Editing
There is no Apply button. A control you move is set on the document at once,
and the name shows a * until you save. Nothing on the instrument changes until
you queue the document and send it.
The document header
Every document has the same strip across the top: its kind and name, a format
badge, where it lives (a slot, a folder, or this computer), its size, and its
state: edited, matches keyboard, differs from keyboard, waiting to send
or on the keyboard. Hover any of them for the detail.
To the right are the two faces, Revert, Export…, and the document’s
main action, usually Queue send. That action is grayed out when there is
nowhere to send to, and becomes a warning such as Won't fit · 70 MB over when
the send cannot happen yet.
A document that belongs to a slot on the connected instrument also has Load on instrument, which makes the panel play that slot. The panel plays what the instrument holds there, so edits you have not sent are not heard.
The faces
- Basic is the sound’s controls, in the instrument’s own words.
- Advanced is the record of the bytes, top to bottom:
- About this file: what the file says about itself. Set lists, WAVs, files with nothing to edit and bytes drawbar could not read have none.
- Container: what the file’s header states, and whether its checksum matches.
- On the instrument, for a document read from a slot: what the instrument reports about that slot.
- The body. For a program, live slot, settings file or preset this is Every field, a table that includes values the Basic face does not draw. Raw is the value as last saved. Type into the Writes column to set a field. A value the field cannot hold is refused, with the reason. A field changed since the last save is highlighted and marked with a pencil, and the count above the table says how many there are. Samples and pianos list what drawbar can edit in them and where each edit lands in the file. A set list shows its four stored slots, and a file with nothing to edit shows its Body bytes. A WAV and bytes drawbar could not read have no body to show.
Programs, live slots, settings and presets
These open on a panel divided into sections the way the instrument’s is, with a
strip of chips at the top to jump between them. Each field is drawn as the
control the panel uses: a lamp for a switch, a menu for a selector, a knob with
the panel’s own reading, drawbars you pull down, a grid for a pattern. A value
drawbar has no name for reads unrecognized value (6) with a warning mark, and
stays in its menu so you can change back to it.
Every control answers the keyboard. Tab reaches it, the arrow keys step a knob, Page Up and Page Down jump it, Home and End take it to its stops, and Space flips a lamp. Double-click a knob to type a value.
Where a program refers to a piano or sample by id, drawbar asks the connected instrument for its name and shows it. Sections the program stores but is not using are folded away.
A control with a morph shows three dots. Pick a morph source from the MORPH chips and every morphed control shows that source’s target instead. Editing then writes the morph.
Set lists
A set list opens as the programs it plays, one row each, with its bank and slot, the program’s name where drawbar knows it, and whether the entry resolves. Drag rows to reorder them.
Notes
A text file opens as a box you type in: the set list, the cues, what the desk
needs. A .txt, a .md or any other plain text file opens this way, and
New ▸ Text note starts an empty one.
A note is saved, reverted, renamed, filed, tagged and exported like anything else on the list. The header counts its lines where another document’s header gives its size. Notes stay on this computer; see What is supported.
Files with nothing to edit
A file drawbar recognizes but cannot yet edit opens with what the container says, and its bytes are under Body bytes on the Advanced face. It can still be sent, copied and tagged, and goes back to the instrument byte for byte as it came off.
Sample instruments and piano libraries have editors of their own. See Samples and Pianos.