FURROW

01Welcome

Most drum machines hand you an empty grid. FURROW hands you a groove. Choose a style, press GENERATE, and it picks up to ten sounds from your sample library and writes a pattern for each one, in the language of that style.

The patterns are built in layers, the way a producer would write them. Each sound gets a main idea and an answer to it. Small changes come every 2 bars, bigger ones every 4, and a fill lands at the end of the phrase. Every hit has its own accent and its own place in time, and every hit knows how much energy it needs before it plays.

Around that core sit a groove reader that copies the feel of any loop, live performance knobs, a modulation system with envelopes, LFOs and four macros, and an archive that keeps every groove you make as audio, stems and MIDI.

FURROW also learns. The more you use it, the better its MINE style knows how you like your grooves.

02Installing

FURROW runs as a plugin in your DAW and as a standalone app. In the standalone app, every MIDI keyboard you plug in is switched on by itself, including one you plug in while FURROW is open. Use the Options button at the top-left of the window, then Audio/MIDI Settings, to choose your audio output, or to switch a keyboard off.

Run the installer, then open your DAW. If FURROW doesn't appear, ask your DAW to rescan its plugins.

Instrument, not effect

FURROW is an instrument. Load it on an instrument track, not as an audio effect. It has no audio input. It makes sound from its own lanes and plays in time with your DAW's transport.

• Audio comes out of FURROW's main stereo output. Ten more stereo outputs, one per lane, are there for when you want each sound on its own mixer channel (see Archive and export).
• MIDI doesn't stream out of FURROW. Instead, you drag it out: every lane has a MIDI handle, and ALL MIDI drags the whole groove onto a track.
• MIDI in works too. Notes from C1 upward play the lanes (C1 = lane 1, C#1 = lane 2 and so on), and your mod wheel, aftertouch and notes can drive modulation.

The first time a newly installed plugin opens, your computer may check it before it loads. Let that finish. The next time it opens straight away.

03Activating your licence / free trial

FURROW comes with a 14-day free trial. Everything works, and there is nothing to sign up for. The first time you open FURROW, a short welcome card explains how the trial works.

To unlock FURROW for good, buy it at sequoiasynths.com. Your licence key appears on the thank-you page and comes by email, with a .seqlicence file.

1. Open FURROW and click the trial status at the bottom of the window, or right-click HELP and choose Licence...
2. Paste your key (it starts with SEQ-), or drop the .seqlicence file onto the panel.
3. That's it: FURROW is unlocked on this computer, in every project, and every open FURROW window unlocks at once.

FURROW checks your key on your computer. It needs no internet connection and no account, and it never sends anything anywhere. Your licences are kept in ~/Library/Application Support/Sequoia Synthesizers/Licences on a Mac and %APPDATA%\Sequoia Synthesizers\Licences on Windows. Keep your .seqlicence file somewhere safe: it activates FURROW on your other computers too.

04Quick start

Five steps from loading FURROW to your first groove. For a printable overview, download the FURROW Quick Guide (PDF).

1. Point FURROW at your samples. The first time FURROW opens it asks Where are your samples?: tick the folders it found, add your own with + ADD FOLDER..., and press DONE. No samples yet? The built-in Sequoia Starter Kit plays straight away. See Setting up your library.
2. Pick a style and press GENERATE. Go back to the GROOVE page, choose a style such as PROG or TECHNO, and press GENERATE. Press play in your DAW, or press FURROW's own PLAY.
3. Keep what you like. Don't like a lane? Open its EDIT drop-down and dice its pattern or its sound. Like a lane? Lock it there and keep generating around it.
4. Make it breathe. Turn ENERGY in the PERFORM panel down for an intro and up for the peak. Automate it across your track.
5. Get it out. Drag FULL LOOP or ALL MIDI from the ARCHIVE panel, or any lane's MIDI or WAV handle, onto a track in your DAW.

05Setting up your library

FURROW plays the sounds in your own sample folders. The first time it opens on a computer it shows Where are your samples?:

• The folders it found. FURROW looks in the usual places for sample libraries and Samples folders and lists the ones on your computer, ticked. Untick any you don't want; each shows how many samples it holds once FURROW has looked through it.
• + ADD FOLDER... adds your own folders, on any drive. You can pick several at once.
• Use the built-in starter kit: 24 drum sounds made by Sequoia (kicks, snares, claps, closed and open hats, rides, shakers, percussion, toms and a rim), so FURROW plays even before you add anything. On a computer with no samples it's on from the start.
• The line at the bottom shows FURROW looking through your samples, then how many it found. Press DONE when you're happy; the lanes fill from your library.

Open it again any time: on the GROOVE page click MY LIBRARY > Choose my sample folders..., or LIBRARY panel (SAMPLE EDITOR page) > FOLDERS > Sample library setup..., or right-click HELP > Sample library.... Your folders are remembered on this computer; a library you set up before stays exactly as it is.

