How To Use ESSNCE

02 — Grab

The Grab captures audio from any source on your device.

• 1 Source selector — tap to switch between System Audio (captures from any app), Phone Mic, USB Mic, or MIDI controller.
• 2 Amplitude meter — shows real-time input level. Adjust your source volume before recording. Also shows detected pitch and chord in real time.
• 3 Record button — tap to start, tap again to stop. Audio saves directly to the sampler.

Pitch & Chord Detection

While recording or monitoring, ESSNCE detects the pitch of the incoming audio in real time. The detected note name appears above the amplitude bar. When chords are present, the chord name updates as the harmony changes — so you can see what key your sample is in before you even touch a pad.

Stem Separation

Turn any recording into separate instrument layers. Capture a song — or import a file — and ESSNCE splits it into four isolated stems: drums, bass, other instruments, and vocals. Each stem can be previewed, mixed, and sent to its own pad.

• 1 Four stems — drums, bass, other instruments, and vocals. Each gets its own level slider. Drag to balance how much of each stem you hear.
• 2 Per-stem level — isolate the drums to check the groove, or solo the vocals to grab an acapella. Each stem can be saved to its own pad.
• 3 A/B toggle — flip between the original mix and the separated stems to hear exactly what was pulled out. Each stem row also has its own A/B toggle for solo comparison.

03 — Sampler Hub

The heart of ESSNCE. Load sounds onto pads, set loop points, chop samples, and design your sound.

• 1 Reel & Waveform — the spinning reel previews the selected pad's audio. Scrub by dragging the reel. Set loop IN/OUT points on the waveform to isolate sections.
• 2 16 Velocity Pads — tap to play. Where you tap on the pad matters: bottom = loud, top = soft. Orange dot = loaded. Hold a loop and drag down to a pad to drop the looped section onto it.
• 3 6-Channel Mixer — drag the faders to set volume per channel group. Each group of pads maps to a mixer channel.

Chopping a sample

• Select a pad with a loaded sample
• Set loop IN and OUT points on the waveform
• Hold the reel — particles appear
• Drag your finger down to an empty pad
• Release to drop the loop as a new sound

Auto-Chop

Tap the CHOP button in the toolbar. It detects beats in the selected sample and splits them across empty pads. Adjust sensitivity to get more or fewer slices.

Pad Sound Designer

Long-press any loaded pad to open the full sound designer. It has 4 tabs — tap each below to see what's inside.

Kit Manager

Save your entire pad setup as a kit — all 16 pads, their samples, volume levels, pan positions, effects, and sound designer settings. Kits save as portable files you can share, back up, or switch between instantly.

• Save a kit — open the kit manager from the toolbar, tap Save, give it a name. Everything on all 16 pads is captured.
• Load a kit — browse your saved kits from the manager. Tap to load — the entire pad layout switches in under a second.
• Rename or delete — long-press any kit in the browser for options.

Performance Recorder

Record your pad performance as audio. Tap record, play the pads, and your entire performance — every hit, every velocity nuance — is captured as a single audio file. Great for live finger-drumming takes or building layered loops.

• Tap the record button in the transport bar
• Play your performance on the pads
• Tap stop — the recording saves to your library
• Load it onto a pad to layer another take, or drop it into the editor timeline

FX Chain Editor

Each pad has its own effects chain. Stack multiple effects in order — reverb into delay, distortion into filter, whatever sounds right. Open the FX chain from the pad sound designer to add, reorder, or remove effects per pad.

• Add effects — tap to browse available effects and slot them into the chain
• Reorder — drag effects to change the processing order (reverb before distortion sounds different from distortion before reverb)
• Per-effect controls — tap any effect in the chain to adjust its parameters

Time Stretching

The sound designer's Time Stretch control lets you change a sample's speed without changing its pitch — or change pitch without changing speed. Three modes give you different trade-offs between quality and character:

• OLA (Overlap-Add) — clean, transparent stretching. Best for tonal material like vocals, pads, and sustained sounds.
• Phase Vocoder — preserves harmonic clarity at extreme stretch ratios. Use when OLA sounds grainy.
• Auto — picks the best algorithm for your sample. The safe default.

Stretch a vocal phrase to half speed for an atmospheric pad, or squeeze a drum loop to double time for high-energy fills — all without the pitch artefacts you'd get from simple speed change.

04 — Drum Machine

16 tracks, variable-length step grid, 16 patterns, song arrangement, and 16 real-time effects.

