elixir desktop

A six voice drum machine for your laptop, built on the LXR-02 engine. The same help is in the app: options › help, or press h.

getting started

Elixir is a six voice drum machine: drum 1, 2 and 3, snare, cymbal and hihat. Three steps to a beat:

Press play (or space).
Press everything until you like what you hear: each press is a new beat, kit, effects and mix.
Turn the knobs, or press kit, pattern or alter to change one part. undo takes back the last one.

The screen: the title line has options, the randomise buttons, then play and rec. Under it on the left, the perform knobs and the step sequencer; on the right, one page at a time (beat, voice, fx, xfeed, mix, mstr, prst), chosen by the buttons over it.

Drag a knob or fader up or down, or scroll on it; double-click to reset it. When you like the sound, prst › save new. rec records a WAV. Keys for nearly everything: see keyboard.

(On a screen under 1000 px wide it becomes the phone layout: pages along the bottom, and hold a fader for its sequencer.)

perform: knobs and randomisers

Twelve knobs, four across and three down: the perform controls (tempo, sidechain, pitch, decay, filter, fm, crossfeed), energy, then genre, beat, fills and rush. MIDI CC 1 to 12 turn them (any channel).

Each knob's ring shows its value. While its step sequencer runs, the pointer stays on your setting and the lit part of the ring shows where the sequencer has moved it.
options › assign knobs, then click a knob to choose what it does: any fader from any page, or any drum's setting. Or right-click a knob › assign.

The randomise buttons (marked rnd):

everything: a new beat (genre, groove, kit, effects, mix). kit: new sounds. alter: the sounds nudged about 10%. pattern: a new beat on the same sounds.
crossfeed: a new crossfeed patch (see fx). random fx: new effects and sends. alter fx: the effects nudged.
Click to randomise. Drag up or down on one to set how far it goes, 10% to 100% (a dotted bar along its foot below 100%): at 30% it moves everything only 30% of the way to the new sound, and switches choices like the style 30% of the time.
Hold one still for half a second for its settings, the ranges and chances it uses.
options › randomise on next bar: while playing, randomises wait for the start of the next bar (the button flashes until then).

mutes and sends

Beside the knobs, a column for each drum (drum 1, 2, 3, snare, cymbal, hihat): its level meter, its reverb send and echo send as number boxes (each with its own mute), and its mute at the foot.

Each send has a small square under its box: a click mutes that send (the square fills, and the box goes black). The mute buttons under the mixer's level faders take the drum's name: a click mutes the drum.
The keys aren't printed on the screen. z x c v b n mute the drums (drum 1, 2, 3, snare, cymbal, hihat, in that order); a s d f g h mute their echo sends; q w e r t y their reverb sends. clear lifts every mute.
Drag a number box up or down, or scroll on it, to set the send; double-click to reset. A muted send sends nothing but keeps its amount (its box goes black).
Mutes work on the notes, not the sound: a muted drum's last hit, its decay and its echo ring on. The hihat's mute covers both its closed and open hits. Presets keep them all.

step sequencer

Under the knobs. Touch any knob or fader, here or on a page on the right, and its sequencer shows there (greyed out until it runs). It starts once you paint a step or press a shape or a random button, and nothing runs for a control until then.

2 to 64 steps, each moving the control up or down from where you leave it, so you can still play it. Paint them with the mouse. Past 16 steps they're on pages: the 1 to 4 buttons by the name show each sixteen (the one playing is underlined). On an empty sequencer they also set the length: 16, 32, 48 or 64.
length the number of steps (2 to 64); slew glides between them; speed each step's length, a 16th up to 8 bars; depth how far they reach.
Shapes, in the row of small buttons under it: ramp ↑, ramp ↓, tri, square, sine.
Random: rnd (every step anywhere), drunk (a wandering walk), hold (values held for 2 to 4 steps), sparse (mostly still, now and then a jump), smooth (random points glided between).
on switches it on and off. A control with a sequencer running has its name inverted. Presets keep them. esc greys the strip out.
MIDI CC 21, 22, 23 and 24 set its length, slew, speed and depth (on the sequencer shown).
The steps follow the groove and its depth, landing with the swung hits; switch that off in options › user settings › seq.

