GrooveGrid Manual

What is GrooveGrid?

GrooveGrid is a software groovebox — a self-contained instrument for building complete tracks from scratch. It runs as a standalone app or as a VST3 plugin inside your DAW.

Sample machines with hardware depth

Per-step sample switching, slice sequencing, conditional steps, and retriggers — hardware sampler depth with a visual grid instead of a tiny screen. Oneshot, loop, and granular engines each handle samples differently. Retriggers work at the MIDI level, so they apply to synths and external gear too, not just samples.

Music theory that stays out of the way

Pick a key and scale. The pitch faders constrain to notes that fit. Set a chord degree and every track re-quantizes — same patterns, new harmony, no manual editing. Duplicate a scene, change the chord, and you have a progression. Lock a bass track to the scale while everything else follows the chord. You don’t need to know theory to use it, but the music you make will sound like you do.

One loop becomes a full arrangement

Start with a single scene. Add probability-based step triggers so the pattern evolves on every pass. Use euclidean generators and algorithmic pattern generation to fill out rhythms. Duplicate the scene, shift the chord degree, layer in per-step automation, and your one-bar sketch grows into a complete track without starting over.

Built-in sample editor

A waveform editor for slicing, bookmarking, and preparing samples without leaving the app. Select regions, detect onsets, create named bookmarks with per-machine settings, and export slices. Bookmarks are stored alongside your audio files so they travel with your samples, not your projects.

Six built-in sound engines, a searchable sample library, per-track effects chains, and VST3 plugin hosting — one window, one workflow, no context switching.

1. Scenes

A scene is a self-contained musical section — think of it as a verse, chorus, or bridge. Each scene carries its own tempo, key, scale, chord quality, time signature, and bar count. You build a song by arranging scenes in the playlist and setting how many times each one plays before advancing to the next.

Scene properties

• BPM — Tempo, 30–300.
• Key — Root note (C through B).
• Scale — Major, Minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Locrian, Pentatonic, Blues, or Chromatic.
• Chord quality — Triad, Maj7, Dom7, Min7, Dim7, Aug, Sixth, Sus2, Sus4, or Add9.
• Chord degree — The default chord degree (1–7). Can also be automated per-step from the emphasis track.
• Time signature — Numerator (2–16) over denominator (2, 4, 8, or 16).
• Bar count — How many bars the scene spans (1–256).
• Playthrough count — How many times the scene loops before advancing in Follow mode.
• Color — Visual label for quick identification.

Scene operations

Create, duplicate, delete, merge, or split scenes. Splitting divides a multi-bar scene at the current bar boundary. Merging combines selected scenes into one. All operations are undoable.

2. Tracks

Each track is an instrument lane. A track has a machine (sound source), an effects chain, volume and pan controls, and per-scene step data. You can mute, solo, reorder, group, and color-code tracks.

Track properties

• Machine — The sound engine: Oneshot, Loop, Particle, Plaits, Plugin Host, or MIDI.
• Volume & Pan — Per-track mix controls.
• Mute / Solo — Standard mix workflow.
• Octave range — 1–4 octaves of pitch range for the pitch fader.
• Base octave — Starting octave (0–8).
• Pitch snap — Chromatic, Scale, or Degree quantization.
• Clock multiplier — ÷4, ÷3, ÷2, ×1, ×2, ×3, or ×4. Speeds up or slows down the track relative to the master clock without changing stored data.
• Clock reset — Scene (reset on scene change), Bar (reset every bar), or Free (polymetric drift).
• MIDI channel — For external gear or plugin routing.

Groups

Select multiple tracks and group them. Groups collapse in the UI, share volume and pan as a sub-mix, and can be edited as a batch. Ungroup to flatten them back to individual tracks.

Emphasis track

Every scene has a special emphasis track (the “master track”). It controls groove influence across all tracks and owns the chord degree automation lane.

3. Step Sequencing

The note grid is the primary editing surface. Each track shows a continuous grid spanning 1–4 bars. Click an empty cell to create a note. Drag a note’s edge to extend it across multiple steps. Notes that span more than one step are called spans in the UI — they represent a single sustained trigger.

Creating and editing notes

• Click empty cell — Create a one-step note.
• Drag note edge — Extend or shrink. Overlapping notes are absorbed.
• Single-click a note — Delete (with a 250ms safety delay so you can cancel with a double-click).
• Double-click a note — Toggle strum on/off for polyphonic chord articulation.

Polyphonic voices

Any step can have multiple pitch voices. Alt+click on the pitch fader to add a voice; Alt+click an existing voice hash mark to remove it. Voices are independent of strum — a step can be polyphonic without strumming, or strummed without extra voices.