06The window

Header

The GROOVE page

• The top bar: the STYLE menu, BARS, SOUNDS, the samples switch (KEEP SAMPLES · MY LIBRARY) and HISTORY. With 8 or 16 bars, the page bar (‹ BARS 1-4 · 5-8 … › FOLLOW) appears just above the lanes.
• The ten lanes fill the middle. Each one has its name and sample, an EDIT button, its pattern, and MIDI and WAV drag handles.
• The lane panel below the lanes shows the selected lane's MIX, FEEL, TIME and FX controls.
• The right column holds the GROOVE panel, PERFORM, MACROS and ARCHIVE.
• The bottom holds the modulation chips and, under them, the help bar with SIZE on the right.

Working with controls

• Drag a knob up or down to turn it. Hold Shift for fine moves, or use the mouse wheel.
• Values on hover. Under each knob and fader you see only its name. Point at it or turn it and the name changes to its value; move away and the name comes back.
• Double-click a knob to reset it to its default.
• Right-click a knob to step it back (up to 10 times). Each knob remembers its own last 10 settings; loading a preset, a project or INIT starts them afresh.
• Shift + right-click any knob for Undo/Redo, Modulate with ›, Map to MIDI ›, Remove MIDI mapping, Reset to default and Open MIDI MAP….
• Right-click a module header (for example the lane panel, FILTER or an effect) to lock it against RANDOMIZE.
• Drag the window's corner to resize it, or use SIZE. It keeps its shape and always stays sharp.

A / B, undo, size and presets

A / B (in the header, right of SAVE). Two complete grooves to compare. The lit letter is the one you hear: click the other letter to switch. The first time you click B it starts as a copy of A. The arrow between them copies the lit groove into the other one; right-click it for "Copy A to B" or "Copy B to A". Both are saved with your project, never in presets, and switching never clicks. Each side is a whole groove: every knob, the patterns, the samples on each lane, chokes and modulation.

UNDO / REDO (the raised keys with curved arrows left of the preset name; they sink when you press them, and go dim when there is nothing to undo or redo). ⌘Z undoes and ⇧⌘Z redoes (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y on Windows); Undo and Redo also sit at the top of every right-click menu. A whole knob turn is one step, and so are a preset load, INIT, an A / B switch or copy, a RANDOMIZE roll and a MIDI MAP change. Up to 100 steps; the help bar names each one. Automation from your DAW is never undone.

SIZE (bottom right, beside the version). SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE or EXTRA LARGE, or FIT TO SCREEN. You can also drag the bottom-right corner. The whole window scales as one picture, so nothing moves around. Your project remembers its size, and new windows open at the size you used last.

FULL SCREEN (the desktop app only): SIZE › FULL SCREEN fills the screen; press Esc to leave it.

The LED ladder (the output meter, far right of the second row). Two rows of eleven square, domed LEDs, the top row for the left channel and the bottom row for the right. They are labelled +6, +3, 0, −3, −6, −9, −12, −15, −18, −21 and −24 (decibels). Green LEDs are the safe zone, yellow is getting hot (−3 and 0), and red is too loud. The word CLIP shows beside the ladder for a moment after the output has clipped. The delay and reverb on the FX page have the same LEDs in a slim column, and the compressor's gain-reduction meter uses the same domed LEDs.

The gear (top-left corner of the window, left of the Sequoia logo). Click it for the settings menu: Open the manual (this page on the web), Window size..., Fit window to screen, Welcome screen, Licence / activate..., Show my presets folder, sequoiasynths.com, and About FURROW with the version number.

The welcome window. The first time you open FURROW on a computer, a welcome window shows the name, a short hello and the version. GET STARTED closes it (the first time, the licence panel follows), and OPEN MANUAL opens this manual. It only appears once; open it again any time from the gear, Welcome screen.

The preset menu: click the preset name. A dropdown opens under it: one sub-menu per category, then MY PRESETS (the ones you saved), then Init: a fresh start, Load a preset file… and Show my presets folder. Pick one and it loads at once (one undo step). ‹ and › beside the name step through every preset.

SAVE in the header opens SAVE PRESET: type a name and click the tags that fit. The first tag is the category it is listed under.

A FURROW preset is the whole groove as it sounds: every knob and effect, the patterns, the samples on each lane (by their location), chokes, locks and modulation. It doesn't change your track KEY, the samples switch, AUTO archiving or your MIDI MAP. FURROW has no factory presets: its sounds come from your own library, so the browser lists the presets you save. The tags are the styles plus INTRO, PEAK, BREAKDOWN, SPARSE and BUSY.

INIT sets every knob, effect and modulation routing back to its start. The patterns and samples stay; CLEAR empties the lanes.

07Styles and GENERATE

The style decides how GENERATE writes. It only gets the groove started: you can edit every lane afterwards.

The STYLE menu

Every style is in the STYLE drop-down at the left of the top bar, in three groups. DANCE is house and techno, with the kick on every beat (Minimal, Progressive, Melodic, Techno, Hardgroove). BAND is a drummer's beat: the kick on 1 and moving around, the snare on 2 and 4, and fills into the next bar (Rock, Indie, Pop). YOURS holds Mine and Groove. Each style shows how many of your loops it has learned from.

Each GENERATE sets SWING to the style's home value. The knob is still yours afterwards.

GENERATE also gives every groove a human feel. Each lane gets its own pocket: hats and percussion sit a little ahead of or behind the beat, snares and claps lean late, and now and then a hit lands right between two steps. The grid shows each hit where it really plays. The kick on the beat always stays on the grid. Ghost notes on the snare, clap, rim and percussion move from bar to bar, and every 4-bar block takes its own small changes. All of this grows as you turn up COMPLEX.

