVENTS, everything ALL EXCEPT one type, or ONLY ERASE one type; on a drum track, one pad or all.

Undo

UNDO SEQ lights after a recording or an edit. Press it to put the sequence back the way it was; press again to redo. It holds one step and is only valid right after the take.

Tempo changes

OPEN WINDOW on the tempo field. With Tempo change:ON, the list of positions and percentages takes effect; entry 1 always sits at the start. INSERT adds an entry after the selected one, NOW moves an entry to the current position, DELETE removes it. Each entry's % multiplies the initial tempo and the resulting ♩= is shown beside it.

Time signature

The Change Tsig window applies a new signature to a range of bars. Bars keep their events at the same beat; events past the end of a shorter bar are dropped.

Tracks

Every sequence has 64 tracks. Tracks are unused until you record on them or rename them. The Track window renames, deletes and copies tracks. ON:NO mutes a track; the ON window can erase every muted track in one go. DRUM tracks play a program through their DRUM slot; MIDI tracks send to the channel and port after the colon.

Track mute and solo

Press TRACK MUTE for a pad page of tracks 1 to 16 (banks B to D for 17 to 64). Hitting a pad toggles the track; bracketed names are on. Hold SOLO and hit a pad to solo that track; press SOLO again to release. TRACK MUTE again returns.

Next sequence

Press NEXT SEQ and dial Next Sq:; it starts when the current sequence reaches its end or its loop point. SUDDEN switches at once, CLEAR forgets it, PAD opens a page where the pads pick sequences 1 to 64. The main screen's Sq: field does the same thing while playing.

Punch, transpose, second sequence

MISC. mode (SHIFT+2) has three pages. PUNCH: automatic punch in and out at two positions; TurnON arms it and recording only happens inside the window. TRANS: a playback transpose for MIDI tracks (drum tracks are never transposed) that becomes permanent with FIX. 2ndSEQ: a second sequence that plays alongside the active one; useful for a drum loop under a sequence of changes.

4 Editing Sequences

Step edit

STEP on the main screen. The list shows the events at the current position on the current track: for a note, N: the note and pad, Tun: its note-variation value, D: duration in ticks, V: velocity with a bar. Move between events with the cursor, edit any field with the wheel or the keypad. STEP < and > walk through time.

Soft keys: TC shows and changes the timing value while held, COPY copies the selected events to a clipboard, DELETE removes them, INSERT adds an event of any type at the position, PASTE puts the clipboard at the position (RPLACE or MERGE), PLAY auditions the selection. Hold SHIFT and press CURSOR up or down to select several events; EDIT then changes them all: a new note, or add, subtract, multiply or set the value under the cursor.

Hitting a pad while stopped writes a note at the position (step recording). The Step Edit Options window (OPEN WINDOW) sets Auto step increment, which advances the position by one timing step after each note, and whether durations are AS PLAYED or a percentage of the TC VALUE.

The EDIT screen

EDIT on the main screen. EVENTS: COPY a time range of the current track to any track of any sequence, REPLACE or MERGE, several Copies; DURATION and VELOCITY add, subtract, multiply or set; TRANSPOSE MIDI tracks by semitones. BARS: copy whole bars of all tracks into another sequence, inserted after a bar. TrMOVE: SELECT a track, dial its new place, INSERT. DO IT on F6 runs the edit.

User defaults

The USER page of the EDIT screen holds the settings a new sequence starts with: tempo and source, time signature, loop, bars, program change, track type and channel, velocity percentage.

5 Song Mode

SHIFT+1. A song is a list of steps; each step names a sequence and how many times it repeats.

Song:01-(Song01)                  Now:001.01.00
TEMPO:MAS    Step  Sequence        Reps
♩:120.0        1   01-Verse          2
LOOP:OFF       2   02-Chorus         1
               3   (end of song)

Dial a sequence on the (end of song) row to add a step; INSERT adds one after the selected step, DELETE removes it. Reps:0 stops the song at that step. TEMPO:MAS plays everything at the song's tempo, SEQ lets each sequence keep its own. LOOP:ON repeats a range of steps. PLAY START plays the song from step 1; recording is not possible in song mode. The Song window (OPEN WINDOW on the song number) renames, deletes and copies songs. CONVRT flattens a song into one long sequence, keeping tracks as in the first step, dropping muted tracks, or merging by MIDI channel.

