TENFOLD

01Welcome

TENFOLD is a synthesizer whose oscillators are your own samples. Load a sound onto a layer card and it plays across the keyboard. Load more, and every note plays all of them at once: up to ten layers, each with its own tuning, loop, speed, filter and granular engine.

Then you shape the stack like a classic polysynth. Two modeled analog filters, PATINA for drift, old-sampler grit and tape, six envelopes, six LFOs, eight macros, an eight-slot effects rack and a step arpeggiator.

Everything up to the VCA happens separately for every note you play. From PATINA TAPE onward, it works on the whole sound. Modulation can move almost every control along the way.

What you need

• A Mac or a Windows PC.
• A DAW that loads VST3, AU (Mac only) or CLAP plugins. Or no DAW at all: TENFOLD also runs as a standalone app.
• Your own samples: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3 or OGG files, up to five minutes long. One-shots, sustained notes, loops, voices, field recordings: anything works.

02Installing

TENFOLD runs on macOS and Windows as a plugin in your DAW and as a standalone app.

Run the installer, then open your DAW. If TENFOLD doesn't appear, ask your DAW to rescan its plugins. TENFOLD is listed under Sequoia Synthesizers Co. It is an instrument: load it on an instrument or MIDI track, not as an audio effect.

• Windows: if you see "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway.
• Mac: the first time a newly installed plugin opens, your computer may check it before it loads. Let that finish. If the Mac says the app "cannot be opened", right-click it and choose Open.

Standalone: audio and MIDI

In the standalone app, the AUDIO / MIDI button at the bottom of the window picks your sound card, buffer size and MIDI keyboard. Every MIDI keyboard you plug in is switched on by itself, including one you plug in while TENFOLD is open. Use AUDIO / MIDI to choose your audio output, or to switch a keyboard off. The on-screen keyboard plays TENFOLD with the mouse, or from your computer keyboard once you have clicked it.

03Activating your licence / free trial

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

To unlock TENFOLD 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 TENFOLD 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: TENFOLD is unlocked on this computer, in every project, and every open TENFOLD window unlocks at once.

TENFOLD 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 TENFOLD on your other computers too.

04Quick start

Six steps from an empty TENFOLD to your own stacked, moving instrument. For a printable overview of everything, download the TENFOLD Quick Guide (PDF).

1. Load a sample onto a card. TENFOLD opens on the SYNTH page with ten layer cards along the top. Click card 1, then LOAD above the sample window. The file browser opens over TENFOLD. Press ↑ ↓ and each file plays as you land on it. Press Enter to load the one you like. You can also drag audio files from your Finder or Explorer straight onto a card.
2. Play and check the pitch. TENFOLD reads the sample's root note from the file, or listens for it. The info line in the sample window shows what it heard. If a note sounds out of tune, press AUTO TUNE. For drums and noises, switch KEY TRACK off so every key plays the sample as recorded.
3. Stack more layers. Drop a second and third sample on cards 2 and 3 (or drop several files on card 1 at once: they fill the cards that follow). Every note now plays all of them. Give each its own LEVEL, PAN and COARSE (+12 or −12 for octaves), and set FINE a few cents apart for width.
4. Set the length of the sound. At the bottom, the ENV 1 card is the volume of every note. Drag its A dot right for a slow swell, or its R dot right for a long tail. Turn on LOOP so a short sample keeps sounding while you hold the key.
5. Filter it, and give it PATINA. FILTER A (top right) starts on but fully open (CUTOFF at 20 kHz, RES at 0), so a fresh sound plays clean. Lower CUTOFF to darken the sound and raise RES for a vocal peak. In PATINA, turn up DRIFT and TAPE for an analog feel.
6. Make it move. Drag the LFO 1 chip from the row above the keyboard onto CUTOFF. A blue arc appears around the knob. Drag the arc to set how far it moves. Then press RANDOMIZE a few times, or browse the factory presets: they reshape the samples you've loaded. ‹ takes you back.

05The window

From top to bottom: the header, the page area, the modulation strip, the chip row, an 88-key keyboard and the help bar.

Header

The gear

The round gear button at the top-left of the window opens a menu. Open the manual takes you to this manual on the web. Window size and Fit window to screen change the size of the window. Welcome screen shows the welcome window again. Licence / activate opens your licence or trial panel. Show my presets folder opens the folder where your own presets are kept. The last two entries open the Sequoia website and show which version of TENFOLD you have.

