Sweet Berta

A tiny toy piano with metal rods for strings: a thin, plinky narrow pulse and a high triangle a touch out of tune with it, all treble and no body, dying away fast. Play simple nursery melodies high up, or a slightly eerie music-room line. Macros: Plink, Tune, Ring, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A hollow bamboo tube knocked with a hard mallet: a dry, inharmonic FM clack at 2.76 to 1 with a tap of noise, gone almost before it starts. Play fast, busy percussive patterns and tumbling runs. Macros: Clack, Hollow, Length, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A wooden xylophone with gourds under its bars, each gourd's thin membrane buzzing on the strike: the round knock of an FM bar, with the voice fed back into the mixer for the rattle. Play driving, repeating figures; dig in and the buzz gets louder. Macros: Buzz, Knock, Ring, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A string section plucking with their fingers: two saws a little apart snapping shut through a soft 12 dB filter, thickened by a light chorus and placed in a concert hall. Play staccato, tiptoeing lines and short chords; soft notes stay round. Macros: Snap, Section, Length, Hall. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Pairs of steel strings struck with little hammers and never damped: two bright saws a little out of step, thinned by the high-pass filter, every note ringing on under the next. Play fast folk melodies and let the strings blur into a shimmering wash. Macros: Courses, Hammer, Ring, Hall. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A buzzing, sympathetic string: the envelope works the ladder backwards, so a resonant peak opens up through the harmonics as each note fades, the way a sitar's bridge makes it bloom, and the voice runs back through the mixer for the buzz. Play slow melodies with bends over a drone note. Macros: Bloom, Buzz, Ring, Hall. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A café accordion with its reeds tuned wet: two pulse reeds a few cents apart, so every held note wavers, breathing in from the bellows and stopping clean. Play waltzes and held chords with the right hand, and a bouncy bass-and-chord left hand low down. Macros: Wet, Reed, Bellows, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A chord in one key: two saws a fifth apart, snapped shut by the filter and pushed through a dirty squeeze, the stab of early rave tracks. Play short hits on the off-beat and shift them up and down the keyboard; the fifth moves with you. Macros: Bright, Snap, Dirt, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A deep, dubby minor chord stab: a saw and a square a minor third apart, filtered dark and thinned below, thrown into dotted-eighth echoes on the song's tempo that bounce from side to side and fade into a hall. Play one short stab a bar and let the delay play the rest. Macros: Echo, Feedback, Open, Hall. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

The big-room pluck: two wide saws an octave apart, snapped shut with a little resonance, echoing in clean dotted eighths on the song's tempo and spread by a deep chorus. Play bright off-beat chords and rolling sixteenth arpeggios by hand. Macros: Bright, Echo, Width, Decay. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Mellow keys through an old amp: a triangle and a soft square swirling in a harmonic tremolo, splashing into a second Big Red turned well up. Play slow, moody chords and twangy single-note lines, and let the springs drip. Macros: Spring, Tremolo, Speed, Tone. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Every key kicks the spring tank: the gate patched into a second Big Red's Kick, so each new note boings the springs, shaking up what the last one left ringing. Play short square plucks in a steady rhythm for a clanging, rattling bed; leave gaps for quieter boings. Macros: Spring, Pluck, Bright. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

An 8-bit game console's lead channel: a square and a thin pulse an octave up, no filter in the way, each note blipping out and decaying, with a short 12-bit echo. Play fast, catchy melodies and trills, like a level's theme. Macros: Pulse, Length, Echo. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A guitarist's trick: the inverted envelope rides Puzz's Cleanup, so every note hits fully fuzzed and cleans up as it rings out, the way rolling back a guitar's volume does. Play picked riffs and let notes hang to hear them turn clear. Macros: Fuzz, Clean, Ring, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Keys played backwards: each note swells up out of nothing, brightening as it comes, then stops dead at its peak, leaving only the hall and the echo behind it. Play chords and single notes slightly ahead of the beat so the swell lands on it. Macros: Swell, Bright, Echo, Hall. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A long silk-strung zither: a thin saw and narrow pulse, plucked with a pick so each note starts a little sharp and settles into pitch, ringing in a quiet wooden room. Play pentatonic melodies and slow, spacious phrases, with the odd bend. Macros: Pick, Thin, Ring, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Two saws with a slower attack into a closed ladder the envelope opens: a synth-brass swell and stab. Macros: Bright, Swell, Release. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Glassy FM bells tumbling up three octaves in sixteenths: a triangle ringing another a little off its octave, struck and dying away, with a ping-pong echo and a hall around them. Hold a wide chord and let it sparkle; change chords slowly. Macros: Shine, Decay, Echo, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

The hypnotic seventies sequencer sound: a resonant saw and square running sixteenths over two octaves, the filter rising and falling on a very slow tide while the notes repeat, a dotted echo filling the gaps. Hold a minor chord for minutes and let the filter move. Macros: Cutoff, Tide, Res, Echo. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Wind chimes on the beat: two high triangles struck in a random order over three octaves of what you hold, in eighth notes, with a long echo and a big hall. Hold a pentatonic cluster and leave it; no two bars are alike. Macros: Ring, Bright, Echo, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A swung house-piano figure: a square and a saw an octave up, short and plucky, running sixteenths through the chord you hold with a strong shuffle and a chorus. Hold minor sevenths and ninths, one a bar. Macros: Cutoff, Swing, Decay, Chorus. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A harp's glissando under your hand: a plucked triangle and a thin pulse sweeping up three octaves of the chord you hold in thirty-second notes, ringing into a hall. Tap a chord for one sweep, hold it for a cascade. Macros: Legato, Ring, Bright, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A muted, picked guitar line in eighth notes, its dotted-eighth echo filling in the sixteenths between them, so a held chord becomes a chiming, driving rhythm. Hold two or three notes and change them each bar. Macros: Echo, Mute, Bite, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A hypnotic wooden mallet pattern of twelve sixteenths in a small hall, a triangle struck by its own fourth harmonic. Hold D4 for it as written. Seq 2 is the same pattern one step shorter: switch to it and it slips against the bar, a new accent every time round. Macros: Knock, Ring, Room, Gate. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.