Sample Squad Product Glossary

This glossary keeps product language consistent across the app, tooltips, docs, and eventual marketing copy.

Core Terms

Drum Composer
The step-based drum sequencing view. Use this instead of "drum grid" when referring to the main pad/step programming workflow.

Piano Roll
The melodic note editor inside the Sequencers page. Use this for pitched notes, chords, melodic synth lines, and MIDI recording/editing.

Sequencers
The top-level page that contains both the Drum Composer and Piano Roll.

Arranger
The song-structure page where patterns are placed, repeated, labeled by section, annotated, and exported.

Arrangement Canvas
The timeline-style workspace inside the Arranger where clips, lanes, section markers, loop ranges, and the playhead are manipulated. Use this term when referring to the large compositional area, rather than the whole Arranger page.

Arrangement Overview Mode
A collapsed Arrangement Canvas view that compresses lane height so the user can see more of the full song stack at once. Overview Mode is for orientation, selection, and broad arrangement moves; full lane view is for lane instruments, mute/solo controls, and detailed editing.

Whole-Song Overview Fit
The Arranger command that fits the existing song material horizontally and vertically into the viewport as large as possible. FIT, F, Shift+4, O, and Ctrl+O share this behavior; lane height only compacts when all full-height lanes cannot fit.

Arrangement Lane
A horizontal track inside the Arrangement Canvas. A lane owns one musical role and one primary instrument or sound source, such as Drums, Bass, Harmony, Melody, or a future hardware/MIDI instrument.

Arrangement Display
The visual row/block display inside the Arranger that shows song sections and pattern blocks.

Lane-Owned Instrument
The instrument or route assigned to an Arrangement Lane. Internal lanes play through that lane's instrument and mixer channel; hardware-only lanes send MIDI outward; export-only lanes stay silent during playback but still write MIDI files. The point is predictable arranging, mixing, stem export, and hardware routing.

Lane Instrument ID
A persistent internal identity for the instrument owned by a non-drum Arrangement Lane. It is not a Pad number. Current builds may still use a hidden backing slot internally while the audio engine is migrated, but the user-facing model is lane-owned instruments.

Lane MIDI Channel
The MIDI output/export channel owned by an Arrangement Lane. This is the first step toward predictable hardware control: Arrangement MIDI export now uses lane channels instead of one hard-coded melodic channel.

Lane MIDI Input Filter
The incoming MIDI channel rule for an armed Arrangement Lane. Omni accepts any incoming channel; Input CH 01 through Input CH 16 accept only that controller channel for live input and recording. This is separate from the lane's playback/export MIDI channel.

Hardware Passport NRPN Dictionary A device-specific list of named NRPN parameters stored inside a Hardware Passport. SpaceAge may preserve unknown NRPN setup cards from MIDI files, but it only allows QUEUE CARD for an NRPN when the selected lane's Hardware Passport contains a matching definition marked queue-safe.

Instrument Bay The page/panel where SpaceAge displays potential and active instruments for choosing, editing, launching into lanes, and managing metadata. The Bay is the chooser and management area, not the sound generator itself.

Instrument A chosen sound generator assigned to a Lane or Pad. Instruments can be Redshift, Propulsion 1, Liftoff, Glass Moon, Moonshadow, Lunacy, SoundFont, physical model, or future VSTs, each with its own preset state, mixer routing, MIDI routing, and saved identity. External hardware and export-only targets are lane routes, not internal sound generators.

Instrument Record The internal record describing one Instrument entry shown in the Instrument Bay. It should expose the engine, preset name, display name, metadata/info, lane ownership, routing, and launch actions such as open editor, load preset into this lane, and create new lane from this instrument.

Clip Instance The object placed on the Arrangement Canvas. It owns lane, start position, visible length, selection state, clip notes, and timeline behavior.

Clip ID A persistent internal identity for an Arrangement clip, shown to users only as a simple label like CLIP #12 when a custom name does not exist. Clip IDs are not Pad numbers and are not Pattern numbers.

Pattern Payload The musical content referenced by a Clip Instance, such as Drum Composer steps, Piano Roll notes, Chord Markers, automation, and future Motion Blocks. Linked clips can point to the same payload; variants receive a copied payload.

