One timeline for sound, samples, and shaders.

Mora separates the temporal score from the system that renders its events. d1! through d8! install patterns in session channels; a SuperDirt backend lowers the resulting events and sends OSC bundles with future playback timetags. The default backend targets loopback UDP port 57120.

The mixer provides continuous channel levels and xfade transitions that affect running streams and their tails, while pattern-crossfade shapes newly triggered events. level and xfade act on each channel's configured target orbit; they do not automatically fade every explicit orbit override inside a routed stack like the one above.

From pattern to audio

The packaged SuperDirtMora extension groups Mora's SuperCollider-side capabilities: managed voices, ordered insert effects, sample-loop readers, shared modulation, instrument and control profiles, and orbit-level ducking and taps. Ordinary sample playback remains the ordinary path. prepare-audio does preparation before assignment, outside temporal querying and the frame renderer.

Sample Explorer (Cmd+P in Studio) is a modal search that indexes configured sample roots and cached metadata, so compositions need not carry filenames. Structured queries combine fields such as BPM, duration, kind, and tags, and insertion is context-aware.

Studio's persistent Samples tab, in the inspector pane, shows original names, metadata, tags, and a waveform, and previews a recording at its native tempo and key only when asked. Inserting a registered loop from the current selection writes a keyword stem form, or changes the stem or part call at the cursor in place, without evaluating it.

loops describes an eligible pool; part and stem construct ordinary temporal patterns from it. A range is not a hidden exact clamp, and each loops call is a complete query: omitted filters are unrestricted, not inherited.

Variants and slices are independent. The first argument after the type selects variants, as an integer or mini notation; the optional string that follows rearranges slices without treating slice numbers as pitches. Omit it and the full loop plays over its native length.

part slice strings follow ordinary Mora cycles by default. In stem, :p follows the recording by default: one cycle of slice notation lasts one source slice, and :timing :cycle selects cycle timing.

stem-stack composes stem lanes: a lane whose recipe and recording are unchanged keeps playing, and a changed lane hands off with a fade on the running audio. Ordinary stack remains the tool for part and general layering. With (loops :group :family), :n selects a family of related recordings and :v one of its members; the default flat view keeps the original numbering.

sync-splice imports Splice content you have already downloaded, with its available metadata, repeatably and incrementally.

Stems and sample libraries

Global performance targets are separate from library selection. :match t follows global tempo and key; :tempo and :key select one axis, so a drum loop need not claim a tonal key. Matching uses the optional native live-stretch capability, which must be installed and ready.

Tempo interpretation accounts for half- and double-time: at 140 BPM, a source labeled 75 BPM can follow a 70 BPM half-time reading instead of being stretched toward 140. Pitch shifting changes tonic, not mode: known major/minor incompatibility is refused, and missing key information is not silently relabeled.

The live-stretch plugin admits a half/double rate window and pitch shifts up to two octaves in either direction. Unsupported combinations are errors, not silent clamps or a lower-quality fallback.

Tempo and key matching

The visual DSL constructs CLOS operator objects. Generators such as osc, noise, gradient, and solid compose with coordinate, color, blending, and modulation operators through >>. Emission produces GLSL with cached compiled programs and retained bindings.

A visual operator is also a pattern: temporal transforms act on it, and pattern values can drive visual parameters. One channel form separates three responsibilities, and an omitted facet is left alone, so a visual or post-only edit need not replace the running audio pattern.

Post effects operate on the preceding image, in written order. Implemented stages include ASCII rendering, pixelation, edge glow, bloom, phosphor persistence, scanlines, and chromatic faults. Each occurrence of a history effect owns its own history, and numeric controls can be numbers, temporal patterns, or retained knobs and sliders where supported.

An explicit chain replaces a renderer's legacy built-in post effects, not its visual object or geometry. Omitting :post preserves the installed policy, and removing a policy differs from deliberately bypassing it:

Machine listening is a second direction of flow: rendered audio returns to analysis as measured PCM, FFT magnitudes, band envelopes, and energy.

Optional SuperDirt orbit taps observe dry orbit buses before orbit-global effects and the DAW. Several stems on one orbit remain mixed, so a tap is not an isolated stem.

Patterns, sound output, and many visuals need no ML model. Learned tools offer additional ways to find, rank, and generate material, each with its own installation, data, and licensing requirements.

MIDI output requires an explicitly selected and configured receiver. Pitch policies make delivery explicit: :quantize rounds and clamps for ordinary MIDI, :strict declines unsupported fractional or out-of-range delivery with diagnostics, :bend uses channel pitch bend shared by simultaneous notes, and MPE allocates member channels for independent note expression.

Optional OSC, MIDI, speech, serial, MQTT, and Csound adapters are enabled through explicit configuration for the devices or services you use.

MIDI and other outputs