Manual

Foundry 1.0.6 · Windows and Linux

Foundry User Manual

Foundry is a digital audio workstation: you record and arrange audio, write parts with a piano roll and a drum machine, mix them with 33 built-in effects and your own VST3 plugins, and export the finished song. This manual explains every part of it, from installing Foundry to the last keyboard shortcut.

Foundry with a song open. The screenshots in this manual show this demo song: drums and bass in a folder, keys through an arpeggiator, a pad, a lead and a reverb.

How to use this manual. Read Getting started first: it installs Foundry, activates your licence, tours the window and walks you through your first song. After that, use the contents below to jump to whatever you need. Sections link to each other wherever one feature works with another, and every chapter can be read on its own.

In Foundry, ? → User manual… (or F1) opens this manual in your browser; it comes with Foundry, so it works offline too.

In the text, bold names a button, menu or field exactly as it appears on screen, and key combinations are written like Ctrl+S. On Linux the keys are the same as on Windows.

Contents

• Getting started
  • Welcome to Foundry: What you need
  • Installing Foundry: Windows installer · Windows portable · Ubuntu and Debian · Fedora and openSUSE · AppImage · Snap package · Flatpak · Updating Foundry
  • Your licence: The demo · Activating with your key · Activating a computer without internet · Licences on several computers
  • A tour of the window: The top bar · The transport · The arrangement area · The inspector · The bottom panel · The status bar
  • Your first song
• Projects and files
  • Projects: Saving and opening · Opening projects with plugins · Autosave and recovery · Undo and redo
  • Templates
  • Where Foundry keeps its files
• Tracks and the arrangement
  • Tracks: Kinds of track · Adding tracks · Track headers · Colours and icons · Finding tracks · Folders · Where a track starts
  • The arrangement: Moving around · The ruler · Snap · Arrangement tools · Double-clicking a clip · Cut, copy and paste · Moving clips and regions · Clip gain and fades · Crossfades · Nudging · Adding bars at the start
  • Markers
  • Looping: Loop markers · Return
  • Playing and stopping: Going to a bar or time
  • Tempo and time signature: The tempo map · The metronome
• Editing
  • Audio tracks and clips
  • The waveform editor: Selecting audio · Editing audio · Processing audio · Stretch · Beat detection
  • The piano roll: Opening one clip · Piano roll tools · Drawing notes · Selecting and editing notes · Key and scale · Drawing chords · Quantize and humanize · Velocity · Controller lanes
  • MIDI effects: Arpeggiator · Chord · Note repeat · Velocity effect
  • Instruments: The built-in synth · The sampler · Plugin instruments
  • The drum machine: Programming a beat · Pads · Velocity and chance · Swing · Long patterns and drum clips · Painting drums in the arrangement · Saving and sharing drum tracks
• Recording
  • Recording audio: Recording settings · Punch recording · Loop recording · Takes and comping · Lining up takes
  • Recording MIDI
• Mixing
  • The mixer: Mute and solo · Meters · Resetting a control
  • Routing and buses
  • Sends and returns
  • VCA groups
  • Built-in effects: Adding and editing effects · Presets · Effect windows · The effects · Sidechain · The spectrum analyser
  • The master channel
  • Reference tracks
  • Automation: Opening the automation window · Drawing and editing points · Recording automation · Watching automation play
• Plugins
  • VST3 plugins: Loading a plugin · Plugin windows · Plugin parameters · Plugin presets · Freezing a track · Crash-safe plugins · The plugin crash log · Plugins in projects · Plugins on Linux
• Importing and exporting
  • Importing: The sample browser · What you can import
  • Exporting audio
  • MIDI files
• MIDI hardware
  • MIDI devices: MIDI clock
  • MIDI Learn: Assigning controls · Mappings · Encoders, range and invert · Feedback to the controller
• Settings and help
  • Audio settings
  • Pop-out windows
  • Keyboard shortcuts: Changing shortcuts · Transport keys · Marker keys · Editing keys · Piano roll keys · Project and view keys
  • Tips
  • Troubleshooting: No sound · Crackles or dropouts · Recordings land late · A plugin does not load · A plugin stops working · A plugin window is too small or too large on Linux · Foundry does not start on Linux · Foundry will not save or export · The mix clips · A project opens without some plugins · A MIDI device does not appear
  • Glossary
  • Support and legal <!– /CONTENTS –>

---

Getting started

Welcome to Foundry

Foundry gives you everything needed to make a song on one screen:

• Audio tracks for recordings and samples, edited without ever changing the original audio. See Audio tracks and clips.
• MIDI tracks with a piano roll that knows your key and scale, builds chords for you and records from a MIDI keyboard. See The piano roll.
• Drum tracks with a step sequencer, per-step velocity and chance, swing, and your own samples on any pad. See The drum machine.
• A mixer with buses, sends, VCA groups, a master chain and meters everywhere. See The mixer.
• 33 built-in effects with 330 presets, sidechain compression and a spectrum analyser. See Built-in effects.
• VST3 plugins, each running in a protected process of its own, so a plugin that crashes never takes your song down with it. See VST3 plugins.
• Automation of every fader, effect setting and plugin parameter. See Automation.
• Export to WAV, FLAC or MP3, as a mix or as stems, normalized to streaming loudness if you like. See Exporting audio.

Everything you do can be undone with Ctrl+Z (see Undo and redo), and everything is saved in one project file (see Projects).

What you need

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, or 64-bit Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 and newer, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE and others).
• Any sound card. An audio interface with an ASIO driver gives the lowest delay on Windows; on Linux, JACK or PipeWire does. See Audio settings.
• Optional: a MIDI keyboard or controller (see MIDI devices), a microphone or instrument input (see Recording audio), and VST3 plugins built for your system (see VST3 plugins).

Installing Foundry

Download the file for your system from your order or from the downloads page. Every version installs the same Foundry; choose the one that suits how you like to install software.

After installing, start Foundry and activate your licence. Until you do, Foundry runs as a demo.