Linked Clone A duplicated clip that still points to the same Pattern Payload as the original. Editing the musical content in one linked clone changes the other linked clones.

Variant A duplicated clip whose musical content has been copied into a new independent Pattern Payload. Editing the original does not change the variant, and editing the variant does not change the original.

Foreign Lane
Any Arrangement Lane whose musical role does not match the selected clip's current lane. Dragging directly into a foreign lane should be blocked until SpaceAge has an explicit lane-conversion dialog.

Lane Conversion
A future user-confirmed action that converts a clip from one lane type to another, such as turning a melodic clip into a bass-lane clip or moving a drum idea into another drum-compatible lane. This must be deliberate so users do not accidentally create silent or confusing clips.

Chord Engine
The theory-aware chord lane and safe-chord toolset inside the Piano Roll. It manages key/scale spelling, chord markers, chord quality, inversions, voicing, strum behavior, and arpeggiation.

Chord Marker
A clip-like chord object inside the Chord Engine lane. A Chord Marker owns start time, length, root/degree, quality, inversion, voicing, strum settings, velocity, and optional arpeggiation. Use this instead of "Chord Engine clip" in UI/help copy when possible.

Slash Chord
A chord label that names the chord first and the bass note after a slash, such as C/E or Cmaj11/E. SpaceAge should use slash-chord labels for inversions because they are familiar to musicians and avoid academic clutter like inv1.

6/4 Chord
A second-inversion triad with the fifth in the bass, such as C/G. In classical theory this often acts as a cadential, passing, or pedal voice-leading event rather than a standalone chord. In the UI, prefer the slash-chord label unless a future analysis helper is explicitly explaining the function.

ARP Badge
The small visual indicator on a Chord Marker that shows arpeggiation is enabled. It should remain compact and readable, like the Accent/Ratchet indicators elsewhere.

Honeycomb Hexes
The auditionable chord-suggestion buttons in the Chord Engine. They should remain human-led: SpaceAge may suggest, categorize, and audition chords, but the user chooses what becomes part of the composition.

Melody-Fit Chord Hex
A specific Honeycomb Hex generated from the active melody, key, scale, and selected Chord Marker context. Use this term when describing the hexes that attempt to fit under existing melodic material.

Borrowed Chord
A chord intentionally taken from a related key or mode, such as parallel minor, parallel major, a mode, or a secondary-dominant relationship. SpaceAge should show the source clearly so the user understands why the chord is available.

Safe Chord
A Chord Engine suggestion that sits strongly inside the chosen key/scale and is unlikely to clash with the current melodic context.

Spare Chord
A leaner or more open Chord Engine suggestion, often suspended or harmonically less-defining. Spare chords leave space for melody, bass, or arrangement to define the emotional color.

Color Chord
A Chord Engine suggestion that adds harmonic flavor or extension without being the most tense available option.

Tension Chord
A denser, more dramatic, altered, extended, diminished, quartal, or otherwise spicy Chord Engine suggestion. Tension chords are useful for lift, surprise, transitions, and more adventurous harmony.

Ghost Notes
Read-only note shadows from another lane shown inside the Piano Roll to guide melodic, bass, or harmonic interaction. Ghost notes should help composition without becoming editable material in the active lane. A starred Ghost lane entry means that lane has overlapping notes or Chord Marker tones available in the clip range currently being edited; Ghost All shows every starred non-drum lane at once.

Polytimbral Lane
A future lane type for instruments or hardware that can produce several different sounds at once, such as General MIDI, XG hardware, multitimbral synths, or a future hosted plugin. This is different from normal one-instrument-per-lane behavior.

Motion Block
A reusable tempo-aware clip decoration that adds musical movement to a clip, pattern, phrase, or section. Examples include trance gates, fade in/out curves, pan sweeps, filter sweeps, sidechain-style pumps, stutters, delay throws, and reverb blooms.

Slide Link
A future Piano Roll connection between two notes that creates a controlled legato glide or MIDI pitch-bend transition. In MIDI 1.0 this is safest on monophonic lanes because pitch bend affects the whole channel.