• 1 BPM + Swing — drag the slider or tap TAP to set tempo by tapping. SW controls swing amount (0-100%) for groove.
• 2 Track rail — tap to select and audition. Long-press to open the assign sheet (load samples, set pan, assign choke group).
• 3 Step grid — tap to toggle steps. Drag vertically on an active step to change velocity. Long-press for micro-timing control.
• 4 FX rail — 16 real-time effects. Tap to toggle. REV (reverb), DLY (delay), DIS (distortion), LPF (low-pass), CMP (compressor), and 11 more.
• 5 Pattern bank — 16 patterns. Tap to switch. Long-press to copy/paste a pattern. Expand for colour coding and song arrangement.

Track Assign Sheet

Long-press any track in the rail to open the assign sheet. Here you can:

• Assign a sample from your repository to this track
• Set Pan — stereo position (L/C/R) so kicks sit centre and hats spread wide
• Set Choke Group (1-8) — tracks in the same group silence each other. Essential for open/closed hi-hat: when the closed hat fires, the open hat cuts off naturally

Step Editing

• Tap a step to toggle it on/off
• Drag vertically on an active step to change its velocity — higher velocity = brighter orange, louder hit
• Long-press an active step to open the parameter lock dialog: set exact velocity (0-100%) and micro-timing offset (-50 to +50ms) for swing and groove

Swing

The SW control in the BPM strip adds groove to your beat. It delays every other step by up to 33% (triplet feel). 0 = straight machine timing. 50-70 = classic hip-hop bounce. 100 = full triplet shuffle. Every drum machine has swing — it's what makes a beat feel human.

Tap Tempo

Tap the TAP button rhythmically. ESSNCE averages your last 8 taps to calculate BPM. Useful for matching tempo to a song you're sampling from.

Count-in Recording

Toggle the 4/4 button in the transport bar. When enabled, pressing REC plays 4 metronome clicks at current BPM before recording starts — so you can get in the groove before your performance is captured.

Pattern Management

• 16 patterns — tap pattern boxes to switch. Each pattern has its own 16-track step grid
• Long-press a pattern to COPY/PASTE — duplicate a pattern to a new slot, then edit the copy
• Song mode — toggle SONG in the transport. Chain patterns into an arrangement with section labels (INTRO, VERSE, CHORUS, etc.)

ADV Mode

Expand the timeline (tap the chevron) and tap ADV to unlock power features. Tap each tab below to see what's available.

16 Real-Time Effects

The FX rail on the right side of the step grid has 16 effects. Tap to toggle. Multiple effects can be active simultaneously — they chain in order.

• REV — Reverb. Adds space and depth. Makes drums sound like they're in a room or hall.
• DLY — Delay. Repeating echoes synced to BPM. Creates rhythmic trails behind each hit.
• CHR — Chorus. Thickens the sound by layering slightly detuned copies. Makes thin sounds fatter.
• FLG — Flanger. A sweeping, jet-engine-like effect. Dramatic on hi-hats and percussion.
• DIS — Distortion. Crunchy overdrive. Adds aggression and warmth to drums.
• LPF — Low-pass filter. Removes high frequencies. Makes things sound muffled or dark.
• HPF — High-pass filter. Removes lows. Makes drums tinny — useful for filtered breakdowns.
• PIT — Pitch shift. Raises pitch by 3 semitones. Great for risers and transitions.
• CMP — Compressor. Squashes dynamics — makes quiet parts louder and loud parts quieter. Glues the mix.
• SAT — Saturation. Warm analog-style soft clipping. Adds presence without harshness.
• BIT — Bit crush. Reduces to 8-bit audio. Retro, crunchy, lo-fi character.
• STP — Stutter. Chops the audio into rapid repeats. Classic glitch/EDM effect.
• PAN — Auto-pan. Moves the sound left-to-right rhythmically. Creates movement in headphones.
• TRM — Tremolo. Volume pulses up and down. Rhythmic, hypnotic effect.
• STR — Time-stretch. (Reserved for offline use.)
• ENV — Envelope follower. Auto-wah — the filter opens and closes based on how hard the drums hit.

Song Arranger

Chain your patterns into a full song structure. The song arranger lets you drag blocks — each representing a pattern — into a timeline. Label sections as INTRO, VERSE, CHORUS, BRIDGE, DROP, or OUTRO. The sequencer plays through the chain in order, repeating each block for the number of bars you set.

