Overview

In this chapter, we will explore the user-interface of Numerology at a relatively high level, pointing out each major section and mentioning a few things it can do. The rest of the chapters in this user guide will explore each of these sections in detail.

Although Numerology is a highly-modular system, and most of its functionality is within the modules themselves, it also provides a rich environment for them to live in. First among these is the Rack, where you will work with your modules directly. Each module in a Numerology project belongs to one or more stacks that you create. Each stack represents a different musical part or layer in your project. A stack may contain just a single sequencer module, or a sequencer module and a synthesizer plugin, or many sequencing modules, synthesizers and effects.

There is also a mixer, where you can view presets and mixer settings for all stacks, and a timeline, where you can make arrangements in your project by setting up a playlist of presets for each stack.

The Transport, Rack & Browser

This is what a blank Numerology project looks like:

At the very top of the Numerology project window is the Transport. This is where you can start and stop playback, set the tempo, and switch the views you see below it.

The transport is always visible. Beneath the transport, you can toggle between three panels, using a multi-mode button on the right-side of the transport. These panels are: the Rack, the Timeline & the Mixer.

Let's start with the Rack. On the left side of it you will see an expandable outline of modules, with a pair of tabs at the very top. This is the Browser, which has two tabbed views, one for the Module Library, and another for Presets. The Module Library is an outline view of all the modules in the system, grouped by category. The Presets panel is for creating and managing pattern presets that you will create with Numerology's sequencing modules.

To the right of the browsers, and taking up most of the window, are some tabbed panels, each of which contains some modules. These are the Stacks, which is where your modules will live. There are always two stacks in a new Numerology project; one is called "Clock" and the other is "Stack 1". They are indicated by a pair of colored tabs, just below the transport. By clicking on each tab, you can see the modules that are in each stack. The Clock stack contains the master clock module that will drive all the sequencers in your project, and "Stack 1" is where you can start adding modules to the new project.

Stacks are used to group modules according to their musical function, which typically corresponds to a musical part, such as bass, drums, keyboards and so forth. All the module in a stack share the same set of presets, which are managed in the Presets tab mentioned before. Numerology's 'cross-module-integrated-preset-system' makes it easy for you to build and easily maintain large collections of many patterns you can use in your compositions. More on that later.

The modules in a stack also share some other resources, including a channel in the Mixer (one for each stack), and a track in the Timeline.

Below the stack tabs there are two more tabs: "Modules" and "Routing". Each module has two user interfaces, a front panel for viewing its primary user interface and editing its parameters, and a back panel for viewing and editing connections between modules. These tabs allow you to switch between those two views. You can also switch between these two views with the tab key on your keyboard.

Below the Modules/Routing tabs are the modules themselves. In a new stack, there are always two or more modules present. The module at the very top is the Stack Input module (look to the right of any module to see its title). The Stack Input module is at the top of every stack, and its job is to manage inputs for the stack. On its front panel you will see menus for selecting MIDI and Audio inputs for the stack.

At the very bottom of the stack, right at the bottom of the project's window, is the Stack Output module. As with the Stack Input module, it appears at the bottom of every stack. It is there to manage the outputs and the audio mixer controls for the stack. Its front panel has menus for setting MIDI and Audio outputs, as well a standard set of mixing controls: volume, pan, mute, solo & aux sends.

In-between the Stack Input and Stack Output modules, there are usually some placeholders. These psuedo-modules are just there to give you some hints on what to do next. All they have is a title, which appears right in the middle, and a "close" button, which is an "X" in their upper-right corner. If you drag a module of the type indicated in the placeholder (such as a Note Sequencer) over to the stack, Numerology will replace the placeholder with an instance of the module you picked.

There are three placeholders you will commonly see in a new stack:

"Drag A Note Sequencer Here"
"Drag An AudioUnit Synth Here"
"Drag An AudioUnit Effect Here"

These are there just a guide. You can use them, ignore them, or get rid of them. When you create a new stack, (Choose "New Stack" from the Stack menu), you can choose one of several stack templates to use. If you don't want any unnecessary modules in your new stack, then choose "Empty Stack" as the template.

Before we leave the rack, we should talk a bit more about Stack Presets.

A stack preset stores all the settings for all the non-Audio Unit modules in your stack, making it very easy to manage the settings for your modules as you experiment with them. Audio Unit settings are managed by using their own preset settings. These presets are listed in the "Presets" tab of the Module Library. The set of presets shown always changes to match the current stack chosen for the Rack to view. At the top of the Presets list, there are three handy buttons for managing presets: dup (for Duplicate), snap (for snapshot), and delete. There's much more on working with stack presets here.

Next, up, we have the Mixer. You can bring it up by clicking on the "mixer" button on the right of the transport.

The mixer has one channel for each stack, as well as a master channel, which is always on the far-right. The top half of each stack's channel is taken over by a list of its presets, while the bottom half is reserved for standard audio-mixer settings. Having all the presets for all the stacks visible this way means that you can perform a live arrangement of them by picking and choosing them for each stack. Stack preset changes can be quantized in time to either a bar or a beat, or not at all. The setting for this can be made for each stack on its mixer channel. Near the bottom of the channel, look for the "Quantize" menu. The default is to quantize each preset change to a bar.

You may have noticed that all the controls here are also available in the Rack, the only difference is that in the Mixer, you can see these controls for all stacks at once, and you get easy access to master audio levels and output settings.

Finally, to the Timeline:

The timeline is where you can setup an arrangement by creating a list of presets for each stack to play in a composition. You can create arrangements for all of your stacks, or just for some. Each track has a "header" section, on the left-side of the window, with some of the most-used mixer controls for the stack visible. There is also a menu for turning the arrangement feature on and off for each stack. For more information on building arrangements, see the Timeline chapter.

Next : Modules