Skip to Content
DocsInterface Overview

Interface Overview

The Tabbal window is organized into five horizontal zones, top to bottom:

  • Title (“ṬABBĀL”) on the left
  • Save Set / Load Set buttons on the right — save and restore complete session files

Transport Bar

  • Play/Stop button (standalone) or DAW transport badge (plugin mode)
  • BPM — editable in standalone, read-only when hosted in a DAW
  • Time Signature — numerator and denominator controls
  • Swing — rotary dial
  • Global Mute/Solo clear buttons
  • View toggles — Animate, Transcription, Monitor

Grid

  • MIDI OUT selector (top-left corner)
  • Column headers with beat numbers and playhead highlight
  • Page navigator — Prev/Next buttons for multi-page patterns
  • Row stack — scrollable rows, each containing a strip of grid cells
  • Row controls — clip selector, note selector, velocity dial, mute/solo, scale/nudge steppers

Pattern Presets

  • 8 bank buttons (top row) — select which bank is playing
  • 8 layer slots per bank (bottom row) — for layering multiple patterns

Status Bar

  • Clip count display
  • Clear all steps button — deactivates every cell in the current pattern
  • Reset button — restores factory defaults

Transport Controls

BPM

The BPM field shows the current tempo. In standalone mode, click the field and type a value or use the up/down arrows to adjust (range: 20–300). In plugin mode, the field is read-only and displays the DAW’s tempo.

Time Signature

Two number fields control the time signature:

  • Numerator — range 1–32, steps of 1
  • Denominator — cycles through 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16

The denominator determines how the grid is divided:

  • Denominators 1, 2, 4, or 8 — each beat is split into two columns: the beat and its ”&” (offbeat). For example, 4/4 gives 8 columns, 7/8 gives 14 columns
  • Denominator 16 — each beat is a single column with no split. 10/16 gives 10 columns

Swing

A rotary dial that shifts offbeat (”&”) columns forward in time, creating a swing feel. Drag vertically to adjust. Display range: 0–66.6%. Swing only affects beat-split grids (denominators 1–8); 16th-mode grids are unaffected.

Play / Stop

  • Standalone: a toggle button that starts and stops the internal transport
  • Plugin (DAW-hosted): a read-only badge showing the DAW’s current play state — transport is controlled from the DAW

Global Mute / Solo Clear

Two small circular buttons in the transport bar:

  • M — lights up when any row is muted; click to clear all row mutes at once
  • S — lights up when any row is soloed; click to clear all row solos at once

View Toggles

  • Animate — enables playback flash animations on cells as they trigger. The playhead column highlight is always visible regardless of this setting
  • Transcription — switches between two cell display modes:
    • On: cells show rhythmic notation — horizontal pills representing the clip’s MIDI notes, with vertical position reflecting pitch and opacity reflecting velocity
    • Off: cells show a single dot per active step
  • Monitor — when enabled, clicking a row’s note up/down arrows plays a one-shot MIDI preview of that row’s root note
Last updated on
Quick StartThe Grid