Getting Started

Browsers block audio until you interact with the page — click or press a key on the on-screen keyboard once to start sound. After that, everything plays normally. Pointer position on a key matters too: pressing low on a key plays louder (velocity), same as a real keybed.

Keyboard Controls

A S D F G H J K

White keys, C through the C an octave up

W E  ·  T Y U

Black keys (sharps), interleaved above the white row

Z / X

Shift the whole keyboard down / up an octave (range 1–7)

Ctrl+Z

Undo

Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y

Redo

The Boss Fights

One synthesis concept unlocks at a time. Each stage ends in a boss fight: hold the target sound while playing to drain the boss's HP over time — letting go heals it back, so there's no wiggling past the target for an instant and stopping. A lightning bolt arcs from the module you're fighting with to the boss panel while damage is actually landing. Defeat all nine to graduate into free play. A card names each boss and hints how to fight it before you begin (Fight!), and recaps what you did and what's next once you win (Continue) — nothing elapses while either is up.

1. Oscillator (VCO)

Vox Corruptus

2. Filter (VCF)

The Muffled

3. Envelope (ADSR)

Dronekeeper

4. LFO

The Still

5. Noise (VNO)

The Static

6. Second oscillator (VCO2)

The Dissonant

7. Tape delay (dub echo)

The Repeater

8. Reverb (dub space)

The Void

9. Capstone — match a patch by ear

The Mimic

Everything else — transport, step sequencer, piano roll, undo/redo, and audio export — is present and usable from the very start. Graduating doesn't unlock those; it unlocks every synth module, plus the free-play features further down this page.

The History tab always shows the current stage's pioneer, instrument, and fact. Each module's ⓘ button switches to the Learn tab with a deeper history of that module — several modules pull from a small pool rather than one fixed story (Oscillator: Bob Moog or Giorgio Moroder; Filter: Moog or Daft Punk; LFO: Wendy Carlos or Vangelis; Effects: King Tubby, Lee "Scratch" Perry, or Prince Jammy), so replaying the game surfaces different pioneers each time.

The Synth Rack

• Oscillator (VCO) — Waveform (Sine/Square/Sawtooth/Triangle), Octave (2–6), Detune (±50 cents), Mono (a real monophonic mode — overlap a note over one you're still holding on the keyboard/MIDI and it glides instead of starting a second voice), Glide (10 ms–1 s, only audible while Mono is on). Mono/Glide only affect live playing, not the sequencer/piano roll.
• Filter (VCF) — Type (Low/High/Band Pass), Cutoff (60 Hz–18 kHz), Resonance (0.5–18 Q), Filter Env Amount (0–4).
• Envelope (ADSR) — Attack (1 ms–3 s), Decay (1 ms–3 s), Sustain (0–100%), Release (1 ms–5 s).
• LFO — Destination (Off/Filter/Pitch/Amp), Rate (0.05–20 Hz), Depth (0–100%), Waveform (Sine/Triangle/Square/Sawtooth, plus a hidden Sample & Hold shape), and a Key-Sync toggle.
• Noise (VNO) — Type (White/Pink), Mix (0–100%).
• Second Oscillator (VCO2) — Waveform, Octave (±2), Detune (±50 cents), Mix (0–100%).
• Equalizer — 3-band Low/Mid/High, each ±12 dB.
• FX — Drive (0–100%), Delay (time 30–800 ms, feedback 0–85%, mix 0–100%), Reverb (mix 0–100%), and a hidden Chorus control (mix 0–100%).

Hovering an unselected option in most toggle groups previews it — a quick before/after against your current patch — without touching your held note.

Post-Graduation Bonus Challenges

• The Predictable (corrupted Buchla 266) — unlocks the LFO's Sample & Hold waveform. Gate: LFO → Pitch, Square shape, Rate above 15 Hz, Depth above 70%, while playing.
• The Solitary (corrupted Roland CE-1) — unlocks the Chorus FX control. Gate: Osc 2 Mix above 50% detuned more than 20 cents, Delay Mix and Feedback both above 30%, while playing.

