The wheel

You always play a pair: one SOUND and one NOTE engine. The wheel is where you choose both, on the octave of keys from C4 to C5. Each white key holds one of the eight SOUNDs and each black key a NOTE engine, and you decide which NOTE engine sits on which black key.

Choosing a pair

Hold HOME and the wheel opens. Press a white key to pick the SOUND and a black key to pick the NOTE engine, in either order, then let go of HOME. The pair starts at once, and the previous one releases its notes with their own tails. While HOME is held, the keys that hold a SOUND or a NOTE engine light up, the selected two brightest.

SELECT and PRESETS move the cursor from SOUND to SOUND. One step past C5, or before C4, it lands in the middle, which says SYSTEM: let go of HOME there to open SYSTEM. Only the black keys choose the NOTE engine.

Press OCT- while the wheel is open to close it and stay where you were. Tap HOME twice quickly, outside the wheel, to go to the pair playing behind, or with none, back to the pair you played before. Double tap again for the next pair playing, and on round them all.

Ways to switch

The pair by knobs

Hold HOME, tap GLO and let go: the PAIR page stays open, and the four knobs choose the pair. KNOB 1 and 2 pick the SOUND and the NOTE engine as you scroll, and the pair goes to the front when you leave the page, so scrolling past a NOTE engine leaves nothing playing behind. PRESET and MUTE put the pair you picked in front first.

Tap HOME or OCT- to leave on the pair you chose. The wheel's keys stay as they were. While the wheel is open, its bottom line takes turns every two seconds with two reminders: TAP GLO: PICK BY KNOBS (PAIR PAGE), and HOLD GLO + A BLACK KEY: CHANGE IT (the slot picker, below).

Without opening the wheel, hold GLO and press a white key between C4 and C5 to change the SOUND and keep the NOTE engine, or a black key to change the NOTE engine and keep the SOUND.

Each nut remembers where you left it. A SOUND keeps its sound and its pages for as long as the FM-1 is on, and a NOTE engine keeps its settings.

The slot picker

The white keys are fixed: FM6, LIZARD, SHOCK, DRUMS, MOUTH, ANALOG, PHASE and PHYS. The black keys are yours. With the wheel open, hold GLO and press a black key: every NOTE engine is listed. Turn SELECT or PRESETS to choose and let go of GLO to put it on the key, then let go of HOME. Keep HOME held until GLO is up: letting go of HOME first, or pressing OCT-, leaves the key as it was.

A NOTE engine already on another black key is skipped, so each appears once. It starts with its arpeggiator and pattern fresh, and its own four knobs keep what you set. The black keys are saved and come back after power-off; Restore default layout on the installer page (below) brings the starting ones back.

The installer page can set the black keys at once: open Set up your wheel, read it from the FM-1, choose a NOTE engine for each black key and save. It follows the same rules. A layout from an older installer that names white keys too sets the black keys and leaves the white ones as they are.

Tracks: BEAT, LINE and PLAY

SQRL-1 has three tracks. BEAT is RUDIMENT, on part 4. LINE is the NOTE engine that plays by itself: LINES, ALIVE, TONNETZ, ENIGMA, S+H, CANON or ACID, one at a time, on part 3. PLAY is what you play from the keys (KEYS, CHORD, HARP), on parts 1 and 2 in turn, with your takes.

Nothing stops because you left it. BEAT and LINE, once they have something to play, run whenever the transport runs. A generator on LINE (ALIVE, TONNETZ, ENIGMA, S+H, CANON) stays there only once you used it: played a key, turned a knob or ALGORITHM, or pressed PLAY while it was in front. One you only visited gives LINE back, as you leave it, to what LINE had before, so looking at a generator never leaves it playing behind everything. A PLAY pair with a take loops on too when you leave it, on its part, so you can keep a loop of the keys or a chord running while you build the drums. Choosing another LINE engine replaces what LINE plays, as choosing another SOUND for RUDIMENT replaces BEAT's sound.

To see what plays, hold HOME. The keys of every pair playing on a part flip on its beat: the pair picked goes dark for a moment, the others light up. A muted pair's keys breathe. On the screen a pair that plays has a small green play mark by its SOUND and a dot by its NOTE engine; a muted one has a dim pause mark and a dim dot. With the transport running, the wheel opens with a line naming what plays behind the pair in front (FM6 KEYS + DRUMS RUDIMENT, or only the NOTE engines when that is too long).

PLAY has two parts, so two takes can loop together. A new PLAY pair goes to a part with nothing on it, or an empty pattern, first; then to a muted one; then to the one you left longest ago. The take there stops, and the toast says so (FM6 KEYS STOPS: PART 2), but it is not lost: it stays with its pair and comes back when you pick that pair again. Going back to a pair still looping brings it to the front as it plays, in time. REC arms only the pair in front: a take looping on never records. A note you play in front is never cut to make room for a take looping on, unless the front holds all eight voices itself.

To silence a part, hold HOME, press its pair's keys and, with HOME still held, press PLAY: it is muted, and HOME glows while any part is. Do it again to bring it back. A PLAY pair that no part holds says NOTHING TO MUTE. PLAY on the wheel's centre (SYSTEM) stops everything.

To clear a pair without hunting for it, hold HOME, press its keys and hold REC: the pair comes to the front and REC's rings run over it, the first undoing its last take, the second clearing it. Let go early and it is only in front, not armed.

LINE's generators are its content: what ALIVE, TONNETZ, ENIGMA, S+H and CANON play is never recorded into their part, and they never fall silent for a take. Record over them on PLAY.