Clip Decoration
A non-destructive effect or movement tag attached to a clip. The clip keeps its original musical/audio content, while the decoration changes how it moves or behaves during playback.

Aux Return
A shared effect return, such as a reverb or delay, fed by sends from channel strips. This is more CPU-friendly than placing a separate always-on reverb or delay on every lane.

Looping

Step Bank
A 16-step subdivision of a 64-step pattern. There are four step banks: 1-16, 17-32, 33-48, and 49-64.

Step-Bank Loop
A temporary loop over one or more selected Step Banks in the Drum Composer. Users can click an L button to loop one bank, or Shift-click additional L buttons to add/remove banks from the loop.

Piano Roll Loop Region
A loop selected in the Piano Roll timeline/scrub lane. This can be an arbitrary start/end range rather than only a 16-step bank.

Measure Ruler
A quiet numbered strip above a composition workstation that shows musical measure numbers. The Arranger and Piano Roll use this to keep longer clips oriented in song time; clicking the Piano Roll ruler places the playback head.

Pads And Sound Sources

Pad
One of the 64 playable sound slots.

Hybrid Pad
A pad that blends internal synthesis with one or more loaded samples. Use this instead of longer phrases like "synth/sample blended pad."

Internal Engine
The built-in synthesis system for a pad or lane-owned instrument. This includes Redshift, Propulsion 1, Liftoff, Glass Moon, Moonshadow, Lunacy, Quasar, drum labs, classic machines, physical modeling, and noise/transient engines.

Redshift SpaceAge's built-in melodic polyphonic synth, formerly called PolySynth during development. It includes oscillator spread, wavefolding, pulse/shape width, vibrato, filter LFO, X-mod movement, drift, comb body, metallic shimmer, and ADSR shaping. Redshift patches can be saved as .sspoly files for reuse across projects.

Preset Role Tags
Short labels shown before factory preset names so users know the musical job of a sound before loading it. Current tags include Chord-Safe, Bass, Pad, Lead, Percussive, Inharmonic, and FX. The Chord-Safe tag is intentionally conservative and should only be used after a preset has been checked with normal chords.

Chord-Safe Preset
A factory preset designed to play normal chords without hidden fixed-frequency operators, heavy interval stacks, or inharmonic ratios that make harmony sound wrong. Chord-Safe does not mean plain; it means the patch respects A440/equal-tempered pitch well enough for the Chord Engine and Piano Roll. For now, factory Chord-Safe labeling is reserved for audited Redshift-style harmonic sounds and any other engine presets that pass the same harmony check.

Inharmonic Preset
A sound that intentionally uses bell-like, metallic, fixed-frequency, or non-integer relationships. These can be beautiful for color, percussion, and sound design, but should not be assumed to behave like a clean harmonic instrument in dense chords.

Native Synth Patch (.ssynth) A reusable patch format for SpaceAge's built-in synth engines, including Kick Lab, Snare Lab, Hat Lab, Propulsion 1, Liftoff, Glass Moon, Moonshadow, and Lunacy. Liftoff and Lunacy patches can also carry a bundled source-audio copy in a neighboring *_Sources folder so source-based patches can survive moved original files.

Osc Spread
A Redshift control that adds subtle detuned oscillator copies around the main oscillator. Small values thicken a patch; higher values create wider, more animated pads and stacks.

Wave Fold
A Redshift harmonic-shaping control. It bends the waveform back into itself before filtering, creating brighter, more complex tones than ordinary drive alone.

Width
A Redshift oscillator-shape control. For pulse-style waveforms it controls pulse width; for broader patch design it helps shift the balance between hollow, nasal, and centered tones.

X-Mod
A Redshift cross-mod style motion control. It uses bounded internal modulation to add slow pitch and filter movement without turning ordinary patches into uncontrolled chaos.

Kick Lab Parameters

Kick Lab
A dedicated kick drum synth engine. It is meant for designing complete kick sounds quickly from synthesis rather than loading a sample.

Sub Freq
The fundamental pitch of the kick body. Lower values create deeper orbit-sub kicks; higher values create tighter, more audible thumps.

