Main Features

Playhead Parameters

Each of Fugue Machine’s four playheads has dedicated controls that define how the playhead scans the musical sequence. These controls are:

Style — play the sequence forward, reverse, forward-reverse, or reverse-forward
Tempo — speed of the playhead relative to master tempo.
Start — step at which playhead starts playing the sequence.
Invert Switch — if enabled, the sequence will be harmonically inverted. In other words, the highest pitch becomes the lowest pitch, and the lowest pitch becomes the highest pitch.
Octave — transpose up and down by octaves.
Pitch — transpose up and down by single notes.
Velocity — loudness range of each playhead.

Shift-button

The button in the top-left corner of the main interface is the Shift-button. The Shift-button allows alternate operations throughout the application, and is especially useful with the piano roll gestures.

Piano Roll Gestures

Fugue Machine puts the musical sequence in the center of user interaction, featuring a piano roll equipped with one, two, and three-finger gestures for creating and manipulating musical sequences. The most notable gestures are two and three-finger panning. Two-finger panning anywhere on the piano roll allows you to move selected notes. This is extremely useful when the piano roll is zoomed out, since you don't have to actually touch the notes. Similarly, three-finger panning anywhere allows you to change Note Length and Velocity — left-and-right for Note Length, and up-and-down for Velocity.

Create a 1-step lengthed note — one-finger-tap on an empty step
Create a variable-step lengthed note - one-finger-tap-down on an empty step, then pan-right
Initiate selection window - one-finger-tap-down on an empty step, then pan in any direction other than right
Select notes with selection window - initiate selection window, then pan over the notes you want to select
Select notes with tap - hold Shift, then one-finger-tap the notes you want to select/deselect
Delete a note - one-finger-tap on a note
Delete selected notes - select the notes you want to delete, then one-finger-tap on any selected note
Change note length
- [One-finger approach] — one-finger-tap-down on the right side of any note, then pan-right
- [Three-finger approach] — select the note(s) you want to affect, then three-finger-pan left-and-right anywhere on the piano roll
Change note velocity — select the note(s) you want to affect, then three-finger-pan up-and-down anywhere on the piano roll
Move notes
- [One-finger approach] — one-finger-tap-down on any note, then pan. If you initate this gesture by panning right on the note's right edge, you'll change note length. So to avoid this, you can start towards the left side of the note, or start by panning in any direction other than right.
- [Two-finger approach] — select the note(s) you want to pan, then two-finger-pan anywhere on the piano roll.
Duplicate notes
- [One-finger approach] — hold Shift, one-finger-tap-down on any note, then pan.
- [Two-finger approach] — select the note(s) you want to pan, hold Shift, then two-finger-pan anywhere on the piano roll.

Intuitive Polyrhythms

Each playhead can be set to a various tempo values, all of which are related to a master tempo. For example, if the master tempo is set to 120BPM, you can set a playhead’s tempo to ÷8 to play the sequence 8 times slower (15 BPM) — this effectively turns 16th notes into whole notes. Or set it to x8 to play the sequence 8 times faster (960 BPM), effectively turning 16th notes into 128th notes. Things get even more interesting when you choose dotted or triplet tempo values — e.g. ÷2 dotted, or x4 triplet. For example, by having one playhead set to x1 and another at ÷2 dotted, Fugue Machine creates a complex polyrhythm from your musical sequence.

By focusing on the speed at which you play a sequence, instead of only the lengths of notes, creating complex polyrhythms with Fugue Machine is a unique and intuitive experience.

Transpose-slider

The Transpose-slider is the control located along the right side of the interface, between the More-button and Stop-button. The Transpose-slider is awesome. It allows you to transpose the entire sequence up-and-down, enabling dramatic harmonic changes in an instant.

MIDI

Fugue Machine features a robust MIDI implementation, allowing you to control other iPad music apps, hardware MIDI devices, and computer software. Special care was put into this, especially in Fugue Machine’S ability to sync to midi clock.