TBOSS user manual

TBOSS is open-source replacement firmware for the TheoryBoard THY333. This manual covers every feature on the board and in the web editor. For installing the firmware see Installing. This is TBOSS 2.0: the Turing arpeggiator, chained progressions with each chord's chance, presets with their own chord sets, U3 as Shift, Sleep and Shut down, the web editor's own USB port and the rebalanced Settings menu are new in 2.0. It also brings 1.9 (the web editor's Settings, Lights, Feel, Sequencer and Presets tabs, the chord pad edits, the new pad colors, curves and preset names) and 1.8 (MPE, Glide, the step screen's play button, Vel full), which were not released on their own. Everything in 1.4 to 2.0 passed its board tests on one board. See Known issues and please report anything that doesn't work as described here.

How each feature is explained: what it does, then Try it (steps you can follow on the board, with what you should see or hear), Why use it and, where it matters, When not to. Features that go beyond the original TheoryBoard are marked Optional: they are off until you turn them on.

#Roadmap

#Planned

Later

• More for the step sequencer, roughly in order (per-step nudge came in 2.0.3): 8 patterns chained into a song; live recording with quantize (the phrase recorder); parameter lanes with their own lengths; CC lanes. (The lane editor in the web editor came in 1.9, copy, paste and shift in 2.0.)
• A second arpeggiator (deferred from 0.6.0: it needs a second source pool and its own menu page).
• Own USB product ID 1209:B333 from pid.codes (requested 2026-10-16, pidcodes PR #1319), replacing the test ID cafe:4069.

#Ideas, not scheduled

Possible later; nothing decided yet

• Use the external memory (after it is backed up): many more presets and scales.
• Dual boot (low priority): firmware A starts normally, firmware B while two right-half pads are held at power-up. Easy with two TBOSS builds; with the original firmware it needs a check that the original never writes sectors 10-11 and that the loader does not verify its checksum at boot (the original must stay at 0x08040000).

#Already built

The whole roadmap, with the reasons behind each release: roadmap.md.

#Coming from the original TheoryBoard

TBOSS starts out playing like a stock TheoryBoard: chords of the key on the left, the scale on the right, the root and mode buttons along the top, and the printed chord panel in the center doing what its icons say. If you know the original, you can play straight away.

What is different from the first moment, because it makes the board easier to use:

• The screen names the chord you just played (Dm7, C/E) and what the last button did (VOICING II, ROOT D), so the board explains itself as you go.
• Settings are in a menu under the five buttons below the screen: press ● Center to open it. See Settings menu.
• ▲ / ▼ on the play screen step to the next or previous scale, and ▶ Right turns hold on and off.
• Pads are lit in rainbow colors by note and turn white under your finger.
• Pads play from a lighter touch, and how light is up to you: Settings → Pads (Pad sensitivity).

The original's Full chord layout (each chord of the scale with its variations: C, Cadd2, C6 …) is there too, from 1.3: Settings → Chords → Chord set → Full. See Full chord layout. For sevenths, sus chords and ninths always in the same place, try the Chord grid (Chord set → Grid).

Everything else (strum feel, voice leading, live notes, note repeat, the drum layout and so on) is optional: nothing changes until you switch it on in the menu or the web editor. If the board ever behaves unexpectedly, Troubleshooting lists the usual causes.

#New in 2.0

Tested on a board (2.0.8). 2.0 also brings 1.9 and 1.8, not released on their own. Four things from the roadmap and two you asked for, then more:

• Turing pattern (Settings → Arpeggiator → Arp → Turing): the arpeggiator plays a loop of the held notes drawn at random. Lock sets how much of it stays each time round (100 %: the same loop over and over; 0 %: new every time) and Loop its length (2–16 steps). Other notes, a new loop.
• Chained progressions: up to 8 progressions played one after another, for example P1 > P1 > P2 > P3, set in the web editor's Progressions tab. Settings → Progressions → Chain On (or Shift + root button 9) and Play plays the chain; the play screen shows where it is (C2/4 P1 …).
• Chord chance: each chord of a progression plays as written only so often (100 % down to 10 %); the other times it rests, or plays the borrowed chord from the parallel major or minor key. Set in the web editor.
• Presets with their own chord sets (Settings → Presets → Keep chords): Save preset also saves a copy of the chord set the preset plays, and loading the preset brings that copy back, so two presets can use different versions of chord set 1. The editor's Presets tab sets, removes, copies and compares them.
• Copy, paste and move lanes in the editor's Sequencer tab: copy a lane onto another, move its steps one earlier or later, copy and paste a range of steps. On the board the step screen does the same with Shift.
• U3 as Shift (Settings → Buttons → U3 button): the top right button becomes a Shift button, so all 14 center buttons keep their printed functions. A tap is Shift for the next press, two quick taps latch it. Shift + the buttons under the screen do more on every screen (tempo, play, arpeggiator, home, jump to the end, defaults), and the bottom line says what.
• Sleep and Shut down: Settings → About → Shut down darkens the board until you press ● Center (as the original's shutdown did); Settings → Lights → Sleep after darkens it after 5–60 minutes without a touch. Settings → About → I/O test now also shows the buttons you hold.
• The Settings menu, rebalanced (2.0.1): 17 pages, each one kind of thing, the longest 13 items (before: 13 pages, three of 16–17). What moved: Expression (new): Chord AT, Melody AT (from Play), MPE, Glide, Glide time (from MIDI). Effects (new): Note repeat, Repeat rhythm, Harmony, Echo, Echoes (from Play), Mono (from Layout). Chord edits (new): Add 7th/9th/6th, Sus, Strum pad, Sound, Reset chord, Reset all edits (from Chords). MIDI: every channel now, Bass ch, Drum ch, Live ch, Live in (from Layout). Layout: Melody oct (from Play). Sequence is now two pages, Progressions (Play, Chain, Progression, Unit, Record, Clear, Guide) and Steps (Steps, Lane … Rotate, Step pads). Your settings stay as they were; each page's Reset options resets what is on it now. (2.0.4) The pages in a new order: what the pads play (Play, Layout, Chords, Chord edits), how they're played (Strum, Expression, Arpeggiator, Effects; Expression after Strum since 2.0.5), sequencing (Progressions, Steps), Presets, then the setup pages by how often they're changed (MIDI, Pedal, Buttons, Lights, Pads) and About. ▲ Up from Play goes to the last.
• Spread of Bass (2.0.2) (Settings → Chords → Spread of → Bass): every chord keeps its root as the lowest note. The chord stays as the pad, the voicing buttons or Voice lead make it, and the Spread buttons add its root under it (E G C becomes C E G C); Spread II and III put that root one or two octaves lower. From a user's request.
• More for the step sequencer (2.0.3), ideas from the Deluge, OXI One and Hapax:
  • Fill steps play only while a center button set to Fill (or the pedal, Mode Fill) is held, and Not fill steps rest then: hold it for a drum fill, let go and the beat is back.
  • Nudge moves a step up to half a step early or late. Each lane gets its own Swing and Transpose.
  • Mutate (Settings → Steps, and the editor) changes a few steps of a lane a little, differently each time. The editor also has Randomize.
  • Stutter (a center button, 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16): while you hold it, the lanes and the progression repeat the beat, eighth or sixteenth the press fell in. Let go and they carry on in time.
• The web editor's own USB port (2.0.6): the board shows a second MIDI port, TheoryBoard Editor, and the web editor talks to it, so your DAW keeps hearing the board while the editor is connected. Leave that port off in the DAW.
• Clear preset (2.0.7): Settings → Presets → Clear preset empties a preset, with its own colors, curves, chord set and name.
• The web editor follows the board (2.0.5–2.0.8): a progression recorded on the board, settings changed there, a preset saved, cleared or loaded show in the editor within a second or two, without Reconnect; Reconnect no longer pauses what the board plays. Each message appears next to what you changed and goes after 3 seconds.
• Curves of (2.0.8): the Feel tab edits the board's curves or any preset's own without loading it, and sets the preset's own Chord vel to Custom so its curve is heard when it loads.

#New in 1.9

Tested on a board (1.9.4); not released on its own: it comes with 2.0. The board, customized from the web editor:

• Every setting in the web editor: its new Settings tab shows every page and item of the board's Settings menu, read from the board itself, with what each does and its default. A change goes to the board at once, and the board keeps playing while you change it.
• Your own colors: the editor's Lights tab recolors every pad color scheme from a palette of 16, with a picture of the board; a preset can keep a look of its own (Settings → Presets → Keep look).
• Your own feel: the editor's Feel tab draws each half's velocity curve (Settings → Play → Chord vel / Melody vel Custom) and pressure curve, calibrates the pads from a few presses, and maps every pad's resting level.
• (1.9.4) Changes on the board show in the editor within a second (the Settings tab, and the Sequencer tab's steps), and the editor no longer pauses the board's notes when it reads it: only a restore, a write that answers, or the external memory's backup still does.
• Four more color schemes (Screen and lights): Piano, Triad, Function and Octaves, and Color by note name or scale degree (Settings → Lights).
• The step sequencer in the web editor (1.9.3): its Sequencer tab shows the four lanes of 64 steps as a grid: click to add steps, set each step's options and each lane's kind, length, rate, direction and Euclid fill, and start and stop it. The board plays each change at once.
• Every chord pad's edits at once (1.9.3): the Chords tab shows all 48 chord pads with their chord names; add the 7th, 9th or 6th, sus2 or sus4, or turn a pad's strum or sound off.
• Presets (1.9.3): the editor's Presets tab names presets (the board's Load preset shows the names), loads, copies, swaps and clears them, compares two setting by setting, and gives a preset its own colors or curves; a preset can keep its own velocity and pressure curves (Settings → Presets → Keep feel).
• Full (Settings → Pads) goes up to +4000, and Glide is Roll by default (it was Off).
• The editor has tabs along the top: Settings, Lights, Feel, Scales, Chords, Progressions, Sequencer, Buttons, Presets, Backup.

#New in 1.8

Tested on a board (1.8.5); not released on its own: it comes with 2.0. Expression per pad, and a play button for the step sequencer:

• MPE (Settings → Expression → MPE): every pad you play gets a MIDI channel of its own, so how hard you press each one shapes only its notes, also inside a chord and when two pads play the same note. For synths made for MPE (in Ableton Live 12: Drift, Wavetable, Meld; also Vital, Surge XT, Pigments, Equator and MPE hardware), many of which ignore poly aftertouch. The melody half, the chord half or both; each half's pressure setting chooses what a pad sends (channel pressure, with a controller or a bend).
• Glide (Settings → Expression → Glide): with MPE on the melody half, rolling a finger from a held melody pad onto the pad beside it slides the note there instead of striking a new one, as you lean onto the new pad (lean clearly harder and it lands exactly on it). Lift the first pad and the note carries on; roll on to the next pad to keep sliding. Three ways: Roll (by which pad you press harder), Pad (by the new pad's pressure) and Time (portamento, over a set time).
• Play and stop on the step screen: tap ● Center to start and stop the sequencer (the screen says O PLAY / O STOP); hold ● for half a second for step record (HOLD O: REC). Settings → Sequence (2.0: Progressions) now opens on Play, which does the same. You no longer need a pedal, a center button or the MIDI page to hear your steps.
• Vel full (Settings → Pads) and the Firmer and Firmest velocity curves (Settings → Play → Chord vel, Melody vel): velocity can now reach 127 only at a harder press than Full, so a medium press no longer plays every note at full velocity. Full itself now goes up to +4000, so full pressure can need a harder press too.

#New in 1.7

Tested on a board. The step sequencer's second round, three more of the original TheoryBoard's 2020 promises, and three small things you asked for:

• Bass layout (Settings → Layout → Layout → Bass): the original's promised bass mode. Each scale note sits on two pads side by side, so you can play fast repeated notes with two fingers, like a bass player; every hit strikes the note again, at its own velocity.

• Program Change (Settings → MIDI): each half can send a program number to its synth (Chord prog, Melody prog, saved in presets), and a DAW can load presets 1–8 by sending programs 1–8 (Program in).

• Spread of Chord (Settings → Chords → Spread of): the Spread buttons open the whole chord across a wider range instead of only dropping its root.

• Step options (hold steps on the step screen, ▲/▼ choose, ◀/▶ change): each step's own velocity, gate (10–100 % of the step), tie (it holds until the next step that plays), chance (90 % down to 10 %), ratchet (2–8 even strikes inside the step) and condition (1:2 … 4:4, first time round, every time but the first). Hold several steps to change them together.

• Direction (Settings → Steps; before 2.0, Sequence): forward, reverse, ping-pong or random (every step once a time round, in an order that repeats when you play it again).

• Euclid and Rotate (Settings → Steps; before 2.0, Sequence): fill a lane with a number of hits spread as evenly as they go over its length, and turn the pattern round.

• Chord shapes and the arpeggiator: a held Add 7th, Sus4 … changes a running arpeggio at once (before, only the next chord pad you touched).

• Pads measured from where each one rests (Settings → Pads): Trigger, Release and Full now count from each pad's own resting level, so a pad that rests high (a dent, a warped case) plays and lets go like the others. A firm press no longer sets off the pads next to it, and the new Unstick ends a note whose pad settles back higher than it rested. Your settings are converted when you update.

• Rescan pads (Settings → Pads): measures every pad's resting level again, for a board that was moved and a pad that plays by itself.

• The sustain pedal works out of the box: Settings → Pedal → Mode is Sustain on a fresh install and after resetting the Pedal page (boards that already saved a setting keep it).

• EXT on the play screen whenever a DAW's MIDI clock comes in.

#New in 1.6

Four effects from a user's request (ideas from the Hapax and Square Pyramid sequencers), each one to three settings on a page you already know, all off until you turn them on:

• Harmony (Settings → Play): every melody pad also plays a 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th or octave above, a 3rd and 5th, or a 3rd or 6th below, always in the current scale, so the harmony follows the key as the chords do.
• Echo (Settings → Play): a MIDI delay locked to the tempo or your DAW, 1/16 to 1/2, 1–8 echoes, each one quieter.
• Mono (Settings → Layout): the melody half plays one note at a time; the newest wins and the one you still hold comes back when you let go. For mono synths and bass lines.
• Chance (Settings → Arpeggiator): the arpeggiator and note repeat skip steps at random, from 100 % (every step) down to 10 %.

#New in 1.5

A step sequencer (optional): four lanes of steps that play with the tempo or your DAW, next to a progression. A lane plays chords (chord pads, as a progression does, so the root buttons transpose it), a melody (the scale by octaves) or drums (MIDI notes), each with its own length (1–64 steps), rate (any arpeggiator rate, triplets and 5 or 7 per beat too) and channel, so lanes of different lengths drift against each other and meet again. You edit it on the board: Settings → Steps → Steps turns the right half into the lane's steps, 12 to a row, and the left half into what they play; tap steps on and off, or record them one after another. Walk-throughs: a drum beat and a bass line · chords by step record · with a DAW.

This is the foundation: a step is on or off and has a value and a velocity, and sounds for half its length. Gate, ties, probability, ratchets, more patterns and the rest come in later updates, on the same stored pattern (see the roadmap).

Also new: Chords on the right: Settings → Layout → Chords on → Right puts the chord pads on the right half and the melody on the left (for left-handed playing, or if you'd rather have the melody under your left hand).

Also new: Rainbow colors: Settings → Lights → Colors → Rainbow lights both halves in seven fixed colors, red, orange, yellow, green, dark blue, light blue and magenta from the left, then again, whatever you play (user request). The old Rainbow look, the colors by note, is now called Default.

Fixed: pads that stuck on or skipped notes on boards whose pads rest unevenly. Each pad now has its own resting level, measured when the board starts playing and followed while it rests (Pad sensitivity; the Pad test shows it).

Faster: notes sound sooner after a touch (user report: 10–30 ms later than with the original firmware). The board reads its pads about four times as often and plays each pad as soon as it is read, instead of waiting for all 96: in a simulation of the board, about 6 ms on average instead of about 16, at most about 8 instead of about 29. Fast repeated hits on one pad now each play (a quick lift between two hits could be missed before). A note's velocity comes from the higher of the pad's first two readings, a few milliseconds apart (Velocity).

Fixed: the sustain pedal did nothing (user report). Earlier versions listened on the wrong pin; the board's I/O test showed the right one, the jack's tip. Settings → Pedal → Note now shows only when Mode is Note, the only mode that uses it.

#New in 1.4

Three optional features, each with a walk-through you can follow on the board:

• Rhythms for the arpeggiator and note repeat: new rates (5 and 7 notes per beat, 1/4 and 1/32 triplets, dotted 1/8 and 1/16) and Euclidean rhythms (3/8: 3 hits spread as evenly as possible over 8 steps, and every other mix up to 16 steps), with a Rotate setting. Note repeat gets triplets, 5 per beat, a rhythm of its own and By row: each row of the melody half repeats at its own speed, so two fingers play a 2:3 or 3:4 polyrhythm. Walk-throughs: a 5-against-8 arpeggio · polyrhythms with two fingers.
• Pivot chords: pick a key to move to and the chord pads light the chords the two keys share, the best way in pulsing. The screen tells you the chord's role in the new key and the way there (ii IN G: D7>G). Walk-through: from C to G.
• Chord capture: play chords (on the pads or from your DAW or a keyboard over MIDI) and the board makes a chord set of them, in the key they fit best, ready to play. Walk-through: capture Am F C G.

