What Kiwisonic does

Piano Roll

The piano roll is where you write melodies, bass lines, and synth parts. Click to place a note, drag to move it, drag the right edge to change its length. Ghost notes from other tracks appear behind your own so you can write parts that complement the full arrangement.

• Scale guides dim out-of-key rows so you can see which notes belong to the key, without restricting where you place notes
• Harmonic timeline above the grid shows your chord progression. Chord tones are tinted so you can see which notes anchor the active chord
• Velocity lane below the grid lets you shape dynamics per note
• Quantization grid (1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 note) keeps your timing aligned

Scales, Keys, and Harmony

Pick a root note and scale and the whole application adapts. Out-of-key rows are dimmed in every editor, chord suggestions follow your key, and generators only produce in-key melodies.

When a harmonic timeline is present, chord tones light up in the grid as the cursor moves through each chord region. Notes that belong to the active chord are promoted to green, giving you a visual guide to the harmony without enforcing rules.

• Root note + scale selection adapts the full UI instantly
• Chord-tone tinting shows which notes anchor the active chord
• All generators and suggestions respect your chosen key
• Switch keys at any time without losing your pattern data

Flowpad & Recommendation Engine

A recommendation engine rates every note, chord, and duration as green (fits well), yellow (adds color), or red (creates tension). The Flowpad turns those ratings into a fast chord-writing workflow: a 3×3 numpad grid where each chord stays at a fixed position so you can learn the layout.

• Engine considers your key, recent notes, harmonic timeline, instrument, genre, and section role
• Instrument-aware: guitar promotes pentatonic patterns, bass promotes chord roots and fifths, piano suggests voice-leading
• Genre-aware: jazz promotes ii-V-I and seventh chords, folk favors I-IV-V triads
• Toggle between triads and seventh chords. The genre profile sets the default

Melody Generators & Lock & Reroll

Three built-in algorithms generate melodies that respect your key, scale, and genre. Once you have a starting point, Lock & Reroll lets you protect the notes you like and regenerate the rest. Alt+Click to lock, Ctrl+R to reroll. Iterate until the whole pattern works.

• Rule-Based: applies composition rules (stepwise motion, leap resolution, tendency tones, chord tone emphasis) with a randomness slider
• Markov Chain: learns from style profiles with a temperature control for predictability
• Constrained Random: controlled randomness with settings for density, rest probability, leap size, and velocity variation
• Lock & Reroll: lock your favorite notes, regenerate everything else. Works in the piano roll and all melodic editors

Guitar Chord Track

Place chord blocks on a timeline and assign a strum pattern. The voicing resolver finds a playable guitar position automatically. A live fretboard view shows which strings are played during playback, with a strum animation as the pick crosses the strings.

• Three voicing styles: Open (acoustic warmth), Barre (consistent electric), and Power chord (root-fifth-octave rock)
• 16-step strum grid with direction, velocity, technique (palm mute, mute, scratch), and strum speed per step
• Per-section strum overrides: fingerpick the verse, full strum the chorus, on the same track
• Built-in presets: Rockabilly Boom-Chicka, Folk Fingerpick, Eurodance Power-Chord 8ths, and more

Bass, Strings, Wind & More

Each instrument type gets an editor designed around how it is actually played, with articulation controls, playing styles, and generation tools specific to that instrument.

• Bass: chord-aware piano roll with one-click pattern generation (root notes, root-fifth, walking, arpeggio) and four playing styles (finger, pick, slap, synth)
• Strings: bowing presets (detaché, slur, staccato, spiccato), seven tone colours (arco, tremolo, pizzicato, harmonics), per-note articulation strip, and dynamics envelopes
• Wind: tonguing presets, pitch bend lane for scoops and falls, automatic range constraint per instrument (trumpet, sax, flute, clarinet)
• Sustain: chord-block editor for pads and ambient textures, with dynamics envelopes and voice-leading control

Kiwisynth: a wavetable synth that breathes

Every preset ships with subtle motion built in: drift, modulation, and micro-instability that make a sound feel organic from the first note. Open Pro mode for a full mod matrix, audio-rate modulation, and a cross-voice awareness system that reacts to how you play. Bundled with Kiwisonic. Also available as a VST3 and CLAP plugin for Windows. macOS and Linux planned.

• Two wavetable oscillators with up to 16 unison voices each, every voice drifting independently
• 19 mod sources (LFOs, envelopes, macros, MPE, velocity, mod wheel, aftertouch, pitch bend, Bloom)
• Drag-to-assign mod matrix with mod-of-mod and audio-rate routing
• Zero-delay-feedback filter with LP, HP, BP, Notch, Comb, and Formant modes
• 36 factory presets across Bass, Keys, Lead, Pad, Pluck, and Texture
• Listen to all 36 presets →

Mixer & Effects Chain

Every track has a mixer channel strip with volume, pan, mute, and solo. A fifteen-slot effect chain processes the signal in standard mixing order, from dynamics shaping through to final volume.

• Shape: Compressor, Saturation, Bitcrusher for dynamics and distortion
• Color: Tone (tilt EQ), Phaser, Chorus, Pitch, Filter for modulation and filtering
• Space: Stereo Widener, Auto-Pan, Delay, Reverb for depth and ambience
• Character: Vinyl (crackle and warmth), Gate (rhythmic chop), Volume. Section-level effects can differ per section: dry verse, spacious chorus

Kiwisonic Catalog

The Catalog delivers genre profiles, pattern presets, and curated instruments to Kiwisonic. It gives new users a working setup without requiring any prior knowledge of music production.

• Pattern presets for drums, bass, arpeggios, strumming, piano articulation, wind phrasing, string bowing, and organ comping
• Browse by genre, instrument, or section type (intro, verse, chorus)
• One-click install for hosted SFZ packs directly from the browser panel
• Community-contributed presets credited to their authors