Pitch Drop
The amount of downward pitch sweep at the start of the kick. Higher values create dramatic drops, laser-like trap kicks, and larger perceived impact.

Drop Time
How long the pitch sweep takes to settle into the final Sub Freq. Short times feel tight and punchy; longer times feel booming or bendy.

Drop Curve
The shape of the pitch drop. Lower values make the pitch fall quickly; higher values stretch the motion and make the drop feel more expressive.

Sub Body
The amount of low-frequency body and octave weight. This is the big speaker-moving part of the kick.

Sub Ratio
The harmonic/body ratio layered above the fundamental. Use it to shift the kick from pure sine-like low end toward more knock, tone, or shell resonance.

Click
The level of the short attack click. This helps the kick cut through a dense mix and remain audible on smaller speakers.

Click Pitch
The frequency of the click layer. Lower values create a woody knock; higher values create sharper beater or electronic attack.

Click Len
The length of the click layer. Very short values are snappy; longer values make the attack more obvious and textured.

Noise
The amount of shell/noise layer mixed into the kick. This can add air, grit, beater texture, industrial edge, or vintage drum-machine character.

Noise Decay
How quickly the noise layer fades. Short decays create a tight tick; longer decays create a puff, thud, or room-like shell smear.

Noise LPF
The low-pass filter cutoff for the noise layer. Lower values darken the noise; higher values make it brighter and more aggressive.

Drive
The main gain into the Kick Lab saturation stage. Use it for weight, density, and controlled aggression.

Punch
A front-end impact enhancer. Higher values push the initial body transient forward before saturation.

Saturation
An asymmetric color stage that adds harmonics and attitude. It is different from Drive: Drive increases pressure, while Saturation changes character.

Transient
Adds a very short attack emphasis. Use it when a kick needs more front edge without simply raising the Click level.

Tighten
Controls how quickly the kick body is controlled and compacted. Higher values make the kick shorter, firmer, and more mix-ready.

Body Res
Adds resonant body/knock using a short internal resonance path. Small amounts add realism and tone; larger amounts can make the kick feel hollow or cinematic.

Snare Lab Parameters

Snare Lab A dedicated snare drum synth engine. It is meant for designing complete snare sounds quickly from synthesis: tuned shell, stick impact, wire noise, rattle, punch, saturation, and filter shaping.

Shell Freq The fundamental pitch of the drum shell. Lower values create deeper marching or boom-bap snares; higher values create piccolo, tight pop, or electronic snares.

Snap Pitch The amount of short pitch snap at the beginning of the shell tone. Higher values create a more exaggerated crack or electronic pitch flick.

Snap Time How long the shell pitch snap takes to settle. Short times feel tight and immediate; longer times make the snare bend or bloom.

Snap Curve The shape of the pitch snap. Lower values fall quickly; higher values stretch the snap and make it more dramatic.

Shell Body The amount of tuned body mixed into the snare. Use it to move from papery/noise-focused snares toward rounder acoustic shell tone.

Shell Ratio The harmonic ratio above the shell fundamental. This shifts the shell from smooth body toward ring, knock, or metallic tone.

Stick The level of the initial stick impact. This gives the snare definition before the wire noise blooms.

Stick Pitch The frequency of the stick layer. Lower values are woody; higher values are sharper and more synthetic.

Stick Len The duration of the stick layer. Very short values create a click; longer values make the strike more obvious and textured.

Wires The level of the snare-wire/noise layer. This is the hiss, paper, sand, and rattle portion of the snare.

Wire Decay How long the wire layer rings out. Short decays are tight and dry; longer decays create splashier or gated-snare behavior.

Wire LPF The low-pass cutoff for the wire layer. Lower values darken the snare; higher values make the wires bright and aggressive.

Drive The main gain into the Snare Lab saturation stage. Use it for level, density, and controlled grit.

Punch A front-edge impact enhancer. Higher values push the snare attack forward without relying only on the Stick control.

Saturation An asymmetric color stage for harmonic bite. It changes character more than simple volume.

Transient Adds a very short attack emphasis, useful when the snare needs more snap in a busy beat.