Windows installer

1. Run Foundry-Setup-1.0.6.exe.
2. Windows may show Windows protected your PC, because the installer is not code-signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
3. On the welcome page, choose Next. Read the licence agreement and choose I Agree.
4. Choose the parts to install: Open .reel projects with Foundry (so double-clicking a project opens it) and Desktop shortcut are optional.
5. Keep the suggested folder, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Foundry, or choose another, then choose Install.
6. Leave Start Foundry ticked and choose Finish.

Foundry installs for your Windows account only, so it needs no administrator rights, and it appears in the Start menu. To remove it, open Settings → Apps → Installed apps, find Foundry and choose Uninstall. Uninstalling keeps your projects, settings and presets (see Where Foundry keeps its files).

Windows portable

The portable version needs no installation and leaves nothing behind on the computer.

1. Unzip Foundry-1.0.6-win-x64-portable.zip anywhere: your documents, another drive, or a USB stick.
2. Open the unzipped folder and run Foundry.exe.

Its data folder, beside Foundry.exe, holds all its settings, recent projects, autosaves, templates, presets and its licence, so you can move or copy the whole folder to another computer and carry on. Keep the folder together: Foundry.exe does not work on its own. Windows may warn about it on first run in the same way as the installer.

Ubuntu and Debian

In a terminal, in the folder where you downloaded the file:

sudo apt install ./foundry_1.0.6_amd64.deb

apt also installs anything Foundry needs. Foundry appears in your application menu, the foundry command starts it, and .reel projects open in it when you double-click them. The package includes the security profile that Ubuntu 23.10 and later need for Foundry’s window sandbox, so it simply starts.

To remove it: sudo apt remove foundry. Your settings in ~/.config/Foundry are kept.

Fedora and openSUSE

sudo dnf install ./foundry-1.0.6-1.x86_64.rpm

On openSUSE, use sudo zypper install ./foundry-1.0.6-1.x86_64.rpm. As with the .deb, this adds Foundry to the menu, the foundry command and .reel files. The package is not signed, so it installs as a local file without a signature check.

To remove it: sudo dnf remove foundry (or sudo zypper remove foundry).

AppImage

The AppImage is one file that runs on almost any Linux without installing:

chmod +x Foundry-1.0.6-x86_64.AppImage
./Foundry-1.0.6-x86_64.AppImage

You can also double-click it after making it executable. It needs FUSE, which desktop Linux has; on a minimal system, install fuse3. On Ubuntu 23.10 and later an AppImage cannot use Chromium’s window sandbox, so Foundry starts without it and says so; plugins still run in their own protected processes. On Ubuntu, the .deb keeps the sandbox and is the better choice.

Snap package

sudo snap install --dangerous --classic foundry_1.0.6_amd64.snap

--dangerous is needed because the file is not from the Snap Store; --classic lets Foundry reach your plugins, JACK and audio devices like a normal application. Foundry appears in the menu and as the foundry command. To remove it: sudo snap remove foundry.

Flatpak

If Flathub is not set up on your computer yet, add it first, then install Foundry:

flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install --user Foundry-1.0.6-x86_64.flatpak

The first installation downloads the runtime Foundry runs on. Start Foundry from the menu, or with flatpak run io.github.artofscripting.Foundry. The Flatpak can see your home folder, the plugins installed on the system (see Plugins on Linux) and your audio and MIDI devices. To remove it: flatpak uninstall --user io.github.artofscripting.Foundry.

Updating Foundry

Install the new version over the old one, the same way you installed it: run the new installer, or apt install, dnf install, snap install or flatpak install the new file. Your projects, settings, presets and licence are kept. For the portable version, copy the new version’s files over the old folder, keeping its data folder.

Your licence

Foundry needs a licence to save and export. Your licence is for you, on every computer you use for your own music, and it never expires.

The demo

Without a licence, Foundry is a demo: every feature works, but you cannot save projects or templates and you cannot export anything (audio, stems, MIDI files or drum files). Autosave is off too. The Demo · Licence… button in the top bar reminds you, and Foundry tells you when an action needs a licence.

Use the demo to try everything with your own plugins, sound card and controllers before you buy. Choose Licence… → Buy Foundry to open the store.

Activating with your key

Your licence key looks like FDRY-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX. It is in your order email, and under My Account → Foundry licence on the Foundry website.

1. Choose Licence… (or Demo · Licence…) in the top bar.
2. Type or paste your key. Upper or lower case, spaces and missing dashes do not matter.
3. Choose Activate.

Activating needs the internet once. Foundry then keeps a signed licence file on the computer and never needs the internet again: it works offline from then on. The dialog shows who the licence belongs to.

Activating a computer without internet

For a studio computer that is never online:

1. On any device with internet, sign in to the Foundry website and open My Account → Foundry licence.
2. Choose Download licence file. You get a file named Foundry.foundrylicence.
3. Copy it to the offline computer, for example on a USB stick.
4. In Foundry, choose Licence… → Import licence file… and pick the file.

Licences on several computers

Activate each computer you use for your music with the same key, online or with the licence file. There is no limit on the number of computers. Licence… → Remove from this computer takes the licence off a computer you no longer use, and My account… opens your account page.

If an order is refunded, its licence is withdrawn: Foundry removes it the next time it starts with an internet connection.

A tour of the window

The top bar

From left to right:

• The project name. A • after it means there are unsaved changes. See Projects.
• New, Templates…, Open…, Recent…, Save and Save as… manage projects. See Saving and opening and Templates.
• Import… opens the sample browser. See Importing.
• Export… exports the mix or stems. See Exporting audio.
• Audio… chooses the sound card. See Audio settings.
• Licence… shows or activates your licence. See Your licence.
• Undo and Redo. See Undo and redo.
• MIDI ▾ opens MIDI devices, MIDI Learn and controller mappings. See MIDI devices and MIDI Learn.
• Inspector shows or hides the inspector on the right (I).
• ? opens the help: the main keyboard shortcuts, User manual… (this manual, also F1) and the plugin crash log. See Keyboard shortcuts.