In every dance style (all but ROCK, INDIE and POP) the kick plays four on the floor: a hit on (nearly) every beat, with living velocities. About half the time one or two beats drop out for a breath (never the first beat of a bar), and now and then a softer off-beat kick slips in (at most one every 2 bars). If you use two kick lanes, the first one holds the floor. In every style the closed and open hat are played like one pair of hands: the closed hat never plays under the open hat, and the closed hat cuts the open hat off (CHOKE). The kick stays on the grid, while its ghost and extra kicks sit a fraction late, each by its own amount. Each style also has its own phrase moves on the kick at bars 4, 8 and 16, from a pickup into the next bar to a dropped last beat.

How MINE learns

Every time you show FURROW you like something, it learns from it: dragging a lane or the groove into your DAW, pressing ARCHIVE, pressing REGROOVE after editing, bringing a groove back from HISTORY, or dropping a loop in the GROOVE panel. On day one it seeds itself from the drum loops in your own library. The LIBRARY panel shows how many grooves it has learned from, and says "warming up" until it has a few. What it learns stays on your computer.

GENERATE and the top bar

With all ten lanes on, the lanes are laid out like a drum kit read from top to bottom: kick, closed hat, shaker, open hat, snare, clap, ride, rim, then two percussion lanes. By default the closed hat cuts off the open hat, as on a real kit.

08The grid

Each lane's pattern runs left to right, four bars at a time. Taller bars are louder hits. The lane's own colour marks its hits.

Editing hits

A hit you click in lands louder the higher up you click. Double-click a hit again to step through 2, 3 and 4 hits and back to one.

Reading the grid

• Solid bars play now.
• Outlined bars only play when ENERGY is higher, or have been taken out by THIN. Click one and it plays. Hits you click in yourself always play: THIN, THIN/THK and ENERGY only ever thin out the hits FURROW wrote.
• Dotted bars are hits that THICK has added on empty steps. A lane with no hits of its own gets none, so a cleared lane stays silent. Click a dotted bar to take it away: THICK won't add a hit on that step again, and no other dotted bar appears in its place (Undo brings it back). Click the empty step again to add a hit of your own.
• A white cap on a hit marks a choke hit.
• Divided bars are rolls.
• A coloured line inside a lane marks where a shorter lane starts over. Steps after it are repeats and are drawn fainter.
• A lane on any grid other than 1/16 shows its grid in small letters at the top left.

REGROOVE

Moved hits around by hand and want them to sit right? Press REGROOVE in the GROOVE panel. Every lane snaps tight and gets the style's timing and accent shape. With the GROOVE style and a loop loaded, it takes the loop's timing and accents instead. With MINE, it uses yours. Pressing it again settles; it never keeps getting quieter.

CHOKE

A choke lets one sound cut another off, like a closed hat stopping an open one.

1. Select a lane and press C, or press CHOKE in its EDIT drop-down.
2. Click the lanes it should cut off. They show CUT. Click again to undo one.
3. Press C or Esc, or click the first lane again, when you're done.

Normally every hit of a choking lane cuts. ⌥-click (Alt-click) single hits to mark them: once a lane has marked hits, only those hits choke.

09Lanes

One lane, left to right

• The colour tab on the far left is the lane's level meter. It lights up from the bottom as the lane plays.
• The name box shows the lane number and what it plays (KICK, C-HAT, PERC…) on top, and the sample's name below. Click the top to choose what the lane plays. Click the sample's name to hear it. Small badges show FX when the lane has effects on, and its length when it differs from the phrase.
• EDIT opens the lane's drop-down, with a left or a right click (click it again to close it). Under the word, small tags show what is set at a glance: its grid, M (mute), S (solo), LOCK, DR (drift), HU (human), SC (scatter), TH (thin), CH (choke), PT (pitch changed) and LV (level changed).
• The X button next to EDIT clears the lane's steps straight away (the sample stays). Right-click it for Undo / Redo, Clear steps or Clear steps and sample (empty and silent). CLEAR ALL in the header and CLEAR ALL LANES above the lanes do the same for every lane. Undo brings it all back.
• The pattern. See The grid.
• MIDI and WAV drag the lane out. See Archive and export.

Sounds on a lane

• A lane can play a Kick, Clap, Snare, Rim, Closed Hat, Open Hat, Shaker, Perc, Tom, Ride, FX or Loop. Choosing one yourself keeps it through GENERATE; choose Let GENERATE choose to hand it back.
• Drop any audio file on any lane to use it. It always loads, whole, whatever it is and whatever the lane plays (to cut a loop into hits, use the LOOP SLICER). The last 10 samples you dropped on a lane stay in its right-click menu under Samples you dropped here.
• Drag a lane's sample name onto another lane. That lane now plays the sample with its own pattern.
• Shift-click the sample name to drag the one-shot sample itself out of FURROW. Right-click it for Clear sample (the lane goes silent, its steps stay).
• With a lane selected, the ↑ and ↓ keys move it up or down. Its sound, pattern, knobs and modulation go with it.