6 Sounds

Loading sounds

Drop WAV, AIFF, MP3, FLAC or OGG files anywhere on the machine, or press PICK in LOAD mode. They appear on the IMPORT device of the LOAD page. DO IT opens Load a Sound: PLAY auditions, Assign to note picks a pad (hit one), KEEP puts it in memory and on the pad, DSCARD drops it. See Disk for the browser disk and project files.

Sampling

SAMPLE mode (SHIFT+4).

Input:ANALOG   Mode:STEREO  Monitor:L/R
Threshold:-20  Time:10.0s  Pre-rec:100ms
 LEFT :▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮      -12dB
RIGHT :▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮        -13dB
RESET   PEAK                          RECORD

Input:ANALOG is your microphone or line input (the browser asks for permission); RESAMPLE records what the machine itself plays, so you can bounce a stack of pads into one sound. Mode chooses mono left, mono right or stereo. Threshold starts the recording when the input crosses that level (OFF starts at once); Pre-rec keeps the milliseconds before the trigger so attacks are never clipped. Time is the maximum length. RECORD arms; START starts by hand; STOP ends the take. The KEEP or RETRY window names the sound, assigns it to a pad, and lets you PLAY it before you KEEP or RETRY. OPEN WINDOW shows free sound memory.

Trim

TRIM mode (SHIFT+5) edits one sound at a time. Snd: picks the sound (wheel, or hit a pad that has it); pressing the current page's soft key again cycles the list order by memory, size or name. The waveform fills the middle rows with the active region shaded.

St: and End: are the start and end points in samples: dial them, type them, or hold SHIFT with CURSOR left and right for coarse steps. OPEN WINDOW on either opens a fine window with a zoomed waveform (ZOOM-, ZOOM+) and Smpl Lngth:FIX, which moves the other point along to keep the length. PLAY X auditions according to the PLAY X: field: ALL the region, BEFOR ST, AFTR END and so on. Release the key to stop.

Loop

To: and Lngth: set a loop inside the sound; Loop:ON makes the sound sustain while a pad is held. EDIT on this page fits the loop to the whole start-to-end region.

Zones and slicing

The ZONE page divides the region into up to sixteen zones. OPEN WINDOW on Zone: sets the Number of zones (equal division); each zone's St: and End: can then be nudged, and moving one boundary moves the neighbour with it. PLAY X:ZONE auditions the current zone. EDIT from this page offers SLICE SOUND: every zone becomes its own sound (End margin adds a little tail to each), and with Create new program:YES the slices land on pads 1 to 16 of a new program bound to the current DRUM slot. This is the chop.

Edit operations

EDIT opens the Edit window. Edit: chooses: DISCARD keeps only start to end; LOOP FROM ST TO END; SECTION > NEW SOUND copies the region into a new sound; INSERT SOUND > SECTION START splices another sound in; DELETE SECTION, SILENCE SECTION, REVERSE SECTION; NORMALIZE; TIME STRETCH makes a new sound at a Ratio from 50 to 200 percent with eighteen presets and three qualities, and BPM works the ratio out from a source and target tempo. DO IT applies.

Level, tune, beat loop

The PARAMS page sets the sound's Level and Tune (tenths of a semitone; tuning changes speed and pitch together, like the old machines). Set Beat to the number of beats in a loop and the page shows its tempo and the tempo it will have at the current tune, so loops can be matched by ear or by number.

The Sound window

OPEN WINDOW on Snd: (also from PROGRAM mode): rename, DELETE (or ALL), COPY, and CONVRT: stereo to two mono sounds, mono to stereo with another sound on the right, or RE-SAMPLE to another rate and bit depth for that crunch.

7 Programs

PROGRAM mode (SHIFT+6) first asks which DRUM slot to edit; the program bound to that slot is what the pads play on a track of that type.

