Thanks for buying this app! You support my music and further development of this synthesizer. It means a lot.
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What's New

v1.6.1:

Performance fix!

v1.6.0:

Lots of sequencer tweaks and other things including:

v1.5.0:

v1.4.0:



See Older news and release notes.


Getting Started

Just start pushing buttons! That's the fun of it! Worst case: just reset back to factory settings! #YOLO

There are three main modes:

Setup mode thumbnail Sequencer mode thumbnail Instrument editor mode thumbnail


💡 Tip: Do you want to keep this help doc open while you use the app? You can open it in a web browser: www.seqmedia.com/anilog-help/


User Interface Overview

There are some common UI elements in any mode:

Diagram of major parts of the ANILOG UI

Tip: On an iPhone, some parts of the UI might not be visible until you hide the keyboard with Keys.


SEQ Sequencer Mode

Play and create your own songs in ANILOG! Share your creations too!

Sequencer Mode Buttons

Sequencer Mode Tabs

Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer song tab

Song About the Song Information tab

The Song tab gives you information about the song. Tap Edit to open the menu to enable editing various fields like the song title, album, and so on.

When the song is playing, a graph will show you the approximate pitch of every oscillator (i.e. each instrument has 1 to 3 oscillators) and its stereo panning location on the [L]eft or [R]ight.



Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer editor interface

Grid About the Grid Tab

Create multitrack songs in a grid format called a "tracker". It's like a MIDI piano roll, but vertical and shows all the notes (and commands) to be played. Notes will play until they either turn themselves off, or a new note is triggered, or you insert an -Off- or -Stop- command.

Notes in the Grid

Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer notes grid

Notes in the grid are in a compact format. When the play head reaches the row, it will trigger the note on with the following:


Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer track properties

Track mute and effects

Tap on the track header to switch to the Track Properties panel.

What is "side chaning"?

In pop and dance music, bass drums and bass instruments are loud and prominent. But to make those instruments heard over all the other instruments, the common technique is to "duck" (or temporarily silence) the other instruments. This lets the listener hear the clean bass kick without having all the other instruments play louder to compensate.

Also, by ducking all the other instruments, it has the effect of adding a volume swell to them, which sounds like you are rhythmically "pumping" the other tracks.

In ANILOG, sidechaining is not an exact "signal follower" of the bass drum. Rather, per track, you choose which other track should trigger the temporary ducking. For example, if your bass drum is on Track 2 and your synth pads are on Track 4, tap the Track 4 header then slide the Side.C Track to 2. When any instrument plays on Track 2, ANILOG will look at its Amp envelope and apply the opposite envelope shape to Track 4's volume. (The instrument's volume is ignored; we only pay attention to the amp envelope.)

Tip: Let's say you want to sidechain some pads but you don't want to hear a bass drum. Go ahead and use a Track as the sidechain but set the Track Vol to 0%. This will still make your pads follow the sidechain envelope but since that Track is 0% volume you will hear the pads "pump".

Tip: You can have multiple sidechaining tracks! Let's say the bassline's sidechain is the Kick track. But you use the previous technique of having a "silent" sidechain track that is continuous 16th note pops: the pads that follow this track then get a kind of staccato "pip pip" sound! (This gives the effect of using a "tempo gate".)

Editing note values

There are two ways to edit:

About Hexadecimal Numbers

Why the odd numbering? It is a more compact format to write numbers in the range of 0 to 127. It does take a little getting used to, but here's a quick guide:

Stopping a playing note

Tap the Off / Stop button:

If you have selected a region then the selection will be erased and the -Off- or -Stop- commands will be set on the first row.

If you have a hardware keyboard attached, you can use the shortcuts . to insert -Off- or . to insert -Stop-

Clearing note data

Tap the Clear Cell button to delete the selected region.

Selecting a region of notes

If you long-press a cell then a menu will appear to select a range.

Also, if you have a hardware keyboard attached, you can hold down and tapping on the arrow keys will change the selection.

Editing a selected region of notes

If you long-press on a selection region or tap the Menu button, you get access to new tools:

Copying, cutting, and pasting a region of notes

Once you have a selection of notes (or just the current cell highlighted), tapping the Copy / Paste button will bring up a menu to copy, paste, or cut the region.

When you paste copied notes the cursor will be placed on the next row just after the pasted region. This makes replicating sections of songs super fast!

If you have a hardware keyboare attached then C will copy the selected notes. ( X and V will cut and paste.)



Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer patterns interface

Pats About the Patterns Tab

Songs use patterns as a way to group a block of grid notes together. Think of it like a phrase—the default grid is 4 measures of 16th notes (64 rows, 4 rows per beat).

Tap on a pattern number (e.g. 004) to select it. Long-press a different pattern number to select a range. The length of the pattern appears next to the number (e.g. 64 rows).

Tap on the label for the pattern to open a menu. You can then edit the pattern descriptions or clear them.

If you have selected a range of patterns, the Pat Rows slider lets you change all the number of rows. You can also duplicate and delete ranges of patterns.