The EDIT drop-down

Every lane control, in one place. It opens downward, under its lane, and stays open while your DAW keeps playing. Along the top: DICE, SOUND, MUTE, SOLO, CLEAR, LOCK and CHOKE.

The lane menu

Right-click a lane for: Edit lane… (the EDIT drop-down), Clear steps, Clear steps and sample, Clear all lanes…, Dice pattern, Dice sound, Dice both, Plays…, Load sample file…, Samples you dropped here, Edit sample start / end…, Choose sample (your library's sounds of this kind, plus four built-in sounds; use the arrow keys to hear each one), Swap slice (after you've sliced a loop), Remove sample, Restart this lane, Preview sound, Add to shortlist (DICE prefers shortlisted sounds), Thin out and Thicken (whole phrase, a block of bars, one bar, or the last bar only), Shift left / right by one 16th, Length, Take this lane from history, Mute, Solo, Lock (the same three choices as the EDIT card) and Clear.

The lane panel

Below the lanes, the lane panel shows the selected lane's controls in four groups. Click anywhere on a lane to select it.

Along its top edge sit OWN OUT (send this lane to its own output), EDIT FX (the FX page on this lane) and EDIT SOUND (the SAMPLE EDITOR on this lane).

10Feel and time

These controls decide where each hit lands and how hard it plays. Most of them live in the lane panel and the EDIT drop-down.

The big THIN/THK knob in PERFORM moves the whole groove and the one in the lane panel moves just that lane. They add together. Neither ever drops the four-on-the-floor or the backbeat.

GRID

1/16 is normal. 1/32, 1/64 and 1/128 let hats and percussion roll and flam between the 16ths. 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 BAR make the lane sparse. The triplet grids (1/8T, 1/16T, 1/32T, 1/64T) swing hard.

Turning GRID moves the lane's own hits onto the new grid. A coarser grid merges hits; a finer one adds a few ghost hits in between. Go back and you get (nearly) what you had.

LENGTH and polymeter

LENGTH, in the EDIT drop-down, sets how long a lane plays before it repeats. Use the arrows to go one step shorter or longer, or click the middle for a list: the whole phrase, a number of bars, half or a quarter bar, or 12, 10, 7, 6, 5 and 3 steps. Odd lengths drift against the bar, for rolling polymeter percussion. When a lane is shorter than the phrase, your first click on its steps spreads the repeats out into the whole phrase (it sounds exactly the same), so every step you see is added or removed on its own.

Free-run makes the lane never line up with the phrase again. Without it, a short lane starts over at the start of every phrase.

Restart this lane, in the lane menu, starts the lane from its first step at the next bar and sets DRIFT back to 0. Use it after DRIFT has scattered a lane, or to line a polymeter lane back up with the downbeat.

11Groove from audio

The GROOVE panel, top right, copies the feel of any loop. Drop a loop or a whole track on it, from your DAW or your file browser, or use LOAD…. It also reads MIDI files and .agr groove files.

FURROW listens to three bands, kick, mid and hats, and reads where each one pushes ahead, pulls back and accents. The display draws the result, and shows the loop's name, tempo and swing.

TIMING and ACCENT are greyed out until a loop is loaded. The first time you load one, FURROW sets TIMING to 100 % and ACCENT to 70 % if both were at zero.

The POOL menu

• Your most recent grooves, ready to load.
• Import every loop in a folder… turns every drum loop in a folder into a groove, in the background. It skips files that aren't drum loops.
• Show pool folder and Clear groove (no groove applied).

When you drop an audio loop, it also goes to the LOOP SLICER on the SAMPLE EDITOR page. Any empty lanes get its best slices.

12Perform

The PERFORM panel holds the knobs you play live and automate across an arrangement.

ENERGY, THIN/THK, SWING and MASTER can all be modulated and mapped to MIDI.

13The SAMPLE EDITOR page

Where each lane gets its sound. The lanes run down the left; the chosen lane's sample, the loop slicer, and its sound and filter controls fill the rest.

LANES

Click a lane to edit it. Each row has DICE (another sound of the same kind), PLAY, M (mute), S (solo) and LOOP, which plays the sound over and over (as often as the sample editor's rate button says) so you can shape it while you listen; click it again to stop. Drop an audio file or a slice on a row to use it. Right-click for Load a sample…, Dice the sound, Sound family, Choose sample, Swap slice and Remove sample.

SAMPLE

The chosen lane's sound, drawn like a sampler. Faint lines mark the hits inside it.