The transport

• ■ stops and goes back to the start; Play plays or pauses (Space). See Playing and stopping.
• Record, ⚙ (recording settings) and Punch record audio, or MIDI on a MIDI track. See Recording audio.
• Click turns the metronome on. See The metronome.
• Loop loops playback, and Return brings the playhead back to where you started. See Looping.
• Ref plays a reference track instead of your mix. See Reference tracks.
• Go to jumps to a bar or a time. See Going to a bar or time.
• The position display shows bar.beat.16th, the time, and the song length.
• Tempo, Time and Tempo map… set the tempo and time signature. See Tempo and time signature.
• Master is the listening level, with the master meter beside it. It does not change exports.

The arrangement area

The arrangement fills the middle of the window: one row per track, with the track headers on the left and the tracks’ clips on a shared timeline. Its toolbar adds tracks, chooses the editing tool and holds the editing buttons. See Tracks and The arrangement.

The inspector

The inspector on the right shows the selected track’s settings: its MIDI effects (on a MIDI track), its Track effects with its output, sends and start time, and the Desktop VST3 panel for plugins. See Built-in effects, MIDI effects and VST3 plugins. Hide or show it with Inspector or I.

The bottom panel

The panel at the bottom has two tabs:

• Editor shows the selected track in its own editor: the waveform editor for audio, the piano roll for MIDI, or the drum machine for drums.
• Mixer shows a channel strip for every track. See The mixer.

Drag the bar above the tabs to make the panel taller or shorter. ⧉ Editor and ⧉ Mixer move the panel into a window of its own, for a second monitor. See Pop-out windows.

The status bar

The bar along the bottom of the window shows details of the project and the selected track on the left (tracks, pads, steps, tempo), and Foundry’s latest message on the right: what an action did, or why it could not. When the selected audio clips past full scale, a Clipping — click to normalize button appears there.

Your first song

This walkthrough makes a short song from scratch and touches each main part of Foundry. Each step links to the full explanation.

1. Start a project. Choose New. Set Tempo to the speed you want, for example 100 BPM. See Tempo and time signature.
2. Add drums. Choose + Drums in the arrangement toolbar. The drum machine opens in the bottom panel: click steps on the Kick, Snare and Closed Hat rows to build a beat. Press Space to hear it, and again to stop. See The drum machine.
3. Add a bass line. Choose + MIDI. The piano roll opens: set Key and Scale to your key, tick Lock, and click in the grid to draw notes. Drag a note’s right edge to make it longer. See The piano roll.
4. Add chords. Add another MIDI track, set Chord to Triad, and click once for each chord: Foundry builds the right chord for each step of the scale. See Drawing chords.
5. Add audio. Choose Import…, pick a folder of samples or recordings, and import one, or press Record to record one. See Importing and Recording audio.
6. Arrange. Drag clips along their tracks; copy a bar of drums with Ctrl+C and paste it further on with Ctrl+V. See The arrangement.
7. Loop a section while you work on it: hold Shift and drag across the ruler above the tracks. See Loop markers.
8. Mix. Open the Mixer tab, set the levels and pan, and add an effect such as Reverb to a track from Track effects. See The mixer and Built-in effects.
9. Save. Press Ctrl+S and choose where to keep the project. See Projects.
10. Export. Press Ctrl+E, choose The mix, a format and a loudness, and choose Export. See Exporting audio.

↑ Contents

Projects and files

Projects

A Foundry project is one .reel file that holds the whole song: every track and its settings, all the audio (stored losslessly, as 32-bit float), MIDI notes, drum patterns and pad samples, effects and plugin settings, automation, markers, loop markers, the tempo map, and where you were working (the playhead and the selected track). Copy the file and you have copied the song.

Saving and opening

• Save (Ctrl+S) saves the project. The first time, Foundry asks where to keep it.
• Save as… (Ctrl+Shift+S, or Shift+click Save) saves a copy under a new name; Foundry then works on the copy.
• Open… (Ctrl+O) opens a project. You can also drop a .reel file onto the window, or double-click it in your file manager if you chose that when installing.
• Recent… lists the last 8 projects you saved or opened.
• New starts an empty project.

Whenever something you do would lose unsaved changes (opening another project, starting a new one, closing the window), Foundry asks first. When you close the window it offers Save, Don’t save or Cancel.

Saving is safe: Foundry writes the new file completely before replacing the old one, so a crash during a save never damages your project. A project can hold up to 4 GB.

If your sound card runs at a different sample rate from the project, Foundry converts the project’s audio when it opens it, and says so.

Opening projects with plugins

VST3 plugins run code on your computer, so when a project uses plugins Foundry lists them, by name and file, and asks before loading them. Choose Open without plugins to open everything else. Plugins that you decline, that are missing or that fail to load are left out, and the status bar says how many. See VST3 plugins.

Autosave and recovery

While a project has unsaved changes, Foundry saves a recovery copy every minute (for projects with less than 1 GB of audio). If Foundry or the computer stops before you save, the next start offers to recover the project. Recovering does not overwrite your file: Save then saves to the original project.

Autosave is off in the demo.

Undo and redo

Undo (Ctrl+Z) and Redo (Ctrl+Y) cover everything that changes the song: edits, effect and mixer settings, tracks added or removed, automation, markers, tempo changes and plugin chains. Foundry keeps the last 100 steps. A fader or knob move counts as one step when you let go, however far you dragged it. Opening a project starts a fresh history.

Templates

A template is a starting point for new songs: your usual tracks, routing, sends, effects, plugins with their settings, instruments and drum kits.

• Save a template: set up a project, choose Templates…, type a name and choose Save template. Tick Keep the content too to keep the clips, notes, drum steps, automation and markers as well.
• Start from a template: choose Templates… and New from this beside a template. You get a new, unsaved project; if the template has plugins, Foundry asks before loading them, as when opening a project.
• Delete removes a template.

Saving a template needs a licence (see The demo).

Where Foundry keeps its files

Your projects are saved wherever you choose. Foundry’s own files (recent projects, autosaves, templates, plugin presets, your licence and the plugin crash log) are kept in its settings folder:

Any copy of the Windows app folder becomes portable when you create a data folder beside Foundry.exe. Uninstalling Foundry never removes the settings folder.