The LED meter ladder

Every level meter in TENFOLD is an LED ladder: square, domed LEDs in green, yellow and red, labelled +6, +3, 0, −3, −6, −9, −12, −15, −18, −21 and −24 (in dB). The more of the ladder lights up, the louder it is. Green is a healthy level, yellow is getting loud and red means the signal is above 0 dB and may distort. The ladder in the header, next to MASTER, shows the left channel on its top row and the right channel under it. On the MIX page each layer has its own ladder above its fader.

The welcome window

The first time you open TENFOLD on a computer, a welcome window shows the name, a short message, the version and how to get started. Click GET STARTED to carry on (the first time, this opens the licence panel so you can start your free trial), or OPEN MANUAL to read this manual. It only appears once on each computer. To see it again, choose Welcome screen from the gear menu.

Below the pages

• Modulation strip. The LFO card on the left and the ENV card on the right, both always in view, whatever page you're on. The macros live on the MOD page.
• Chip row. The modulation sources. Drag a chip onto any knob to make it move that knob. Click a chip to open it. See Modulation.
• Keyboard. 88 keys. Every sounding note lights up, whether you play it, hold it or the arpeggiator plays it.
• Help bar. The bottom line always explains whatever the mouse is over. On the right it shows how many voices are sounding, and SIZE sets the window size.

A / B, undo, size and the preset menu

A / B (in the header, right of SAVE). Two complete sounds 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 sound 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. A and B each keep their own samples, crops and MIDI MAP.

UNDO / REDO (the raised curved-arrow keys left of the preset name; they sink in when you press them and fade 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 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.

The window always stays sharp, and TENFOLD never opens bigger than your screen.

Working with controls

• Drag a knob up or down to turn it.
• Values on hover. Under each knob 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 or fader 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 starts them afresh.
• Shift + right-click a knob for Undo and Redo, Modulate with ›, its modulation depths, Map to MIDI ›, Learn from controller…, Reset to default, Open MIDI MAP… and Open Mod Matrix. Sliders keep this menu on a plain right-click.
• Right-click a module's name (FILTER A, PATINA, LAYERS and so on) to lock it against RANDOMIZE.

Colours on screen

TENFOLD's one colour is its signal orange. It marks what is on, selected or set. Each family of modulation sources has its own colour, and a knob's modulation arc takes the colour of the source moving it.

HELP tips

With HELP on, rest the mouse on any control for a moment and a tip card appears beside it. Once you know a control, close its tip with its ×. It stays hidden from then on, so the tips thin out as you learn.

• Right-click a control to bring its tip back.
• Right-click HELP to turn tips on or off, or to bring back every hidden tip.
• The ENV and LFO cards show a short tip the first times they open, until you close it.
• The help bar at the bottom works whether HELP is on or off.

06Layers

The LAYERS strip at the top of the SYNTH page holds ten layer cards. Each card holds one sample. Every note you play triggers every layer that is switched on and has a sample.

Right-click a card

The card menu (also on a right-click in the sample window) has: Undo and Redo, Load sample… (or Replace sample…), This sample's folder, Recent samples, My sample folders (pick straight from your library, add a folder, or remove one from the list), Remove sample, Auto tune and Switch layer on / off.

The file browser

LOAD opens TENFOLD's own browser over the window. The plugin keeps running behind it, so you can audition while your song plays.

The browser remembers the last folder you used. The first time, it opens in your sample folders if you've added any, otherwise in your home folder.

Layer controls

Under the sample window sit the controls of the selected layer.

Layer filter

The bottom row gives every layer its own filter, before the main filters. Switch it on with LAYER FILTER, then pick a model (SMOOTH 12, PUNCH 24, CASCADE 24 or LADDER 24) and a type (Low Pass, Band Pass, High Pass or Notch). Its knobs are CUTOFF, RES, DRIVE and ENV 2, which sets how far ENV 2 sweeps this layer's cutoff. Use it to carve each layer before they meet, for example a high-pass on a pad so it stays out of the way of a bass layer.

07Auto patch

Drop any sound - a note, a chord, a drum, a voice, a whole loop - and TENFOLD builds a playable patch around it. Click AUTO PATCH above the sample window, then drop a file on the card (or click CHOOSE A SOUND…).