Also new: Reset options at the end of every settings page puts that page back to its defaults, and Settings → About → Factory settings does every page at once (presets, scales, chord sets and progressions stay). Every reset asks first and starts on CANCEL.

Note repeat now keeps to the beat: the first strike sounds at your touch, the next ones land on the tempo's grid (or the DAW's clock), so repeats on several pads stay together. A center button can be set to Pivot. Going back to an older version, the installer and the web editor put the new values back to what that version has.

#New in 1.3

Two new ways to lay out the chord pads, both optional: Settings → Chords → Chord set.

• Chord grid: one chord type on each row, the same in every key and scale. The bottom row has the scale's triads, then the sevenths, the sus chords, and the ninths on top; each column is a step of the scale. A ii–V–I is columns 2, 5, 1 on the sevenths row, with no button to hold. Walk-through: the chord grid in C major.
• Full chord layout: the original TheoryBoard's layout, every pad a different chord: each chord of the scale with its variations (C, Cadd9, C6 …), lit in its root's color. Walk-through: Full in C major and A minor.

The web editor has Chord grid on the TB and Full layout on the TB buttons, a progression recorded on either keeps playing its chords, and backups keep the choice. A center button set to Next chord set steps through the scale's chords, the grid, Full and your chord sets.

#New in 1.0

Four optional features, each with a short walk-through you can follow on the board:

• Chord sets: any 12 chords on the chord pads, typed in the web editor, for example the key's chords with their borrowed neighbors, or a song's chords in order. Walk-throughs: a set of borrowed chords · a song's chords, then a progression.
• Theory hints: after each chord, the chord pads light the chords that usually come next. Walk-through: hints in C major.
• Center buttons and Shift: give the 14 center buttons your own jobs (arpeggiator, sustain, a 7th while held, tap tempo, next preset …), and make one a Shift button: Shift + a root button plays a progression, Shift + a mode button loads a preset. Walk-through: set up five buttons.
• Scale lock: notes your computer sends come out in the board's key and scale. Walk-through: scale lock from a DAW.

The web editor has a panel for each of the first and third. Backups and the installer's Save settings include chord sets and the buttons.

#The board

 ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │  C  C# D  D# E  F  F# G  G# A  A# B │ 5 12 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 U1 U2 U3  │  top row: 24 buttons
 │            root buttons             │            mode buttons             │
 ├────────────────────────┬────────────┴────────────┬────────────────────────┤
 │                        │        [ screen ]       │                        │
 │   CHORD PADS           │   5 navigation buttons  │   MELODY PADS          │
 │   12 columns x 4 rows  │   14 function buttons   │   12 columns x 4 rows  │
 │   (left half)          │   (center panel)        │   (right half)         │
 └────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴────────────────────────┘

• Pads (96): pressure-sensitive. The left half plays chords, the right half single notes.
• Root buttons (12): the key, C to B from left to right.
• Mode buttons (12): 5 major pentatonic, 12 chromatic, M1..M7 the seven modes of the major scale, U1..U3 your own scales (U4–U12 are in the menu).
• Navigation buttons (5), the row just below the screen, left to right: ◀ Left, ▲ Up, ● Center, ▼ Down, ▶ Right.
• Chord panel (14 center buttons): voicing (I, II, III, guitar), spread (I, II, III) and the octave V (−3 to +3).
• Jacks (back): TRS MIDI out (Type A) and a sustain pedal input.

#Getting started

1. 1
   Connect the TheoryBoard to the computer with USB. About 1.5 seconds after power-up (the board's start-up loader waits that long) the screen briefly shows TBOSS and the version, then the play screen, and the pads light up.
2. 2
   The computer sees a USB MIDI device called TheoryBoard MIDI. No driver is needed on Windows, macOS or Linux. (Windows may show an older name it remembers for the same port; it is the same device.) Since TBOSS 2.0 the board has a second port, TheoryBoard Editor (Ableton Live lists it as TheoryBoard MIDI (Port 2), Chrome on Windows as MIDIIN2 (TheoryBoard MIDI) and MIDIOUT2 (TheoryBoard MIDI)). It is the web editor's own: leave it off in your DAW.
3. 3
   In your music software (DAW), enable TheoryBoard MIDI as a MIDI input and put a software instrument on a track that listens to it.
4. 4
   Make sure the instrument is polyphonic. Many synth presets are mono or legato: they play one note at a time, so a second pad seems to cut off the first. That is the instrument, not the board.

#Playing

The left half plays chords and the right half the melody. To have them the other way round, see Chords on the right; everything in this manual then applies with "left" and "right" swapped for the pads (not for the buttons).

#Chords on the right

(1.5.0) Settings → Layout → Chords on → Right: the chord pads move to the right half and the melody pads to the left, with their lights. Everything else stays as it was: the root and mode buttons along the top, the chord panel and the buttons below the screen don't move, and every setting keeps working on the half it belongs to (Chord vel and Chord AT on the chords, wherever they are). On the step screen the steps are then on the left and what to play on the right. It's a board setting, like Arrows: loading a preset doesn't change it. A pad held while you switch ends, as if lifted.

#Melody pads (right half)

• Each column is one step of the current scale, starting from the root on the left. With a 7-note scale, columns 1–7 are one octave and columns 8–12 continue upward.
• The bottom row starts on the root (C3 by default); each row up is one octave higher.
• Velocity comes from how hard you strike the pad.

Every pad is in the key, so there are no wrong notes: you can improvise freely.

#Chord pads (left half)

• Each column is the chord built on that step of the scale (column 1 = I, column 2 = ii and so on in a major key), using only notes of the scale.
• The four rows are four voicings of that chord:

• The chord's name appears large on the screen, for example Dm or G7. A name like C/E means a C chord with E as its lowest note.
• In pentatonic and chromatic scales, chords are built the same way (every other note of the scale), so they can be unusual; the screen names them, e.g. Am/C.

Why the rows: playing a progression on one row makes every chord jump to its own root. Mixing rows lets you keep chords close together, e.g. C (bottom row), then F (3rd row, C F A), then G (2nd row, B D G): this sounds smooth, like a pianist's hands. Voice leading can do this for you.

#Key and scale

#Root

Press a root button: the whole board moves to the new key, both halves. Notes already sounding keep playing until you lift your finger.

#Mode buttons

The mode buttons choose the scale: 5 major pentatonic, 12 chromatic, M1–M7 the modes, U1–U3 your own scales.

Why: a mode changes the mood without changing the key's root: M1 (major) bright, M6 (minor) sad, M2 (Dorian) minor but hopeful, M5 (Mixolydian) bluesy major.

#Families

The M1–M7 buttons can play the seven modes of other scale families, chosen in Settings → Play → Family (default Major, the classic M1–M7):

#The scale library

86 built-in scales: the four families above, pentatonic scales (major, minor, Egyptian, Yo, Hirajoshi, In sen, Iwato, Kumoi and more), six-note scales (blues, whole tone, augmented, Prometheus…), other seven-note scales (Hungarian, Neapolitan, Persian, double harmonic, Indian thaats…) and scales of eight notes or more (bebop, diminished, Messiaen's modes, chromatic).

The web editor's scale library is easier for browsing: it groups the scales, plays them, and finds scales by the notes you play.

#Stepping through scales with ▲ / ▼

On the play screen, ▲ Up / ▼ Down step to the next or previous scale (SCALE DORIAN).

Why: compare scales quickly without opening the menu. If you'd rather use the arrows for something else (melody octave, presets or tempo), change Settings → Play → Arrows.

#Favorites

Up to 128 scales you pick in the web editor, in your order. Once you have favorites, ▲ / ▼ step through them instead of through every scale (FAV 3/12 BLUES).

#User scales (U1–U12)

Your own scales, made in the web editor. U1–U3 have buttons; all twelve are in Settings → Play → Scale. Until a slot has a scale, pressing it shows U1 IS EMPTY.

Press only one root or mode button at a time; two at once shows ONE BUTTON AT A TIME.

#Chord panel

The 14 buttons in the center do what the panel prints next to them. They shape every chord pad at once and work on the play screen and in the settings alike. A held chord keeps the notes it started with; the next touch plays the new shape. The bottom line of the screen says what changed (VOICING II, SPREAD I, OCTAVES -1 0 +1). A panel button is fully lit while its choice is on and dim otherwise, so the panel always shows what is in use.

#Voicing I / II / III

Move every chord up one, two or three inversions: with I the bottom row of C plays E G C instead of C E G, and the other rows move up with it. Press the lit button again to go back. One voicing at a time.

#Guitar voicing

Plays each chord the way a guitar does: six strings in standard tuning (E A D G B E), each string playing the lowest chord note under the hand, the strings below the chord's root left out. The bottom row is the open position (C is x32010, G 320003, D xx0232, Am x02210); the rows above move the hand 3, 5 and 7 frets up the neck.

Capo (Settings → Strum → Capo, fret 1–11, default Off): the chords stay in the key but take the shapes and brighter sound of a higher position, as with a real capo.

#Spread I / II / III

Drops each chord's root one, two or three octaves: a deep bass note under the chord. Press it again to turn it off.

Spread of (1.7) (Settings → Chords → Spread of, default Root): with Chord, the Spread buttons open the whole chord instead. Spread I moves every second note, counted from the bottom, up an octave (C E G becomes C G E, a Cmaj7 C G E B: the wide "open" voicing of a string section or a piano's two hands). Spread II and III also drop the chord's root one or two octaves under it. The screen says SPREAD I CHORD.

With Bass (2.0.2), the chord stays exactly as it is and the Spread buttons add its root under it, so the lowest note is always the root while the voicing changes only the notes above it, as a pianist's left hand holds the root. Spread I puts the root just under the chord's lowest note (nothing changes when that note is already the root), Spread II and III one or two octaves lower. The screen says SPREAD I BASS.

#Octave V (−3 to +3)

Each tap turns that octave on or off. Every lit octave plays, so lighting several stacks them. 0 is normal.

• To move the chords: tap the new octave on, then the old one off (for +1 alone from 0: tap +1, then 0).
• Turning off the last lit octave goes back to 0.
• A stacked chord plays at most 16 notes; notes beyond the MIDI range are left out.

#Center buttons and Shift

(TBOSS 1.0 or later.) Each of the 14 center buttons can do something other than what is printed next to it, and one of them can be a Shift button that gives the others a second meaning. Set them in Settings → Buttons (one item per button, named by what is printed next to it; pressing a center button while that page is open jumps to its item) or in the web editor. Reset all on that page (confirmed first) puts every button back. Until you change one, every button does what is printed.

Held for about 5 seconds at most. The board's touch buttons treat a touch that lasts longer as something resting on them and let go of it, so a held action (Shift, the chord shapes) ends after about 5 seconds even with your finger still there; lift and touch again. That is why Sustain is tapped on and off, and Shift can be latched.

Shift. Hold a Shift button, or tap it twice quickly (within 0.4 s) to latch it (SHIFT LATCHED; it stays lit); tap it once more to let go. While Shift is on:

A Shift button's own light is on while Shift is. The "while held" chord shapes are paused while Shift is on.

1. 1
   Settings → Buttons. Press the Octave +3 button: the cursor jumps to its item. Set it to Shift; Octave +2 → Add 7th (while held); Spread III → Arpeggiator on/off; Spread II → Sustain on/off; Octave −2 → Tap tempo. Back to the play screen.
2. 2
   Hold the Octave +2 button and play the bottom-left chord in C: Cmaj7. Let go and play it again: C.
3. 3
   Tap Spread III and hold a chord: the arpeggiator runs, the button stays lit. Tap again: off.
4. 4
   Tap Spread II: SUSTAIN ON, the button lit, chords ring on after you lift. Tap again: SUSTAIN OFF.
5. 5
   Tap Octave −2 twice, about half a second apart: TEMPO 120 BPM (or what you tapped).
6. 6
   Hold Octave +3 and press Spread III: SPREAD III, its printed function. Again to undo.
7. 7
   Tap Octave +3 twice quickly: SHIFT LATCHED. Press root C♯ (the 2nd root button): progression P2 plays (or NO PROGRESSION YET); press it again to stop. Mode button 5 loads preset 1 (or NO PRESET THERE). Tap Octave +3 once: Shift off.
8. 8
   Settings → Buttons → Reset all, ▲ to RESET, ●.

#U3 as Shift

(2.0.) Settings → Buttons → U3 button → Shift turns the top right button (U3, otherwise your user scale U3) into a Shift button, so every center button can keep its printed function.

• A tap: Shift for the next press only (SHIFT: NEXT BUTTON): a root, mode or center button, a chord pad or a button under the screen. Tap U3 again to let go.
• Two quick taps: Shift latched (SHIFT LATCHED) until the next tap.
• Held: Shift while you hold it, for root buttons, chord pads, center buttons and the buttons under the screen. The touch chip lets go of a button held for about 5 seconds, and while U3 is held the other mode buttons don't answer, so for Shift + mode button (load a preset) tap U3 first.

Everything Shift does works with it (above), plus Shift + root button 9 for the chain. U3's scale is still in Settings → Play → Scale and on the arrows. Reset all (Buttons) sets it back to the scale.

#Shift + the buttons under the screen

(2.0.) With Shift on (any Shift: U3 or a center button), the five buttons under the screen do something else, and the screen's bottom line shows what:

While recording a progression or capturing chords the buttons do what they always do there.

#Chord edits

Chord edits change one chord pad: the last one you played. They stay on that pad (and are saved) until you reset them. Edited chord pads light paler. They are in Settings → Chords:

Voicing, Spread, Voice lead and Fold on the same page apply to every chord.

If you have not played a chord pad yet, an edit shows PLAY A CHORD 1ST. An edit that would take a note outside the MIDI range shows OUT OF RANGE and is not made. To edit a chord without playing it, hold Shift and touch its pad. On a chord set's pads, Add and Sus don't apply (SET CHORDS: NO EDITS): type the chord you want into the set instead. Strum pad and Sound still work.

#Chord sets

(TBOSS 1.0 or later.) Normally the chord pads play the scale's own chords. A chord set puts any 12 chords on the 12 columns of chord pads instead, for example a song's chords, borrowed chords next to the key's, or jazz sevenths. A column can also be empty (silent and dark). You type the sets in the web editor (8 sets); on the board, Settings → Chords → Chord set picks one (Scale = the scale's chords again), or a center button set to Next chord set steps through them.

• A set is stored relative to the key: the root buttons transpose it. A set typed in C as C F G Am plays D G A Bm after pressing root D.
• The mode buttons still change the scale of the melody half, the hints and the scale lock; the chord pads keep the set.
• The rows play the chord's inversions: root position at the bottom, then the first, second (and third, for four-note chords) inversion upward. The chord panel (voicing, spread, octaves, guitar), voice leading and fold, strum, hold and the arpeggiator work as with the scale's chords; the screen names each chord.
• Chords with up to 6 notes; each root sits in the octave above the key's root, or the one above that.
• A progression recorded while a set is on keeps playing that set's chords, even after you go back to the scale's chords (until the set is cleared; then it plays the pads' scale chords). While a progression records, the set can't change (NOT WHILE RECORDING), and neither can a preset load; an empty column's pads record nothing.
• The play screen shows S2 (set 2) next to the mode and preset.

1. 1
   In the web editor: Chord sets → tab 1 → Start from "Pop: the key and its neighbors" (C Dm Em F G Am Bb Ab Fm D7 E7 G7). Save to set 1, then Use it on the TB. The play screen shows S1.
2. 2
   Root C. Play the bottom row from left to right: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B♭ (the screen says A#), A♭ (G#), Fm, D7, E7, G7.
3. 3
   Play one column from the bottom up: the chord in root position, then its inversions.
4. 4
   Press root A: the same set in A (A Bm C#m D E F#m G F Dm B7 C#7 E7).
5. 5
   Settings → Chords → Chord set → Scale: the scale's own chords again.

1. 1
   Web editor → Chord sets → tab 2, Written in C, type C G Am F - Dm7 G7 Cmaj7, name it SONG, Save to set 2, Use it on the TB. Root C: columns 1–4 play C, G, Am, F; column 5 is dark and silent; then Dm7, G7, Cmaj7.
2. 2
   Settings → Play → Arrows → Sequencer. Settings → Progressions → Progression: an EMPTY slot, Unit 1 bar. Back to the play screen.
3. 3
   ▼ Down, tap the bottom pads of columns 1, 2, 3 and 4, ▼ Down: PROGRESSION n SAVED.
4. 4
   ▲ Up: C G Am F, a bar each, round and round. Press root G: the same song in G. Root C.
5. 5
   Settings → Chords → Chord set → Scale: the pads play the scale's chords again, but the progression keeps the set's chords. ▲ Up to stop.