• Drag S and E to set where the sound starts and stops. They click onto a hit line; hold Shift to move freely.
• ⌘-drag (Ctrl-drag) S or E to time-stretch the sound longer or shorter. The pitch stays the same.
• Modulate START and END. Drag a chip (ENV, LFO, M1–M4, VELO, WHEEL, PRESS, KEY or RANDOM) onto the S or E marker, the same way you drop one on a knob. The nearer marker takes it. Every new hit then starts (or stops) where the chip puts it. A lit line in the chip's colour slides across the sound, so you see where it starts and ends right now. S and E themselves stay where you set them.
• A chip that swings START or END past either end of the sound bounces back into it, so every value of the chip lands on its own spot, even with S at the very start or E at the very end. START is picked as each hit begins; END keeps following its chip while the hit plays (not on a reversed or looping sound). How often the spot changes is up to the source: an LFO's RATE (or its SYNC rate) sets how fast it moves, and on S&H a new spot comes once per LFO cycle, so set RATE faster than the hits for a new spot on every hit. RANDOM gives a new spot on every 16th.
• A shaded band in the chip's colour shows how far the chip can move the marker. Drag the dot at the end of the band to set how far; the marker never moves. A two-way chip (LFO, RANDOM, KEY) has a dot at each end and each one moves on its own; right-click the marker for Mirror the two ends. A new chip starts at 20 % of the sound (a one-way chip pushes START later and pulls END earlier). Each marker takes up to three chips.
• Right-click S or E for its chips: Modulate with, Remove …, Mirror the two ends, Open …, and Map to MIDI. The MIDI MAP's CUSTOM… finds the markers too: click S or E while it waits.
• Moving markers never click. END always stays after START, with at least 10 ms of sound between them, a moved START begins on a quiet spot with a short fade in, and a moved END fades out. With no chips on them, S and E play exactly as before, and your saved songs and presets sound the same.
• Switch on LOOP for two green loop lines. The sound repeats between them while it rings, until DECAY fades it or the lane's next hit.
• REVERSE plays the sample backwards.
• PLAY plays the sound between S and E, with all its settings, again and again until you press it again. It plays even while your DAW is stopped or another lane is soloed. The button next to it sets how often: every 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 BAR or 2 BARS, or AT ONCE (as soon as it ends).
• LOAD… picks any audio file, DICE picks another sound of the same kind.
• The mouse wheel zooms; Shift + wheel scrolls. −, + and FIT do the same.

LOOP SLICER

Drop a drum loop here, or use LOAD LOOP…. FURROW cuts it at every hit, works out what each slice sounds like, colours it to match, and puts the best ones on your free lanes.

• SLICES: 12 o'clock is normal. Turn left for fewer slices (only the big hits), right for more, up to 10. Double-click to go back to 12 o'clock.
• Drag a slice line to move it. Double-click a line to remove it, or double-click empty space to add one. ⌘-drag a line to stretch the audio around it, pitch kept.
• SNAP lays a grid over the loop, from 1/2 to 1/64, with 1/24 and 1/48 for triplets. Only hits near the grid become slices, and dragged lines land on it. ⌘-drag with SNAP on quantises the loop. UNWARP undoes every stretch.
• Drag along the SCRUB strip at the top (or hold Alt anywhere on the loop) to hear the loop under the mouse.
• FILL LANES puts each slice only on a lane that plays the same kind of sound (a hat on a hat lane, never on the kick). Slices left over, for example a loop of five different hats, go onto empty lanes, which then play that kind. Lanes with a different sound are left alone. Set it to FREE LANES to replace only empty lanes and slices of this loop, or ALL to replace every lane that isn't locked. The lanes you had before are kept in HISTORY. Or drag a single slice onto a lane.
• USE ITS GROOVE also sends the loop's timing and accents to the GROOVE panel.
• CLEAR forgets the loop.

SOUND and FILTER

LIBRARY

The LIBRARY panel shows how many samples and loops FURROW has found, and how many kicks, hats, claps and percussion sounds.

• + FOLDER opens FURROW's browser: walk to your sample folder on any drive and press SET AS MY LIBRARY. FURROW sorts every file into kick, clap, snare, rim, closed hat, open hat, shaker, perc, tom, ride, crash and loop, and keeps bass, synth, chord and full-mix files out of the drum kit.
• RESCAN reads your folders again.
• FOLDERS lists your folders and lets you remove one, find sample libraries on this computer, show FURROW's data folder, or reset MY STYLE.
• LOOP SLICES, at the top right of the panel, lets GENERATE and DICE also cut hits out of the loops in your library.

The browser

FURROW's own file browser plays each sound as you land on it. It opens over the plugin, so your DAW keeps running.

• ↑ ↓ move through the files. → or Enter opens a folder; ← or Backspace goes up.
• Enter or a double-click loads a file. Space plays it again. Esc closes the browser.
• MORE… lists your library folders, other places, your drives and the system Open window. AUTO-PLAY turns the instant preview on or off.
• The browser remembers the last folder you used.

14The FX page

Every lane has its own effects. Nothing is shared between lanes. Click a lane on the left and every panel shows and edits that lane's effects.

Each effect has its own ON switch in its header. In the lanes list, the bar is the lane's meter and the letters W R L C D V show which of that lane's effects are on; click a letter to switch it on or off. Every lane has its own effects; nothing is shared. M and S mute and solo the lane. At the top, ALL OFF switches every effect on this lane off, and COPY TO… gives another lane, or every lane, exactly these effects and settings.

WINDSHEAR

The pitch pedal from AURA-8.

• MODE: the interval the pedal bends to (UP 2 OCT, UP OCT, UP 5TH, UP 4TH, DN 2ND, DN 4TH, DN 5TH, DN OCT, DN 2 OCT, DIVE BOMB), a harmony pair (OCT DN/UP, 2ND/3RD, m3/M3, 3RD/4TH, 4TH/5TH, 5TH/6TH, 5TH/OCT, OCT UP), or DETUNE LITE and DETUNE DEEP. ‹ and › step through them.
• TREADLE: the foot pedal. 0 is heel (no shift), 100 % is toe (the full interval). Drop a chip on it to rock it with the groove.
• GLIDE (0–500 ms): how quickly the pitch follows the treadle. MIX: dry and shifted voice in the harmony and detune modes; the bend modes are fully shifted.
• RELIC: vintage grit, with fewer bits and a lower sample rate. FRAY: an overloaded engine, with slipping splices and a broken shimmer, different every sweep.