Strum

When strum is enabled on a span, the chord voices play in sequence rather than simultaneously. The span length determines how long the strum articulation lasts.

Strum patterns

• Up — Low to high.
• Down — High to low.
• UpDown — Alternates direction each chord.
• Converge — Outside voices inward.
• Diverge — Inside voices outward.
• Random — Seeded per scene for reproducibility.
• Interleave — Odd-indexed notes, then even-indexed.

Strum curves

The timing distribution between strummed voices can be Linear, Exponential, or Logarithmic.

Pitch spans and legato

When a note covers more than one step, the pitch row shows a single wide pitch fader stretched across the span — one sustained pitch, dragged in one place, instead of a fader on every cell. The legato toggle on the pitch row switches to per-step faders inside the span: each step gets its own pitch and the notes overlap at the MIDI level so they tie smoothly. Polyphonic voices and strum still work in both modes.

Drag readouts

Dragging any fader shows a context-aware value while you hold the mouse: velocity reads as 0–127, pitch as note name or chord-tone label, pan as L / C / R, volume as a percentage, MIDI CC rows as 0–127, probability as a percentage, and retrigger rows as count and division. Release to dismiss. Useful for dialing in exact values without checking a separate inspector.

Multi-bar grids

The grid shows up to 4 bars side by side when the screen is wide enough. Bars beyond the scene’s bar count are dimmed. Step layout supports configurable grouping patterns: {4} (default 4/4), {3,3,2} for Latin, {3} for 3/4, and so on.

Nudge

Shift all steps left or right by one position, with wrapping. Ctrl+←/→ nudges all tracks; Shift+←/→ nudges only the active track.

4. Music Theory Engine

Most sequencers show you a piano roll with 128 notes and leave you to figure out which ones sound good together. GrooveGrid takes a different approach: you pick a key and scale in the scene settings, and the pitch faders on each track constrain to match. In Scale snap mode, faders only land on notes within the current scale — you absolutely cannot place a wrong note. In Degree snap mode, faders constrain further to only the chord tones of the active chord degree. This means you can build a pattern on one chord, duplicate the scene or bar, change the chord degree, and every track set to Degree mode re-quantizes to the new chord automatically — same rhythm, new harmony, zero manual editing. Because snap mode is per-track, you can mix approaches: set a bass line to Scale mode so it holds steady on the root while pads and melodies in Degree mode shift around it with each chord change. You don’t need to know theory to use any of this. If you do, every concept maps to what you’d expect.

Key

The key is the root note — the “home base” that everything else is relative to. Set it per scene. C, D, F#, whatever you want. Changing the key transposes everything in the scene without altering any patterns.

Scale

A scale is a set of notes that sound good together. Major sounds happy. Minor sounds sad. Pentatonic sounds like a guitar solo. The scale determines which notes are available when a track’s pitch snap is set to Scale mode.

Chord degrees

A chord is a group of notes played together. In any scale, you can build a chord starting on each degree (1 through 7). Degree 1 is the root chord, degree 5 is the dominant, and so on. You don’t need to memorize this — GrooveGrid builds the chords for you based on the key and scale you’ve chosen.

Each scene has a default chord degree. You can also automate chord degree changes per step using the emphasis track’s chord degree lane — draw spans on degrees 1–7 to change the active chord as the sequence plays. When the chord degree changes, every track whose pitch snap is set to Degree mode re-quantizes its notes to fit the new chord automatically. This is the core of GrooveGrid’s theory-awareness: set up a pattern once, change chords with a single click, and everything stays in key.

Pitch snap modes

Each track has a pitch snap setting that controls how the pitch fader quantizes:

• Chromatic — All 12 semitones. No filtering. Full control, but you can hit “wrong” notes.
• Scale — Only notes in the current scale. You can’t play outside the key. Good for melodies and bass lines that should stay consonant regardless of chord changes.
• Degree — Only the chord tones of the current chord degree. The tightest constraint — every note is part of the active chord. When the chord degree changes, the available notes change with it. This is the mode that makes GrooveGrid “understand music theory.”

Chord quality

Chord quality adds color and complexity on top of the degree system. A Triad (3 notes: root, 3rd, 5th) is the simplest chord and works for most music. Seventh chords (Maj7, Min7, Dom7) add a fourth note for a jazzier or more complex sound. Suspended chords (Sus2, Sus4) replace the 3rd for an ambiguous, open feel. You can change chord quality per scene to shape the harmonic character.