TENFOLD listens to the sound first: its pitch, whether it is steady or dies away, how bright it is, how fast it starts and how much low end it has. Then it builds the patch:

• The sound goes into the layer you had selected, tuned to its pitch (ROOT KEY and FINE, KEY TRACK on). A drum or a noise has no pitch, so it plays the same on every key (KEY TRACK off).
• A steady sound gets a crossfaded loop through its steady part, so notes hold as long as you hold the key.
• ENV 1 follows the sound: a hit keeps its own decay, a pad gets a soft release.
• FILTER A starts just above the sound's own brightness, and a little reverb sits in FX 1.
• The four macros always do the same jobs: M1 TONE (the filter), M2 MOTION (movement), M3 SPACE (the reverb) and M4 GRIT (character).

Click the variations to try each one on your keyboard; the card stays open while you play. AUTO PATCH starts a new patch, so the other layers are emptied: Undo brings back the sound you had.

08Sample editor

The sample window shows the waveform of the selected layer. Above it sit the layer's name and the file buttons, with the SPEED bar on its own row underneath.

Markers

• START and END: drag the flags along the top. The layer plays from START to END. Everything outside is dimmed.
• LOOP markers: drag the two blue flags along the bottom. LOOP must be on for them to matter. The loop always stays between START and END.
• Loop markers snap to the nearest zero crossing so the loop doesn't click. Hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while dragging to place them freely.
• Grab a marker by its flag or near its line. Clicking empty space moves nothing.

Moving START and END with chips

Drop any chip (an LFO, an envelope, RANDOM, VELO, KEY, a macro, the mod wheel...) straight onto the START or END marker, the same way you drop one on a knob. The marker nearest to where you let go takes it, and its flag lights up in the chip's colour while you hover.

• The shaded band in the chip's colour shows how far that chip can move the marker. A line runs through it with a round dot at its end (a dot at each end when the chip is set to both directions).
• Set how far: drag a dot. Each dot sets its own end of the band and the other end stays put. The marker itself never moves: it stays where you put it. A dot stops at the marker. With a band that goes one way, pulling its dot past the marker makes the chip move the marker the other way.
• The lit marker is where START or END is right now. It slides back and forth across the waveform as fast as the chip moves, so you can see where playback starts and ends. Each new note starts where the lit START is when you play it. A moving END stops the sound wherever it is at that moment (with LOOP on, each note keeps the END it started with, so the loop never jumps).
• Right-click the marker for its list: Modulate with › adds a chip, Remove … takes one off, and each chip has a depth slider, Invert, Mirror the two ends (makes both ends of a two-way band even again) and one or both directions. A marker takes up to three chips. The same menu has Map to MIDI › and Learn from controller…, so a knob on your controller can move START or END.
• No clicks, no squashing: END can never pass START, and the two always stay at least 10 ms apart, however far the chips push them. A moved start point fades in over 3 ms and a moving END fades out smoothly, so nothing clicks.
• A chip dropped on START starts by pushing it toward END, about a third of the way. A chip dropped on END starts by pulling it toward START.
• Songs and presets you saved before play exactly as they did, crops included.

Zoom

Turn the mouse wheel over the waveform to zoom in around the mouse. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to move along the sample. Double-click to see the whole sample again.

Buttons

SPEED

The SPEED bar, on its own row above the waveform, plays through the sample faster or slower without changing its pitch, from 1/32 to 4×. The centre is normal speed, and the bar snaps to it when you drag near it. Click 1/2, 1x or 2x for the common settings, or double-click the bar to go back to 1×.

A slow SPEED stretches a short one-shot into a smeared pad. A fast one makes a long sample snappy, so you hear more of it in a short note.

The info line

Along the top of the waveform: the root key (with "not detected" if TENFOLD had to guess), the pitch TENFOLD heard in the sample in note and cents (or "unpitched"), the length, the sample rate, stereo or mono, and the zoom.

What happens when you load a sample

• Root key. TENFOLD first reads the sampler data inside the file. If there is none, it looks for a note in the file name, like Pad_C3, bass-F#1 or Keys A#2 loop. If that fails too, it listens to the sample.
• Tuning. If the sample is a little off concert pitch, FINE is set to pull it in.
• Loops. Loop points saved in the file are used, and LOOP is switched on.
• Level. Every sample is brought to the same peak level, so stacked layers start out balanced.
• Length. Samples can be up to five minutes long.