#Chord capture

(TBOSS 1.4 or later.) Like Detect in chord software: play chords and the board turns them into a chord set. Settings → Chords → Capture picks the set to fill (SET 2, or SET 2 EMPTY); ● Center starts (CAPTURE: PLAY CHORDS). Then:

• Chords from the pads count, in any layout, with their edits and held chord shapes, so you can build a song's set by playing it on the board. The pads sound as usual.
• Chords from MIDI in count too: notes your DAW or a keyboard sends, on any channel. A chord is taken at the first note you lift, with all the notes that were down together, so a rolled chord counts whole; it needs at least two different notes. Single notes (a melody) are ignored. An inversion is named by its root: E G C is C.
• Each new chord fills the next column and the screen shows it (CAPTURE 3/12 Am7); the same chord twice in a row counts once. The bottom line shows 3/12 <UNDO O SAVE.
• ◀ Left takes the last chord back. After 12 chords the set is full (12 CHORDS: O SAVES).
• ● Center saves. The board works out the key the chords fit best (major or natural minor; a first or last chord on the key's root counts extra) and stores the set relative to that key, named CAPTURE 2. Then it switches to that key (major on M1, minor on M6) and to the set, so the pads play the chords as you played them: SET 2 IN A MINOR.
• Saving replaces what the set had. ● with nothing captured just stops (NOTHING CAPTURED).
• Capture and progression recording can't run at the same time (NOT WHILE RECORDING).

1. 1
   Settings → Chords → Capture → SET 2 (or any set you don't need), ● Center: CAPTURE: PLAY CHORDS.
2. 2
   From the DAW (or a keyboard into it, sent on to TheoryBoard MIDI) play A minor, F major, C major and G major, one after another, each held for a moment. The screen counts CAPTURE 1/12 Am … CAPTURE 4/12 G.
3. 3
   ● Center: SET 2 IN A MINOR. The board is now on root A, M6, set 2.
4. 4
   Play the bottom row from the left: Am, F, C, G. Press root D: the same chords in D minor.
5. 5
   Try it from the pads too: Settings → Chords → Capture → another set, ●, tap a few chord pads (an edited one counts with its edit), ◀ Left to drop the last, ● to save.

#Chord grid

(TBOSS 1.3 or later.) The scale's chords with a chord type on each row, so a pad's place tells you what it plays, in any key and any scale. The columns are the scale's steps, as with the scale's own chords. The rows, from the bottom up, are the triad, the seventh, the sus chord and the ninth:

Columns 8–12 are columns 1–5 again, an octave higher. Every chord uses the scale's own notes, so the seventh on the fifth step is G7 in C major and Em7 in A minor, with no theory needed: bottom row for plain chords, one row up for the jazzier seventh, top row for the richest.

• Sus: sus4 (the 4th instead of the 3rd). Where the scale's 4th above the chord's root is not a perfect fourth (F in C major has B), the row plays sus2 instead (Fsus2). On the diminished chord the sus4 keeps its ♭5: B–E–F in C major, shown as B(11,#11).
• Voicing: every chord in root position, from the chord octave. Voicing I–III invert it, and voice leading, Fold, guitar, spread, octaves, strum, hold and the arpeggiator work as usual.
• Edits: a pad's own Add 7/9/6 and Sus don't apply on the grid (CHORD GRID: NO EDITS); they stay for the scale's chords. A center button set to Add 9th, Sus2 and so on still works while held: hold Add 9th and touch a bottom-row pad for Cadd9.
• The root buttons change the key and the mode buttons the scale; the rows stay the same chord types. Theory hints light whole columns, by scale step.
• A progression recorded on the grid keeps playing the grid's chords. The play screen shows GRID next to the mode and preset.

1. 1
   Root C, mode M1 (major). Settings → Chords → Chord set → Grid. The screen says CHORD GRID.
2. 2
   Play the bottom row from left to right: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. Then the row above it: Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7 …
3. 3
   Play column 5 from the bottom up: G, G7, Gsus4, G9.
4. 4
   A ii–V–I on the second row from the bottom: column 2 (Dm7), column 5 (G7), column 1 (Cmaj7).
5. 5
   Press mode M6 (minor, root C): the same rows in C minor (Cm, Cm7 …), the same places. Mode M1 again.
6. 6
   Settings → Chords → Chord set → Scale: the scale's chords in inversions again.

#Full chord layout

(TBOSS 1.3 or later.) The original TheoryBoard's Full layout: instead of the scale's chords in inversions, every chord pad plays a different chord. Each chord of the scale gets a run of its variations, and the runs follow the scale from the top-left pad down each column, then on to the next column. In C major:

Each run lights in its root's color, so the chords of the scale show as blocks. The other modes of a scale play the same chords starting from their own: A minor starts with the Am run, then B, C, D, E, F and G's. The screen names each chord by its notes, so most show their lowest note too (Dm/A), and a few read as another chord with the same notes (Em7♯5 is C D E G: Cadd9).

• Where the chords come from: the original firmware's own chord lists and voicings, still on the TheoryBoard's memory chip. TBOSS only reads them (it never writes that chip). A few of the original's entries have a wrong note in one key or another; TBOSS plays those as the same chord sounds in the other keys.
• Scales: the original had lists for the modes of seven scale families (major, melodic minor, harmonic minor, harmonic major, double harmonic, Neapolitan major and minor) and for pentatonic, Japanese, blues and bebop scales. A scale it didn't have plays the list of a seven-note mode that contains it. Scales with no such mode (the symmetric scales, most eight-note scales, some others) get a layout TBOSS builds the same way from common chord types; if a scale has fewer chords than pads, they repeat, an inversion higher. A board whose memory chip doesn't answer builds every scale's layout this way.
• Voicing: each chord sounds in one octave, G♯ to G above the chord octave's C, as with Fold, and each pad keeps its own voicing (the rows are different chords, not inversions). Voicing I–III, guitar, spread, octaves, voice leading, strum, hold and the arpeggiator work as usual.
• Edits: Add 7/9/6 and Sus don't apply to Full chords (FULL CHORDS: NO EDITS); Strum pad and Sound still work.
• The root buttons change the key; the mode buttons change the scale and its Full layout. Theory hints follow the chords' roots.
• A progression recorded in Full keeps playing Full chords. The play screen shows FULL next to the mode and preset.

1. 1
   Root C, mode M1 (major). Settings → Chords → Chord set → Full. The screen says FULL CHORDS.
2. 2
   Play column 1 from the top down: C, Cadd9, C6/A, C6/9/A. Then column 2: Cmaj7, Cmaj9, Csus2, Csus4.
3. 3
   Play the top pad of each column from left to right: the colors show where each chord's run starts.
4. 4
   Press root A, then mode M6 (minor): A minor's Full layout, the same chords as C major's starting from the Am run (Am, Am7, Am9 in column 1). Root C, mode M1.
5. 5
   Settings → Chords → Chord set → Scale: the scale's chords again.

#Theory hints

(TBOSS 1.0 or later.) With Settings → Chords → Hints On, after each chord you play the board lights the chords that usually come next: the most usual one pulses, the other common ones light steadily, and the rest of the chord pads dim. The melody half doesn't change.

In a seven-note scale with its own chords the hints follow the scale steps (in C major: after C → F, G, Am; after Dm → G, Bdim; after Em → Am, F; after F → G, C, Dm; after G → C, Am; after Am → Dm, F; after Bdim → C, Em). With a chord set or a scale of another size they follow the root: a fifth down pulses, a fifth up and a third down light (in a pentatonic key, where there is no chord a fifth down, those two pulse). While a progression's guide lights show, the hints wait.

1. 1
   Root C, M1, Settings → Chords → Hints On.
2. 2
   Play the bottom-left C: the F column pulses, G and Am glow, the other chord pads dim. The melody half doesn't change.
3. 3
   Play Dm: G pulses, Bdim glows. Play F: G pulses, C and Dm glow.
4. 4
   Hints Off.

#Pivot chords

(TBOSS 1.4 or later.) To change key smoothly (modulate), you go through a chord the two keys share: a pivot chord. Set Settings → Chords → Pivot to to the key you want to reach (Off, C major … B major, C minor … B minor), or hold a center button set to Pivot and press that key's root button. Then:

• The chord pads that are also chords of the new key light up: the ones that lead best there (its ii and IV, in a minor key its ii and iv) pulse, the other shared chords glow, and the rest dim. It works in any scale and with the chord grid, Full and chord sets, counting each pad's edits.
• The play screen shows the target (PIVOT TO G MAJOR); after you play a shared chord, its role in the new key and the way in, through the new key's V7: ii IN G: D7>G.
• Arriving: press the target's root button. From M1 or M6 the board also changes to the target's major or minor; Pivot turns off: NOW IN G MAJOR.
• The pivot lights come before the hints; a playing progression's guide lights come before both.

1. 1
   Root C, M1. Settings → Chords → Pivot to → G MAJOR. The play screen says PIVOT TO G MAJOR.
2. 2
   The C and Am columns pulse (IV and ii in G), Em and G glow, Dm, F and Bdim dim.
3. 3
   Play Am: ii IN G: D7>G, the way in: Am, then G's V7 (D7), then G. Play Em: vi IN G: D7>G. Play F: just PIVOT TO G MAJOR (F isn't in G).
4. 4
   Press root G: NOW IN G MAJOR, the lights go back to normal. Play the 5th column (D) with a held Add 7th button for the D7, then the bottom-left G: you have changed key.
5. 5
   With a center button set to Pivot: hold it and press root E while in C major: the target is E major (from A minor it would be E minor). Tap it alone: Pivot off.

#Voice leading and fold

Two ways to keep chords close together instead of jumping up and down the keyboard. Both are in Settings → Chords and both are Optional (Off by default).

#Voice lead

Each chord you play picks the inversion that moves the least from the chord before, so every voice moves by a step or stays put, the way a pianist or a string section plays a progression. It stays near where you play: a chord pad in a higher row still plays higher (within two inversions of its own position), and Voicing I–III still lift everything.

Voice leading always starts from the last chord you played (the board remembers it after you let go), so there's nothing to hold down.

If no inversion near a pad's own position fits inside the MIDI note range (possible only with a very high chord octave plus added notes and Voicing III), that pad plays its row's own chord instead, so every pad always sounds. (0.9.1; before, such a pad could stop the board playing until Voice lead was turned off.)

1. 1
   Root C, mode M1. Tap the bottom-left chord pad and let go: C (C E G). This is the chord the next one will lead from.
2. 2
   Settings → Chords → Voice lead → On, then ◀ Left back to the play screen.
3. 3
   Tap the bottom-row F pad (4th column): the screen shows F/C. It plays C F A instead of F A C: C stays, E moves up to F, G up to A.
4. 4
   Tap the bottom-row G pad (5th column): G/D, D G B: each note moves a step.
5. 5
   Tap C again: C/E, E G C.
6. 6
   Turn Voice lead Off and tap F and G again: plain F and G, each jumping to its own root.

#Fold

Every chord's notes are moved into one fixed octave, G♯ to G, whatever the key: the lowest note of a chord can then be its 3rd or 5th instead of its root. This is how the original TheoryBoard's chords sounded, as its owners describe it (the campaign promised a way to turn it off; in TBOSS it is off unless you turn it on). The rows still work: each row up raises the chord's lowest note an octave.

#Octaves

• Melody half: Settings → Layout → Melody oct, −2 to +2 octaves. If you change it often, set Settings → Play → Arrows to Melody octave: then ▲ Up / ▼ Down on the play screen move it (MELODY OCT C4).
• Chord half: the chord panel's octave buttons.

The screen line OCT C2 C3 shows the lowest root of each half (chords, melody).

#Right-half layouts

Settings → Layout → Layout changes what the right-hand pads play. Scale is the original layout and the default; the others are Optional.

#Chromatic and fourths

Chromatic puts all 12 notes in each row, out-of-scale notes dimmed. Fourths lays the notes out like a bass guitar: each row a fourth above the one below, so a scale shape is the same in every key.

#Drums

The right half becomes three grids of 4 columns × 4 rows, each played from its bottom-left pad, left to right, then up a row:

• Left grid: the scale from the root, on the Melody ch.
• Middle grid: the same notes an octave lower, on the Bass ch (default 2): a bass line.
• Right grid: 16 drum notes, General MIDI 36 to 51 (kick on the bottom-left pad, then snare, claps, hi-hats, toms, cymbals), on the Drum ch (default 10, the General MIDI drum channel). These pads light amber.

#Bass

1.7. The original TheoryBoard's promised bass mode. A single pad can't be struck again very fast: it has to come back up between two hits. A bass player gets round that by plucking with two fingers in turn, and this layout gives you the same: each scale note is on two pads side by side, so your index and middle finger can take turns on one note.

• The pads: 6 notes to a row, as 6 pairs. The bottom row's left pair is the key's root two octaves below the melody half (C1 with the default Melody oct), and the scale climbs on pair by pair, left to right, then on into the next row up: 24 notes, about 3½ octaves of a 7-note scale. Melody oct moves it all an octave at a time.
• Every hit sounds: touching a pad while its twin still holds the note ends the note and strikes it again, at the new touch's velocity. The pad under the other finger stays quiet until you lift it and touch it again. Two different notes play together as usual.
• It plays on the Melody ch; the pedal, pressure, Melody prog and Mono work as on the other layouts.
• The board ignores a touch that rises less than half as far as a held pad right next to it (a firm press lifts its neighbors' readings: 1.7's bleed check). In a roll, strike each hit about as firmly as the last; a much softer touch on the twin, while the other finger still presses hard, is taken for bleed and doesn't sound.

#Live notes

The original TheoryBoard's Live Note Update: while you play chords on the left, part of the right half offers exactly that chord's notes, so a melody or solo over the chord can't clash.

• Columns 1–7: the scale, each row an octave up (like the Scale layout).
• Columns 8–12: the notes of the live chord, from its root upward: a C chord gives C E G C E along a row, a Cmaj7 C E G B C. Each row is an octave above the one below. The chord's root lights brightest.
• The live chord is the last chord pad you touched, and stays when you let go. Before you play any chord it is the key's first chord.

Live ch (Settings → MIDI → Live ch, default Melody): give columns 8–12 their own MIDI channel (1–16), so they can play a different instrument or be recorded on their own track.

Live in (Settings → MIDI → Live in, default Off): chords your computer sends to the board pick the live chord, on one MIDI channel (1–16) or All. The lowest note held is the chord's root; two or more different notes make a chord. A chord stays until the next one arrives (letting it go note by note never changes it); touching a chord pad takes over again. The screen names the incoming chord.

Silent chords: Settings → Chord edits → Sound Off on a chord pad: the pad sets the live chord but makes no sound. Why: pick the harmony for the live notes while another instrument (or your DAW) plays the chords.

A held live pad keeps its note when the chord changes; with Restrike on it moves to the new chord's note at once.

#Hold

With hold on, a chord keeps sounding after you lift your hand, so the left hand is free.

• Turn it on or off with ▶ Right while playing, or in Settings → Play → Hold. The screen shows HOLD on the octave line.
• Touching another chord pad replaces the held chord; touching the held chord's pad again stops it. Turning hold off stops it too.
• Melody pads are never held.

#Tempo

The board has its own tempo: Settings → Play → Tempo, 40 to 240 BPM in steps of 5 (default 120). Everything timed in note values follows it: the arpeggiator, note repeat, strum times and strum repeat set in note values, and MIDI clock out. Only plain chords and notes ignore it.

When a MIDI clock comes in (your DAW sending clock to TheoryBoard MIDI), the board follows that instead; while the arpeggiator or note repeat is on, the play screen's bottom line shows EXT where the tempo was (ARP UP 1/16 EXT). A quarter of a second after the clock stops, the board goes back to its own Tempo.

#Strum

(Optional; Off by default.) Instead of all at once, a chord's notes start one after another, like a strummed guitar or a harp.

• Settings → Strum → Strum: Off, Up (low to high), Down (high to low), Up+Down (alternates direction on each strike, like strumming up and down).
• Strum time: 10 to 120 ms between notes, or a note value at the tempo (1/96, 1/48, 1/32, 1/24, 1/16), which follows MIDI clock too.
• If you let go before all notes have started, the remaining notes are skipped.

Repeat (Repeat: Off, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32): while you hold a chord pad it strums again at that rate, louder or softer as you press harder or lighter.

Cutoff (Cutoff: Off, 1/32 to 1/1): a strummed chord ends after that note value even while held (with Repeat, until the next strike).

Strum pad (Settings → Chord edits → Strum pad) turns strum off for one pad (the last one played), so some chords strum and others hit all at once.

Feel (Feel time up to 5, 10, 20 or 40 ms late; Feel vel up to ±5, 10, 20 or 30 velocity): each strummed note varies a little at random, for a looser, human strum. The notes always start in strum order.

