A pattern that keeps moving.

Four voices, four lanes each

A voice doesn't store notes. It stores four rows of steps: Gate says when a note plays, Pitch which note, Length how long it sounds and Velocity how hard. On every step all four move on together, and a note plays when the Gate step is on.

Click a Gate step to turn it on or off, or drag across to paint a run of them. Drag a Pitch, Length or Velocity bar up or down to set it. Length goes from ¼ of a step to 4 steps, or Tie, which holds the note and glides into the next one.

Each voice has its own channel, Octave and Rate, from 1/2 to 1/32, and its own mute. A muted voice keeps counting, so it drops back in on time. One output carries all four channels: cable it to a synth on each.

Every lane its own length

Each lane plays from 1 to 16 steps before it starts over. Make the Gate lane 16 steps and the Pitch lane 7, and the same rhythm lands on different notes every bar. The two only line up again after 7 bars.

Add a 4-step Length lane and a 6-step Velocity lane and the accents and long notes wander too. Each lane also has a direction.

Reset lines every lane back up to its first step, on the next bar. Pressing Play does the same.

Lock what you like, re-roll the rest

Random gives a lane new values. Option-click a step to lock it, and Random leaves that step alone. Keep the three notes that make the hook and roll the rest until the line sounds right.

Random works on one voice, or Random all re-rolls the lane on screen for all four voices. The Lock button locks a whole lane in one click.

Twelve patterns, switched from a pad

Each card has twelve pattern slots across the top of its settings. A pattern holds every lane of all four voices: steps, lengths, directions and locks. Channels, octaves and rates stay with the card.

Click a slot to play it. While the transport runs, the new pattern starts on the next bar, never half way through one. Click an empty slot and it starts as a copy of the one playing, so a variation is one click away.

To switch from your controller, run an action cable to the card and set its action to Pattern. 12 patterns adds one press per slot; Learn All lets you hit each pad in turn.

Follows the chords and your keyboard

The Lane Sequencer plays in the patch key unless you give it one of its own. With Scale lock on, Pitch steps are the notes of the key, two octaves of them, so every roll stays in key. With it off, Pitch steps are semitones.

Drag a harmony cable from a Chord Sequencer and every voice follows the changes, with Shift or Tones, just like the Note Sequencer.

Drag from a keyboard's input to the card's diamond and the cable gets a Transpose badge. The last note you play, counted from C4, moves every voice, and it stays there until your next note. Those notes don't sound: they only steer the sequencer. In key moves the voices along the scale; Classic moves them by semitones.

Start from a preset

A new Lane Sequencer plays straight away: a bass, a pulse, a lead and a high line on channels 1 to 4, each with lanes of different lengths. The built-in presets are Drifting Bass + Lead, Pad Pulse, Bell Cloud and Four on Four, all written in scale steps, so they play in whatever key you're in.

Save your own and it's there in every project. Loading a preset never changes your voices' channels, so your synths stay where they are.