09Granular

Each layer has a SAMPLE ENGINE at the left of its controls: three big buttons under that title, each with a few words under it saying what it does: SAMPLE plays it as recorded, GRAIN turns it into tiny pieces for a texture, and SYNTH turns it into a wavetable synth. Only one is on at a time. The engine's five knobs appear in the frame underneath; with SAMPLE, that frame just says to pick GRAIN or SYNTH.

Press GRAIN in a layer's SAMPLE ENGINE and its sample becomes a cloud of tiny overlapping grains. A playhead moves through the sample at the layer's SPEED, and grains are picked around it. Each layer has its own granular engine, so one layer can be a cloud while the next plays normally.

While GRAIN is on, the sample window shows the SPRAY zone, the grain playhead with a bracket for the grain SIZE, and every grain as it plays. A grain's position shows where it reads, its width its size, its height its pitch and its brightness its volume.

MORE

The MORE button opens the extra grain controls.

10Synth mode

Press SYNTH in a layer's SAMPLE ENGINE and its sample becomes a wavetable: TENFOLD cuts it into single cycles between the START and END markers and plays them like a synth oscillator. Any sample - a voice, a guitar, a field recording, a drum loop - becomes a sound you can play at any pitch, for as long as you hold the key, with no end of sample.

A pitched sample is cut one cycle at a time at its own pitch, so the wavetable keeps its tone exactly. An unpitched sound is cut into short slices, which gives grittier, more synthetic tables. Every cycle is made seamless and band-limited, so high notes stay clean.

While SYNTH is on, the sample window shows which part of the sample SCAN is playing (a lit band, with ticks for the frames) and, in the WAVETABLE box, the whole wavetable: every frame cut from the sample, stacked back to front, with the frame you are hearing drawn bright on top. Move SCAN (or modulate it) and the bright frame travels through the stack. The box keeps out of SCAN's way by itself; you can also drag it left or right to wherever suits you. Double-click it to let it move by itself again.

Warp modes

MORE

In SYNTH mode the MORE button opens FRAMES (how many cycles the sample is cut into: 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 - more gives a smoother SCAN through a long sound) and WARP MODE. Move START and END to choose which part of the sample becomes the wavetable. With ten layers, you can stack ten wavetable oscillators made from your own sounds - or mix SYNTH layers with sampled and granular ones.

11Filters

FILTER A and FILTER B sit on the right of the SYNTH page, each with a live response curve. On Init, FILTER A is on but fully open (CUTOFF at 20 kHz, RES, DRIVE, ENV 2 and KEY at 0), so a fresh sound plays clean until you lower its CUTOFF; it is set to the CLEAN SVF model. FILTER B starts off: click its ON button to use it.

Models

Serial or parallel

The switch between the two filters sets how they work together.

• A INTO B (SERIAL): Filter A feeds Filter B. Layers sent to A (or A + B) go through both filters. Layers sent to B go through B only.
• A + B (PARALLEL): the two filters run side by side. Layers sent to A or B go through that filter only. Layers sent to A + B are split between both.
• Layers sent Direct skip the main filters altogether. They still get their own layer filter, PATINA and the effects.

Each layer picks its path with SEND TO on the SYNTH page, or with the routing menu on the MIX page.

12PATINA

PATINA makes any sample sound analog. DRIFT, VARIANCE, AGE and VCA work on every voice separately. TAPE, WOBBLE and NOISE work on the whole sound.

MACHINE

The machine only sounds when AGE is up. If you pick a machine while AGE is at zero, TENFOLD sets AGE to 30 % for you, so you hear it straight away.

13The MIX page

A mixer strip for each of the ten layers, with the sample's name at the top.

Click a strip's name to jump to that layer on the SYNTH page.

XY MORPH

Beside the mixer, the XY MORPH pad blends four versions of your sound. Each corner - A B C D - holds the layers as they were when you stored it: their levels, pans, FINE, START, SPEED, layer filters, grains and SYNTH mode SCAN, WARP and DETUNE, plus FILTER A and B and PATINA. Move the dot and every one of them glides between the corners.

1. Store the corners. Set up a sound and click corner A. Change it (another mix of the layers, darker filters, different SCAN...) and click B, and so on. Storing a corner switches MORPH ON.
2. Morph. Drag the dot. The closer it is to a corner, the more of that corner you hear. A corner you never stored follows the knobs as they are. Double-click the pad to go back to the middle.
3. Make it move. X and Y under the pad are ordinary controls: drop an LFO, an envelope or a macro chip on them, or automate them from your DAW. The dot's ring shows where you set it, the dot where the modulation has it now.
4. Right-click a corner to store it again, recall it to the knobs (the knobs jump to that corner's settings) or clear it.