Strum does not apply while the arpeggiator is on (except its Chords pattern).

#Note repeat

(Optional; Off by default.) Like the note repeat on an MPC or a Launchpad: while you hold a right-half pad, it strikes again and again at a note value of the tempo. Each repeat sounds for half the step and rests for the other half, so you hear separate, even hits ("da-da-da-da"). Press harder or lighter while holding to make the repeats louder or softer.

Settings → Effects → Note repeat: Off, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/8T, 1/16T (triplets), 5/beat, By row. It follows Settings → Play → Tempo or an incoming MIDI clock. While it is on, the play screen's bottom line shows REPEAT 1/16 120. Chord pads are not affected (they have the strum Repeat).

• (1.4) The first strike sounds when you touch the pad; the ones after it land on the beat's grid for the rate (half a step later at the earliest), so repeats on several pads, and the DAW, stay together.
• (1.4) By row: each row of the melody half repeats at its own speed: from the bottom row up 2, 3, 4 and 5 per beat. Hold pads on two rows for a polyrhythm: bottom and second row 2:3, second and third 3:4.
• (1.4) Repeat rhythm (Settings → Play): All strikes on every step; a Euclidean rhythm such as 3/8 strikes on its hits and rests on the other steps (see Arpeggiator for what they are).
• Chance (Settings → Arpeggiator) skips strikes at random; the first strike, when you touch the pad, always sounds.

#Harmony, echo and mono

(All Off by default.) Three ways to change what a melody pad plays. They work on the right half's pads (the left half with Chords on the right) in every layout but Drums. Chord pads, the arpeggiator, progressions, the step sequencer and notes arriving over MIDI are not changed. While one of them is on (and the arpeggiator, strum and note repeat are off), the play screen's bottom line shows them: HARM 3RD ECHO 1/8 MONO.

#Harmony

Settings → Effects → Harmony: every melody pad also plays a second note (or two) a fixed number of scale steps away, so the harmony stays in the key: in C major a 3rd above C is E (major), above D it is F (minor), above B it is D. Change the root or mode and the harmony follows.

• In scales with more or fewer than 7 notes the same number of that scale's own steps is used: in a pentatonic scale a "3rd" is two steps of the pentatonic.
• A note outside the scale (the Chromatic layout, live notes) is harmonized from the scale note just below it.
• The harmony notes play with the pad's velocity and pressure, and on the melody channel.

#Echo

Settings → Effects → Echo: each melody note comes back after a note value of the tempo, or of the DAW's clock when one comes in: Off, 1/16, 1/8T, 1/8, 1/8. (dotted), 1/4, 1/4. or 1/2. Echoes sets how many times: 1–8 (default 3). Each echo is quieter: with 3 echoes they play at 75, 50 and 25 % of the note's velocity; each one sounds for half the echo time.

• Harmony notes echo with their pad; with note repeat every strike echoes.
• A note that is still sounding when its echo comes (you are still holding the pad, or another pad plays the same note) is not struck again, so hold notes shorter than the echo time to hear every echo.
• Up to 8 notes echo at once; a 9th note takes over the echoes of the oldest one.
• All notes off (a center button) stops the echoes still to come, as does setting Echo Off.

#Mono

Settings → Effects → Mono: On makes the melody half play one pad at a time. The newest pad you touch sounds; the one before it goes quiet, and comes back when you lift the newer one (as on a monophonic synth's keyboard). The new note starts just before the old one ends, so a mono synth set to legato or glide slides between them instead of starting its envelope again.

• Not in the Drums layout (every drum pad keeps sounding).
• With Harmony on, a pad's harmony notes go with it.

#Arpeggiator

(Optional; Off by default.) While the arpeggiator is on, chord pads don't sound as chords: their notes are played one at a time in a pattern. Melody pads still play normally on top.

Turn it on by choosing a pattern in Settings → Arpeggiator → Arp, and off by choosing Off there.

Chance: each step the rhythm plays sounds only with this probability, decided at random each time; skipped steps still move the pattern on, so the notes that do play stay in their places. The same setting thins out note repeat (the strike when you touch the pad always sounds).

• The speed comes from Settings → Play → Tempo (default 120 BPM) or an incoming MIDI clock.
• Holding more than one chord pad combines their notes.
• Velocity follows how hard you struck the last chord pad.
• Sync to your DAW: if your DAW sends MIDI clock to TheoryBoard MIDI, the arpeggiator follows it and the screen shows EXT instead of the tempo. Pressing Play in the DAW restarts the pattern on the beat. When the clock stops, the board goes back to its own tempo after a quarter of a second. (In most DAWs: MIDI settings → enable "send MIDI clock" or "sync" for the TheoryBoard MIDI port.)

#Turing pattern

(2.0.) Like the Turing Machine module: Arp Turing plays a loop of steps, each a held note chosen at random (from every note the other patterns would play, Arp octaves included). Each time round, each step is drawn again or kept:

• Lock (0–100 %, 80 % to start): how likely a step is kept. 100 %: the loop repeats exactly, as long as you hold the same notes; 90 %: it changes slowly; 0 %: a new random note every step.
• Loop (2–16 steps, 8 to start): how many steps before it comes round.

Lock and Loop show on the Arpeggiator page only while Arp is Turing. The loop belongs to the notes you hold: other notes (another chord, an added pad, another octave setting) start a new loop. Rhythm, Rate, Gate, Swing and Chance work as for the other patterns; a silent rhythm step still moves the loop on.

#Progressions

(0.11.0) Record the chords of a song by tapping chord pads, then let the board play them in time while your hands are free for the melody. Eight slots (P1–P8) keep eight songs.

Walk-throughs: record and play Am F G · a song with borrowed chords, Am D Dm Am C G E7 Am · type a song in the web editor. Quick start: Settings → Play → Arrows → Sequencer, then on the play screen ▼ records (tap chord pads, ▼ again saves) and ▲ plays or stops.

A progression remembers pads, not notes: which chord pad (and row), its edits (7th, sus…) and how hard you tapped it. So the root buttons transpose a playing progression to any key at once, and the mode buttons re-color it (a progression recorded in A minor, played with M1 in A major, turns Am F G into A F♯m G♯dim: whatever those pads play in the new mode). Everything that shapes a held chord applies: the chord panel's voicing, spread and octaves, strum (not its Repeat or Cutoff), voice leading and fold; with the arpeggiator on, the progression feeds the arpeggiator instead of sounding as chords.

How loud: each chord plays as hard as you tapped it while recording (chords typed in the web editor play at 100). Set Chord vel to Fixed 100 and every progression chord plays at 100 instead, like the chords you play; Light and Firm don't change a progression, since the curve was already applied when you tapped. (Velocity)

Borrowed chords: a chord you record while another mode is selected keeps that mode. That is how a song with chords from outside one scale goes in: in A minor, D (major) is not on the A minor pads, but it is on the A Dorian pads. Record it with M2 (Dorian) pressed and it stays D major whatever mode is playing later.

#Record

1. 1
   Settings → Progressions → Progression: pick a slot, 1–8 (EMPTY shows a free one).
2. 2
   Unit: how long one tap lasts: 1 beat, ½ bar, 1 bar (default) or 2 bars (4/4, at the tempo or the DAW's clock).
3. 3
   Record → ● Center. The play screen shows REC P1 0/64. Recording replaces what the slot held.
4. 4
   Tap chord pads, one tap per unit. Tapping the same chord again lengthens it (two taps of Am = Am for two units); a different chord starts the next step. Chords sound as you tap them. The screen counts the units and names the last chord (REC P1 5/64 Am).

   • ◀ Left takes back the last unit (REC 4/64 UNDO).
   • Change mode between taps: a chord tapped in another mode is borrowed. (Don't change the root while recording: every step plays from the root of the moment.) Chord edits (Add 7th…) are recorded with the chord: set them before you start, because ● Center finishes the recording rather than opening the settings.
5. 5
   ● Center finishes and saves (PROGRESSION 1 SAVED).

Up to 64 units and 38 chord changes per slot; one chord lasts up to 32 units. When a slot is full the screen says PROGRESSION FULL. Finishing with nothing recorded (▼ pressed twice by mistake, or every unit taken back) keeps what the slot had: the screen says NOTHING RECORDED. To empty a slot, use Clear.

#Play

• ▲ Up with Settings → Play → Arrows set to Sequencer (then ▲ plays/stops and ▼ Down records/finishes, without opening the settings), the pedal in Play/Stop mode, or Settings → MIDI → Transport. The board sends Start and Stop to the computer as usual.
• From a DAW: when the DAW sends MIDI clock and Start to the board, the progression starts with the DAW and follows its tempo and its position in the song: Stop stops it, Continue carries on where it stopped, moving the DAW's playhead moves the progression (if the DAW sends Song Position Pointer, as most do), and Start goes back to the first chord. The progression's first chord falls on the song's bar 1.
• It loops until stopped. Each chord sounds for its length and ends as the next one starts; the last chord before a Stop ends with it.
• While it plays you can play the melody half, change the root (transposes), change the mode (re-colors), switch voicing or strum, or play other chord pads on top. A pad set silent (Settings → Chord edits → Sound Off) is silent in the progression too.
• Picking another slot while it plays starts that progression at once, from its first chord (with a DAW: at the song's position). When the web editor saves something to the board (or reads its whole menu, on Connect), the progression pauses with everything else and carries on where it was. (1.9.4: reading settings, steps or a backup no longer pauses it.)
• The play screen shows the playing chord's name and P1 Am > F 3/8: slot, the chord now, the next one, and the unit playing of all the units. Long chord names are left out of this line to keep the position on screen (the chord now is also the large name above).

Guide lights (Settings → Progressions → Guide, On by default): while a progression plays, the playing chord's pad lights soft white and the next chord's pad pulses in its color, so you can see what's coming; on the right half the playing chord's notes are bright and the others dim, which shows the safe melody notes for this moment.

Clear (Settings → Progressions → Clear, ●) empties the selected slot. Pressing ▲ (or Transport) with an empty slot shows NO PROGRESSION YET.

1. 1
   Root A, mode M6 (A minor). Settings → Progressions → Progression 1, Unit 1 bar, Record ●.
2. 2
   Bottom row of chord pads: tap Am, F, F, G (the 1st, 6th, 6th and 7th pads). Screen: REC P1 4/64 G. Tap G once more by mistake and press ◀ Left: back to 4.
3. 3
   ● Center: PROGRESSION 1 SAVED. Settings → Play → Arrows → Sequencer, back to play.
4. 4
   ▲ Up: Am for a bar, F for two, G for one, round and round at 120 BPM; the screen shows P1 Am > F 1/4, the pads guide you. Play a melody on the bright right-half pads.
5. 5
   While it plays, press root C: the same progression in C minor (Cm A♭ B♭). Press M1 (C major): the same pads now play C, Am and Bdim, the progression re-colored. Press root A and M6 again.
6. 6
   ▲ Up again: it stops.

Try it (borrowed chords): Am D Dm Am C G E7 Am, a song that mixes A minor, A Dorian and A harmonic minor:

1. 1
   Root A, M6. First the 7th for E7: play the bottom row's 5th pad (Em) and turn Settings → Chord edits → Add 7th On (Em7). Then Unit 1 bar, Record ●.
2. 2
   Tap Am (bottom row, 1st pad). Press M2 (Dorian) and tap the 4th pad: D. Press M6 again and tap the 4th pad: Dm. Tap Am, then C (3rd pad) and G (7th pad).
3. 3
   Press M1 (A major) and tap the 5th pad: E7. Press M6, tap Am.
4. 4
   ● Center, ▲ Up: Am D Dm Am C G E7 Am, with D and E7 exactly as recorded.
5. 5
   Afterward, play the 5th pad and Settings → Chord edits → Reset chord.

(Simpler: type it in the web editor, which finds the pads and the borrowed scales for you.)

#Chained progressions

(2.0.) A chain plays up to 8 progressions one after another and then starts again from the first: P1 > P1 > P2 > P3 for verse, verse, chorus, bridge. A progression can be in the chain more than once; empty slots are skipped.

• Set the chain in the web editor's Progressions tab, under Chain: choose P1–P8 for each link, Save chain.
• Play it: Settings → Progressions → Chain On, or Shift + root button 9 (the G♯ button; CHAIN ON: 1123 shows the chain, CHAIN OFF). While Chain is On, everything that plays the progression plays the chain: ▲ (Arrows: Sequencer), a Play button, the pedal's Play/Stop, Settings → Progressions → Play, and a DAW's Start, Continue and song position. Shift + root buttons 1–8 still play one progression, and turn Chain off.
• Where it is: the play screen's bottom line starts C2/4 P1: link 2 of 4, playing P1, then the chord now, the next and the unit as before.

Chain is a board setting: presets don't change it. Recording still records the selected progression.

#Chord chance

(2.0.) Each chord of a progression has a chance: how often it plays as written, 100 % (always) down to 10 %. The other times it either rests (nothing sounds for its length: the chord before ends, an arpeggio stops) or plays the borrowed chord: the same chord pad in the parallel key, natural minor for a scale with a major 3rd and major for one with a minor 3rd (C becomes Cm in C major, Am becomes A in A minor). The dice are thrown once each time round, and the play screen names what plays (REST, or the borrowed chord).

Set it in the web editor's Progressions tab: under each chord, a chance and else rest or else borrow. For a saved progression the board takes each change at once. Recording a progression again on the board sets its chords back to 100 %.

#Step sequencer

(1.5.0) Four lanes of steps, L1 to L4, that play in time with the tempo or your DAW, at the same time as a progression. Each lane has its own kind, length, rate and MIDI channel, so a 5-step bass line in eighths turns against a 16-step drum beat and lines up with it again every 5 bars (polymeter).

Walk-throughs: a drum beat and a bass line · chords by step record · with a DAW.

How to play it: on the step screen, tap ● Center: the lanes play; tap it again: they stop (1.8). Elsewhere: Settings → Progressions → Play ●, or ▲ on the play screen with Settings → Play → Arrows Sequencer, a center button set to Play, the pedal in Play/Stop mode, or play in a DAW that sends the board its clock. All of these start and stop the same transport, so the lanes and any progression play together.

#Lanes

Settings → Steps. Lane picks the lane the items after it set (and the one the step screen opens on):

What a step plays:

• Chords: a chord pad and its edits (7th, sus …), as a progression keeps them. The root buttons transpose a chord lane and the mode buttons re-color it; the chord panel, strum and voice leading apply.
• Melody: a scale note, as the right half's Scale layout has it: columns are scale steps, rows octaves, the bottom row from the root at the melody octave. That holds whatever the right half shows, and the root and mode buttons move the melody too.
• Drums: a MIDI note: 36 (the kick on a General MIDI kit; the screen says C2 36) at the bottom left, up each column of four and on to the right, to 83.

A step sounds for half its length, as hard as you touched the pad that set it (100 for steps tapped on before any pad; always 100 with Chord vel at Fixed 100 for chord lanes, Melody vel for melody and drum lanes), unless its own options (1.7) say otherwise. Held chord shapes (Add 7th … on a center button) don't change a step; the chord panel does.

#The step screen

Settings → Steps → Steps, ●. The screen shows the lane (L1 CHORDS 16 1/16: lane, kind, length, rate), the page and channel (PAGE 1-48 CH1), the step you hold or the value picked last (PICKED: Am), what just happened (STEP 5 ON), and where the lane is (PLAYING 5/16).

• The right half is the lane's steps, 12 to a row in reading order: steps 1–12 on the top row, then 13–24, 25–36, and 37–48 on the bottom row. ▶ Right shows steps 49–64 (the top row and the first four pads of the second), ◀ Left goes back. Steps that are on light in the color of what they play, the playing step is white, steps past the lane's length are dark, and of the steps that are off every fourth (1, 5, 9 …: the beats at 1/16) is a little brighter. The steps make no sound.
• The left half is what to play, and you hear it: chord pads on a chord lane, scale notes on a melody lane, drum notes on a drum lane. (1.9) With Settings → Steps → Step pads Silent they choose without a sound (to fill steps while a song plays, say).
• Tap a step: it goes on with what you touched last on the left (until then: the first chord, the root, or the kick), or off.
• Hold a step and touch a left-half pad: that step plays it.
• ▲ / ▼: the previous / next lane.
• (1.7) Hold steps and use the arrows: ▲ / ▼ choose an option, ◀ / ▶ change it on every held step (Step options).
• ◀ Left on steps 1–48: back to the Steps page.
• (1.8) Play / stop: tap ● Center. The bottom line says what a tap does next (<BACK O PLAY >49-64, O STOP while it plays); the line above shows the lane's step (PLAY 5/16) and the reminder HOLD O: REC. ● acts when you let go, so a hold can do something else.
• Step record: hold ● Center for half a second (1.8; before, a tap), or press a center button set to Record. The screen says REC: PLAY THE PADS as soon as the hold is long enough and the bottom line REC 1/16 >REST O END. Each left-half pad you tap fills the step at the cursor (it pulses white) and moves on, round the lane; ▶ Right enters a rest (that step off); ◀ Left takes the last one back. A tap on ● ends it.