↑ Contents

Tracks and the arrangement

Tracks

Kinds of track

Any track can also receive other tracks and work as a bus, and a track that only receives sends is a return. See Routing and buses.

Adding tracks

The arrangement toolbar adds tracks below the others:

• + Audio adds empty audio tracks: as many as the Add box says (up to 1,000 at a time).
• + MIDI adds a MIDI track.
• + Drums adds a drum track with six pads (kick, snare, closed and open hat, clap and tom).
• Duplicate copies the selected track completely, right below it: its clips (sharing the same audio), notes or drum pattern, mixer settings, output, sends, effects with their settings, and automation. Each plugin becomes a new copy with the same settings.
• Folder puts the selected track, or every track in the selected range, into a new folder. See Folders.

Importing files and recording also add tracks.

Track headers

Each track’s header has two lines.

First line:

• The number selects the track. Clicking the name or the track’s lane selects it too. The selected track is the one the inspector and the editor show.
• The colour swatch shows the track’s icon, or a symbol for its kind. Click it to choose a colour and icon. See Colours and icons.
• ▾ on a folder folds its tracks away; ▸ shows them again.
• The name. Double-click it to rename the track: Enter or clicking elsewhere keeps the new name, Esc cancels.
• FX 3 (for example) shows how many effects the track has; point at it to see them.
• T opens the track’s recorded takes, on audio tracks that have them. See Takes and comping.
• A opens the track’s automation. It lights up when the track has automation. See Automation.
• × removes the track. Undo brings it back.

Second line:

• M mutes the track and S solos it.
• The volume fader, from −∞ to +12 dB, with its value beside it.
• The pan control: C is the centre, L and R the sides.
• The level meter, under the controls. See Meters.

Every slider and value in Foundry goes back to its default when you right-click it twice. See Resetting a control.

Colours and icons

Click a track’s colour swatch to choose one of 16 colours, or Auto for the automatic one, and an icon for the instrument (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, strings and more). The colour is used everywhere the track appears: its lane and clips, the mixer, and the automation and takes windows.

Finding tracks

Type in Find tracks (Ctrl+F) in the arrangement toolbar to show only the tracks whose name matches; folder names are searched too. Enter selects the first match and Esc clears the search.

Folders

A folder groups tracks so they play through one fader and one set of effects, and so you can fold them away.

1. Select a track, or drag a range across several tracks.
2. Choose Folder in the arrangement toolbar.

The folder is added above the tracks, and they now play into it: they are indented under it, the folder’s lane shows their content, and the folder’s volume, pan, effects, sends, mute and solo apply to all of them. Folders can be nested. To take a track out of a folder, set its Output to Main or another track (see Routing and buses). Removing a folder sends its tracks back to Main.

Where a track starts

Every track has a start time. Drag a track’s content with Shift held to move the whole track, or type the time in Start (in seconds) in the inspector. See Moving clips and regions.

The arrangement

Moving around

• Ctrl+scroll zooms in and out around the mouse pointer; the −, Fit and + buttons do the same, and Fit shows the whole song.
• Shift+scroll, or the scroll bar under the tracks, moves left and right. Plain scrolling moves up and down through the tracks.
• While playing, the view follows the playhead.

The ruler

The ruler above the tracks shows the bars, and:

• Click or drag on it to move the playhead.
• Markers (teal flags): double-click to add one, drag to move it, right-click to delete it. See Markers.
• The loop band (brass when Loop is on): Shift+drag to draw it, drag its brackets to move them, right-click it to clear it. See Loop markers.
• Tempo and time-signature changes, shown in brass at their bar. See The tempo map.

Snap

The Snap menu sets the grid that edits lock to: None, Measure, Beat, 1/2 beat, 1/4 beat, 1/8 beat, or triplets (1/3 beat, 1/6 beat). With Snap on, the tracks show the grid, and clicking, ranges, splits and moves land on it: a moved clip starts on a grid line. Hold Alt while you drag or click to ignore the grid for that action. The grid follows the tempo map.

Arrangement tools

Choose a tool in the arrangement toolbar, or press 1 to 5 after clicking in the arrangement:

Double-clicking a clip

Double-click a clip to open it in the editor below, showing only that clip:

• an audio clip opens in the waveform editor, framed and selected;
• a MIDI clip opens in the piano roll, with its notes selected and the rest of the track shaded (CLIP in the corner);
• a drum clip opens in the drum machine, showing only its steps.

Whole track, in the editor’s toolbar, shows the whole track again.

Cut, copy and paste

These work on the selected clips, or on a time range you selected across tracks, while the arrangement was the last thing you clicked:

• Nothing moves along: cutting and deleting leave a gap, and pasting replaces what is there, so the rest of the song keeps its time.
• Repeated pastes line up: a paste selects what it pasted and moves the playhead to its end, so pressing Ctrl+V again pastes the next copy right after it.
• Choosing where a paste goes: clicking a track’s lane selects the track and puts the playhead there. The playhead can be past the end of the music.
• Before a track’s start: pasting earlier than where a track starts makes the track start earlier, and everything already on it stays where it was.
• Each kind keeps to its own kind: audio pastes onto audio tracks, MIDI notes onto MIDI tracks and drum hits onto drum tracks. A paste onto the wrong kind of track goes back to the track it was copied from.
• Drums: a drum track normally repeats one pattern. The first edit across it turns it into one long pattern that sounds the same, so you can then change any bar on its own. Pasting drums onto another drum track adds any pads it is missing, with their samples.

Every edit is one undo step. When the arrangement is not the last thing you clicked, these keys go to the editor in the bottom panel instead.

Moving clips and regions

With the Select tool, drag a clip to move it along its track. It replaces whatever it lands on. With Snap on, its start lands on the grid; hold Alt to place it freely.

MIDI and drum tracks hold regions, blocks of notes or hits that move on their own like audio clips. A track you never cut or pasted is one region. A paste becomes its own region, and splitting cuts a region in two, even between notes.

Shift+drag moves the whole track, everything on it together.