Tighten Controls how compact and controlled the snare feels. Higher values shorten and firm up the sound.

Rattle Adds a short internal resonance/rattle path. Small amounts add realism; larger amounts create industrial or metallic movement.

Hat Lab Parameters

Hat Lab A dedicated hi-hat synth engine. It is meant for designing closed hats, open hats, foot chicks, shaker-like textures, metallic ticks, and noisy vintage hats from synthesis rather than samples.

Metal Freq The core pitch area for the metallic partials. Lower values feel darker and trashier; higher values feel glassy, tiny, and bright.

Tone Spread The tuning spread between the metallic partials. Smaller values feel tighter and cleaner; larger values create dissonant, splashy, cymbal-like complexity.

Metal Decay How quickly the metallic partials fade. Short values create closed ticks; longer values create open-hat shimmer.

Spread Curve The shape of the partial spread. Use it to move from compact metallic clusters toward more exaggerated, synthetic cymbal behavior.

Metal Mix The level of the inharmonic metallic body. Higher values make the sound less like pure noise and more like a struck metal object.

Metal Ratio The ratio used to bias the metallic partial family. It changes the flavor of the inharmonic cluster without pretending to be concert pitch.

Tick The short attack transient at the start of the hat. Use it for definition, foot-chick snap, and smaller-speaker readability.

Tick Pitch The pitch/frequency of the transient layer. Lower values are woody or papery; higher values are needle-like.

Tick Len The length of the transient layer. Very short values are tight; longer values make the attack more audible and synthetic.

Noise The amount of bright noise in the hat. This is the main sizzle layer.

Decay How long the bright noise tail lasts. This is the fastest way to move between closed and open hat behavior.

Noise LPF The brightness control for the noise layer. Lower values make darker, dusty hats; higher values create crisp, airy hats.

Drive The main gain into Hat Lab's saturation stage.

Bite A front-end brightness/impact enhancer. It helps a hat cut without simply making it louder.

Saturation Adds harmonic grit and asymmetric color. Use small amounts for body and larger amounts for synthetic or damaged hats.

Transient Adds a very short extra emphasis to the hat attack.

Tighten Shortens and firms up the envelope behavior so hats sit more precisely in a pattern.

Air Res Adds a short internal resonance path for air, ring, and cymbal-body suggestion.

Moondagger
The working trade name for SpaceAge's native Physical Model bass-guitar preset family. Moondagger sounds use the Physical Model engine's Bass Guitar model and should follow A440/equal-tempered MIDI pitch so they can drive bass lanes, Piano Roll clips, Chord Engine harmony, and future stem export predictably.

Sample Layers
Velocity-mapped sample layers in a pad. These respond according to velocity ranges.

One-Shots
Extra non-velocity-mapped samples layered on top of a pad sound. Use this for attack clicks, body layers, or special transient/body additions.

Pad Vault
The user-facing library for saving and loading individual pad sounds by category.

Patterns And Files

Pattern
An editable musical pattern, named PTN1, PTN2, and so on.

Combined Pattern
A new longer pattern created by selecting multiple existing patterns and combining them in order.

Project Archive
A portable zip package containing a project plus referenced samples and loops. Archives should avoid exposing private local file paths.

Recovery Snapshot
An automatic temporary save used to recover work after a crash, shutdown, or accidental close.

Instruments And Effects

AUTO The compact Arrangement and Piano Roll doorway into MIDI performance automation. It means Automation, not automatic playback or automatic composition. When the resolved clip/lane target already has automation rows, the doorway can report AUTO +N so the user knows data exists before opening the editor.

Automation The customer-facing MIDI performance automation editor. Its owner selector can target Shared PTN, Clip Local, or Lane Local data. Shared PTN rows are reusable by linked clips and retain the Variant/Ack Shared guard; Clip Local rows belong to one Arrangement clip; Lane Local rows belong to the lane. Effective playback and export layer Shared PTN, then Lane Local, then Clip Local.

Shared Effects Return A project/mixer-level effect return fed by sends rather than an effect inserted privately into one pattern. Halostar, Reverb, EchoRay, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, and Octave currently live in this family, though EchoRay keeps per-pad/channel delay memory under shared character controls.