RING MOD

• FREQ (20 Hz–5 kHz): low is a growling tremolo, high is metallic bells and clangs.
• SPREAD detunes the right side for a wide, shimmering ring. MIX sets how much you hear.

LO-FI

COMPRESSOR

The vintage compressor from AURA-8.

DELAY

• PING-PONG bounces clean echoes left and right. ANALOG is a dark, wobbly bucket-brigade delay that gets darker every repeat.
• With SYNC on, TIME is a note value: 1/16, 1/8T, 1/8, 1/8D, 1/4T, 1/4, 1/4D, 1/2 or 1 BAR. With SYNC off, it's free time from 1 ms to 2 s.
• FEEDBACK (0–95 %) sets how many echoes. TONE makes them darker or brighter. WOBBLE adds tape-like wow and flutter. MIX sets how loud the echoes are.

REVERB

PRE-DLY and the choke. A long PRE-DLY makes the reverb start late, up to two seconds, while the dry lane stays exactly in time. As the pre-delay grows, the lane's own sound also pushes the reverb down while it plays, like a pumping compressor, and the space swells back in when the sound stops. A short pre-delay barely ducks it; at 300 ms and above the reverb is pushed almost out of the way. The swell back takes longer the longer the pre-delay is. Moving the knob never clicks.

15Modulation

CHIPS are Sequoia's exclusive drag-and-drop modulation. Drag any chip onto any parameter and it moves that parameter. No menus, no matrix to set up first.

Every modulation source lives in the chip row at the bottom of the window. Each chip shows a live drawing of its source.

Routing

1. Drag a chip onto any knob that moves the sound live. A coloured arc appears around the knob in the source's colour. A new routing starts at +50 %. This works on the knobs in the pop-up cards too (a lane's EDIT card, the ENV and LFO windows): the card stays open while you drag a chip onto it, and a plain click anywhere else still closes it.
2. Set the range with the two dots. Each end of the arc has a dot, and each dot moves on its own: drag it further out or back in, and the knob and the other dot stay exactly where they are.

   • Two-way sources (LFO 1–3, RANDOM, KEY) swing both ways, and their two dots are separate amounts: the upper dot is how far the source pushes the knob up, the lower dot how far it pulls it down. So an LFO can reach a lot above the knob and only a little below it.
   • One-way sources (ENV 1–3, M1–M4, VELO, WHEEL, PRESS) start at the knob: the start dot is the knob itself, and the far dot sets how far it goes.
   • The one exception: pull a dot past the knob's pointer and the knob follows that dot. The other dot still stays put.
   • While you drag a dot, the label under the knob shows that dot's amount (for example +35 % or −12 %) in the source's colour. Alt-drag the knob to change both amounts together; turning the knob moves the whole arc with it.
   • Shift + right-click the knob → Mirror the two ends of LFO 1 (or whichever source) puts the two dots back to even, the same distance either side.
   • Sliders take chips too. Drop a chip on each lane's LEVEL slider and the A H D S R sliders in the ENV window and a thin lane appears beside the slider in the source's colour, with a dot at each end: drag either dot to set how far it reaches that way, just like a knob's arc. While the source moves it, the slider's cap rides the live value and a small tick marks where you set it. Up to three per slider; an ENV can't move its own window's sliders.

   The arc shows what is happening right now: a brighter stretch and a dot ride along it at the source's own speed, and the knob's pointer and lit spokes follow, with a small tick marking where the knob is set. Older projects sound exactly as before: until you move a lower dot it simply mirrors the upper one.
3. Up to three per knob. Each knob takes up to three modulations; drop a fourth chip and the help bar asks you to remove one first (Shift + right-click the knob). They stack in the order you added them, the first one closest to the knob, and their dots never sit on top of each other, so you can always grab the one you want. Where space is tight, a knob with two or three arcs draws its dial a little smaller to make room, and grows back when you remove them. Both dots of every arc can be automated from your DAW (Mod 1 Amount and Mod 1 Amount Down, and so on).
4. Even arcs. A two-way chip (LFO, RANDOM, KEY and bend where the plugin has them) swings both up and down, so when you drop one on a knob it gets the same room on both sides: the two end dots sit the same distance from the knob, even when the knob is not in the middle. If the knob is close to an end (within 10%), it can only move one way, so the arc keeps its full depth. One-way chips (ENV, macros, VELO, WHEEL and so on) are unchanged. Dropping the same chip on the same knob again evens it the same way. Projects and presets you saved earlier keep their arcs exactly as they were. To even out an arc later, Shift + right-click the knob and choose Mirror the two ends next to that chip: both ends become the average of the two, shrunk to fit around the knob, never below 10%.
5. Change or remove it. Shift + right-click the knob and use Modulate with › to add or remove a source, Remove … for each routing, or Open … to open its card. Touch a modulated knob and its source's card opens beside it.

