Guide
Modular mode
A modular synthesizer is a set of small units, each doing one job, that you connect with cables. The same few building blocks make basses, pads, drums, bells and weather.
Cables and signals
- Sound (orange) is what you hear: oscillators, noise, samples and drums, through filters and effects to the Output.
- Modulation (blue) is a signal that moves a control: an envelope opening an amplifier, an LFO sweeping a filter, a random drift changing the pitch. Every modulation input has an amount knob.
- Notes (dotted yellow) carry note-on and note-off events with pitch and velocity, from keyboards, MIDI, sequencers, clocks and arpeggiators. A trigger is simply a short note.
Sound and modulation are both signals, so you may patch sound into a modulation input (audio-rate frequency modulation, for example) and the other way round. Notes only go into note inputs.
Patching
- Add modules with + Module: click one to put it in the middle of the view, or drag it onto the canvas. The search box finds modules by name or by what they do.
- Connect by dragging from an output (right side of a module) to an input (left side). Compatible inputs light up and the cable snaps to the nearest one. On a phone, tap the two ports one after the other.
- Several cables may leave one output, and several may arrive at one input: they are added together.
- Move a cable by dragging it off an input; drop it on empty space to remove it. Or click a cable and press its ✕ (or Delete).
- Move modules by their title bar. The ⋯ menu duplicates, resets, disconnects or removes a module.
- Pan and zoom: drag the background; pinch or ⌘/Ctrl + scroll to zoom; Fit shows the whole patch.
- Auto layout arranges the modules for you, in the order the signals flow: sources on the left, outputs on the right, with rows ordered to untangle the cables. It can be undone.
Voices (polyphony)
Voices in the toolbar sets how many notes can sound at once. With more than one voice, SynthLab gives every note its own copy of the modules that a note reaches: the oscillators, filters, amplifiers, envelopes, mixers and splitters downstream of the keyboard (their names show ×6, for example). Everything else, such as effects, LFOs, drums and the output, exists once and hears all voices together. With one voice, the patch is monophonic with legato: hold one key and press another to glide between them (turn up an oscillator's Glide).
Playing: keys, pads and MIDI
The Keyboard module is where notes enter a patch, from the on-screen keys and pads, the computer keyboard, MIDI keyboards and, in Studio mode, the regions of the track. Press Pads for drum pads: in a patch with drum modules there is one pad per drum, on the note that drum listens to (its Plays on knob, shown in its title); otherwise the pads play a row of notes from C3. Drum patches open with the pads. Press MIDI to connect MIDI keyboards and controllers (supported in Chrome, Edge and Firefox; the browser asks first). The MIDI in module adds a controller knob (CC) and the pitch-bend wheel as modulation outputs; in a patch without a Keyboard module, the computer keys and on-screen keys play it too. The on-screen keys show which computer key plays each note.
Clocks and sequencers
The Clock, Step sequencer, Euclidean, Arpeggiator and Generative modules run on the project tempo. In Modular mode they run all the time (switch Run off to stop one); in Studio mode a track's sequencers play while the song plays, in time with it. Patch a Clock into a sequencer's Clock input to step it by triggers instead, for example from a Clock divider for slower or uneven rhythms.
Scopes and meters
The Scope module draws up to two signals as waveforms (held still on a rising edge) or as a spectrum. The Output module has a level meter. Sequencers light their current step and the Euclidean module shows its ring.
Saving instruments
Save as instrument stores the patch under a name, in the project and in this browser's library. In Studio mode it appears under + Track. The patch selector at the top left switches between the playground (a scratch patch of its own) and the instruments of the Studio tracks.
There are 50 modules in 6 groups; see the module reference.