Putting it together

Set your scene to a key, scale, and chord degree. Set tracks to Degree snap mode. Every note you place is guaranteed to be a chord tone. Change the scene’s degree from 1 to 5 — or automate it per step on the emphasis track — and all your patterns shift to fit the new chord. Same rhythm, new harmony. That’s the whole idea.

5. Machines

Each track has a machine — its sound source. The machine type selector lives in the left-side config panel of the track inspector, with the MIDI channel control directly below it.

Oneshot

One-shot sample playback. Load a sample, trigger it from the grid. Two play modes: Gate (sustains while note is held) and Trigger (plays to end regardless of note length). Includes a drawable volume envelope per slot.

Loop

Continuous sample playback with real-time time-stretching and pitch-shifting via Rubber Band. Three play modes: Gate, Trigger, and Toggle. Supports streaming from disk or loading to RAM. Configurable crossfade length and loop beat count.

Particle

Granular synthesis engine running up to 64 simultaneous grains. Controls: Scan (playback position), Spray (position randomization), Density (grains per second), Size (grain duration), Pitch, Pitch Spread, Shape (grain window), Direction, Width (stereo spread), and Feedback.

Particle has two play modes, selectable from the bottom bar of the machine panel: Gate sustains and retriggers grains while a note is held, Trigger fires once per step. Incoming MIDI pitch transposes the grain stream, so Particle plays melodically from the pitch row and from external MIDI. The Retrigger Count and Retrigger Time automation parameters work here too — the bottom bar exposes the per-sequence pitch alongside the mode switch for quick access.

Plaits

A port of Mutable Instruments’ Plaits macro-oscillator with 24 synthesis models — virtual analog, FM, wavetable, granular, physical modeling (strings, modal resonator), drum synthesis (kick, snare, hi-hat), speech synthesis, and more. Controls: Engine (model select), Harmonics, Timbre, Morph, Decay, LPG Colour, and Aux Mix.

Plugin Host

Host any VST3 or AU instrument plugin inside GrooveGrid. The plugin’s native editor opens in its own window. Plugin state is saved with your project, and the plugin selector restores the loaded plugin name when you reopen a project.

On Windows, plugin editor windows now size correctly on high-DPI displays (150%, 200%, and so on). The behaviour is controlled by Settings → General → Scale plugin editors to display DPI and requires an app restart after toggling.

MIDI

Sends MIDI only — no internal audio. Route to external hardware or other software via MIDI channel assignment. Declares the full set of MIDI CC automation parameters.

Group & Master

These are auto-assigned. Group machines act as sub-mix buses for grouped tracks. The Master machine lives on the emphasis track and controls chord degree automation and groove.

6. Modifiers

Modifiers generate step patterns algorithmically. They appear in the modifiers panel on each track. Generated steps are marked with an asterisk in the grid. You can “stamp” generated patterns to convert them into regular user-owned steps.

Euclidean

The Bjorklund algorithm distributes N triggers as evenly as possible across the bar.

• Notes — Number of triggers (1–16).
• Offset — Rotate the pattern (0–15 steps).
• Length — Gate duration per trigger (1–8 steps).
• Apply to all bars — Same pattern across the entire scene, or unique per bar.

Grids

A port of Mutable Instruments’ Grids pattern generator. It interpolates across a 5×5 map of drum patterns to generate kick, snare, and hi-hat rhythms.

• Channel — 1 (kick), 2 (snare), or 3 (hi-hat).
• Map X / Map Y — Position in pattern space (0–255).
• Level (Fill) — Density threshold (0–255). Higher values add more triggers.
• Chaos — Random perturbation (0–255). Adds or removes fills on each playthrough.
• Length — Gate duration per trigger (1–8 steps).

Euclidean and Grids are mutually exclusive on the same track/scene.

Clock multiplier

Not a pattern generator, but a per-track time scaler. ÷2 halves the playback speed (8th notes become quarter notes); ×2 doubles it (16th notes become 32nd notes). Combined with the reset mode (Scene, Bar, or Free), this creates polymetric and polyrhythmic textures.

7. Automation

Each track can pin automation parameters as additional rows beneath the note grid. Each row shows a vertical fader per step. The available parameters depend on the track’s machine.

Parameters

8. Effects

Every track has an effects chain. Effects process audio in series.

3-Band EQ

Low shelf, mid peak, and high shelf. Each band adjustable ±12 dB. Configurable crossover frequencies: low (20–500 Hz) and high (2–16 kHz). Input gain ±24 dB.

Compressor

One-knob mu-law compressor (based on Airwindows Pressure5). The Amount control goes from bypass (0%) to heavy compression (100%).