You can modulate ENERGY, THIN/THK, SWING, TIMING, ACCENT and MASTER, and almost every lane knob: level, pan, pitch, glide, decay, filter, velocity, chance, swing, nudge, human, thin, drift, scatter, sample start and end, loop points, and the effect knobs, including the knobs in each lane's EDIT drop-down. The knobs inside the ENV and LFO cards take chips too (RATE, SMOOTH, MORPH, RISE, VELO), so one LFO can speed up another; a card's own chip can't move its own knobs. GRID, VOICES and on/off switches can't be modulated.

The MATRIX (Macros and the matrix) shows both amounts of a two-way routing, for example +40%/−10%, and its LIVE bar uses the same up / down maths as the sound.

Click a chip to light every control it moves, on every page. If it moves controls on another page, that page's tab shows how many. The help bar lists them. Up to 32 routings are saved with your project.

Envelopes (ENV 1–3)

Click an ENV chip to open its card. Each envelope is AHDSR: attack, hold, decay, sustain and release. Drag the dots on the display or use the A H D S R faders. Double-click a dot to reset it. A short attack (a few milliseconds, which sounds instant) is drawn straight up; drag the attack dot to the right for a slower rise, or all the way left for none. Tabs at the top of the card switch between the three envelopes (the LFO card works the same way).

• TRIG: what starts the envelope. Every BEAT, BAR, 2 BARS or 4 BARS; every hit of one lane, LANE 1 to LANE 10 (lane 1 is usually the kick); or NOTE, every MIDI note you play in.
• VELO: for lane-triggered envelopes, how much a hit's accent scales the envelope. At 0, every start reaches the top.
• Attack 0–10 s, Hold 0–5 s, Decay and Release up to 10 s, Sustain 0–100 %.

LFOs (LFO 1–3)

• SHAPE: SINE, TRI, SAW UP, SAW DN, SQUARE, S&H (holds a random value per cycle) or RANDOM (glides between them).
• SYNC on: RATE runs from 8 BARS (slow) to 1/16T (fast). It snaps onto musical values such as 1 BAR, 1/4 or 1/8D and locks to the song; in between it runs free. SYNC off: RATE is 0.02–20 Hz.
• MORPH bends the shape. Pick how with the morph type: BEND, SKEW, MIRROR, SYNC, FOLD, STEPS, SPIKE, RIPPLE or MUTATE. RANDOM on the card rolls a morph type and one of 1,000 variations.
• SMOOTH rounds the corners: a square becomes a soft pulse, S&H glides. RETRIG restarts the LFO on every bar line. RISE (up to 10 s) fades it back in after it restarts.

The card draws two cycles of the real wave as you shape it. Click its chip again, press Esc or click outside to close it.

16Macros and the matrix

The four MACROS are single knobs that move many controls at once.

1. Drag the M1 chip onto several knobs.
2. Turn MACRO 1 in the MACROS tile on the GROOVE page (four big knobs, two rows of two). Everything you dropped M1 on moves together.
3. Press TARGETS (or click an M chip) to open the PERFORMANCE MACROS card. It shows all four macros and what each one moves. Drag a target's amount left or right, double-click it for +50 %, or right-click it to invert or remove it.

The MATRIX

Open it from the macros card. The MATRIX lists every routing, chips and macros, in one place: 32 slots in all. Drag an AMOUNT bar to change a depth (double-click for +50 %), click × to remove a routing, click a SOURCE to open it, or press + ADD to route any source to any control.

17Archive and export

Drag out

The ARCHIVE panel

• Project name: this project's grooves are archived under it.
• AUTO: every GENERATE is rendered to audio in the Archive: full loop, a stem per lane, breakdown loops and MIDI.
• ARCHIVE: saves the groove now.
• BREAKDOWN: tick the lanes to keep and drag out just those as one audio loop or MIDI clip, save it to the Archive, or press AUTO SET for the full groove plus automatic breakdowns.
• OPEN: the archive browser.
• EXPORT KIT: saves this kit's sounds as WAV files, with the groove as MIDI, to a folder.

The archive browser

OPEN shows every groove you've archived, by project, newest first. Click any file to preview it inside FURROW, and drag it onto a track.

• LOAD INTO FURROW brings an archived groove back.
• ADD FOLDER… lets you browse any folder of loops on your computer here too. For those files the button becomes USE AS GROOVE.
• LOCATION… chooses where the Archive lives, for example a folder on your SSD.
• EXPORT PACK… builds a sample pack from every groove, the grooves in the list, or only the selected one. Choose a pack name, a file prefix (SEQ by default), and whether to include stems, breakdowns and MIDI. Files are sorted into Loops, Stems, Breakdowns and MIDI folders by style, and named PREFIX_Style_BPM_Number.

Separate outputs

Turn on OWN OUT in the lane panel to send a lane to its own stereo output instead of the main mix, then turn on FURROW's extra outputs in your DAW. There is one per lane.

18MIDI MAP

Let your mod wheel, aftertouch, pedals or controller knobs move FURROW's controls. Mappings are saved with your project, and they work with the window closed.