The corners are saved with your sound, in presets and in your projects. MORPH ON off plays the knobs as they are.

14The FX page

Eight effect slots, processed in series from top to bottom. Pick an effect in a slot's menu and it loads useful settings and switches on. Set its four controls and MIX, and use the ^ v arrows to move it up or down the chain. ON bypasses a slot without losing its settings.

Every slot's controls and MIX can be modulated, like any knob. The VINTAGE COMP shows the same meter as the COMPRESSOR.

The eight reverbs

Reverb pre-delay and choke

PRE-DELAY sets how long the reverb waits before it starts, from 0 to 2 seconds. Your dry sound is never delayed: it stays exactly in time and only the reverb arrives late. The first quarter of the knob covers 0 to 62 ms, and the rest stretches smoothly up to 2 s. The knob shows the time in ms or s.

The longer the pre-delay, the more the reverb chokes, like a vintage compressor that pumps: while you play, the dry sound clamps the reverb right down; when you stop, it holds there a moment, then snaps back in. A longer pre-delay makes the clamp deeper (it reaches full depth at about 150 ms), the hold longer and the snap-back slower. Set PRE-DELAY to 0 for a reverb that never ducks.

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.

CHIPS work inside the pop-up cards too. Drop a chip on any knob or fader in an ENV card, an LFO card, a macro on the MOD page or a layer's MORE panel, and it routes there, with the same arc and live dot. A chip can't be dropped on its own controls: LFO 1 can't move LFO 1's RATE, so that knob simply doesn't light up.

Modulation in TENFOLD is drag and drop. Every source is a chip, and almost every knob and fader is a target. The chip row above the keyboard holds the sources you'll reach for most. Each chip shows a live drawing of what its source is doing right now.

VELO, WHEEL, PRESS, SLIDE and KEY need MIDI. Until MIDI has reached TENFOLD, these chips say so in the help bar instead of sitting still. In your DAW, check that the TENFOLD track is armed and receives your keyboard.

Making a connection

1. Drag a chip onto any knob or fader. A coloured arc appears around the knob in the source's colour. New routings start at +50 %.
2. Set the depth. Drag the dots at either end of the arc. Each dot moves on its own: the knob and the other dot stay where they are, unless you pull a dot past the knob, which then comes along with it. For a one-way source (ENV, the macros, VELO, WHEEL, PRESS) the start dot sits on the knob: pulling it toward the other dot does nothing, and pulling it the other way, past the knob, brings the knob along. Or hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) and drag the knob. Going the other way inverts it.
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. 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.
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. Modulate with › lists every source. Below it, lines like Remove ENV 2 take a routing off again, and each routing has a depth slider and options to invert it or make it unipolar or bipolar. With several routings on one knob, pick Adjust with the arc to choose which one the arc sets.

A modulated knob moves with its sources. The pointer shows where the modulation has it right now, a small tick marks where you set it, and each arc shows its source's live stretch with a dot riding along it.

The START and END markers in the sample window take chips too: drop a chip on a marker, set its reach with the dots on the shaded band, and watch the lit marker move. Right-click a marker to change or remove its chips. See Moving START and END with chips.

Chip focus

Click a chip to open its card and light up everything it moves. Those knobs take the chip's colour, the page tabs show how many controls it moves on that page (for example "FX • 2"), and the help bar lists them. Rest the mouse on a chip to preview this at half strength. Click the chip again to turn focus off.

The ENV card

The ENV card sits on the right of the modulation strip. Click an ENV chip, or a number on the card, to show that envelope.

• ENV 1 is always the volume of every note.
• ENV 2 is the filter envelope. It drives the ENV 2 knobs on Filter A, Filter B and every layer filter.
• ENV 3–6 move nothing until you drag their chip onto a knob.

The LFO card

The LFO card sits on the left of the modulation strip, so you can always see it. Click an LFO chip, or a number (1–6) on the card, to show that LFO; drag the DRAG ME chip under the numbers onto a knob. The display always shows two full cycles of the real wave, with the DELAY and RISE zones drawn in.