#Step options

(1.7) Each step can have its own velocity, gate, tie, chance, ratchet and condition, and each lane a direction; Euclid fills a lane with evenly spread hits. Every one of them starts at the value 1.5 played (velocity as touched, half the step, no tie, always, one strike, every time round, forward), so patterns made with 1.5 play as they did.

On the step screen, hold a step (or several: hold one, then touch more):

• ▲ / ▼ choose what to change: Velocity, Gate, Tie, Chance, Ratchet, Condition, Nudge (2.0.3). The screen shows it and the held step's value (CHANCE 50%); the bottom line says <- >+ UP/DN: FIELD.
• ◀ / ▶ change it on every held step: velocity in fives (1–127), gate in tens (10–100 % of the step; 50 % is the default), tie Off / On, chance Always, 90 % … 10 %, ratchet 1–8 strikes, condition Always, 1:2, 2:2, 1:3, 2:3, 3:3, 1:4, 2:4, 3:4, 4:4, First, Not first, Fill, Not fill, nudge −8/16 … +7/16 of a step (NUDGE +3/16, ON TIME).
• A held step that is off goes on when you change it, with the value picked last.
• Touching a left-half pad gives every held step that chord, note or drum, at the touch's velocity; their other options stay.
• Steps you held to change aren't switched off when you let go. ▲ / ▼ choose the lane again and ◀ / ▶ the page once no step is held.

What they do:

• Gate: how long the step sounds, as a part of its length; 100 % runs into the next step.
• Tie: the note holds over the steps after it that don't play, until a step plays (or the lane stops, is muted, or All notes off). A tie over a rest makes a long note.
• Chance: the step plays with that probability. The draw comes from the pattern, the lane, the step and how many times the lane has gone round, so a pattern played again from the start (or from the same song position) makes the same choices.
• Ratchet: the step strikes 2–8 times, evenly inside its length, each strike for its gate's share. With a tie, the last strike holds.
• Condition: A:B plays the A-th of every B times round the lane (1:2 every other time, from the first; 2:2 the others; 4:4 every fourth time, from the fourth). First plays the first time round only, Not first every time but the first. A ping-pong lane goes round once it is back at its first step. (2.0.3) Fill plays only while Fill is held (a center button set to Fill, or the pedal with Mode Fill), Not fill only while it isn't. Firmware before 2.0.3 plays both every time.
• Nudge (2.0.3): the step starts up to half a step early or late, in sixteenths of a step: a snare a little behind the beat, a push before it. Its gate and ratchets go with it.
• Velocity: the step's own, 1–127. Chord vel / Melody vel Fixed 100 still win.

Settings → Steps, for the lane Lane chose:

• Direction: Forward, Reverse (last step first), Ping-pong (there and back, the end steps once) or Random (every step once a time round, in an order of its own each time round that repeats when the pattern is played again).
• Euclid: Off, or a number of hits up to the lane's length (5/16). Choosing it fills the lane: the hits go on, spread as evenly as they go, the first on step 1; a hit that was already on keeps what it plays, a new one gets the value picked last; every other step goes off. The steps are ordinary steps afterwards: edit them as you like. Off leaves them as they are.
• Rotate: turns the Euclid pattern that many steps later (0 up to the length − 1) and fills again. It is not stored: after a restart it shows 0, and the steps stay as they were.
• Swing (2.0.3): every second step of the lane this much of a step later (Off, 5 % … 50 %), each lane its own. A step's nudge adds to it, and a step never moves more than half a step.
• Transpose (2.0.3): the whole lane up or down, −24 … +24. A chord lane moves by steps of the scale (+1: C becomes Dm in C major), a melody or drum lane by semitones (+2 SEMIS). A melody lane can leave the scale this way; a drum lane plays other drums.
• Mutate (2.0.3): an action, not a setting (so it has no Off): nothing changes until you press ● the second time. ● opens it, ▲▼ choose how many of the lane's steps may change (10% OF STEPS … 50% OF STEPS: 10 % touches one step in ten, 50 % every second one), ● changes them once (LANE 1 MUTATED). A chord or melody step moves one or two pads left or right (its row stays) and some change velocity. A drum step goes off, or comes on as the nearest step before it. Each ● differs; press it until you like it. The editor's Sequencer tab does the same (the editor can't set this item).

1. 1
   Make the drum beat of the first walk-through. Settings → Buttons → Octave +3 → FILL, Octave +2 → STUT 1/8.
2. 2
   L1's step screen: hold the empty steps 15 and 16 (the second row's 3rd and 4th pads), touch the snare (38) on the left half, then ▲/▼ to CONDITION and ◀/▶ to FILL; let go. Transport ●. [the beat as before]
3. 3
   Hold the Octave +3 button [FILL WHILE HELD: two snares end each bar]; let go [gone again].
4. 4
   Settings → Steps → Lane L2, Swing 25%. [the hi-hats swing]
5. 5
   Hold the Octave +2 button [STUTTER 1/8: the same eighth over and over]; let go [the beat carries on in time].

1. 1
   Make the drum beat of the first walk-through (L1 kicks, L2 hi-hats).
2. 2
   On L2's step screen hold the hi-hat on step 3, ▲ Up until CHANCE, ◀ Left five times. [CHANCE 50%]; let go. Transport ●. [that hi-hat comes and goes, the same way each time you start again]
3. 3
   Hold the kick on step 9, ▼ Down to RATCHET, ▶ Right twice. [RATCHET 3 STRIKES: a triplet roll on beat 3]
4. 4
   Settings → Steps → Lane L3, Kind Drums, Euclid 5. [LANE FILLED: five hits over 16]; Rotate 2 [the five move two steps later].
5. 5
   Lane L2, Direction Reverse, then Random. [the hi-hats backwards, then shuffled]
6. 6
   Settings → MIDI → Transport ● to stop.

#Playing

The lanes play whenever a progression would: while the transport runs (▲ with Arrows Sequencer, a center button set to Play, the pedal in Play/Stop mode, or Settings → MIDI → Transport) or while a DAW plays and sends its clock. They start together with the progression, at step 1. With a DAW, each lane's step comes from the song position: Start begins at step 1, Continue carries on, and moving the DAW's playhead (Song Position Pointer) puts every lane on the step it would have reached. The lanes stop while a progression is being recorded.

The pattern is saved by itself 3 seconds after your last change, goes into the settings backup, and stays when you reset options or use Factory settings. Lanes sound as themselves: they don't feed the arpeggiator. 1.5.0 has one pattern.

1. 1
   Settings → Steps → Lane L1, Kind Drums, then Steps, ●. [L1 DRUMS 16 1/16]
2. 2
   Tap the top row's 1st and 9th pads: the kick on steps 1 and 9. [they light amber]
3. 3
   Touch the left half's first column, second pad from the top: a snare (note 38). [PICKED: D2 38] Tap the top row's 5th pad and the second row's 1st (step 13): snares there.
4. 4
   ◀ Left. Lane L2, Kind Drums, Steps ●. Touch the left half's second column, second pad from the top (42, a closed hi-hat), then tap every other step: the top row's 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th and the second row's 1st and 3rd.
5. 5
   ◀ Left. Lane L3, Kind Melody, Length 5, Rate 1/8, Steps ●. Hold ● Center (step record: REC: PLAY THE PADS), then tap the bottom row's 1st, 1st, 5th, 4th and 3rd pads (in C major: C C G F E). [the cursor goes round to step 1] Tap ● to end.
6. 6
   Tap ● Center. [the beat, and a 5-step bass line that turns against it and lines up again every 5 bars]
7. 7
   While it plays: press root D (everything but the drums moves up a tone), then tap ● again to stop. ◀ Left to the Steps page, Lane L2, Mute On, then Steps ● and ● Center [the same, without the hi-hats]; ● again to stop, then Mute Off.

1. 1
   Settings → Steps → Lane L4 (Chords), Length 4, Rate 1/4, Steps ●.
2. 2
   Hold ● Center until REC: PLAY THE PADS. Tap the bottom row's 6th, 4th, 1st and 5th pads (in C major: Am F C G), one chord per step; tap ● to end. [steps 1–4 light in their chords' colors]
3. 3
   Hold step 2 (the top row's 2nd pad) and touch the 2nd pad of the bottom row (Dm): step 2 is Dm now. Tap step 4: off.
4. 4
   Tap ● Center. [Am Dm C, a beat each, then a beat of rest, round and round] Press Voicing II on the chord panel: the steps play the new voicing. Tap ● to stop.

1. 1
   Start the DAW at bar 1. [the lanes start at step 1 with it, in its tempo]
2. 2
   Stop, move the playhead to bar 3 beat 2, start again. [each lane is where it would have been: with 16 sixteenths, step 5]
3. 3
   Stop the DAW. [the lanes stop, nothing left sounding]

#Moving, copying and clearing a lane

(2.0.) On the step screen, with Shift on (U3 tapped, or a Shift button held), the buttons under the screen work on the lane shown, and the bottom line says so (<>MOVE ^CPY vPST OCLR):

• ◀ / ▶ move every step one earlier or later; the one that falls off the end comes round to the start. Only the steps within the lane's length move.
• ▲ copies the lane; ▼ pastes it onto the lane shown: its steps and its settings (kind, channel, length, rate, direction, mute), so the two play alike.
• ● asks first (SHIFT+O AGAIN: CLEAR); Shift + ● again within 3 seconds takes every step away (the lane's settings stay).

The web editor's Sequencer tab does the same, and also copies and pastes a range of steps.

#MIDI channels, pressure and velocity

#Channels

Settings → MIDI → Chord ch and Melody ch: the MIDI channel (1–16) of each half. Both default to channel 1.

Shared notes on one channel: MIDI can't tell two copies of the same note on the same channel apart, so when both halves share a channel, a note that is already sounding is shared: a melody pad playing a note the held chord already plays doesn't strike it again, and the note ends only when both pads are let go (so lifting one never cuts the other). To have every melody pad strike its own note, give the melody its own channel (Melody ch 2) and set the synth to receive all channels, or use two tracks.

#Program Change

1.7. A Program Change is the MIDI message that picks a synth's sound (its "patch" or "preset"), by number. Hardware synths, and every DAW, understand it. TBOSS uses it both ways:

• Sending (Settings → MIDI → Chord prog, Melody prog, default Off): 1–128, sent on that half's channel when you set it, when you load a preset, when the board starts (a synth on the TRS jack switches at once), again 3 seconds later (by then a DAW has usually opened the board's USB port, which it can only do after the computer has found the board), and whenever a DAW sends Start, just before its first notes. Each preset keeps its own two programs, so loading a preset also changes your synths' sounds. When both halves share a channel, only Chord prog goes (or Melody prog when Chord prog is Off).
• Receiving (Settings → MIDI → Program in, default Off): programs 1–8 arriving on that channel (or All channels) load presets 1–8, as if you chose them on the board (PRESET 3 LOADED; NO PRESET THERE for an empty slot). Higher numbers are ignored. Program in belongs to the board: loading a preset doesn't change it.

What the 2020 campaign also listed: NRPN messages aren't planned; a MIDI channel for every pad came in 1.8, as MPE.

#MPE

1.8. MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) gives every pad you play a MIDI channel of its own, so pressing one pad harder shapes only that pad's notes: one note of a melody, one chord of two held chords, also when two pads play the same note (with one channel, the synth can't tell them apart). Synths made for MPE read pressure this way; many of them ignore poly aftertouch.

Settings → Expression → MPE, default Off:

• While MPE is on, the halves play on channels 1 and 16 whatever Chord ch and Melody ch say (the Expression page shows MPE 1 and MPE 16); a half that isn't in MPE plays plainly on its one.
• Up to seven pads at once get a channel each; an eighth shares the channel with the fewest pads (the strongest of their pressures goes out). A pad takes the channel unused the longest, so a note that just ended can ring out undisturbed.
• Whatever else plays in a zone takes channels of it too: the arpeggiator, echoes, progressions, lanes on the half's channel, the scale lock, the pedal's note.
• Not with the Drums layout (the melody half then plays as without MPE).
• The board tells the synth about its zones (the MPE configuration message) when it starts, again 3 seconds later and whenever a DAW sends Start; turning MPE off tells it the zones are gone.

What a pad sends follows its half's pressure setting (Pressure):

Set the synth's MPE pitch bend range to 48 semitones (the MPE default, and Live's) so that bends and glides land in tune.

#Glide

1.8. Settings → Expression → Glide, default Roll (1.8.6; Off before). With MPE Melody or Both, in the Scale, Chromatic, Fourths or Live notes layout (not Bass or Drums) and with Note repeat Off, touching the pad beside a held melody pad (left or right, in the same row) doesn't strike a new note: the held note slides to the new pad's. Glide chooses how far, and how fast:

• Lift the first pad and the note carries on at the new pad's note, without a new attack (with Time, it keeps going there). Roll on to the next pad along and it slides on; lift the last pad and the note ends.
• Lift the new pad instead and the note slides back (with Time, over the same time).
• Every glide comes to rest exactly on the note, in tune with the synth's MPE bend range at 48.
• Pads further away strike their own notes as usual; with Mono the gliding pair stays.

#Pressure (aftertouch)

Settings → Expression → Chord AT and Melody AT: what pressing harder on a held pad sends, set separately for each half.

With MPE on for a half, each pad sends its own pressure on its own channel instead.

Pressure runs from 0 at the pad's Release point to full at its Full point (Pad sensitivity), so lowering Full makes full pressure easier to reach. Channel AT and the CC settings send one value per half on that half's channel; when both halves share a channel and the same setting, they send one value together. Releasing all pads always brings the value back to 0 (pitch bend back to exactly the center), however slowly you let go; so does anything that interrupts playing, such as the web editor talking to the board while you hold a pad. (0.9.1; before, a slow release or an interruption could leave a bend or controller slightly or fully up until you pressed again.)

#Velocity

Settings → Play → Chord vel (the chord pads) and Melody vel (the right half) decide how loud each new note is (its MIDI velocity, 1–127) from how hard the pad is pressed as the note starts (1.5.0: the higher of its first two readings, a few milliseconds apart). (0.11.0: one setting per half; before, one Velocity setting for both. Settings saved by older versions give both halves their old curve.)

What velocity does not change: how light a touch can start a note. A pad starts a note once its reading reaches the Trigger point; the velocity setting only shapes how loud the note is after that, from velocity 1 at Trigger to 127 at Full (or at Vel full, 1.8). A touch too light to start a note stays silent with every velocity setting: lower Trigger instead (Pad sensitivity).

1. 1
   A piano or synth sound on the computer, Melody vel Normal. Play one melody pad several times, from a gentle tap to a firm press: the notes go from quiet to loud.
2. 2
   Set Light and tap gently again: the gentle taps are now clearly louder.
3. 3
   Set Firm: the same gentle taps are very quiet; only firm presses get loud. Firmer and Firmest (1.8) go further. If even those play your medium presses at full velocity, the press is reaching Vel full: raise it (Settings → Pads, Pad sensitivity).
4. 4
   Set Fixed 100: every note sounds the same, however you play. Back to Normal.
5. 5
   Chord vel Fixed 100, Melody vel Normal: chords at one even level however you hit them, the melody as dynamic as your fingers. The play screen's bottom line shows both (V FIX/DYN; Custom shows as CUS).

#Restrike

(Optional; Off by default.) Settings → Play → Restrike. Normally a held pad keeps the notes it started with when you change something; the change applies to the next touch. With Restrike on, held pads are struck again with their new notes as soon as you change the root, scale, layout or the chord panel, or (in Live notes) the chord. (Before 0.8.0 this was called Live update.)

#MIDI clock and transport

(Optional.)

• Settings → MIDI → Clock out (default Off): On sends MIDI clock at the board's Tempo to the computer (and the TRS jack), so a DAW, drum machine or synth can follow the board. While a MIDI clock is coming in, the board follows it and sends none.
• Settings → MIDI → Transport: ● sends Start (PLAY) or Stop (STOP). With the pedal set to Play/Stop, the pedal does the same.

If playing is interrupted while the transport runs (the web editor talks to the board, or USB drops), the board sends Stop, and Continue when it plays again a moment later, so a following sequencer pauses and carries on from where it was instead of jumping back to the start. (0.9.1; before, it started again from bar one.) Turning Transport off and on again sends a fresh Start.

#TRS MIDI out

Everything the board sends over USB also goes out of the TRS MIDI out jack, so it can play a hardware synth directly. The jack is TRS Type A (confirmed on a board): use a Type A TRS-to-DIN adapter (Type B adapters swap the wires and won't work).

