Docs · Getting started
Make your first sound in Melody
Melody is a modular synth: you connect nodes on a canvas and the patch you draw becomes the instrument you hear. Here's the fastest way in.
How a Melody patch works
Everything is a node — a small building block such as an oscillator, a drum, a filter, or a sequencer. You wire a node's output to another node's input, and signal flows along the wire. To actually hear a patch, its sound has to reach a Speaker node (your output). That's the whole model: sources → processing → a Speaker.
Your first minute
- Open Melody. It greets you with a guided start — you can follow a short path, or dismiss it and explore the canvas.
- Drop a ready-made rig. The quickest way to hear something is a preset rig — a complete instrument or effect chain wired up for you. Add one, then press play.
- Or patch a voice yourself. Add a sound source (an oscillator) and a Speaker, then drag from the source's output to the Speaker's input. You'll hear a tone straight away.
- Add notes or rhythm. Bring in a Piano Roll or a Step Sequencer to play a melody or a beat, and a Clock to set the tempo. Wire them into your voice.
- Shape it. Insert effects (filter, reverb, delay) between the source and the Speaker, and turn the dials to taste.
- Keep it. Save the whole project, or export a recording to an audio file.
Where to go next
Explore the palette — there are 150+ node types, from wavetable synths and a
physically-modelled drum machine to a sampler, an arranger, chord tools, MIDI and
SoundFont import, and live visual analysers. Try importing a .mid file into
a Piano Roll, or load a SoundFont (.sf2) to play a full instrument.