beat: the pattern

Tempo, genre, beat and energy; fills, rush, rush on and velocity; groove, depth and accent.

genre picks a style, beat one of its grooves, energy how busy it is, fills how often it fills.
rush builds a roll: the chosen drum (rush on) rolls faster and faster while the others drop out and a high-pass rises. Push it up for a build, drop it for the drop. Its curve is in options › settings › rush.
groove and depth give it swing or push; accent how loud the accents are.
density, a fader for each track (drum 1, 2, 3, snare, cymbal, closed and open hat): under 100% it thins that track, off-beats first; over 100% it adds hits on its empty steps, eighths first, until at 200% every step plays. The same steps go or come each time, and presets keep it. A square over each track lights on its hits, so you can see what the density is doing.

voice: shape a drum

Every setting of one drum. Pick the drum along the top (or keys 1 to 6), then a tab ([ and ] step through them):

tone: tuning, wave and fm. shape: the envelope, the pitch drop and the click (the attack's sample).
filter: cutoff, resonance, type and drive, then the drum's volume, pan, sample rate and drive. mod: its lfo and what velocity does.

fx: echo, reverb, crossfeed (xfeed)

echo: send, time (musical lengths), tone, feedback and width; tick ping pong to bounce it left and right.
reverb: send, time (the pre-delay before it), decay, tone (dark to bright) and early (the early reflections' level). It's the LXR firmware's own reverb, written for it but never switched on in the hardware.
crossfeed: drums feeding each other. A row is the drum it comes from, a column the drum it goes into; click a column's name to pick what it changes there (fm, filter or ring). Drag a cell up or down to set it; double-click to clear.

mix: the channel strips

A strip for each drum: its echo send knob, reverb send knob and pan knob (L, C, R) over its level fader, with a level meter beside it.

mstr: the master chain

The whole mix runs top to bottom:

drum 1 sidechain: drum 1 (the kick) ducks the rest; the meter shows how much. space carves the kick's room out of the others.
distortion: mix, type, drive, colour, tone and volume.
compressor: glues it together; the meter shows the gain reduction.

prst: presets

Click a preset to load it: while playing it flashes until the next bar, then takes over. Untick the tempo box to keep your tempo.
Type in the search box (or press /) to find one by name; enter loads the first found, esc clears it.
The star makes it a favourite (favourites are listed first).
save new keeps what you hear; save over replaces the one loaded.
export presets saves your presets to a file (it never deletes anything); import reads one back, or drop the file anywhere on the page.

recording

rec records a WAV: press it to start (it starts playing too), again to stop, and the file downloads.
Hold or right-click rec to choose what it records: free, or an exact loop of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 bars. A loop starts at the next bar, shows its progress on the button and downloads by itself, cut to repeat seamlessly in any other app.

keyboard and mouse

space play and stop. enter record, l record a loop.
1 everything, 2 kit, 3 alter, 4 pattern, 5 crossfeed, 6 random fx, 7 alter fx (the bar's order), u undo. m randomise on next bar.
z x c v b n mute drum 1, 2, 3, snare, cymbal, hihat; a s d f g h mute their echo sends; q w e r t y their reverb sends.
shift + 1 to 6 show the voice page with that drum; [ and ] step through its tabs.
o presets, / search presets, ? help. esc closes whatever is open.
Click a knob or fader, then the arrow keys step it. Scroll on one with the mouse wheel or trackpad to turn it.
Right-click a knob or fader for its step sequencer, reset and (on perform) assign. Double-click one to reset it.

options (by the e) holds randomise on next bar, assign knobs, and:
settings: copy the knob assignments or your presets, export or clear presets, and the rush graph of how the rush builds (drag its squares).
user settings: midi, which CC moves each knob, with presets (cc1 to cc12, cc13 to cc24) and your own; seq, whether sequencers follow the groove.
Install it as an app from your browser's menu; it works offline.
The version number is by the e; the latest arrives when you open it with a connection (cmd+shift+R to be sure).

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