Macros

All eight macros live on the MOD page, each dial with its chip and a TARGETS card that shows what it moves. M1–M4 are also in the chip row, so you can drag them onto knobs from any page; clicking one takes you to the MOD page. A macro does nothing until you drag its chip onto knobs. Then one dial moves all of them at once: perfect for performing, or for a single automation lane in your DAW.

The MOD page

At the top, PERFORMANCE MACROS: the eight macro dials, each with a TARGETS card underneath that shows what it moves and how much.

• Click a card for Route MACRO n to ›, which lists every control by module. Ticked items are already routed. Pick one to add or remove it.
• Drag a target line left or right to set its amount. Double-click sets +50 %. Right-click for Invert or Remove.
• A card shows up to three targets. With more, it shows two and "+N MORE ON THE MATRIX".

Below, the MODULATION MATRIX lists every routing in TENFOLD in two columns, whether it came from a chip, a macro, the MIDI MAP or a right-click menu. There are 32 routings in all; the top right shows how many are in use.

Scroll the list with the mouse wheel when there are more routings than fit. Destinations include each layer's tuning, level, pan, START, DRIFT, loop crossfade and SPEED; its layer filter and its grain controls; the controls of Filter A and B; envelope stages, hold and curve; LFO rate, phase, rise, delay and smooth; PATINA; master tune, glide, velocity, voice pan and MASTER volume; the arp's GATE and SWING; and every effect control.

16The ARP page

The ARP page holds the arpeggiator on the left, and VOICE and SCALE on the right.

Arpeggiator

Switch it on with ARP ON, hold a chord, and it plays the notes as a pattern. LATCH keeps it playing after you let go.

The step lanes

Pick a lane with the buttons above the grid, then drag on the bars to draw each step. Click a step's numbered square to switch it off (a rest), or drag across several squares. Double-click a bar to reset it. While the arp runs, a green frame marks the step that's playing.

• VELOCITY: how hard each step plays.
• GATE: how long each step's note is held, as a share of the GATE knob.
• PITCH: the middle line is the note you played. Drag up or down to transpose that step by up to ±24 semitones. The pitch lane always stays inside the selected scale.
• GLIDE: raise a step's bar to make the note slide into it from the previous step.
• PAN: up for right, down for left.

When it runs

The arpeggiator always plays while you hold keys. When your DAW is playing it locks to the song's beat grid; when the DAW is stopped it keeps running at the song's last tempo. Press play and it snaps onto the grid at the next step; press stop and it carries on without a gap. LATCH holds the chord after you let go, whether the song is playing or stopped, until you play a new chord or switch LATCH or ARP off. The remembered chord only plays while LATCH is on: switch LATCH off (or press CLEAR NOTES, or ARP off) and it stops at once. The status line says when remembered notes are waiting. The status line beside LATCH reads Synced 120.0 BPM while the song plays and Free-running 120.0 BPM while it is stopped. In the standalone app it free-runs at 120 BPM.

VOICE

A sustain pedal holds notes the way it does on a piano.

MPE

For MPE controllers - the kind where every finger bends, presses and slides its own note. Switch MPE on (beside POLY · MONO · LEGATO) and set your controller to MPE too. Then each note gets:

• its own pitch bend: slide a finger sideways and only that note bends. The range is ±48 semitones, the MPE standard; right-click MPE to choose ±2, 12, 24, 48 or 96 to match your controller.
• its own pressure: the PRESS chip moves each note on its own.
• its own SLIDE: slide up and down the key. Drop the SLIDE chip on a filter, SCAN, WARP or anything else.

MPE uses channels 2 to 16 for the notes and channel 1 for the whole controller (its pitch bend still bends everything, with BEND RANGE). Without MPE, a keyboard that sends poly aftertouch still gives every key its own PRESS.

17Scale

Switch on QUANTIZE, then pick a key and a scale. Every note you play, and every note the arpeggiator plays, snaps to the nearest note in that scale. Each layer's COARSE transposition is kept inside the scale too. You'll find QUANTIZE at the top of the SYNTH page and in the SCALE panel on the ARP page.

Song key

Plugins can't read your song's key from your DAW, so TENFOLD asks. The first time you drop a sample into a song (or switch a layer to SYNTH MODE), a slim strip appears over the sample window: What key is your song in? Pick the key and scale, then press SET KEY.