• Drag blocks to reorder sections — change the song structure without reprogramming any patterns
• Tap a block to cycle through section labels: INTRO, VERSE, CHORUS, BRIDGE, DROP, OUTRO
• Colour-coded patterns — assign a colour to each pattern so you can see the structure at a glance
• Toggle SONG mode in the transport to switch between pattern view and song arranger view

Per-Step Parameters

Beyond just on/off and velocity, each step has fine-grained controls that make your patterns feel alive:

• Probability — set a percentage chance that the step fires. A kick that only hits 70% of the time creates a looser, more human groove. Perfect for ghost notes and variation.
• Flam — adds a rapid double-hit before the main step. The second hit is quieter and slightly offset. Essential for realistic snare rolls and drum fills.
• Roll — subdivides the step into faster repeats (1/16, 1/32, 1/64). Turn a single hi-hat step into a rapid roll without cluttering the grid.
• Micro-timing — nudge a step forward or back in time by up to 50ms. Push the snare slightly ahead for urgency, or lay the hi-hat back for a relaxed pocket.

Long-press any active step to open the parameter lock dialog where all four controls are available per step.

05 — Editing Suite

Multi-track arrangement with pinch-to-zoom, snap grid, and loop regions.

• 1 Timeline tracks — drag clips to arrange. Pinch to zoom in/out. Each track has independent volume and mute.
• 2 Clips — coloured blocks representing audio. Tap to select, drag to move. Long-press for trim, copy, delete.
• 3 Transport + Export — SNAP toggles grid snapping. LOOP enables loop regions. EXPORT renders to FLAC, WAV, or MP3.

Waveform Editor

Tap any clip to open the full waveform editor — a single-sample view with precise controls. This is where you sculpt audio at the sample level.

• Selection — drag across the waveform to select a region. The selection highlights in orange. All edits (cut, copy, delete, normalise, reverse) apply to the selected region.
• Cursor — tap anywhere to place the cursor. Playback starts from the cursor position so you can audition from any point.
• Zoom — pinch to zoom in on the waveform down to individual samples. Essential for finding zero-crossing points before making cuts to avoid clicks and pops.

Trim & Fade Handles

Every clip has draggable handles on both ends:

• Trim handles — drag the edges of a clip inward to shorten it. The audio outside the trim is hidden, not deleted — drag back out to reveal it.
• Fade-in handle — drag the top-left corner of a clip to create a smooth volume ramp from silence. Prevents clicks at clip starts.
• Fade-out handle — drag the top-right corner for a smooth ramp to silence. Essential for clean clip endings and avoiding abrupt cut-offs.

Undo & Redo

Every edit is reversible. The editor keeps a full history — cut, paste, trim, delete, normalise, fade — all undoable. Tap undo to step back one action, redo to step forward. No limit on history depth within a session.

Silence Trimming

Remove dead air from the start and end of a sample automatically. The silence trimmer scans for audio above a threshold and cuts everything before the first sound and after the last. Useful when you've captured a sample with a long lead-in or recorded a take where you didn't hit the pad immediately.

06 — Notation Editor

Write, edit, and play back musical notation. Hum a melody and see it appear on the staff. Capture audio, split it into stems, and each stem becomes notation you can edit.

• 1 Score editor — tap the staff to place notes. Drag notes up or down to change pitch. The staff supports multiple voices, chord stacking, lyrics, dynamics, and articulation markings.
• 2 Notation keyboard — pitch row (C through B), duration row (whole to 32nd notes), articulation row (staccato, accent, slur, tie), and dynamics row (pp through ff). Tap a note value then tap the staff to place it.
• 3 Transport & export — PLAY plays your melody through a built-in instrument engine (piano, strings, and more via SFZ instruments). HUM captures your voice and turns it into notation. MIDI and WAV export your notation as files.
• 4 Send to pad / arrange — once your melody is written, send it directly to a sampler pad as audio, or place it on the editor timeline as a clip.

Hum-to-Notation

Hum or sing a melody into your phone's mic. ESSNCE detects the pitch of each note you sing, cleans up any wobble, and writes the result onto the staff — with the correct note names, durations, and rests. No keyboard required.