Clip gain and fades

With the Edit tool, the top edge of every audio clip has two small square handles:

• Drag the left handle to the right for a fade-in, and the right handle to the left for a fade-out. Fades show as shaded ramps.
• Drag anywhere else on the top edge up or down to change the clip’s gain, from −60 dB (silence) to +12 dB. Hold Shift for fine steps. The gain is shown on the clip.

Each drag is one undo step.

Crossfades

Where two audio clips meet (touching, or within 10 ms), Crossfade in the arrangement toolbar blends them smoothly over the Length beside it (30 ms unless you change it). It crossfades every boundary in the selected range, or, without a range, the boundary nearest the playhead on the selected track. Each clip reaches into its own audio to make the overlap, so nothing is lost.

Nudging

Alt+← and Alt+→ move the selected range in the arrangement one grid step (the Snap setting, or a beat); Alt+Shift+←/→ move it a bar. Audio, notes and drums all move, replacing what they land on. In the piano roll, the same keys move the selected notes. See Selecting and editing notes.

Adding bars at the start

To make room before the song, for an intro or a count-in, type a number of bars beside Add bars at start and choose it (or press Enter in the box). Everything moves later by that many bars: every track and clip, markers, loop markers, tempo changes and automation. The new bars use the song’s starting tempo and time signature. It is one undo step.

Markers

Markers name places in the song: Intro, Verse, Chorus.

• M adds a marker at the playhead. On the ruler, double-click to add one.
• , and . jump to the previous and next marker.
• On the ruler, drag a marker to move it (it snaps; Alt places it freely) and right-click it to delete it.
• Markers in the arrangement toolbar lists them: rename them, click a time to jump there, and × to delete. Add at playhead adds one.

Markers are kept in beats, so they stay on their bar when you change the tempo. They are saved with the project and can be undone.

Looping

Loop (L) makes playback repeat. What it repeats:

1. the loop markers, when you have set them;
2. otherwise, the selection;
3. otherwise, the whole song, up to the end of its last bar.

If the playhead is outside the loop when you press Play, playback starts at the loop’s start.

Loop markers

Loop markers are a start and an end on the ruler that Loop plays between, so you can repeat a section while you work on it.

• Draw them: hold Shift and drag across the ruler. They snap to the grid (hold Alt as well to place them freely). Drawing them also turns Loop on.
• Set them at the playhead: Ctrl+[ sets the start and Ctrl+] sets the end. With no loop yet, the other end goes one bar away.
• Move an end: drag its bracket.
• Clear them: right-click the band. Loop then plays the selection or the whole song again.

The band is brass while Loop is on, and grey while it is off. Changing the loop while playing takes effect at once. Loop markers are saved with the project, can be undone, follow tempo changes, and move with Add bars at start.

Return

With Return on, pausing puts the playhead back where playback started, ready to play the same part again. With it off, the playhead stays where you paused. ■ always goes back to the very start. Foundry remembers the setting.

Playing and stopping

You can change almost anything while the song plays (levels, effects, notes, clips, the tempo) and hear it at once. Playback does not stop.

The position display shows where you are as bar.beat.16th (5.1.1 is the first beat of bar 5), with the time and the song’s length beside it.

Going to a bar or time

Click the Go to box (or press G), type a bar (17), a bar and beat (17.3) or a time (1:23.5 or 83s), and press Enter.

Tempo and time signature

Tempo sets the speed in beats per minute (20 to 300, with up to two decimals), and Time sets the time signature: beats per bar (1 to 32) over the beat unit (2, 4, 8 or 16). These are the song’s starting values; changes later in the song go in the tempo map.

MIDI notes, drum steps, markers and the grid are kept in beats, so changing the tempo makes them play faster or slower. Audio clips stay where they are in time; use Stretch to fit audio to a new tempo, or beat detection to find an audio file’s tempo.

The tempo map

Tempo map… lists tempo and time-signature changes later in the song.

1. Put the playhead in the bar where the change should start.
2. Choose Tempo map…, then Add a change at the playhead.
3. Set its Bar, its BPM, and if you like a new time signature. Leave a field empty to keep what was there before. × removes a change.

Changes start on a bar line, and the ruler shows each one in brass. MIDI notes, drums, markers, the grid, bar numbers and controller lanes follow the map everywhere: in playback, in exports and in MIDI files. Plugins are told the tempo and bar at each point. Audio clips stay where they are. The built-in tempo-synced delays use the starting tempo.

The metronome

Click (C) plays a click on every beat, higher on the first beat of each bar, following the tempo map (a 6/8 bar clicks in eighths). In the recording settings (⚙) you choose whether it plays Whenever it is on or Only while recording, its Level, and a Count-in of one or two bars before recording. The click is never exported.

↑ Contents

Editing

Audio tracks and clips

An audio track holds clips. A clip is a window onto a piece of audio: where it starts, which part of the audio it plays, its gain and its fades. Cutting, moving, trimming, splitting and copying only change those windows, never the audio itself, so they are instant at any length, nothing is ever lost, and copies of a clip share the same audio. Only the processing commands (gain, fades, normalize, reverse, stretch) write new audio, and only for the part they change.

In the arrangement, each clip is drawn as its own block; see Moving clips and regions, Clip gain and fades and Crossfades. The waveform editor below works on the selected track in detail.

The waveform editor

Select an audio track and the bottom panel’s Editor tab shows its waveform, left channel above right, with the bars along the bottom and clip boundaries marked in teal.

Selecting audio

• Drag across the waveform to select. Drag the brass edges of a selection to adjust it.
• [ and ] set the start and the end of the selection at the playhead.
• Select all (Ctrl+A) selects the whole clip.
• Click inside a selection to clear it.
• Scroll to zoom and Shift+scroll to move along; −, Fit and + (or −, 0, +) zoom out, show everything and zoom in. Height makes the waveform taller, to see quiet parts.

With Snap on (see Snap), selections lock to the grid; hold Alt to select freely.

Editing audio

Unlike the arrangement’s cut and paste, these close and open gaps: the rest of the track moves along.