1. Click MIDI in the header. The MIDI MAP sheet drops down.
2. Pick a SOURCE: Mod Wheel (CC 1), Aftertouch, Breath (CC 2), Foot (CC 4), Expression (CC 11), Sustain (CC 64), Resonance (CC 71), Brightness (CC 74) or General 1–4 (CC 16–19). Or choose LEARN… and move a knob on your controller.
3. Press + ADD and pick a control: the popular ones first (ENERGY, THIN/THK, COMPLEXITY, SWING, TIMING, ACCENT, MASTER and lane 1's level, pitch and cutoff), All destinations › for everything, or CUSTOM… and simply move the control you want.
4. Set the DEPTH, from −100 to +100 %. The controller moves the knob that far on top of its own value, like a chip. Left of the middle turns it upside down. The knob shows it as a pink arc.

Mapped controls show a small tag beside their label (MW, AT, CC74). The shortcut is to Shift + right-click a knob and choose Map to MIDI ›. To remove a mapping, Shift + right-click the knob (right-click any other control) and choose Remove MIDI mapping, or click × on its row in the sheet.

The controls that can follow MIDI are the same ones that can be modulated. Others say so in their right-click menu.

19Randomize and undo

RANDOMIZE

GENERATE makes the groove. RANDOMIZE rolls a new sound for it: each lane's level, pan, pitch, decay, start and drive, its filter, its effects, and the envelopes and LFOs. It never touches the timing: DRIFT, SCATTER, HUMAN, CHANCE, THIN, NUDGE, SWING and GRID stay exactly where you set them, so the groove stays locked. ‹ steps back (the last 20 rolls are kept) and › steps forward again.

• Right-click RANDOMIZE to choose how far it goes: MILD (a nudge, about ±15 %), MEDIUM (a new, musical sound you clearly hear: new pitch, decay, drive and filter on most lanes, and a delay, reverb or lo-fi switched on for one or two lanes, never the kick) or WILD (everything, plus new modulation; it may also switch effects on and pick any filter type).
• The same menu has Lock from RANDOMIZE › for the LANES, FILTERS, LANE FX, ENV, LFO and MOD ROUTINGS groups, and Unlock all modules. Or right-click a module's header to lock it.
• RANDOMIZE never touches the pattern, the samples, the kit, the groove controls (style, bars, energy, complexity, swing, timing, accent), each lane's chance, swing, nudge, human, thin, drift, scatter, grid and voices, mute, solo, outputs or MASTER. Lane 1, usually the kick, moves less than the others.

Undo and redo

Every change can be undone, up to 100 steps back: knobs, hits, sounds, chokes, locks, modulation, the MIDI MAP, GENERATE, RANDOMIZE, presets and A / B. A whole knob turn or drag is one step. Use the curved arrows under the FURROW name, or the keys below. Undo and Redo also sit at the top of every right-click menu.

Other keys

FURROW keeps the arrow, Home, End and Page keys to itself, so they don't move your DAW's play marker. Space and other keys still reach your DAW.

20Saving and files

Saved with your project

Everything is saved with your DAW project: the patterns, the samples on each lane, every knob, modulation routings, the MIDI MAP, A and B, and the window size. To keep a groove for other projects, SAVE it as a preset (see A / B, undo, size and presets), or archive it (see Archive and export) and bring it back with LOAD INTO FURROW.

Samples are remembered by their location. If you move or rename a sample, or it's on a drive that isn't connected, load it again.

Files FURROW keeps

FURROW keeps its own files in your Music folder, under Sequoia Synthesizers / FURROW. FOLDERS › Show FURROW's data folder opens it.

Copy the whole FURROW folder to move your library settings, learned style, groove pool and archive to another computer.

21Groove recipes

Starting points for the things FURROW does best.

22Troubleshooting

FURROW doesn't appear in my DAW

Check that the plugin is in the folder listed under Installing, then rescan plugins in your DAW. Look in the instrument list, not the effects list.

The lanes are silent

FURROW plays sounds from your sample library. Add a folder with + FOLDER on the SAMPLE EDITOR page. If a lane says "(empty)", DICE its sound or drop a file on it. Also check that the lane isn't muted, that another lane isn't soloed, and that it's within the SOUNDS count.

Nothing plays when my DAW is stopped

FURROW follows your DAW's transport. Press FURROW's own PLAY to hear it with the DAW stopped.

TIMING and ACCENT do nothing

They only act on a groove in the GROOVE panel. Drop a loop there first. A loop played dead on the grid has little timing to copy.

Restart this lane does nothing

The lane is already in step with bar 1. Restart is for after DRIFT has scattered a lane, or when a lane's LENGTH is shorter or longer than the phrase.

DICE SOUND says there are no sounds of that kind

Your library has no samples FURROW recognised as that kind. Add another folder, or load a file onto the lane yourself.

The CLIP light comes on

Turn MASTER down a little, or lower the loudest lanes. Compressor MAKEUP and stacked reverbs can add up quickly.

A sample is missing

FURROW remembers samples by their location. If the file was moved, renamed or is on a drive that isn't connected, load it again.

23Credits

The WINDSHEAR pitch pedal, the compressor and the modulation sources come from Sequoia's AURA-8. FURROW's style tables were built from producer interviews, published beat breakdowns and reference loops.

Interface type: Space Grotesk and IBM Plex Mono (SIL Open Font License).