• Settings → MIDI → TRS out: On (default) or Off.
• Without a computer: power the board from a USB charger or power bank with the TRS jack connected. After about 3 seconds without a computer it plays to the jack alone. Plugging into a computer later switches back to USB (held notes end first).
• If the computer goes away mid-chord (cable pulled, computer asleep) while the board keeps power (DC input or a charger), the synth on the jack gets its Note Offs a few seconds later, when the board switches to the jack alone, so no note is left droning. (0.9.1; before, those notes kept sounding until you played them again.)
• The jack carries the notes, aftertouch and controllers you play, at MIDI's standard speed. Very dense pressure streams are paced to what the jack can carry.

#Sustain pedal

Fixed in 1.5. Before 1.5 the board listened on the wrong pin and the pedal did nothing. Settings → About → I/O test shows whether the board sees the pedal (PEDAL PA10 ... DOWN while pressed); if your pedal doesn't work, please report what it shows.

Plug a sustain pedal (footswitch) into the pedal jack before switching the board on.

• Settings → Pedal → Mode (Sustain by default from 1.7: a fresh install, Reset options on the Pedal page or Factory settings; a board that saved a mode before keeps it, Off included):
  • Sustain: sends sustain (CC64) on the chord and melody channels; the screen shows SUS while it is down.
  • Hold: the board's own hold while the pedal is down: chords keep sounding, and the arpeggiator keeps running.
  • Sostenuto / Soft / Portamento: sends CC66, CC67 or CC65 instead.
  • Play/Stop: each press sends Start, then Stop.
  • Fill (2.0.3): the step sequencer's Fill steps play while the pedal is down, Not fill steps rest.
  • Note: plays a note while the pedal is down, on the Drum ch: Settings → Pedal → Note (default C2 = 36, a General MIDI kick: a kick drum on your foot). Note is on the page only while Mode is Note.
  • Off: the pedal is ignored.
• Settings → Pedal → Type: Auto (default: whatever the pedal reads at power-up counts as "released", so both pedal types work; that's why it must be plugged in first), Normal or Inverted if the pedal acts backward.
• Settings → Pedal → Target (0.11.0): Both (default), Chords or Melody: which half's MIDI channel gets the pedal in the Sustain, Sostenuto, Soft and Portamento modes. It needs the halves on different channels (Settings → MIDI → Chord ch / Melody ch); when they share one channel, the pedal goes to that channel and so to both.

#Presets

A preset stores the whole musical setup: root, scale, octaves, every chord edit, the panel, hold, strum, arpeggiator, tempo, layouts, channels, pressure and velocity, and (1.7) each half's Program Change. The board settings (brightness, colors, MIDI in lights, TRS out, pedal, arrows, Program in) are not part of presets. There are 8 slots. A DAW can also load presets with Program Changes (Settings → MIDI → Program in).

• Save: Settings → Presets → Save preset → ● → ▲/▼ choose 1–8 → ●. Saving over a slot replaces it (PRESET 3 SAVED).
• Clear (2.0): Settings → Presets → Clear preset → ● → ▲/▼ choose 1–8 → ● (PRESET 3 CLEARED). It empties the slot along with the preset's own colors, curves, chord set and name. If it was the preset in use, the board's own colors, curves and chords come back; the settings playing now stay as they are.
• Load: Settings → Presets → Load preset → ● → choose a slot → ●. Empty slots show EMPTY; (1.9.3) a preset named in the web editor shows its name (3 FUNK; a name too long to fit beside the item fills the line while you choose).
• Quick switch while playing: hold ◀ Left and press ▲ Up / ▼ Down to load the previous / next saved preset (PRESET 3 LOADED, and P3 near the scale name).
• A preset that uses a user scale which has since been cleared will not load.
• (1.9) A preset can have its own pad colors (Keep look, Your own colors) and, from 1.9.3, its own velocity and pressure curves (Keep feel, Your own feel).
• (1.9.3) The web editor's Presets tab names, copies, swaps, clears and compares presets.

#Presets with their own chord sets

(2.0.) The 8 chord sets belong to the board: every preset that plays chord set 1 plays the same chord set 1. With Settings → Presets → Keep chords On, Save preset also saves a copy of the chord set the preset plays (1–8) with the preset. Loading the preset puts that copy in its set's place; loading a preset without one brings the board's set back. While a preset's copy plays, changing that set (Chord capture, or the editor's Presets tab) changes the preset's copy, and the change is saved before another preset's set replaces it.

A preset that plays the scale's chords, Full or the chord grid has no chord set to keep. Keep chords is a board setting. Saving with Keep chords Off takes a preset's own copy away.

The web editor's Presets tab shows which presets have their own set, gives one a copy of its set as it plays now (Set own chords) or takes it away (Remove own chords); Copy, Swap and Clear take it along, and Compare lists it. Backups include them (restoring into TBOSS 1.9 or older leaves them out).

#MIDI in lights

With MIDI in LEDs on (Settings → Lights, default On), notes your computer sends to the board light the pads that play them: melody pads whose note is sounding, and chord pads whose whole chord is sounding.

#Scale lock

(TBOSS 1.0 or later.) Notes your computer sends to the board on one MIDI channel come back out of the board moved to the nearest note of the board's key and scale, on the melody channel (and the TRS jack). Set the channel in Settings → MIDI → Scale lock (Off by default). A note exactly between two scale notes goes to the lower one. Each note keeps the pitch it was given until it ends, even if you change the key meanwhile; the next note follows the new key. Up to 16 notes at once; the velocity is the incoming one.

Try it (not yet confirmed on a board: a test report is very welcome): Settings → MIDI → Scale lock CH 16. In the DAW, a MIDI track whose output is the TheoryBoard on channel 16, and an instrument track listening to the TheoryBoard. Root C, M1: play C♯ on your keyboard (or in a clip): C sounds; F♯ plays F. Press M6 (A minor): the same keys now play the notes of A minor.

#Pad sensitivity

(0.10.0; 1.7: counted from each pad's resting level) Settings → Pads decides how a pad's pressure turns into notes. Each pad measures how hard it is pressed as a number: a low number when untouched (a few hundred on a typical board, more on a pad that is dented or bent), rising to about 4000 when pressed very hard. The board measures where each pad rests, and the settings count from there, in steps of 100:

With the defaults, a pad resting at 300 plays from 1000 and lets go below 600, and a pad resting at 1000 plays from 1700 and lets go below 1300: every pad takes the same press above where it rests. Trigger has to stay at least 200 above Release (so a finger hovering at the edge can't make a note stutter), and Full at least 500 above Trigger; a value that breaks this shows OUT OF RANGE and the old value stays.

Updating from 1.6 or earlier: your settings are converted. The old defaults (Trigger 1200, Release 600, Full 3500) become the new ones, and a value you changed keeps its distance from them (Trigger 1500 becomes +1000). Going back to 1.6 converts them back. Up to 0.9.1 the levels were fixed at 2500 / 1500 / 4000; the closest now is Trigger +2000, Release +1200, Full +3000.

The board follows each pad. Each time it starts playing (at power-up, and after the web editor has talked to it), it measures how high each untouched pad rests. While a pad rests, the board keeps following its level, so a board that flexes (moved from a desk to your lap) keeps working; a press is never taken for rest. It follows a pad up within a few seconds and down within about two (1.7; before, down at once, so a moment of low readings could leave a pad playing by itself). The Pad test page shows each pad's resting level. (1.5 measured each pad but only raised the thresholds of pads resting high, so they needed less force than the others to set off; 1.7 counts every threshold from each pad's rest.)

Bleed (1.7): a firm press also lifts the pads around it a little. A pad next to one you press that rises less than half as far is taken for that press's bleed and stays silent; a pad you really press rises further and plays. A very light touch right next to a much harder press can be taken for bleed too: press it a little more.

Unstick (1.7): on a bent case or a worn membrane, some pads don't come all the way back after a press. They settle higher than they rested, sometimes above Release, and the note would never end. With Unstick on (the default), a note also ends once its pad's reading has stayed within 30 of where it is: for 0.3 s below Trigger, or for 1 s at Trigger or above. A pad left reading high holds within a few steps; a finger always wanders more (50 to 75 or more), so held notes and their aftertouch stay, however long you hold them. The level the pad stopped at becomes its resting level, so it stays quiet and the next press lets go too. A reading of 2000 or more is always a press, never a stuck pad. Turn Unstick off only if you hold notes so still that they end by themselves: a note then ends only below Release.

Rescan pads (1.7): Settings → Pads → Rescan pads → ● measures every pad's resting level again at once (PADS RESCANNED), as at power-up. Use it when a pad plays by itself or skips after the board was moved or flexed: take your hands off the pads first. A pad held while you press ● gets the board's middle level, then follows its own as usual.

1. 1
   Settings → Pads → Pad test → ● Center. Hands off: the three pad numbers are your resting readings, the last number on each row that pad's resting level, and the bottom line REST the lowest and highest the board measured.
2. 2
   Touch a pad as lightly as you'd like to play. Its number appears at the top of the list; PEAK shows how far your touch went (say PEAK 900, on a pad resting at 300: it rose 600).
3. 3
   ◀ Left back to the list, ▼ Down to Trigger, ● Center, then ▼/▲ to a little below how far your light touch rose (here +500) and ● Center to set it. ▼ Down to Pad test and ● Center to open it again.
4. 4
   Back in Pad test, touch lightly again: the * appears and the note plays, at a low velocity (LAST VEL).
5. 5
   Press a pad firmly and watch the second and third rows: those are its neighbors. They stay silent unless they rise past Trigger and more than half as far as your press. If one still plays by itself, raise Trigger until it doesn't.
6. 6
   Press as hard as you'd normally play your loudest notes and read PEAK. Set Full a little below how far that rose, so full pressure is easy to reach.
7. 7
   (1.8) If your medium presses already play at velocity 127 (LAST VEL 127), set Vel full to about how far your hardest press rose (PEAK minus the pad's resting level, the number at the end of its row): with a pad resting at 300 and PEAK 3800, Vel full +3500. Then velocity keeps rising past Full, and Firm, Firmer or Firmest spread the quiet and middle range further.

• Don't lower Trigger below how far your neighbors rise when you press firmly (step 5): pads next to the one you play could start sounding by themselves.
• Don't set Release to +100 or +200 on a board whose resting readings jitter: notes may not end reliably.
• With a sensitivity modification or a thick overlay, start with Trigger around +1000 and check step 5. A modification that presses the membrane closer also spreads each press to the neighbors.

#Pad test

Settings → Pads → Pad test shows what the pads measure, as numbers: how hard a touch reads, how much a press spreads to the neighboring pads, and the velocity a note got. It changes nothing; the pads keep playing while the page is open. (0.9.1; on the About page until 0.10.0.)

PAD 1120/720/2920          Trigger / Release / Full of the highest pad: the settings
                           above its resting level (here 420)
L C3 R2  2734 *  420       the pad reading highest now, its reading, * = it is playing,
                           and its resting level
L C4 R2   812    385       the second and third highest: a press spreading to its
L C2 R2   640    402       neighbors shows up here
PEAK 3120 L C3 R2          the highest reading of the current (or last) touch
LAST VEL 64 L C3 R2        the velocity the newest note got, and its pad
<BACK  REST 290-470        the lowest and highest resting level of the pads

L C3 R2 means left half, column 3, row 2 (columns 1–12 from the left, rows 1–4 from the top; the right half is R). The numbers above are an example: every board, and every pad, reads a little differently.

1. 1
   Settings → Pads → Pad test → ● Center.
2. 2
   Hands off: the three readings are small, each close to its pad's resting level at the end of the row.
3. 3
   Rest a fingertip very lightly on one pad without playing it: its number rises but stays below Trigger, no *, no sound. That's the gap between touching and playing.
4. 4
   Press the pad gently until it plays: the * appears, PEAK shows how far you went, and LAST VEL the velocity of that note.
5. 5
   Press it firmly: higher PEAK, higher LAST VEL. Watch the second and third rows: the neighboring pads' numbers rise a little as well. Below their Trigger, or rising less than half as far as your press, they never play.
6. 6
   ◀ Left or ● Center leaves the page.

#Settings menu

Press ● Center on the play screen to open the settings. They are pages of items:

• Leaving: only ◀ Left leaves, one level per press. Shortcut: hold ◀ Left and press ● Center to go straight to the play screen from anywhere.
• The settings reopen on the page you left. Up and Down wrap around in lists; values stop at their lowest and highest setting.
• The top line names the page and the position (3/7); the value being changed is shown inverted. The bottom line shows what the buttons do, or the result of the last action.
• While the settings are open the root and mode buttons and the chord panel still work.

Resetting options (1.4). The last item of every page that has options (all but Presets, Buttons and About) is Reset options: it puts every item on that page back to its default (the table below). Settings → About → Factory settings does all the pages at once, and also the key, the panel's octaves, the chord edits and the center buttons. Neither touches what you saved: presets, user scales, favorites, chord sets, progressions and the step pattern stay. The chord edits stay (Reset all edits on the Chord edits page clears them), and on the Progressions and Steps pages the progressions and the step pattern's lanes do (Progression goes back to slot 1).

Every reset asks first, so none happens by accident:

1. 1
   ● on the item opens a confirmation, for example RESET PLAY OPTIONS?, 13 SETTINGS BACK TO THEIR DEFAULTS. YOUR CHANGES ARE LOST, with CANCEL selected.
2. 2
   ● now (or ◀ Left, or ▶ Right) changes nothing: NOTHING WAS RESET.
3. 3
   To reset, press ▲ Up to select RESET (O RESETS <CANCEL at the bottom), then ●: PLAY OPTIONS RESET.

The same confirmation is on Reset chord, Reset all edits (Chords) and Reset all (Buttons). Reset options and Factory settings wait while a progression is recording (NOT WHILE RECORDING).

Every item, with its default (items marked opt are optional extras, off or neutral by default):

#Shortcuts

On the play screen:

#Screen and lights

Play screen, top to bottom:

1. 1
   Root (large), scale name, and the mode button and/or preset (MODE M2 P3).
2. 2
   Chord name of the last chord pad played, with its edits (Dm7, G7sus4, C/E). In Live notes following MIDI in, the incoming chord's name. While a progression plays, its chord.
3. 3
   The last thing that happened (ROOT D, VOICING II, PRESET 2 LOADED…).
4. 4
   Octaves (OCT C2 C3), HOLD when hold is on, SUS while the sustain pedal is down, EXT (1.7) while a DAW's MIDI clock comes in (OCT is left out when they need its room).
5. 5
   A progression recording (REC P1 5/64 Am) or playing (P1 Am > F 3/8), the arpeggiator (ARP UP 1/16 120 or EXT), strum (STRUM UP 20MS), note repeat (REPEAT 1/16 120), or velocity and pressure for chords/melody (V DYN/DYN A POLY/POLY). The number is the tempo, EXT while a DAW's MIDI clock comes in. USB: WAITING until a computer is connected.

Pad colors (Settings → Lights → Colors):

Default (called Rainbow before 1.5): every pad shows the color of its note, the same color for the same note everywhere on the board (C red, D yellow, E green, G blue, A violet, B pink and the colors between). The colors move when you change root or mode. Root columns are brightest.

In the chromatic and fourths layouts, notes outside the scale are dimmed. In the drums layout the drum grid is amber, its kick pad brightest. In Live notes, the live chord's root is brightest.

Root+5th: root orange, fifth blue, other steps dim, edited chords purple, pressed pads white, notes arriving over MIDI green. Why: some players find it easier to find the root and fifth at a glance.

Rainbow (1.5.0): seven colors across both halves, the same on every row: red, orange, yellow, green, dark blue, light blue, magenta, then red, orange, yellow, green and dark blue again in the last five columns, the first red column brightest, whatever root, mode or layout you play. (Until 2026-10-24 the 1.5.0 download had twelve colors, red to pink; download it again for the seven.) A pad you touch still turns white, and a sounding pad (held, latched) soft white. Nothing else lights: no theory hints, pivot chords, progression guide or MIDI in. The step screen and the web editor's preview keep their own colors. Why: just for fun, a board that looks the same whatever you play.

1.9: four more:

• Piano: white keys light, black keys dark, wherever they are on the board, and the root in its own color (orange). Why: find your way on the chromatic and fourths layouts as on a keyboard.
• Triad: the key's root orange, its 3rd gold and its 5th blue; every other note dim. Why: the chord tones of the key at a glance, for melodies that land on them.
• Function: each chord by what it does in the key: tonic chords (I, iii, vi) green, subdominant (ii, IV) gold, dominant (V, vii) red; the melody pads by the same degrees. Why: see which chords lead home and which move away.
• Octaves: every root bright orange, everything else dim blue. Why: a calm board for the dark, with the roots as landmarks.

Pressed and sounding pads, chord edits, silent pads, MIDI in, hints and the progression guide show as in Default.

Color by (1.9, Settings → Lights): Note (the default) gives each note name its color everywhere (C red in every key, as before); Degree colors by scale degree instead: the root is always red, the 5th always blue-ish, whatever key you play in. It applies to Default and to the colors of the hints and the progression guide.

