Basics

The pattern editor is a pretty traditional tracker pattern editor. A pattern is the meat of any tracker tune, without pattern data there is no music.

Basically, each pattern is a queue of notes and parameters.

     instrument
     |  volume
note |  |  ______ legato, slide, vibrato, tremolo
 |   |  | ||||
C-4 00 80 LSVT 0000 <--- track command (you can click on arrow button at the top of each pattern track and expand more command columns, up to 8)

If a note is set for a pattern step, a new note will be played when the player position hits the row. The instrument column tells which instrument to use. The note will continue to play until the volume is set to zero, the envelope fades out or a note-off command (key 1) is encountered in the note column.

If you place new notes without any instrument number, they will play with the last instrument you have used on the channel (or, if no instrument was used since the start of klystrack, not play at all). You can use direct ADSR control commands with this quirk: in klystrack-plus ADSR params are reset only when a note has an instrument number on the same row, so you can play several notes in a row with envelope change command in effect, and this command is placed only at the beginning of your desired interval.

The legato, slide, vibrato and tremolo columns (set with 1) tell klystrack to enable vibrato, tremolo or slide from the previously played note. Note that enabling slide without legato will still trigger the note (it will simply start from the previous note and slide to the new pitch), the envelope will be set to attack phase. With legato, the slide will audibly continue from the previous pitch and volume. The slide, vibrato and tremolo can also be enabled using a command.

The track commands modify the sound with effects like portamento, vibrato or volume fade. A command doesn't need a note or instrument set, the following first triggers a note and does a pitch bend down while triggering key release:

A-3 00 .. .... 0000
... .. .. .... 0000
... .. .. .... 0000
... .. .. .... 0220
--- .. .. .... 0220
... .. .. .... 0240

The keyboard is arranged so that most of the keys represent a two-row musical keyboard. I.e.:

 2 3   5 6 7   9 0
Q W E R T Y U I O P

 S D   G H J
Z X C V B N M

Alt+Insert adds a step to the end and Alt+Delete removes a row. Any pattern parameter (or note) can be erased with . (period). See the full list of keyboard shortcuts. It is suggested that Return is used to jump back and forth between the pattern editor and the sequence editor to quickly navigate around the song.

If the compact mode is enabled, some of the parameters will not be shown and the whole view is greatly condensed.

Edit mode

As with most trackers, Space bar toggles edit mode on and off. This means that if edit mode is not enabled, you can't accidentally edit pattern data while jamming.

Compact mode

You can hide columns you do not need by enabling the compact mode. Set the visible channels in Show > Visible columns. This is useful if you want to fit more channels on the screen. If you disable all additional columns in settings, you will see only note columns on all channels, even on selected one. Great to record screen captures of playing song if song has a lot of channels.

Multi-pattern editing

If you use Return to switch from the sequence to the pattern editor and more than one pattern would be played at that position, the pattern editor will show each pattern side by side. Is makes it easier to see what is happening at the same time on other channels.

Use the channel toggle button to enable and disable channels, holding down Shift while pressing the button solos the channel instead (mutes all other channels).

Editing tools

For convenience, klystrack includes some basic tools for editing patterns. Namely, it is possible to clone a pattern and start editing the new pattern (Ctrl+K), find an unused (no note data) pattern (Ctrl+U) and interpolate the command parameter (Ctrl+I).

Interpolate

The interpolation automatically fills in command parameters between two values. It is best used as follows:

1. Enter the desired command and starting parameter in the first pattern step
2. Enter the desired ending parameter on the pattern step you wish the interpolation to end
3. Select the area including the first and last steps you just edited
4. When you press Ctrl+I, on all the steps where aren't other commands it will fill in commands with interpolated parameter. This means if you e.g. want to interpolate the cutoff with command 6xxx and have Cxx (set volume) and other unrelated commands already in the pattern, only the steps with 6xxx or empty ones will receive the new parameter. All other commands will be left as they are.

Consider the following:

C-4 01 6100 <--- Start selection here
... .. 6000
... .. 0000
... .. 0C30
... .. 6300 <--- End selection here

The result will be something like:

C-4 01 6000 
... .. 6090
... .. 6150
... .. 0C30
... .. 6300 

Expand and shrink pattern

The current pattern can be expanded (inserts blank steps between existing steps) or shrunk (expand in reverse). This is useful if you want to halve the tempo or you need to insert stuff between steps (for this you also need to double the song speed after expanding).