EchoRay

SpaceAge's shared vintage-digital delay return. EchoRay replaces the plain tempo delay identity with a rack-inspired delay path featuring input character, repeat age, feedback filtering, modulation, stereo widening, freeze, kill-dry behavior, and safety limiting. It remains tied to the existing mixer/channel-strip delay sends so older projects and current workflow stay coherent.

Halostar

SpaceAge's shimmer reverb return. Halostar is the brighter, more cinematic reverb path, with tail, shimmer, width, and feedback-style controls intended for pads, bells, arps, and dramatic transitions.

Reverb

The classic shared stereo reverb return. Reverb stays separate from Halostar so the mixer can offer a straightforward room/space option beside the more characterful shimmer path.

Moonshadow A built-in spectral modeling synth. Moonshadow uses playable additive partial models rather than a full sample-analysis editor in its first pass. It is intended for glassy pads, bells, drones, air-choir textures, plucked spectra, digital-organ colors, and other spacey tonal material that can still behave musically in the Piano Roll and Chord Engine.

User Source An imported audio file used as raw material inside a synth engine rather than as a normal sample layer. Liftoff uses a User Source as an oscillator source; Lunacy uses it as grain material.

Source Root The MIDI note number and pitch name that tells a User Source what pitch it represents before transposition. For example, a loaded sample tuned to middle C should normally use C4 60 as its Source Root. Source Root fields can display and accept note-style values such as C4, F#3, Bb2, or raw MIDI numbers.

Cassette Outlander A future tape simulation effect concept. The name is reserved for a SpaceAge-style cassette/tape processor with saturation, wow/flutter, head bump, noise, age, dropout, and transport instability.

Quasar SpaceAge's proprietary multisample instrument format. A Quasar package captures a tuned patch as rendered WAV zones plus a manifest describing root notes, key ranges, velocity ranges, tuning, gain, pan, capture settings, and loop behavior. The current builder creates .ssquasar package folders from tonal internal engines, captures minor-third roots across selectable ranges, supports 1-4 velocity layers, optional peak normalization, selectable sustain-loop metadata, can load/play packages as the Quasar engine, and preserves those package folders inside complete project archives. Future versions should add deeper zone editing, round robins, editable loop tools, Loop on Release behavior, and Instrument Bay browsing.

Loop on Release A planned Quasar / SpaceAge sampling-format behavior where a sample can use one loop while the key is held, then switch to a dedicated release-loop or release-tail behavior after note-off. This is useful for bowed, blown, reversed, granular, and evolving instruments where the release is part of the musical identity rather than a simple fade-out.

Suggested Usage Rules

Use "Step-Bank Loop" for Drum Composer bank looping.
Use "Piano Roll Loop Region" for arbitrary note-editor looping.
Use "Hybrid Pad" whenever a pad uses both synthesis and samples.
Use "Internal Engine" instead of "built-in synth" in UI text.
Use "Arranger" instead of "Chain" everywhere.
Use "Arrangement Canvas" for the clip-and-lane workspace inside the Arranger.
Use "Arrangement Lane" for one horizontal track in the Arrangement Canvas.
Use "Lane-Owned Instrument" when explaining why a lane has its own instrument and mixer strip.
Use "Instrument Bay" only for the browser/chooser concept. Once chosen, call the sound an "Instrument."
Use "Foreign Lane" only internally or in support docs; customer-facing UI should prefer plain language such as "Convert this clip?"
Use "Chord Engine" for chord markers, safe chord buttons, voicing, strum, and chord arpeggiation.
Use "Chord Marker" for the editable chord blocks in the Chord Engine lane.
Use slash-chord labels for inversions, such as F/A, instead of inv1 or numeric slash labels.
Use "ARP Badge" for the small arpeggiator-enabled indicator shown on a Chord Marker.
Use "Melody-Fit Chord Hex" for honeycomb suggestions generated from existing melody or chord context.
Use "Ghost Notes" for read-only notes shown from another lane.
Use "Motion Block" for reusable clip/pattern/section movement effects.