Use the Song Pos slider to scroll through the list of patterns.



Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer instrument editor interface

S.Inst About the Song Instrument Editor Tab

If the song's Instrument Editor tab looks familiar to the Inst Instrument mode ... that's because it is the same! You get the same editing workflow, same import/export, same undo/redo/save.

What's different: song instruments are not split into banks. There is one list of instruments that the song uses. You'll notice that the song instrument numbers are also in hexadecimal and correspond to the note instrument commands in the grid.

Importing ANILOG instruments into the song, exporting

You can copy instruments from ANILOG's main Instrument mode to the song, and vice versa. Just use the Menu button to open the menu, then Copy instrument.

Then you can either change to a different song instrument and then Paste instrument, or you can change to Instrument mode and paste.



Screen shot of ANILOG sequencer properties interface

Props About the Song Properties Tab

The song properties tab lets you set global properties. The reverb is a more granular feedback tank. Tip: In this version of ANILOG it is still a little bit "grainy", so you may want to reduce the Feedback Brightness to compensate.


INST Instrument Mode

Changing sounds is just as much fun as playing them! There are 3 Oscillator pages (with generators and envelopes), 1 Noise Generator Page, and 1 Properties Page. Change pages with the Prev Page and Next Page buttons. Here's what's on each:



Some notes about the sliders:

Sliders go up/down or left/right, and you can touch anywhere on the strip—not just on the tiny current value! Each has a default value indicated by a thick bar. Tapping above/below the current value will step up/down. For more precision long-press and then drag outside the slider.

ANILOG sliders diagram

Oscillator Pages (OSC1, OSC2, OSC3)

Oscillator page, generator tab

GEN1 Generator Tab

Each Oscillator makes sound from its Generator engine and are added together:

Oscillator page, shape tab

SHAPE1 Shape Tab

This is part of the "ANILOG magic" that affects the Saw/Ramp values with an envelope:

Oscillator page, amplifier tab

AMP1 Amplifier Tab

The amp envelope controls the loudness of the Generator:

Oscillator page, effects (FX) tab

FX1 Effects Tab

Various effects such as pitch change, velocity-to-envelope, and bit crushing:

Noise Page

Noise is not a white noise but more of a sample-and-hold randomizer which creates weird overtone effects.

Noise page, envelope tab

N-ENV Envelope Tab

Like the Oscillator Amplifier tab, this is the output level envelope of the noise generator.

Tip: for sustained noise set the Sustain and Release values to maximum.

N-FX Noise Effects Tab

Applies various effects to the noise generator:

Properties Page (INST, FEEDBK)

Settings that affect the overall instrument:

INST Instrument Properties

General settings

Instrument general properties page


FEEDBK Instrument Feedback

Feedback loop buffer settings. Feedback works either like metallic resonance or a line delay.

Edit tools menu

More Tools Menu MENU

Various tools are tucked away:


SETUP Global Setup Mode

The Setup mode shows you system status, how many voices are being played, global tuning, user interface changes, MIDI commands heard by the system, and other tools.

Note: Reset patches to factory will totally erase all instruments and set things back to the original sound set. Proceed if you are sure!

You can also export the entire sound set as a JSON blob for sharing. At this moment you cannot import.


Keyboard Shortcuts

If you have an external keyboard connected to your iPad or iPhone, you can take advantage of these key commands!

Global Key Bindings

Change Mode

Interface Control

Sequencer Playback

Sequencer Mode

Files

Copy, cut, paste

Deleting

Editing notes

History

Instrument Mode

Navigation

History


Working with MIDI

ANILOG supports MIDI hardware you just plug in and host apps like Audiobus or AUM:

What is currently supported

ANILOG will respond to:


Additionally, for the Korg taktile these default buttons are supported:


Troubleshooting Guide


Older News

v1.3.1:

We did a sad. App might not load up right the first time.

v1.3.0:

MIDI 'n things!

v1.2.1:

If your DAW supports it, saving the session state should now save the current state of ANILOG's sequencer and current instrument. This is helpful if you have an instance of ANILOG and have tweaked the instrument but haven't yet permanently saved it.

v1.2.0:

AUv3 support! 🎉 Yes, the app now supports Apple's Audio Units version 3 and should be compatible with most iOS DAWs. 🔊 (Note: different DAWs do different things with Audio Units, so please send us a note if something isn't working quite right.)

Other things:

v1.1.4:

Necessary upgrades and improvements:

v1.1.3:

Merry Fix-mas! 🎄 There is a new song and a bunch of fixes:

v1.1.2:

v1.1.1:

v1.1.0:

v1.0.67:


About ANILOG Synthesizer

Thank you again for downloading ANILOG! This has been a labor of love for many years to try to bring something new into this world. There are so many great synthesizer choices out there, but I had a few design goals in mind:


Thank you!

Big thanks to the many people who have been part of the production of this app:



Pssst ... do you want to keep this help doc open while you use the app? You can open it in a web browser: www.seqmedia.com/anilog-help/