Saturation

Three modes, each with Amount and Character controls:

• Tape — Analog tape warmth and soft clipping.
• Tube — Vacuum tube harmonics.
• Solid State — Hard digital clipping.

9. Browser & Library

The sidebar browser (Ctrl+B to toggle) manages your sample library. It scans watched directories, indexes files with full-text search, and organizes them by tags, collections, and types. Drag samples from the browser onto tracks to load them.

Tabs

• Places — Drill-down folder navigation through watched directories. Breadcrumb bar shows the current path.
• Tags — All tags with bookmark counts. Click a tag to filter.
• Collections — User-created groups of bookmarks with per-slot settings.
• Types — Filter by sample type: Loop, Oneshot, Particle, or Drum.
• Recent — Recently used samples, auto-pruned after 30 days.

Search

Full-text search (SQLite FTS5) across sample names and metadata. Debounced — results appear as you type.

Preview

Click a bookmark to preview it. Play/stop via transport controls. Volume and seek controls at the bottom of the browser.

Drag & drop

Drag bookmarks onto machine slots — any bookmark type works on any sample machine, the receiving machine adapts to the bookmark. Drag raw audio files from your OS file manager onto tracks. Drop a folder onto the browser to add it as a watched place.

Selection and bulk operations

The browser supports multi-selection. Ctrl+click toggles an item in or out of the selection; Shift+click extends the selection to a range. The right-click menu offers Rename for a single item and Delete for the whole selection — bulk delete is one click. Delete asks once and is undoable on the filesystem only via your OS trash; treat it as destructive.

Workspaces

A workspace is a top-level grouping for projects, useful for separating client work, song ideas, or tutorials. Create one with New Workspace from the browser context menu or the main menu. Each workspace has its own recent-projects list.

10. Sample Editor

The sample editor lives in its own view. It shows a zoomable waveform display, machine-specific controls, and a bookmark grid.

The editor is cursor-first. Dropping an audio file gives you a waveform with a cursor — no machine is loaded automatically. Click-drag a selection and the editor spins up a temporary preview machine for that region so you can audition before committing anything to a track. Bookmark regions render directly on the waveform as coloured overlays so you can see at a glance what’s already been marked up.

Waveform panel

• Selection — Click-drag to select a sample region.
• Zoom & scroll — Mouse wheel to zoom, drag to scroll.
• Onset detection — Analyze transients with configurable threshold and silence gate. Selection edges snap to detected onsets.
• Slice markers — Visual overlay showing calculated slice boundaries.

Bookmarks

A bookmark is a named region within an audio file. Each bookmark has a type (Loop, Oneshot, Particle, or Drum), a color, and per-machine settings. Bookmarks are stored in companion files (.wav.ggmarks) alongside the source audio, so they travel with your samples.

• Create — Select a region, click Create Bookmark.
• Edit — Click a cell to rename, change type, or recolor.
• Drag — Drag a bookmark cell onto a machine slot to load it.
• Export — Save a bookmark as a standalone audio file.

11. Transport & Playback

Controls

• Play / Stop — Space toggles playback.
• Loop mode — Single scene repeats indefinitely.
• Follow mode — Advance through the playlist. Each scene plays for its playthrough count before moving to the next.
• Loop bar — Lock playback to a single bar during editing.

Scene navigation

Click a scene in the scene grid to switch to it. Alt+click to view a scene without moving the playhead (useful for editing ahead during playback).

VST3 sync

When running as a VST3 plugin, GrooveGrid locks to the DAW’s transport. Position is calculated deterministically from the DAW’s PPQ (Pulses Per Quarter) — no drift, no accumulated timing errors.

12. Keyboard Shortcuts

On macOS, Ctrl refers to Cmd.

Global

Scene grid

Tracks area

Mouse modifiers

Sample editor

13. Settings & Auto-Update

The Settings window groups app-wide preferences. The most common ones to know about:

• Audio device — Input and output device, sample rate, and buffer size. Switching the input device preserves multi-channel routing, including Bluetooth headset inputs.
• Scale plugin editors to display DPI (Windows only) — Fixes plugin editor windows that open undersized on 150% / 200% high-DPI displays. Requires an app restart after toggling.
• Update channel — Stable or Nightly. Stable receives polished releases at a slower cadence; nightly receives every release as it’s built. The auto-updater only offers builds from the channel you’ve opted into.

Auto-update

GrooveGrid checks for updates on launch. When a new version is available on your channel, the app downloads it in the background and stages it as a .ggupdate file. Restarting the app applies the update. You can also trigger a check manually from Help → Check for Updates.

A full history of releases per channel, with changelogs, lives on the website’s download history page.