#Your own colors

1.9. In the web editor's Lights tab every scheme's colors can be changed: each of its roles (Default's 12 notes, Root+5th's root, 5th, other notes, edited chords and MIDI in, Rainbow's 7 columns, …) takes one of 16 colors: red, orange, gold, lime, green, turquoise, sky blue, blue, dark blue, violet, purple, pink, white, warm white, gray or off. Built-in gives a role its original color back. The pads follow at once while you choose.

• The colors you pick are the board's own, for every preset, unless a preset has its own look.
• A preset's own look: set Settings → Presets → Keep look On, then Save preset: the preset keeps the scheme, Color by and colors showing then. Loading it shows them; loading a preset without a look of its own brings the board's back. While a preset's look shows, changing the colors changes that preset's look. Saving the preset again with Keep look Off removes its look.
• The colors are in the settings backup (firmware 1.9 and later).

#Your own feel

1.9. The web editor's Feel tab shapes how the pads respond, for each half on its own:

• Velocity: a curve from a strike just past Trigger (left) to one at Vel full (right), and the softest and loudest velocity it plays. It applies where Settings → Play → Chord vel or Melody vel is Custom (the tab's Use the curve button sets that). Start from one of the built-in curves (Normal, Light, Firm, Firmer, Firmest) and drag its 8 points.
• Pressure: what a held pad sends as you press on (aftertouch, a controller or a bend, and with MPE each pad's pressure), from Release (left) to Full (right). It always applies; the default straight line is exactly as before 1.9. Bend it to make pressure come in late, early or all at once, and set where it starts and where it is full.
• The board takes each change at once and keeps playing; the curves are the board's own, for every preset, and are in the settings backup.
• A preset's own curves (1.9.3): set Settings → Presets → Keep feel On, then Save preset: the preset keeps the curves in use then. Loading it uses them; loading a preset without curves of its own brings the board's back. While a preset's curves are in use, the Feel tab says so and changes go to that preset. Saving the preset again with Keep feel Off removes its curves. The Presets tab does the same without saving the preset (Set own curves, Remove own curves).
• Curves of (2.0.8): the Feel tab's list of whose curves you edit: the board's, or any preset's own, without loading it. When the board loads a preset, the list goes to the curves it plays (· playing now). A preset without its own is shown dimmed, with Give preset N its own curves.
• Each preset keeps its own Chord vel and Melody vel, saved with it, and loading it brings them: a preset saved while Chord vel wasn't Custom plays its curve only once that changes. With a preset chosen under Curves of, Use the curve in preset N sets Custom in the preset itself, without loading it; giving a preset its own curves sets its Chord vel to Custom too.
• Calibrate: the tab asks you to keep your hands off, then to press pads softly, at your usual strength and as hard as you ever play (about 30 seconds, the board silent meanwhile). It then proposes Trigger, Release, Full, Vel full and a velocity curve that plays your soft presses at about 35 and your usual ones at about 85, beside the values you have now. Apply sets them all (and Custom on both halves); nothing changes before that.
• The pads at rest: a map of every pad's resting level (what it reads untouched), dark to bright. A pad far above the others (outlined) needs a harder press: Settings → Pads → Rescan pads with your hands off measures them again.

While the web editor edits a scale, the whole board becomes a keyboard of the scale: both halves show 12 columns, one per semitone from the editor's root. The root column is white, scale notes bright, other notes nearly dark. The screen shows WEB EDITOR, the slot (U2), the root and the notes. The editor sends this only while you work in its scale library or custom scales: using any other panel, switching away from the page, or 2 minutes without touching those two panels ends it, and the play screen and normal colors return (within 5 seconds if the editor was closed).

A pad that already reads as pressed when the board starts (held, or a pad stuck on your board) lights white and stays silent until it has been released once; everything else plays normally. Settings → About → I/O test shows how many pads read as held and where (PADS HELD 1 L C10 R2: left half, column 10, row 2 from the top); Pad test shows the readings themselves (Pad test).

Brightness (1–8) sets all lights. LED test lights every pad red, green and blue, then each pad and each button light in turn: Try it if a pad or button light seems dead.

#Sleep and Shut down

(2.0.) Shut down (Settings → About → Shut down, ●), as on the original TheoryBoard: every note stops, the transport stops, the screen and every light go dark, and the pads and buttons do nothing, until you press ● Center, which only wakes the board (it doesn't open Settings). The board stays connected over USB; MIDI coming in still reaches it.

Sleep after (Settings → Lights: Off, 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes): the screen and lights go dark after that long without a touch. Everything else carries on (a progression or an arpeggio keeps playing). Any button or pad wakes it: a pad also plays, a button only wakes the board.

Both only darken the board: the processor keeps running (the safe low-power modes the chip has would cut the debugger off), so the board draws a little less current, not none.

#Web editor

The web editor runs in Chrome or Edge on a computer (Safari and Firefox lack the MIDI features it needs). It changes every setting, browses the scale library, keeps your favorite scales on the board, makes custom scales, types in chord progressions, and backs up the board's settings. (1.9) Tabs along the top pick one area at a time: Settings, Lights (the pad colors, see Your own colors), Feel (the curves and calibration, see Your own feel), Scales (the library, favorites and custom scales), Chords (chord sets and, 1.9.3, every chord pad's edits), Progressions, Sequencer (1.9.3, the step pattern), Buttons, Presets (1.9.3) and Backup; the page remembers the last one.

#Start it

Open https://tboss.app/editor in Chrome or Edge. Nothing to install.

Click Connect. Chrome asks whether the page may "control and reprogram your MIDI devices": choose Allow. The header turns to Connected and shows the firmware version. With several MIDI devices, pick TheoryBoard Editor in the Board list (the editor picks it by itself). The board answers the editor on that port, so your DAW, listening to TheoryBoard MIDI, never sees the editor's messages; boards before TBOSS 2.0 have only TheoryBoard MIDI.

The board stops its notes while the page reads from it or saves to it and plays again about a second after the last command, so don't play then. Changing a setting on the Settings tab, colors, curves, steps or a chord pad's edits doesn't stop it.

To run the editor from your own copy instead (for example offline), from the folder you downloaded TBOSS into: python scripts/tboss_editor.py. It starts a small web server on your computer only and opens the editor at http://localhost:8000; keep its window open (Ctrl+C stops it). A page opened straight from the file will not work: browsers allow MIDI with SysEx only for localhost or https pages.

#Settings

(1.9; needs TBOSS 1.9 on the board.) Every page of the board's Settings menu (Play, Chords, Layout … About), with every item, its value as the board has it now, what it does and its default. Pick a value and the board takes it at once, as if you had set it on the board: it keeps playing and its screen shows CHANGED BY EDITOR (or why it refused, as the menu would). Each item also names where it is on the board (On the TB: Settings → Play → Chord vel).

• Play / Stop (MIDI → Transport, Progressions → Play) start and stop the board.
• Load and Save (Presets) load or save the preset you pick; Save asks first.
• Some items are on the TB only: the resets, the tests, Capture, Record and Clear, Steps, Rescan pads, and the last chord's edits (Add 7th … Sound). The page shows their value.
• Items the board hides just now (Pedal → Note unless Mode is Note, Glide time unless Glide is Time) are dimmed.
• Changed something on the board? (1.9.4) It shows here within a second, dimmed items too, while the board keeps playing (before 1.9.4: when you come back to the tab or window, with a pause of the board's notes, or with Read from the TB).
• After changing Steps → Lane, press Read from the TB to see that lane's Euclid and Rotate values.

#Scale library

Every built-in scale, grouped into families.

• Browse: pick a Group (or All scales) and an Order: As listed, or Bright → dark (by how high the scale's notes sit above the root: Lydian is the brightest of the major modes, Locrian the darkest). Click a scale to see its notes in the board's colors in the chosen Key.
  • ▶ Play plays it on the computer.
  • Play it on the TB switches the board to it, keeping the board's key.
  • Add to favorites puts it on your favorites list (below).
  • Copy to my scales opens it in a custom slot, to change it.
• Find by notes: click notes on the keyboard, or tick Listen to MIDI keyboards and play them on the TB or any MIDI keyboard: the list shows every scale and key that contains them, fewest notes first. Click one to select it in that key. Clear notes starts over.
• One note away: under the selected scale, every scale you get by moving one of its notes a semitone (Major: lower the 3rd → melodic minor, raise the 4th → Lydian, lower the 7th → Mixolydian…). Click to go there.

#Favorites

Up to 128 scales (built-in or your own U1–U12) in the order the board's ▲/▼ step through them. Reorder by dragging a row by its ⠿ grip (or with its ▲ ▼ buttons), remove one with ✕ or all with Remove all, then Save favorites to the TB.

#Custom scales

1. 1
   Choose a slot tab, U1 to U12.
2. 2
   Click piano keys to add or remove notes. The root (orange) is always included; a scale needs 5 to 12 notes. Below each key is its interval (b3 = minor third, #4 = augmented fourth…). Start from fills in a known scale to change, and its name. The summary line names a match if your scale is a known one.
3. 3
   Root for listening only changes what ▶ Play sounds like; scales are stored relative to the root, so the board plays them in any key.
4. 4
   While you edit, the board's pads show the scale (root white, scale notes in color, others dark) and its screen shows WEB EDITOR, the slot and the notes.
5. 5
   Type a Name (up to 12 characters) and click Save to U1.
6. 6
   Press U1 on the board, or click Use it on the TB (U4–U12 have no button: choose them in Settings → Play → Scale or with that button). Clear slot empties it (not possible while the board uses it).

#Progressions

(TBOSS 0.11.0 or later.) Type a song's chords instead of tapping them in, and see what each slot holds.

1. 1
   Choose a slot tab, P1 to P8 (the tab shows how many chords each holds). A stored progression appears as text.
2. 2
   Pick the Key and its scale (on connecting, the board's own key is selected) and how long Each unit lasts.
3. 3
   Type the chords, separated by spaces: Am D Dm Am C G E7 Am. Each chord lasts one unit; Am*2 (or Am Am) lasts two. Commas and bar lines | are ignored. Below the text, each chord appears with its length; a chord outside the key's scale is outlined and names the scale it is borrowed from (D · Dorian, E7 · Harmonic minor).
4. 4
   Save to P1, then play it on the board (Play) in the same key and scale.

The editor finds each chord on the chord pads: in the key's scale if it is there, otherwise in the closest scale that has it (the fewest notes different, preferring the major modes, harmonic and melodic minor and harmonic major). Chord types: major, m, dim, aug, sus2, sus4, 6, m6, 7, maj7, m7, mMaj7, m7b5, dim7, 7#5, 7b5, maj7#5, 7sus4, 7sus2, add9, madd9, 9, maj9, m9, 6/9, m6/9, 9sus4, 7b9, 7#9, 13, maj13, m13, and slash chords whose bass is the chord's third or fifth (C/E, C/G). A chord no scale can play on the pads (C/F#, C5) is reported and nothing is saved until it is changed.

• A progression recorded on the board with a chord set is listed from that set below the text box, but not as text: typed chords can only use the scale's chords, so typing replaces it (and Save is off until you type).
• The board stores pads, not notes, so the key here only names the chords: on the board, the root buttons transpose the progression and the key you pick here is the one where it sounds as written.
• Copy as text copies the chords, to paste into a note or share.
• Clear P1 empties the slot.
• (2.0) Each chord's chance, under its name: how often it plays as written, and else rest or else borrow (Chord chance). For the progression saved in the slot the board takes each change at once; for one you are typing, with Save.
• (2.0) Chain: up to 8 links, each P1–P8, then Save chain (Chained progressions).

#Chord sets

(TBOSS 1.0 or later.) Type the 12 chords of a chord set.

1. 1
   Choose a set tab, 1 to 8 (the tab shows its name). A stored set appears as text.
2. 2
   Pick the key the chords are Written in (it only names them: on the board the root buttons transpose the set). Start from offers six examples (pop, jazz, blues, minor, and the circle of fifths: the 12 major or the 12 minor chords in circle order, C G D A E B F♯ D♭ A♭ E♭ B♭ F).
3. 3
   Type up to 12 chords separated by spaces, one per column from left to right: C Dm Em F G Am Bb Ab Fm D7 E7 G7. - leaves a column empty. A chord's root sits in the octave above the key's root; ' after a chord (G7') puts it an octave higher. The chord types are the progressions'; slash chords are not taken (the rows play the inversions). Below, each column shows its chord.
4. 4
   Name it (up to 12 characters, shown on the board), Save to set 1, then Use it on the TB (or Settings → Chords → Chord set). Back to the scale's chords turns it off; Chord grid on the TB plays the Chord grid and Full layout on the TB the Full chord layout instead. Clear set 1 empties the slot (not while the board plays that set).

#Chord pad edits

(1.9.3; needs TBOSS 1.9.3 on the board.) On the Chords tab, below the chord sets: all 48 chord pads as they sit on the board (12 columns, 4 rows), each with the name of its chord as the board's screen shows it, and its chord edits:

• 7, 9, 6 add the 7th, 9th or 6th; sus makes it sus2, then sus4, then plain again.
• strum off: the pad plays at once when Strum is on; sound off: the pad stays silent.
• All plain takes every edit away (asks first).
• The board takes each change at once and keeps playing; the names follow about a second later (before 1.9.4 the board paused its notes for that, once). While a chord set, the chord grid or the Full layout plays, its chords are as typed, so only strum and sound apply.

#Sequencer

(1.9.3; needs TBOSS 1.9.3 on the board.) The step sequencer's pattern as a grid: four lanes of up to 64 steps (16 to a row).

• Click a step to add it (it plays what the lane's chosen step played, or the bottom-left pad, or C2 (the kick) on a drum lane), or to choose it; click the chosen step again to take it away. Steps past the lane's length are dimmed.

• The chosen step's options, below the lanes: what it plays (a chord pad, a melody pad of the Scale layout, or a drum note), Velocity, Gate, Tie to the next, Chance, Ratchet, Condition, and on a chord lane its Add 7th / 9th / 6th and Sus (Step options).

• Each lane: kind (Chords, Melody, Drums, Off), channel, number of Steps, rate, direction, Mute, Clear, and Euclid: a number of hits and a rotation, then Fill (as Settings → Steps → Euclid and Rotate: hits already on keep what they play).

• ▶ Play / ■ Stop start and stop the board's transport (Settings → Progressions → Play).

• The board plays each change at once and keeps playing; it saves the steps 3 s after the last change. Changed steps on the board? The tab reads them again when you come back to it, or press Read from the TB.

• (2.0) ◀ ▶ beside a lane move its steps one earlier or later (the end comes round to the start; steps past the lane's length stay). Copy a lane and Paste it onto another: the steps and the lane's settings, so the pasted lane takes the copied one's length too. Shift-click a second step to choose a range; below the lanes Copy steps copies it, and Paste … steps from step n puts it over the steps from the chosen one on (as far as step 64; only onto a lane of the same kind, since a chord step's value is a chord pad and a drum step's a note).

• (2.0.3) Each lane's Swing and Transpose, a step's Nudge, and the Fill and Not fill conditions (Step options). Randomize fills the lane with new steps at random (25–100 % of them on: chord lanes the scale's chords, melody lanes its first octave, drum lanes the drums already there), after asking. Mutate changes about 10–50 % of the steps a little, as Settings → Steps → Mutate does, and says beside the button how many steps changed (2.0.5).

#Presets tab

(1.9.3; needs TBOSS 1.9.3 on the board.) The board's 8 presets, one row each:

• Name them (up to 12 characters) and Save names: the board's Load preset and Save preset show the names.

• Load on the TB loads that preset now.

• Copy (over the preset chosen beside it), Swap and Clear take the preset's colors, curves and name along. Copy and Clear ask first.

• Set own colors / Set own curves: the colors showing or the curves in use become the preset's own (loading it uses them); Remove own colors / Remove own curves gives it the board's again. Keep look and Keep feel are the Presets page's items: with them on, Save preset on the board also saves the colors and curves.

• Compare two presets, or one with the board as it is now, setting by setting, by the names the board's menu uses (needs the Settings tab read: it is read when you connect). Only the differences show, or every setting with the tick box.

• (2.0) Set own chords gives the preset a copy of the chord set it plays, as it plays now; Remove own chords takes it away (Presets with their own chord sets). Keep chords is the Presets page's item. Copy, Swap and Clear take the copy along; Compare shows each preset's.

#Center buttons

(TBOSS 1.0 or later; 2.0: the U3 button too.) Choose each center button's action from a list, named by what is printed next to the button (see Center buttons and Shift for every action and for Shift). Changed buttons are highlighted. Save to the TB sends them (the board uses them at once); Printed functions sets every button back (then save). On the board the same list is Settings → Buttons. The panel shows the buttons as they were when you clicked Connect; saving changes only the ones you changed on the page, so a button changed on the board meanwhile keeps its action (and the panel then shows it).