To move audio within the track without moving the rest, drag inside the selection to where it should go; hold Ctrl to copy it there instead. The audio it covers is replaced, and silence is left where it was, so everything else keeps its timing.

Processing audio

These work on the selection, or on the whole clip when nothing is selected:

• Gain: type a change in dB (−48 to +24) and choose Apply.
• Fade in and Fade out fade the selection, or the start or end of the clip.
• Normalize raises or lowers the level so the loudest peak is at −1 dB.
• Reverse plays the audio backwards.
• Stretch… changes the length, the pitch, or both. See Stretch.
• Silence replaces the selection with silence.
• Add silence inserts the number of seconds in Insert at the playhead (up to 5 minutes), moving later audio along.

Stretch

Stretch… time-stretches and pitch-shifts the selection, or the whole track.

• Length: By percent (25 % to 400 %), From a tempo to the project’s (type the audio’s tempo, and it is fitted to the song’s), or To a number of bars at the song’s tempo.
• Pitch: up to 24 semitones up or down.
• Keep the pitch: on, a longer clip plays slower at the same pitch. Off, it works like tape: slower is lower.

The result replaces the audio, later audio on the track moves to follow, and Undo brings the original back.

Beat detection

After you import audio, Foundry offers to detect its beat (and asks which track, when you imported several). Detect beat in the editor’s toolbar runs it again on the selected track.

It listens to the first two minutes and estimates the tempo and where the first beat is, then offers to set the song’s tempo to it and shift the track so its beats land on the grid. If the tempo it found feels twice too fast or too slow, use ½× or 2×. Applying it is one undo step, and turns Snap to Beat if it was off.

It works best on music with clear drums or other sharp attacks, and assumes the tempo stays steady. It finds beats, not the start of each bar, so you may need to nudge the track by a beat or two to put bar 1 in the right place (see Nudging).

The piano roll

Select a MIDI track and the Editor tab shows the piano roll: pitches up the side with a keyboard, time across, and the track’s notes as bars.

• Scroll moves up and down through the pitches, Shift+scroll moves along in time, and Ctrl+scroll zooms.
• Click the keyboard on the left to hear a pitch.
• Maximize (F) fills the window with the piano roll; Restore or Esc brings it back. ⧉ Own window moves it into a window of its own. See Pop-out windows.
• Snap sets the note grid: 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 or 1/32 notes, triplets (T), or Off.

Opening one clip

Double-click a MIDI clip in the arrangement to open just that clip: its notes are framed and selected, the rest of the track is shaded, and CLIP shows in the corner. Selecting, quantizing and the other commands then work on that clip only, and new notes can only be drawn inside it. Whole track shows the whole track again.

Piano roll tools

The number keys work while a MIDI track is selected, unless the arrangement was the last thing you clicked. Foundry remembers the tool you chose.

Drawing notes

With the Edit tool:

1. Click in the grid to add a note at that pitch and time. It snaps to the grid.
2. To make it longer, keep the mouse button down and drag to the right before you let go, or drag the note’s right edge later.

You hear each note as you draw it.

New chooses what a click draws:

• Grid · vel 100: one grid step long, at velocity 100.
• Like last note: the same length and velocity as the note you last drew, resized, changed the velocity of, or clicked. The menu shows what it will copy, for example Like last (1/8 · vel 96). Click any note to pick up its length and velocity; dragging while you draw still sets the length yourself.

Selecting and editing notes

• Click a note to select it; Shift+click adds notes to the selection; Ctrl+A selects all notes (or all of the open clip’s).
• Drag a note’s body to move it in time and pitch, and drag its right edge to change its length. All selected notes move together.
• Delete deletes the selected notes. Clear notes deletes every note on the track.
• Alt+↑/↓ transposes the selected notes a semitone (a scale step with Lock on), and Alt+Shift+↑/↓ an octave.
• Alt+←/→ nudges them one grid step, and Alt+Shift+←/→ a bar.
• Cut, Copy and Paste (Ctrl+X, C, V) cut and copy notes, and paste them at the playhead, snapped to the grid. A paste selects the new notes and moves the playhead to their end, so repeated pastes line up. You can paste onto another MIDI track.

Key and scale

Choose a Key and a Scale (major, natural, harmonic and melodic minor, the modes, major and minor pentatonic, and blues) to see the key in the grid: the rows of the key note are brass, the other notes of the scale are teal, the rest are dimmed, and notes outside the key get a red edge.

• Lock (K) keeps notes in the scale: new notes land on the nearest scale note, and dragged notes move by scale steps, so a chord keeps its shape in the key.
• To scale moves the selected notes (or all notes) that are outside the scale onto the nearest scale note.

New MIDI effects start in the key and scale chosen here.

Drawing chords

Chord draws a whole chord with each click:

• Triad, 7th and 9th are built from the key and scale, so each note of the scale gets its own chord: in A minor, A draws A minor, C draws C major, and B draws B diminished. Without a scale they are a major triad, a dominant 7th and a dominant 9th.
• Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented, Sus2, Sus4, Major 7th, Minor 7th, Dominant 7th, Power (5th) and Octave are fixed shapes above the note you click.

Dragging while you draw sets the length of the whole chord. Single note goes back to drawing one note at a time.

Quantize and humanize

Quantize (Q) moves the selected notes (or all notes) to the grid; with Snap off, to sixteenths.

• Strength is how far they move: 100 % lands them on the grid, less keeps some of the original feel.
• Swing (50 % to 75 %) delays every second grid line: 50 % is straight, 66 % a triplet shuffle.
• Ends, when ticked, quantizes where notes end as well as where they start.

Humanize (H) does the opposite: it gives the selected notes (or all notes) small random changes in timing and velocity. Amount sets how much: at 100 % notes move up to ±30 ms (at 120 BPM) and up to ±24 in velocity. Pitches and lengths stay the same.

Each press is one undo step, and Foundry remembers these settings.

Velocity

Velocity is how hard a note is played, from 1 to 127; notes are drawn brighter the harder they play. With the Velocity tool:

• drag a note up or down to change its velocity (all selected notes change together);
• or draw across the velocity lane at the bottom of the roll to set or ramp the velocities of the notes you cross. With notes selected, only those change.

