Wind Editor — User Manual
This page explains how wind instrument tracks work in Kiwisonic. The wind editor is designed for trumpet, saxophone, flute, clarinet, and similar instruments. All terminology is explained as it appears.
How wind instruments work (the short version)
A wind player blows air through their instrument and uses their tongue to shape how each note starts. The technique of starting a note is called tonguing — a gentle tongue tap for a clean attack, a sharp push for an accent, or no tongue at all for a smooth connection between notes (a slur).
Wind instruments also have a limited range — a trumpet can only play certain pitches, and a flute covers a different set. Kiwisonic knows these ranges and constrains the editor automatically.
Layout
The wind editor uses a piano-roll interface with wind-specific controls layered below.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Header: Instrument selector | Tone buttons | Tonguing preset picker │
├──────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Key │ Note Grid (piano roll) │
│ Strip│ │
├──────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Articulation strip (per-note tonguing) │
│ Pitch bend lane │
│ Dynamics strip │
│ Fingering view │
│ Snap indicator │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Header toggles
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| **FX** | Enables humanization effects — adds subtle timing and velocity variations to make notes sound more natural |
| **⇄** (Ripple resize) | When on, growing or shrinking a note shifts all later notes to keep them contiguous |
| **👁** (Guides) | Shows note guides — scale focus, melody hints, and chord emphasis overlays on the grid |
The note grid
The main editing area is a standard piano roll:
- Horizontal axis — time, left to right
- Vertical axis — pitch, low at the bottom, high at the top
- Click to place a note, drag to move it, drag the right edge to resize
- A key strip on the left shows note names
Playable range
The grid automatically constrains to the instrument's real range:
| Instrument | Range |
|---|---|
| Trumpet | F#3–C6 |
| Alto Sax | Db3–Ab5 |
| Tenor Sax | Ab2–Eb5 |
| Flute | C4–C7 |
| Clarinet | D3–Bb6 |
Notes outside the playable range are dimmed. If your instrument isn't in this list, the editor defaults to C3–C6.
Tone modes
The row of buttons in the header controls the overall tone colour of the pattern. Click a button to switch:
| Mode | Sound |
|---|---|
| **Full** | Open, bright, normal playing — the default |
| **Subtone** | Soft and breathy, common in jazz ballads |
| **Muted** | Dampened sound, like playing into a mute (trumpet) or with reduced air (sax) |
| **Flutter** | Flutter-tonguing — a rapid tremolo effect created by rolling the tongue |
The tone mode applies to the entire pattern. Different sections can use different patterns with different tone modes.
Tonguing presets
The tonguing preset picker in the header lets you load a preset that defines per-note articulation from the catalog. Each preset sets the tonguing type for every note in the phrase:
| Tonguing | Effect |
|---|---|
| **Slur** | Smooth connection to the next note — no tongue, just air. Creates legato phrases. |
| **Tongue** | Clean, distinct attack — the default way to start a note |
| **Accent** | Strong, emphasized attack — the note pops out of the phrase |
| **Staccato** | Short and detached — the note is cut short with space before the next |
Presets are tagged by genre and section type (verse, chorus, etc.) so you can find patterns that match your song's style.
Articulation strip
Below the note grid, the articulation strip shows one cell per note displaying its tonguing type. Click a cell to cycle through Slur → Tongue → Accent → Staccato. This lets you fine-tune individual notes after loading a preset.
Pitch bend lane
Below the articulation strip, the pitch bend lane lets you draw pitch bends — smooth slides between pitches. Use this for:
- Scoops — bending up into a note from below (common in jazz and blues)
- Falls — bending down away from a note at the end
- Slides — connecting two notes with a smooth glide
Dynamics strip
The dynamics strip shows volume over time. Shape breath pressure and dynamic curves across phrases — swell into a high note, pull back for a quiet passage.
Fingering view
At the bottom, a reference view shows the fingering for the current note on the selected instrument subfamily. This is informational — it helps you understand the instrument and spot awkward passages that might sound unnatural.
VST winds: articulation mappings
When you assign a VST wind instrument to a track, the per-note tonguing you set in the editor (Slur / Tongue / Accent / Staccato) and the tone mode (Full / Subtone / Muted / Flutter) need to be converted into whatever signal the plugin expects. Plugins vary:
- Keyswitch-based (most Kontakt wind libraries) — the plugin listens for dedicated MIDI notes to switch articulation.
- CC-based (Spitfire, Sample Modeling, etc.) — the plugin listens for a specific CC number + value.
- Program-change (rare).
Kiwisonic fills the mapping from the shared catalog whenever one is available for your plugin, including per-instrument mappings inside packs that bundle multiple winds. You don't normally need to touch anything.
If the catalog doesn't have your plugin, drop a JSON file into %LocalAppData%/Kiwisonic/articulation-maps/. The wind family vocabulary is documented in docs/catalog/articulation-maps.md — copy a similar entry as a template and edit it. Articulations Kiwisonic doesn't recognise on the plugin show up greyed out in the per-note tonguing menu, so you can see at a glance which expressive options the plugin supports.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Click empty grid | Place a note |
| Drag note | Move in time and pitch |
| Drag right edge | Resize note |
| Right-click / Delete | Remove note |
| Left / Right arrow | Select previous / next note |
| Space | Play / pause |
| + / - | Change snap resolution |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Y | Redo |
See shortcuts.md for the full reference.