Assigning sounds

Pgm: 1-STARTER
Pad:A01=Note:35     Pad assign:PROGRAM
Note:35=Snd:KICK
Mode:NORMAL
  ASSIGN PARAMS  DRUM   PURGE   AUTO   PLAY

Hit a pad, dial a sound onto Snd:. Pad:=Note: is the pad to note map, per program or a MASTER map shared by programs that choose it. Mode: plays extra sounds per hit: SIMULT layers up to two other notes, VEL SW switches to another note above a velocity, DCY SW switches on the decay value (open and closed hi-hat on one pad with the slider). OPEN WINDOW on the pad shows the whole bank's assignment; on Pgm: the Program window renames, deletes, creates (NEW) and copies programs. PLAY auditions the note.

Note parameters

The PARAMS page, per note: envelope Attack and Decay (0 to 100) with Dcy md:END, where the decay ends at the end of the sample, or START, where it starts right after the attack and shortens the sound; filter Freq and Reson (a 12 dB resonant low-pass); Tune; Voice Overlap POLY, MONO (a new hit cuts the previous one) or NOTE OFF (the sound stops when you let go). Windows behind these fields add velocity to attack, start point and level, a filter envelope with velocity to frequency, velocity to pitch, and Mute Assign: two notes this note silences when it plays (closed hat choking the open hat). Copy Note Parameters copies one note's settings to another.

DRUM slots

The DRUM page binds a program to each of the four slots and sets whether the slot accepts MIDI program change and volume, and whether pads play the internal sound at all.

Purge and auto chromatic

PURGE deletes every sound not used by any program. AUTO spreads one sound chromatically across all 64 notes from an original key: an instant melodic program from a single note.

8 Mixer and Effects

MIXER mode (SHIFT+7), per DRUM slot. STEREO: sixteen strips for the current pad bank; the top row is pan, the fader row is level. Move with the cursor or hit a pad to jump to its strip; hold SHIFT and hit pads to select several; ALL CH links every strip. OPEN WINDOW on a strip opens Channel Settings with its level, pan, effect bus and send. SETUP holds the master level.

FXsend routes each note to one of four effect buses, M1 and M2 (the multi-effects) or R1 and R2 (reverbs), with a send level. FXedit edits them: a multi-effect is a chain DIST (distortion and ring modulation), FILT (four-band EQ), MOD (phaser, flanger, chorus, rotary, autopan, pitch), ECHO (four delay types with damping) and REV into a MIX. Turn the wheel on a module to switch it on or off, or OPEN WINDOW for its parameters. The reverbs offer seven room types with predelay, time, diffusion and damping.

9 Disk

LOAD (SHIFT+3) and SAVE (SHIFT+0) share three pages. The BROWSER device is a disk inside your browser that keeps files and folders between visits; the IMPORT device lists files you dropped or picked. Nothing leaves your computer.

On the LOAD page dial File: and press DO IT; each type opens its own window (which sequence slot, whether to replace sounds, and so on). OPEN WINDOW on File: opens the Directory: CURSOR right enters a folder, left goes up, NEW makes one, RENAME and DELETE do what they say. On the SAVE page choose the Type, a name, and the Device: BROWSER writes to the disk, DOWNLOAD hands the file to your computer. FORMAT wipes the browser disk.

The machine also saves itself after every change and comes back exactly as you left it when you reopen the page.

10 MIDI

MIDI/SYNC mode (SHIFT+9) works in browsers with Web MIDI (Chromium-based). PORTS binds an input and two outputs, A and B, from your connected devices and shows channel activity. Incoming notes play the current track's program (or record onto a MIDI track); program change, controllers and bend are recorded on MIDI tracks. MIDI tracks send their events to the channel and port set on the main screen, and their notes follow the playback transpose. SYNC: send MIDI clock, start and stop from output A, or follow an external clock's tempo, start and stop. MIDIsw maps four controller numbers to footswitch functions: transport, tap, bank and pad selection, soft keys. The main screen's MIDI Input and MIDI Output windows hold the receive channel, program change to sequence, soft thru and PANIC.

11 Other

OTHER mode (SHIFT+8): Tap averaging and the keyboard reference (HELP turns the pages); INIT returns the whole machine to factory state after a confirmation; VER. shows the OS version.

Specifications

Chop Deck is an independent project. The machines that inspired it and their names belong to their makers.