#Settings backup

• Download settings backup saves the current settings, all 8 presets, the user scales, your favorites, your progressions and your chord sets to a .json file.
• Restore from file… writes them back (user scales first, then chord sets, favorites, presets, progressions, then the current settings). Into an older TBOSS, settings it doesn't have go back to their defaults, progressions are left out before 0.11.0 and chord sets before 1.0.0.

#External memory backup

The board has a 16 MB memory chip holding data from its original firmware. TBOSS only ever reads it. Back up external memory copies the whole chip to a file, reading it twice; the copy counts as verified only if both reads are identical. It takes several minutes per read and the board does not play meanwhile (Cancel stops it). Save both downloaded files (the .bin image and the .txt with its SHA-256). Why: a safety copy of the original firmware's data before anyone ever experiments with that chip. You only need it once.

#Saved settings

Every change is saved automatically 3 seconds after you stop changing things, and comes back at power-up, together with presets, user scales, favorites, progressions, chord sets and the step pattern (each change to the pattern is saved 3 seconds after the last one, too). Installing firmware clears them: the browser installer saves them first and puts them back afterward (step 2 on its page); with the SWD tool, use the web editor's settings backup first.

#Troubleshooting

#TBOSS and the original TheoryBoard

How TBOSS (1.0) compares with the TheoryBoard's own firmware: the features it was sold with, the features promised during the 2020 Kickstarter campaign that never arrived, and what TBOSS adds. ✅ in TBOSS · 🟡 partly · ❌ not yet. The original's features come from its 2020 description and the printed panel; the promised list is the campaign's update, as reported by Synthtopia (September 2020). Suggestions and corrections are welcome in the issues.

#The original's features

#Promised in 2020, never delivered

#Only in TBOSS

#Known issues

TBOSS 2.0: everything new in 1.4 to 2.0 passed its board tests on one board, with Ableton Live as the DAW. Known gaps and limits:

• Not in TBOSS yet: a phrase recorder and the step sequencer's later parts (per-step nudge, more patterns and songs; planned), a second arpeggiator. See the roadmap.
• (2.0) While U3 is held, the other mode buttons don't answer (they share its touch chip): for Shift + a mode button, tap U3 first instead of holding it (U3 as Shift).
• (2.0) Sleep after and Shut down only darken the board; it still draws power from USB.
• The arpeggiator has no on/off button of its own: set a center button to Arpeggiator on/off, or use Settings → Arpeggiator → Arp.
• A center button held for more than about 5 seconds lets go by itself (the touch buttons' own limit), so Shift can be latched and Sustain is tapped on and off. A held chord shape (Add 7th …) applies to the next chord pad you touch, not to a chord already sounding (a running arpeggio takes it at once from 1.7).
• The chord edits that moved a chord's 3rd or 5th down an octave (0.5 and earlier) have no button any more; edits saved with them still play, and Reset chord clears them.
• The board appears with a test USB ID (cafe:4069) until TBOSS has its own.
• Windows may keep showing an older name for the MIDI port; it is the same device.
• If the MIDI monitor MidiView is running, the web editor's Connect can crash Windows (a fault in MidiView's own driver while it captures the editor's messages); close MidiView before connecting.
• Installing clears saved settings unless the browser installer's step 2 is used.
• Going back to an older TBOSS: the browser installer (and the editor's Restore from file…) put back what the older version has. Settings it doesn't have return to their defaults, progressions are left out of a version before 0.11.0 and chord sets of a version before 1.0.0 (the installer says how many); a version before 1.3.0 plays the scale's chords instead of the chord grid or Full, and a version before 1.4.0 gets the arpeggiator's and note repeat's 1.0 rates and rhythms (1/16, the first rhythm, note repeat off where a new value was set), no pivot target, and Pivot buttons back to their printed function; the step pattern is left out of a version before 1.5.0, and a version before 1.6.0 gets Harmony, Echo, Mono and Chance off (Echoes 3); a version before 1.7.0 plays a step pattern forward, each step once at half its length and every time round (the step options are kept for later), and a version before 1.8.0 gets MPE and Glide off; preset names and the presets' own curves are left out of a version before 1.9.3. Backups restored into versions before 0.10.0 may still be refused if they use settings those versions don't have.
• An echo that comes while you still hold its note is not heard (see Echo).
• The external memory chip is only read, never used; the original firmware's data there stays untouched.
• On Linux the browser installer needs a one-time permission rule (see Installing).

Not yet tried on a board: the web editor's Settings and Lights tabs, your own colors, the Piano, Triad, Function and Octaves schemes and your own feel (1.9); the pedal's Target and its Hold, Sostenuto, Soft, Portamento and Play/Stop modes; live notes following MIDI in and on their own channel; progressions started by a DAW; scale lock.

Least tested so far (reports especially welcome): installing from macOS, Linux and ChromeOS (Windows is confirmed); DAWs other than Ableton Live; the web editor's external memory backup on a real board; boards that report a hardware version other than 4 (the installer stops for those and asks for a report).

Please report what you find: a test report after trying TBOSS (even "everything worked"), or a bug report for a single problem, with the TBOSS version (Settings → About) and, for install problems, the installer's Details.

#Feature check

A quick pass through everything, for example after installing a new version. Expected results are in brackets. Turn each optional feature back off after its step.

1. 1
   Power up with USB → TBOSS and the version, then the play screen; the DAW sees TheoryBoard MIDI. [pads lit in rainbow colors; a touched pad turns white]
2. 2
   Melody pads, several at once, soft and hard. [polyphonic, louder when harder]
3. 3
   Root C, mode M1, bottom row of chord pads left to right. [C Dm Em F G Am Bdim on screen]
4. 4
   Press D, then M2. [D DORIAN, bottom-left chord Dm]
5. 5
   Bottom-left chord; Settings → Chord edits → Add 7th On, then Reset chord. [Dm7, paler pad; back to Dm]
6. 6
   Chord panel, top row: voicing I, II, III, guitar, each followed by a chord pad. [VOICING I…GUITAR VOICING; the chord moves up, guitar sounds wide]; press guitar again.
7. 7
   Spread I, II, III. [SPREAD I…, a deep root note]; press III again.
8. 8
   Octave V (0 lit): tap +1, then 0, then +1. [OCTAVES 0 +1: two octaves; OCTAVES +1: one octave up; OCTAVES 0: back]
9. 9
   Play screen ▲ Up, ▼ Down twice, ▲ Up. [SCALE PHRYGIAN, SCALE DORIAN, SCALE MINOR, SCALE DORIAN]. Settings → Play → Family Mel minor, press M4. [LYDIAN DOM]; Family back to Major. Guitar voicing on, bottom-left chord in C. [C E G C E]; Settings → Strum → Capo fret 3 [the same chord, a different shape]; Capo Off, guitar voicing off.
10. 10
    ▶ Right (hold), play a chord, lift, touch it again. [keeps sounding; then silence]; ▶ Right again.
11. 11
    Settings → Strum: Strum Up, Strum time 80 ms, play a chord. [notes low to high]; Repeat 1/8 and hold the pad [strums again every eighth]; Cutoff 1/16 [short stabs]; Repeat, Cutoff and Strum Off.
12. 12
    ◀ Left, ◀ Left. [page list, then the play screen; a third ◀ does nothing]
13. 13
    Settings → Arpeggiator → Arp Up; hold a chord. [single notes in a pattern; ARP UP 1/16 120]; Rhythm X.X.X.X. [every other step rests]; Latch On, lift the hand [keeps playing; touch the pad to stop]; Arp Off.
14. 14
    Root C, M1. Tap the bottom-left chord and let go (nothing to hold); Settings → Chords → Voice lead On; back on the play screen tap the bottom-row F, then G. [F/C, G/D]; Voice lead Off.
15. 15
    Root F, Settings → Play → Scale HARM MINOR, Settings → Chords → Fold On; bottom-left chord. [A♭ C F]; 5th column [C E G]; Fold Off; root C, M1.
16. 16
    Settings → Effects → Note repeat 1/16; hold a melody pad and lean in. [repeats, louder as you press]; Note repeat Off.
17. 17
    Settings → Layout → Layout Chromatic, Fourths, Drums. [pad colors change; Drums: right grid amber, kick on its bottom-left pad on channel 10]; Live notes, play the G chord, then the right half's columns 8–12 [G B D G B along the bottom row; play Am and they become A C E A C]; back to Scale. Settings → Lights → Colors Rainbow, then Drums again. [every row of both halves red, orange, yellow, green, dark blue, light blue, magenta, then red to dark blue again, whatever the layout; a touched pad white]; back to Default and Scale.
18. 18
    Settings → MIDI: Chord ch 2, Melody ch 3, a MIDI monitor. [chords on 2, melody on 3]; both back to 1.
19. 19
    Settings → Expression → Chord AT Poly AT, hold a chord pad and press harder. [poly aftertouch on each of its 3 notes]; Melody AT Pitch bend [bends up with pressure, back on release]; back to Poly AT.
20. 20
    Melody vel Light, then Firm. [the same touch is louder, then softer]; back to Normal. Chord vel Fixed 100. [chords all at 100, melody still dynamic; screen V FIX/DYN]; back to Normal.
21. 21
    Settings → MIDI → Clock out On. [MIDI monitor: clock at 120 BPM]; Transport ● [Start, then Stop on the next press]; start it again and click Download settings backup in the web editor [Stop, then Continue about a second later]; Transport ● to stop; Clock out Off.
22. 22
    Save preset 1; change root; on the play screen hold ◀ Left and press ▼ Down. [PRESET 1 LOADED, setup restored]
23. 22a
    Root A, M6. Settings → Progressions → Progression 1, Record ●; tap Am, F, F, G (bottom row), ◀ Left once, tap G, ● Center. [PROGRESSION 1 SAVED]. Settings → Play → Arrows Sequencer; ▲ Up. [Am, F for two bars, G, looping; P1 Am > F 1/4; the current pad white, the next pulsing]; press root C [the same pads in C]; root A. MIDI monitor: Chord vel Fixed 100 [from the next chord, every chord at velocity 100]; back to Normal [the tapped velocities again]; ▲ Up [stops]. Arrows back to Scale.
24. 22b
    Web editor → Chord sets: set 1, Start from Pop, Save to set 1, Use it on the TB. [bottom row left to right: C Dm Em F G Am B♭ A♭ Fm D7 E7 G7; S1 on the play screen]; root A [A Bm C♯m D E F♯m G F Dm B7 C♯7 E7]; Settings → Chord edits → Add 7th On [SET CHORDS: NO EDITS]; Chord set Scale; root C.
25. 22c
    Settings → Chords → Hints On; play the bottom-left C. [F pulses, G and Am glow, the other chord pads dim]; play Dm [G pulses]; Hints Off.
26. 22d
    Settings → Buttons: Octave +3 Shift, Octave +2 Add 7th (while held), Spread III Arpeggiator on/off. Hold Octave +2 and play C [Cmaj7]; tap Spread III [arpeggiator on, button lit; tap again: off]; hold Octave +3 and touch the Dm pad [no sound, CHOSEN FOR EDITING, Dm on screen]; tap Octave +3 twice [SHIFT LATCHED], press mode button 1 [PRESET 1 LOADED], tap Octave +3 [Shift off]. Settings → Buttons → Reset all.
27. 22e
    Root C, M1. Settings → Chords → Chord set Grid; column 5 from the bottom up. [G, G7, Gsus4, G9]; column 4, second row from the top [Fsus2]. Chord set Full; column 1 from the top down [C, Cadd9, C6/A, C6/9/A]. Chord set Scale.
28. 22f
    Settings → Arpeggiator → Arp Up, Arp rate 5/beat, Rhythm 3/8; hold a chord. [five steps a beat, three of every eight sounding]; Rotate 1 [the hits move]; Arp Off, Rhythm back to XXXXXXXX, Rotate 0, Arp rate 1/16. Settings → Play → Note repeat By row; hold a bottom-row and a second-row melody pad. [2 against 3 per beat]; Note repeat Off.
29. 22g
    Root C, M1. Settings → Chords → Pivot to G MAJOR. [PIVOT TO G MAJOR; C and Am columns pulse, Em and G glow, F dims]; play Am [ii IN G: D7>G]; press root G [NOW IN G MAJOR, lights normal]; root C.
30. 22h
    Settings → Chords → Capture SET 8, ●. [CAPTURE: PLAY CHORDS]; from the DAW send A minor, F, C, G as chords. [CAPTURE 4/12 G]; ● Center. [SET 8 IN A MINOR, root A, M6, the bottom row plays Am F C G]; Chord set Scale, root C, M1.
31. 22i
    Settings → Strum → Strum Up; last item Reset options, ●. [RESET STRUM OPTIONS?, CANCEL selected]; ●. [NOTHING WAS RESET, Strum still Up]; ●, ▲, ●. [STRUM OPTIONS RESET, Strum Off].
32. 22j
    Settings → Steps → Lane L1, Kind Drums, Steps ●. [L1 DRUMS 16 1/16]; tap the top row's 1st and 9th pads [amber]; tap ● Center. [a kick on beats 1 and 3, the playing step white, <BACK O STOP >49-64]; tap ● again [it stops]; hold ● [REC: PLAY THE PADS], tap ● [it ends]; tap both pads off.
33. 22k
    Settings → Layout → Chords on Right. [the right half lit as chords, the left as the scale; the right half's bottom-left pad plays C, the left half's bottom row C D E …]; Chords on Left.
34. 22l
    Root C, M1. Settings → Effects → Harmony 3rd; play C, then D on the melody pads. [C+E, then D+F; HARM 3RD on the play screen]; Harmony Off. Echo 1/8, tap C. [C four times, each quieter, eighths apart]; Echo Off. Settings → Effects → Mono On; hold C, touch G, lift G. [G replaces C, then C comes back]; Mono Off. Settings → Arpeggiator → Arp Up, Chance 50 %, hold a chord. [about half the steps play, different each time]; Chance 100 %, Arp Off.
35. 22m
    (1.7) L1 Drums with the kick on steps 1 and 9 (22j), Steps ●: hold step 9, ▼ Down to RATCHET, ▶ Right twice, let go; Transport ●. [a roll of three on beat 3]; ◀ Left, Direction Reverse [backwards: the roll now comes before the plain kick]; Euclid 5 [LANE FILLED]; Transport ● again.
36. 23
    Send a C major chord from the DAW to the board. [matching pads light up]
37. 23a
    Settings → MIDI → Scale lock CH 16; from the DAW send C♯, then F♯ on channel 16. [C, then F, on the melody channel]; Scale lock Off.
38. 24
    Web editor: Connect, scale library, Find by notes C E♭ F♯, pick Blues, Play it on the TB. [BLUES on the board]. Custom scales: U5, Start from Blues, Save, Use it on the TB. [while editing, the pads showed the scale and the screen said WEB EDITOR] Progressions: P2, Key A Natural minor, type Am D Dm Am C G E7 Am, Save to P2. [D and E7 outlined]; on the board root A, M6, Progression 2, ▲ Up [the song plays].
39. 25
    Web editor: Download settings backup; Restore from file. [Restored n of n records]
40. 26
    Settings → About. [2.0; the editor's header says TBOSS 2.0.8, its build number]. Settings → Pads → Pad test: rest a finger lightly on a pad, then press it. [PAD a/b/c: that pad's resting level + 700 / + 300 / + 2500; each row ends with its pad's resting level, the bottom line REST lo-hi; its number rises; *, PEAK and LAST VEL appear once it plays]; Trigger +500 [lighter touches play]; Release +400 [OUT OF RANGE: too close to Trigger]; Trigger back to +700.
41. 26a
    Hammer one melody pad as fast as you can, with the DAW recording. [every hit is a note, none stays on]; a light tap and a hard strike [the hard one much louder].
42. 26b
    (1.7) Settings → Layout → Layout Bass; tap the bottom-left pad and the one to its right in turn, fast. [a low C on every hit, each as loud as struck, none stays on]; Settings → Chords → Spread of Chord, a chord pad, Spread I [SPREAD I CHORD, the chord wider]; Spread of Root.
43. 26c
    (1.7) Settings → MIDI → Melody prog 5 [the synth on the melody channel changes sound]; Program in CH 16, a DAW clip sending program 1 on channel 16 [PRESET 1 LOADED]; both back to Off.
44. 26d
    (1.8) Settings → Expression → MPE Melody, Settings → Expression → Melody AT Channel AT, an MPE sound on the computer (MPE); hold two melody pads and lean into one [only its note changes]; Glide Roll, hold the bottom-left melody pad and roll onto the pad to its right [the note slides up to it, no new note]; Glide Off, MPE Off.
45. 27
    TRS out to a synth (Type A adapter), play. [the synth plays]
46. 28
    Sustain pedal plugged in before power-up; Settings → About → I/O test, press it. [PEDAL PA10 ... DOWN while pressed]; then Settings → Pedal → Mode Sustain, play with it. [SUS on screen, notes sustain]; Mode Off.
47. 29
    Power off and on. [settings, presets, chord panel and U5 come back]