What’s Different
A few things in Gridshift work differently than they might in other DAWs. Keyboard and command palette. Gridshift is driven primarily from the keyboard. The Command Palette reaches any of 200+ actions by name, and almost every action has a keyboard shortcut. One window, inline editing. There is no separate piano-roll or audio-editor window. A clip is edited where it sits on the timeline: entering Focus Mode expands the clip in place for note, slice, and automation editing, then collapses it back into the arrangement. One source per track. Each track has a single sound source — one audio sample, or one Audio Unit instrument — followed by one effects chain. One source, one chain, one output. On a sample track, every clip is a region of that track’s one audio file. Recording is a mode. Record is a global mode toggled withCaps Lock, and the selected track is the record target — there is no separate per-track record-arm step. The mode works two ways:
- With playback (
Space) — live recording. A ghost clip grows under the playhead. - Without playback (transport stopped) — step recording. Each key places a note or slice at the cursor and advances one grid step, the way a step sequencer or tracker works.
0–1 curve edited like a clip. One lane can drive several parameters and several lanes can drive one parameter: in Absolute mode a lane sets the value, in Relative mode it adds a signed offset that stacks on top, which also covers modulation. See Automation.
Sidechain modes. Sidechain has three modes: Audio routes a source track’s signal into the plugin’s sidechain bus, while MIDI and Trigger Impulse derive the trigger from positions — clip starts and note-ons, including the clip starts of an audio track — rather than from the waveform. Because those positions are known in advance there is no detection delay, and a lookahead can fire the trigger early. See Sidechain.
Listen Bus. A Listen Bus holds monitoring effects that play during playback but are excluded from a bounce — for reference or monitoring chains that should not be part of the final output.
No bundled plugins. Gridshift includes no stock instruments or effects. It hosts the Audio Units installed on your system, which provide the instruments and effects.
What’s Familiar
Most other concepts map onto ones you already know:- A timeline / arrangement with a bar/beat ruler, tracks stacked vertically, clips arranged horizontally.
- Tracks, clips, groups, buses, and a master output.
- Audio Units — the standard macOS plugin format.
- MIDI, sends, and quantize.
- Non-destructive editing with full undo, and standard drag / trim / split / copy / paste.
Core Objects
A project is a tree of tracks; each track holds clips along the timeline.Track Model
Each track has a single sound source — an audio sample or an Audio Unit instrument — followed by an effects chain. Groups act as summing buses for their child tracks: they appear in the sidebar track list, but only tracks that contain clips show as rows in the timeline.| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Sample | Tied to a single audio file. One sample per track. |
| Instrument | Hosts an Audio Unit plugin and receives MIDI input. |
| Group | Organizes tracks and acts as an audio bus for its children. |
| Master Bus | Final output. All audio flows through here. |
| Listen Bus | Monitoring bus that holds effects ignored on bounce. Configured per output via Monitor Profiles. |
The Interface at a Glance
The window has four main areas — the Sidebar (track list), the Timeline (the central workspace), the Inspector (a tabbed panel on the right), and the Plugin Strip (the effects chain of the selected track, along the bottom) — plus a floating transport bar. Each has its own page under the Interface section; the overview below is just orientation.
Next Steps
Timeline Editing
Arranging, editing, and clip operations
Focus Mode
Inline audio and MIDI editing
Keyboard Shortcuts
Full shortcut reference
Command Palette
All available commands