• QUANTIZE switches on in that key and scale.
• Every pitched sample already loaded is tuned by ear, the same as pressing AUTO TUNE. From then on, each pitched sample you load is tuned as it loads. Drums and noises are left as they are.
• The key is saved with your song, so TENFOLD asks only once per song. It's never saved in presets.
• NOT NOW hides the strip for this song. You can still set QUANTIZE, the key and the scale at the top of the SYNTH page at any time. If QUANTIZE is already on, TENFOLD takes that as your key and doesn't ask.

The scales

Chromatic (no snapping), Major, Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Locrian, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Blues, Whole Tone, Japanese In, Hungarian Minor and Double Harmonic. After those come Custom and eight User slots that you build yourself.

Building your own

• The SCALE editor on the ARP page shows the twelve notes. Notes in the scale light up, and a dot marks the key.
• Click a note to add or remove it. Editing a built-in scale copies it into Custom first, so the original stays as it was. Custom is saved with your preset and your project.
• SAVE stores the notes in one of eight USER slots. The menu shows what each slot holds. User scales are shared by every TENFOLD you open.
• CLEAR empties the notes so you can start from scratch.

18MIDI MAP

Let your mod wheel, aftertouch, pedals or controller knobs move any knob or fader in TENFOLD. Mappings are saved with your project and 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, fader or pedal on your controller. The NOW meter shows what the source is sending, 0 to 127.
3. Press + ADD and pick what it should move: a popular target, All destinations by module, or CUSTOM…. With CUSTOM, a banner appears over the keyboard: click or turn the knob or fader you want, on any page. Press Esc or CANCEL to stop.
4. Set the DEPTH for each destination, from −100 to +100 %. Left of centre inverts. × removes it. A control keeps its own setting; the controller moves it from there.

You can stack as many destinations on one source as you like. Mapped knobs show a small tag beside their label (MW, AT, CC74). A + means more than one controller drives it.

From a knob

Shift + right-click any knob for Map to MIDI ›, which maps a listed controller straight away, or Learn from controller…, which waits for the next knob you move on your controller. Remove MIDI mapping takes it off again.

The sample window's START and END markers work the same way: right-click a marker for the same three items, or with CUSTOM… click the marker you want.

Limits

• Switches and menus can't follow a controller. Pick a knob or fader.
• Besides the mod wheel and aftertouch, up to eight different controller CCs can be in use at once.
• MIDI MAP uses the same 32 routings as the matrix, so its mappings appear there too, as MIDI MAP sources.
• SUSTAIN (CC 64) works as on/off.

19Randomize, mutate and undo

RANDOMIZE

RANDOMIZE rolls a whole new sound from the samples you have loaded. It never loads, swaps or removes your samples: it only changes how your layers play. New values glide in, so a roll never clicks.

• ‹ steps back through your last 20 rolls, all the way to the sound you had before the first roll, saved or not. › steps forward again.
• Right-click RANDOMIZE to choose how far it goes: MILD (nudges the current sound by about ±15 %), MEDIUM (a new, musical sound, the starting choice) or WILD (wider ranges, effects switched in, and new envelope and LFO routings). The same menu has Lock from RANDOMIZE, Unlock all modules, Randomize now, ‹ BACK and FORWARD ›.
• It's designed to stay musical: no silent patches, and filters are kept open enough to hear your notes.
• RANDOMIZE never touches MASTER, master tune, bend range, voices, voice mode, root keys, the arpeggiator, the scale, the macros or your MIDI MAP.

MUTATE

MUTATE, under RANDOMIZE, nudges the sound you have instead of rolling a new one: every control moves a little from where it is, so you get a variation of your sound, not a different one. Press it again to keep going; ‹ and › step back and forward through mutations and rolls alike.

• Right-click MUTATE to choose how far: SMALL (a gentle nudge, up to 5 %), MEDIUM (a clear variation, the starting choice), LARGE (a cousin of this sound) or WILD (further still, and switches like filter models may flip).
• Mutate only › picks one module - LAYERS, GRAINS, SYNTH MODE, FILTER A, an envelope, an LFO, PATINA, FX... - and leaves the rest exactly as it is.
• ♥ LIKE this sound remembers the sound you have now. Mutate and randomize away, then pick Back to the sound you liked to return to it from anywhere in the history.
• MUTATE keeps to the same rules as RANDOMIZE: locked modules stay, it never touches your samples, MASTER, tuning, voices or the MIDI MAP, and new values glide in.

