Plugins and your own sounds

Get plugins

JamSesh plays CLAP and VST3 instruments and effects, each in its own process, so a crashing plugin can't take your song down. Good free ones: Surge XT and Vital (synths), Dexed (FM keys and bells), Odin 2 (analog-style). Their installers put them in the usual folder.

Use a plugin

1. On an instrument track, open the instrument menu and choose Plugin instrument….
2. The first time, press Scan for plugins. Installed somewhere else? Add folder….
3. Edit opens the plugin's own window: choose its presets there. What you set is saved with your project.

Effects: in the mixer press FX on a track, then Plugin….

Your library

Library in the top bar opens your sounds and instruments, and the ones that came with JamSesh. They live in Documents\JamSesh\Library, one folder per category.

1. Record your own: press ● Record sounds, make your sounds with a little silence between them (five kicks, a hum, a whistle…), then ■ Stop recording.
2. Each sound comes out on its own. Press ▶ to hear one, untick the ones you don't want.
3. Give a name and a category (Beatbox, Hum, Whistle, or your own) and press Save. Several sounds become "Kick 1", "Kick 2"…

Got sounds on your phone or computer? Drag the files from Explorer onto the library: they land in the category you have open (or My sounds). WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A and AIFF.

Drag a sound out of the library and drop it where you want it. While you drag, the place lights up and says what will happen:

• On a track: a clip right there. On an instrument track: that track plays it.
• On Add a track or the empty strip beside it: a new track.
• On a pad: that pad plays it.
• On Keys: the keys play it.
• On the orb in Sounds: it becomes a layer. Anywhere else in Sounds: it opens there.
• Press Esc to let go without dropping.

• Press ▶ on any sound to hear it; press again to stop.
• Use… puts a sound on a new pad, on the timeline at the playhead, on the keys, or on a new instrument track.
• Everywhere you choose an instrument (the keys, a track, a hum lane) and on every pad there is From the library….
• ✎ renames, ⇄ moves to another category, 🗑 deletes (only your own sounds).

Make your own sounds

Open any sound in Sounds: drag a sound file from your phone or Explorer into it, ◉ next to a sound in the library, ✨ New sound, Sounds in the top bar, Open in Sounds on a clip or a pad, or ◉ on a sound you just recorded. Your sound becomes a glowing orb.

1. Tap the orb to hear it.
2. Around it sit effects: Drive, Crush, Filter, Reverb, Echo (and more with + effect, like Vibrato, Auto-pan and Width). Drag one toward the orb: the closer, the stronger. The orb changes with it — spiky with drive, wide with reverb.
3. Tap an effect (or press Enter on it) to open all its knobs. Every knob has ∿ move: let it swing by itself — sine, triangle, square or random, synced to the beat (1/16 up to 4 bars) or free in Hz, as deep as you like. Echo time sweeping, a filter opening and closing, vibrato that wobbles. Back to the pull puts the knobs back.
4. Drag the orb left or right to place the sound in stereo. Under the pan on the left, ∿ move level makes it pulse and ∿ move pan sends it from left to right and back.
5. In a hurry? Press a style: EDM bass, 808, Lo-fi, Robot, Huge room. Then keep pulling to make it yours.
6. On the left: pitch (lower is also longer, like a tape), length (keeps the pitch), gain, trim, fades and reverse.
7. + layer adds another sound that plays at the same time, with its own pitch, level and timing. Or open Library (top right) and drag a sound onto the orb; files from Explorer work too.
8. Loop plays it on every bar while you edit, and Music under it plays your song beneath it.
9. Save…: name it and pick a category (My sounds to start with). It lands in your library, ready for pads, keys and your beatbox. Open it again later and everything is as you left it; Save as new keeps the old one.

Keep a setting you like as your own style with Save as style.

Your own samples

• Drag sound files (WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A, AIFF) from Explorer onto an audio track, or onto a pad.
• To play a sound on the keys, open its clip's inspector (⚙) and press Make instrument. JamSesh finds its note and a loop point so it can hold.
• A loop or a pad can become an instrument the same way: Instrument on a loop, Make instrument on a pad.
• Fine-tune a sampler with Keys then Edit: start, end, loop, root note, attack and release.

Allowed to use?

Only use samples and presets you may use in your music: royalty-free packs, your own recordings, or the plugin's own sounds.