• Tap the HUM button in the transport bar
• Hum, sing, or whistle the melody clearly
• Tap stop — the detected notes appear on the staff
• Edit any note that needs adjusting — drag to fix pitch, change duration, or add articulations

Stem-to-Notation

The fastest way from audio to written music. Capture a song (or import one), run stem separation to isolate the instruments, then send any stem — the bassline, the vocal melody, the synth lead — directly to the notation editor. Each stem is analysed and turned into notation automatically.

• Capture audio in the Grab, or import a file
• Split into stems — drums, bass, other, vocals
• Send to Notes — tap any stem and choose Send to Notes
• Edit the resulting notation — it's already on the staff, ready to tweak or play back

Instrument Playback

Your notes play through a built-in SFZ instrument engine — the same format used by professional sample libraries. Piano, strings, and more are available. Each note triggers a real recorded sample at the correct pitch and velocity. It sounds like an instrument, not a beep.

Multi-Voice & Piano Staff

Write for two hands on a single staff. Right hand on the upper staff, left hand on the lower — standard piano notation. Each voice has independent dynamics and articulations. Use it for piano pieces, lead sheets with a bassline, or layered melodies.

Export MIDI & WAV

• Export MIDI — standard MIDI file you can open in any DAW (Ableton, FL Studio, Logic, GarageBand). Tempo, note lengths, and velocities are preserved.
• Export WAV — renders your notation as audio through the instrument engine. Ready to share, sample, or drop into the editor timeline.

Tags & Folders

Organise your notation files with tags and folders. Search by tag to find all your basslines, or browse by folder to keep projects together. Notes integrates with the Library for consistent organisation across the app.

07 — Sample Library

Browse, preview, search, and import samples from a structured folder system. Everything you capture or import lives here.

• 1 Search — type to filter your entire sample collection by name. Results update instantly as you type.
• 2 Folder hierarchy — samples are organised by type. Tap a folder to open it, tap a sample to preview. The default structure has Backing Tracks, Vocals, Drums (with sub-folders for Kicks, Snares, Hi-Hats, etc.), and Samples — but you can create your own folders.
• 3 Sample preview — tap any sample to hear it. The waveform icon gives a quick visual reference of the sound. Tap the orange dot to load it onto a pad.

Importing Audio

ESSNCE supports importing audio files in these formats: WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, AAC, M4A, WMA, OPUS, 3GP, and AMR. Imported files are automatically converted to the app's native 44.1 kHz format so they play back cleanly.

• Tap the import button in the Library toolbar
• Browse your phone's storage and select an audio file
• The file appears in your library, ready to load onto a pad or assign to a drum track

Project vs Default Library

ESSNCE has two library modes: the Default Library (your permanent collection, stored in app-private storage) and the Project Library (samples bundled inside the current .essketch project). Switch between them from the Library toolbar. Use the Default Library for sounds you want available everywhere; use the Project Library to keep a project self-contained for sharing.

08 — Tips & Hidden Features

Long-press actions

• Long-press a sampler pad to open sound designer (ADSR, filter, FX)
• Long-press a drum track to assign samples, set pan, set choke group
• Long-press a pattern box to copy/paste patterns
• Long-press an active step for micro-timing and velocity control
• Long-press a sample in the Library to rename, delete, or send to pad
• Long-press a note on the staff to change its pitch, duration, or articulation

Velocity

On sampler pads, tap position controls velocity — bottom of the pad = full volume, top = soft. On the drum grid, drag vertically on an active step to adjust its velocity.

Count-in recording

Tap the 4/4 button in the drum transport bar to enable count-in. When you press REC, four metronome clicks play before recording starts.

Tap tempo

Tap the TAP button in the drum BPM strip repeatedly. It averages your last 8 taps to set the BPM.

Stem separation workflow

Capture audio → split into stems → preview each stem independently → send drums to a pad, bass to another, vocals to a third. Build an entire track from one recording.

Hum-to-notation

Don't know music theory? Just hum. The app detects your pitch, smooths out any wobble, and writes the notes on the staff. Edit from there.

Kits for live performance

Save different kit setups for different songs. Switch between them during a live set without stopping playback. Each kit loads in under a second.

Time stretching by mode

For clean vocal stretching use OLA mode. For extreme slowdowns where clarity matters, switch to Phase Vocoder. For quick results, leave it on Auto.

Auto-save & crash recovery

Projects auto-save every 5 minutes. If the app closes unexpectedly, a recovery dialog appears on next launch with your latest work.

Keyboard shortcuts (external keyboard)

Space = play/stop. Numbers 1-9 = select pattern. Arrow keys = navigate steps.