Locks

Lock a module and RANDOMIZE and MUTATE leave it exactly as it is. Right-click a module's name and choose Lock … from RANDOMIZE, or use the Lock from RANDOMIZE list in the RANDOMIZE menu. A padlock shows on the name, which turns orange, with a LOCKED tag where there's room.

Undo and redo

Every change can be undone, up to 100 steps back, one step per move: knobs, routings, the MIDI MAP, loading or removing samples, CROP, RANDOMIZE, MUTATE, AUTO PATCH, a preset load, INIT and an A / B switch. Use the curved arrows in the header, or the keys below. Undo and Redo also sit at the top of every right-click menu.

20Presets and files

Factory presets

TENFOLD comes with 100 factory sounds, ten in each of ten categories. They keep your samples and reshape the sound around them: filters, envelopes, PATINA, modulation, effects, the arpeggiator and each layer's tuning and pan. They never change your samples, root keys, loops, START and END points or which layers are on. So the same preset sounds different with every set of samples.

Click the preset name in the header for the preset menu: every factory sound under its category, then your own, and Show my presets folder (see the preset menu). The ‹ › arrows step through the factory sounds and then your own. When a preset plays MONO or LEGATO, the help bar tells you; switch VOICE to POLY on the ARP page for chords.

Your own presets

• SAVE stores the current sound as a .tenfold file, with the tags you pick. Presets remember which samples they use (by their location on your computer, including any crop), your Custom scale and your MIDI MAP.
• Load a preset file… in the preset menu opens a .tenfold file from anywhere.
• Init: a fresh start (in the preset menu) resets every control to its starting point and empties all ten layers. Undo brings the samples back if you pressed it by mistake.

Your DAW also saves TENFOLD's complete state with every song, including the samples' locations, the MIDI MAP, the arpeggiator, A and B, and the window size.

Where TENFOLD keeps things

Your sample folders and the last 16 samples you used are shared by every TENFOLD you open.

21Sound recipes

Starting points for the sounds TENFOLD does best. Load your samples first. For a clean slate, press INIT before you load them, because INIT also empties the layers.

22Troubleshooting

No sound

Check that at least one layer has a sample and is switched on (the n PLAYING count), that MASTER is up, and that the filters aren't closed: CUTOFF low on a Low Pass, or high on a High Pass. With ARP on, hold some keys: the arp plays with the song playing or stopped.

A layer is silent

Select it and look for the banner across the sample window. Common causes: its light is off, its LEVEL is down, another layer is soloed on the MIX page, or HEAR is set to THIS LAYER on another layer.

Wrong pitch

Press AUTO TUNE, or set ROOT KEY to the note the sample was recorded at. For drums and textures, switch KEY TRACK off. If QUANTIZE is on, notes outside the scale snap to the nearest scale note.

A sample won't load

TENFOLD loads WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3 and OGG files up to five minutes long. The help bar says why a file was refused.

A sample is missing

TENFOLD remembers samples by their location. If the file was moved, renamed or is on a drive that isn't connected, reconnect the drive or load the sample again from its new place.

VELO, WHEEL, PRESS, SLIDE or KEY don't move anything

They need MIDI. Make sure your DAW sends your keyboard to the TENFOLD track. PRESS is aftertouch, so your keyboard must send it.

My MPE controller bends every note

Switch MPE on (ARP page, VOICE) and set the controller itself to MPE mode, so each finger sends on its own channel. If notes bend too far or not far enough, right-click MPE and pick the same bend range your controller uses (48 is the standard).

A SYNTH layer sounds thin or buzzy

SCAN may be on a quiet or noisy part of the sample: turn SCAN, or move START and END to the part you like. Unpitched sounds make grittier tables; for a smooth sound use a pitched, steady sample (AUTO TUNE it first). More FRAMES make a long sound scan more smoothly.

"The mod matrix is full"

All 32 routings are in use. Remove one on the MOD page. "All 8 MIDI Map CC sources are in use" means eight different controller CCs are mapped already; remove mappings you no longer use.

The red LEDs light on the meter

The signal is above 0 dB. Turn MASTER down a little, lower a few layer LEVELs, or ease off DRIVE and resonance.

Clicks or crackles, or my computer is working hard

Raise your DAW's buffer size, lower VOICES, switch off layers you aren't using, or use fewer grains (DENSITY) on many layers at once. Clicks at a loop point go away with more LOOP X-FADE.

23Credits

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

Licence check: Ed25519 by Monocypher, © Loup Vaillant and contributors, BSD-2-Clause.