Transport & playback

The transport at the top of the screen groups all playback-related controls.

Main buttons

Button	Action
Play	Start playback (also toggled with Space)
Pause	Pause (also toggled with Space)
Stop	Stop and reset the playhead
Record	Start recording (see below)
Loop	Toggle looping. Double-click to clear the loop range

Playhead display

Two formats are shown in the middle of the transport:

Bar.Beat.Tick (e.g. 001.01.000) — bar . beat . tick (1 beat = 960 ticks)
mm:ss.ms (e.g. 00:01.234) — wall-clock time computed from BPM

The right edge shows status: STOPPED / PLAYING / PAUSED.

Record

How the Record button behaves:

No track is armed — pressing it auto-arms the first track, then starts playback and recording
A track is already armed — pressing it starts playback and recording (no auto-arm)
Recording is in progress — pressing it stops

Recording captures notes + CC + Pitch Bend + Channel Aftertouch received from the MIDI input port into the armed track. See Set up MIDI I/O for input port config and Recording from MIDI input for the full behavior.

Recording starts together with playback. There is no pre-roll or count-in at the moment.

Loop recording (overdub)

When you record with the loop range enabled, each lap layers onto the same clip (overdub). Lay down a kick on lap 1, snare on lap 2, hi-hats on lap 3 — same clip. This is the standard MIDI-loop behavior in Logic / Live / Cubase / Bitwig.

At the wrap point:

Notes that span the loop boundary are surgically released so they don’t hang into the next iteration
MIDI Clock output continues monotonic — synced external gear stays in time
The wrap completes inside one engine tick (overshoot carry-over), so the loop start doesn’t stutter

The “take” ends — and the next Play starts a fresh clip — on Stop / Pause / Seek / Track unarm.

Loop

You can set the loop range by Shift + dragging on the timeline ruler. The range snaps to bars.

Operations:

Operation	Result
Shift + drag the ruler	Set loop range (bar-aligned)
Click the Loop button	Toggle looping ON / OFF
Double-click the Loop button	Clear the loop range (button becomes disabled)

The Loop button is disabled when no loop range is set.

BPM and project length

The toolbar above the timeline has these fields:

Field	Range	Purpose
Name	Any text	Project name
BPM	20 to 300 (0.1 step)	Tempo
Bars	1 to 1024	Total length of the project in bars

BPM changes apply in real time, even during playback. Shrinking Bars does not delete clips or notes that fall outside the new range — they are preserved.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
`Space`	Play / Pause

For the full list, see Keyboard shortcuts.

Set up MIDI I/O — MIDI input port for recording
Troubleshooting — no sound or stuck notes