Controller lanes

The Lane menu chooses what the lane at the bottom of the roll shows: Velocity, or a controller to draw: Pitch bend, CC 1 Modulation, CC 7 Volume, CC 10 Pan, CC 11 Expression, CC 64 Sustain, CC 71 Resonance and CC 74 Brightness.

• Drag in the lane to draw values; points land on the grid (every 1/32 beat with Snap off). Right-drag erases.
• Each value holds until the next point, as in MIDI. A • in the menu marks lanes that have points; Clear lane removes the lane shown.

Plugin instruments and MIDI Out receive the controllers, and MIDI files keep them. The built-in synth follows pitch bend (±2 semitones), volume and expression. Recording MIDI records controller moves into these lanes.

MIDI effects

A MIDI track’s notes can pass through up to eight MIDI effects before they reach the instrument. They change what is played, not what is written: the piano roll and Export MIDI keep your notes as you wrote them, while playback, plugin instruments, MIDI Out and exports hear the result.

Select a MIDI track, choose an effect under MIDI effects in the inspector and choose Add MIDI effect. The notes pass through the effects from top to bottom. On each effect, On switches it off and on, ↑ and ↓ reorder, and × removes it. Every change is one undo step and is heard at once. Notes you play live on a MIDI keyboard are not processed.

A new effect starts in the key and scale chosen in the piano roll; change its Key and Scale to use another.

Arpeggiator

Plays the notes you hold one at a time, on a beat grid.

• Mode: Up, Down, Up-down, Random or As played.
• Rate: 1/4 to 1/32 notes, with triplets.
• Octaves: plays the pattern over 1 to 4 octaves.
• Gate: how long each note sounds, as a share of a step.
• Chord: Held notes only plays what you hold. Triad, 7th or 9th (in key) turn every held note into its chord in the Key and Scale first, so holding one key plays a whole arpeggio: in C major, holding D plays D, F and A.

Chord

Adds a chord above every note.

• Chord: fixed shapes (Major, Minor, Power (5th + octave), Octave, Sus2, Sus4, Major 7, Minor 7, Dominant 7), or Triad, 7th and 9th (in key), which give each note of the scale its own chord in the Key and Scale.
• Added notes: how loud the added notes are, compared with the note you wrote.

A note outside the key plays as written, with the chord of the nearest scale note added.

Note repeat

Repeats every note on a beat grid for as long as it is held, like a drum machine’s note repeat. Rate sets the grid, Gate the length of each repeat, and Fade per repeat how much quieter each one is.

Velocity effect

Reshapes the velocities: Curve (above 0 lifts soft notes, below 0 softens them), Lowest and Highest (the range they are fitted into), and Random ± (a random change for each note).

Instruments

The built-in synth

Every MIDI track plays the built-in synth unless the first slot of its plugin chain is a plugin instrument. Choose its sound in Instrument in the piano roll’s toolbar: Triangle, Sine, Square or Saw. It follows pitch bend, volume and expression lanes.

The sampler

The Sampler instrument plays an audio sample across the keyboard.

1. Set Instrument to Sampler, then choose Sampler….
2. Choose Load sample… and pick a sound from the sample browser or a file.
3. Set the Root note: the key that plays the sample as it was recorded. Each key above or below plays it faster and higher, or slower and lower.

Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release shape each note, and notes ring on for their release. Loop while a note is held repeats the part of the sample between the two percentages for as long as you hold a note, for sustained sounds. Level sets the volume, and ▶ plays the root note. Pitch bend, volume and expression lanes apply. The sample is saved in the project.

Plugin instruments

A VST3 instrument goes in the first slot of a MIDI track’s plugin chain, and then plays the track’s notes and controllers live. See VST3 plugins.

The drum machine

Select a drum track and the Editor tab shows its step sequencer: one row per pad, one column per sixteenth note.

Programming a beat

• Click a step to turn it on or off. Turning a step on plays the pad.
• The pattern plays round and round: Steps sets its length (8, 16, 32 or 64 sixteenths) and Repeat how many times it plays (1 to 32). The line above the grid sums it up, for example 16 steps · 16× · 4 beats/loop.
• While the song plays, a highlight follows the playhead across the steps.
• Clear empties the pattern.

Pads

Each pad has, from left to right:

• ▶ plays the pad, M mutes it, S solos it, and × removes it.
• The name, which you can change.
• The sound: a built-in drum (kick, snare, hat, openhat, clap, tom, rim or cowbell), or Load to put a sample of your own on the pad from the sample browser.
• Level and Pan.
• Pitch, in semitones (−24 to +24), and Decay %, how much of each hit plays (10 % to 100 %, fading out at the end). They work on built-in sounds and samples alike.

Add pad adds another pad.

Velocity and chance

Drag a lit step up or down to change what Drag edits chooses:

• Velocity: how hard the step plays, shown by how full the step is.
• Chance: how often it plays, from 1 % to 100 %, shown by a dashed edge and the percentage. A step at 50 % plays about every second time round, which keeps a loop from sounding mechanical.

Hold Shift for fine steps. New variation rolls the dice again for every step with a chance below 100 %. Playback and exports always play the same variation until you choose New variation.

Swing

Swing (50 % to 75 %) delays every second sixteenth: 50 % is straight, 66 % a triplet shuffle.

Long patterns and drum clips

A drum track repeats its pattern, but as soon as you cut, copy or paste across it in the arrangement, it becomes one long pattern that sounds the same, so each bar can then be changed on its own. Patterns can be up to 16,384 steps (1,024 bars of 4/4). Patterns longer than 128 steps show 8 bars at a time: ◀ and ▶ move through them, and the page follows the playhead while playing.

Double-click a drum clip in the arrangement to show only its steps; Whole track shows the whole pattern again.

Painting drums in the arrangement

The arrangement’s Paint tool (5) copies a drum track’s pattern into bars: drag across the drum track’s lane and the pattern is painted into every bar you pass over, lined up with the track’s start. Right-drag clears those bars. This is the quickest way to fill a song with a beat and then leave gaps for breaks.