Transport

Play/Stop, a live position readout, an editable BPM field (20–300 — or tap the Tap button a few times in rhythm to set it by feel), a fixed 4/4 time signature, and three toggles: Metronome, Loop (repeats the current pattern), and Count-in (one bar of clicks before the next Play press, not retroactive).

Step Sequencer

An 8-note diatonic grid (C major, one row per scale degree) times up to 16 steps — click a cell to toggle a note. Directly below is an Accent lane (one row — click a step to make any note in that column play louder), then five drum lanes (Kick/Snare/Hat/Cowbell/Clap, all synthesized, no samples), then an automation lane: pick Cutoff/Resonance/Volume and drag in the strip to draw a value per step (drag to the floor to clear a point). Steps switches 8/16-step length; Swing shuffles every other 16th note; Duplicate copies the first half of the pattern into the second half; Clear wipes everything.

Piano Roll

A chromatic 2-octave grid (24 rows) sharing the same timeline as the Sequencer. Click to add a note, drag its right edge to lengthen it, click an existing note to remove it — unlike the step grid, a note here can span multiple steps as one held note.

Pattern Clips & MIDI Files

The "Pattern" bar above the Sequencer/Piano Roll saves/loads/ duplicates/deletes named snapshots of the whole pattern (steps, drums, automation, and piano roll together) per track — separate from the synth Presets bar, which saves the sound, not the pattern. "Import .mid"/"Export .mid" round-trip the Piano Roll lane specifically as a Standard MIDI File (one bar, a 2-octave window); an out-of-range import is transposed by whole octaves to fit where possible.

Tracks & Mixer (after graduation)

A track picker switches which track the rack edits, adds a new track (cloned from the current one, up to 4 total), removes the active track, and mutes it. Every track plays simultaneously through its own instrument chain. The Mixer tab gives each track its own channel strip — pan, gain fader, Mute/Solo, and a peak meter (click a strip's name to switch to it). Muting always wins over soloing. The Master strip is meter-only — the header's Vol slider is still the one fader for that value.

Undo / Redo

Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z (or Ctrl+Y), or the header buttons — covers every edit, coalescing a slider drag into one undo step.

Presets, Sharing & Export

The Presets bar saves/loads a full synth patch by name. Share copies a link that encodes the current patch in the URL. Export records the live output in real time to a .webm file; Render WAV instead renders the current pattern offline to a .wav instantly, no need to press Play first. The whole project also auto-saves to your browser and restores itself on reload.

Practice Gym (after graduation)

Hear Target plays a curated reference patch; dial in your own Oscillator/Detune/Envelope/Osc 2/Noise controls to match it by ear — a closeness meter shows how close you are. Hold a close match for under a second to nail it and auto-advance; New Target skips ahead manually. The filter and LFO aren't scored here, so trust what you hear over the sliders' positions.

Era Workspaces (after graduation)

A Workspace picker in the History tab recolors the rack to match the synth that taught you (Moog, ARP, Oberheim, Sequential Circuits), plus Acid — a squelchy resonant-filter recipe in the style of the Roland TB-303, with Mono and a snappy Glide time switched on so playing it legato on the keyboard/MIDI actually slides between notes — and offers a couple of curated presets per era. Hover a workspace's name for its pioneer and a one-line history note. Purely cosmetic plus a preset shortcut — it doesn't gate any control's behavior.

Skeuomorphic Skin

The Skin button in the header (next to Undo/Redo) toggles the whole rack between the default flat look and a wood-and-brushed- metal hardware skin — deeper panel bevels, knurled knob caps, milled fader caps, press-in buttons. Purely cosmetic, available from session one, and your choice persists across reloads.

Tips

• If nothing plays, click a key first — every browser requires a user gesture before it will start audio.
• Live MIDI input needs Web MIDI support (Chrome/Edge — not Safari or iOS); file-based .mid import/export works everywhere as the universal fallback.
• Undo/redo, project auto-save, and audio export all work identically whether or not you've graduated.