Saving and sharing drum tracks

• Export drums saves the selected drum track as a .reeldrums file: the pattern with its velocities and chances, steps, repeats, swing, and every pad with its settings and sample. Exporting needs a licence.
• Import drums, the main Import… button, or dropping a .reeldrums file onto Foundry adds it as a new drum track.
• Export MIDI writes drum tracks as General MIDI drums on channel 10, and importing a MIDI file turns its channel-10 drum parts into drum tracks.

↑ Contents

Recording

Recording audio

Foundry records while the song plays, so you can play along with what is already there. Takes are recorded losslessly and lined up with the song automatically.

1. Choose ⚙ beside Record and pick your Input and whether to record Mono or Stereo. See Recording settings.
2. Put the playhead where you want to start. Turn on the metronome or a count-in if you want one.
3. Choose Record (or press R). The song plays and the input meter shows your level: keep it out of the red.
4. Choose Record again, or press Space, to stop.

By default the take goes on a new audio track. To record onto an existing track instead, choose Onto the selected audio track in the recording settings and select the track first. The new take replaces what it covers. Earlier takes on the track are kept (see Takes and comping), and Undo brings back what was there.

When a MIDI track is selected, Record records MIDI instead. See Recording MIDI.

Recording settings

• Input and Channels: the input device, and Mono or Stereo.
• Takes go: To a new track, or Onto the selected audio track (replacing what they cover).
• Latency fix: moves takes earlier by this many milliseconds. Foundry already removes the delay it knows about; use this only if your takes still land late. See Lining up takes.
• Monitor the input: plays what you record through your speakers or headphones as you record. This adds some delay, so many people monitor through their audio interface instead. It can be switched while recording.
• Metronome: Click plays (whenever it is on, or only while recording), Level, and Count-in (none, one bar or two bars). See The metronome.

Echo cancellation, noise suppression and automatic gain are always off, so you record exactly what comes in.

Punch recording

To re-record only part of a take:

1. In the arrangement, select the range to replace, with the Edit tool or by dragging empty space with Select.
2. Turn on Punch.
3. Choose Record. Playback starts a bar early so you hear the lead-in, and the take is cut to exactly the range you selected.

Loop recording

With Loop on, keep recording round the loop: every pass is recorded as a take of its own, all on one track. Record several attempts in one go, then choose the best parts in the takes window. With Punch on as well, each take is cut to the selected range.

Takes and comping

Every recording onto a track is kept as a take, and the newest one plays. T on the track’s header (it appears once a track has takes) opens the takes window: the comp, what plays, on top, with each take under it.

• Drag across a take to use that part of it in the comp. It snaps to the grid; hold Alt to drag freely.
• Use all uses a take wherever it has audio.
• × removes a take from the list.

Coloured bars show which take each part of the comp comes from. Each change is one undo step, with short crossfades at its edges so the joins are smooth. Takes are saved with the project.

Lining up takes

Foundry lines up every take with the song as it records, and removes the delay of your input and output that it knows about. If your takes still sound slightly late (some audio interfaces report their delay wrongly), record a click or a clap along with the metronome, see how far it lands after the beat, and enter that in Latency fix.

Recording MIDI

1. Connect your MIDI keyboard and choose it as MIDI In in MIDI ▾ → Devices…. See MIDI devices.
2. Select a MIDI track. With Thru on, what you play is heard through the built-in synth.
3. Choose Record MIDI in the piano roll’s toolbar, or the main Record button. The song plays, and the notes you play land on the track at the playhead.
4. Stop with Record MIDI, Record or Space. The take becomes one undo step.

Controllers you move while recording (modulation, sustain, pitch bend and others) are recorded into the track’s controller lanes.

↑ Contents

Mixing

The mixer

Choose the Mixer tab at the bottom (or ⧉ Mixer to open it in a window of its own). Every track has a channel strip, followed by the VCA groups and the Master strip.

Each strip has, from top to bottom:

• The number and kind of the track; BUS ←2 means it receives two other tracks.
• The name, with its icon. Click it to select the track.
• Its effects. Click one to edit it in the inspector. See Built-in effects.
• + Send and its sends. See Sends and returns.
• The pan control and the fader (−∞ to +12 dB), with a level meter beside it and the level below.
• M (mute), S (solo) and A (automation; lit when the track has automation).
• Out: where the track plays. See Routing and buses.
• VCA: the track’s VCA group. See VCA groups.

Faders and knobs are heard while you drag them, and each move is one undo step when you let go. A selected track’s strip is outlined in its colour.

Mute and solo

M silences a track. S plays only the soloed tracks, together with what they need to be heard: a soloed track keeps playing through its folder or bus, and a soloed bus plays everything routed into it. Several tracks can be soloed at once.

Meters

Every track has a stereo level meter, in its header and in its mixer strip, and the master has one on its strip and beside the transport’s Master level. Meters run from −60 to +6 dB, hold their peak for a moment, and get a red edge when the signal clips. The compressor, limiter, gate, de-esser and multiband compressor also show their gain reduction while playing.

Resetting a control

Right-click any slider, number box or menu twice to put it back to its default: track and mixer volume and pan, effect settings, the Master level and plugin parameters. You hear the change, and it is one undo step.

Routing and buses

Every track plays to Main (the master) or into another track. Set it in Output in the inspector, Out at the bottom of the track’s mixer strip, or Out in an effect window.

A track that receives others is a bus: what arrives is added to its own sound, goes through its effects and fader, and on to its own output. Buses can chain, for example drums into a drum bus, the drum bus into a group, and the group into Main. Folders are buses too.

• Muting a bus silences everything that goes through it; soloing a track keeps its bus playing.
• Routes that would loop back on themselves are refused, and a MIDI track whose first slot is a plugin instrument cannot receive other tracks.
• A bus with plugins renders what arrives through them, in exports as well as in playback.

Sends and returns

Besides its output, a track can send a share of its sound to another track, a return. Typically, several tracks share one reverb or delay this way, instead of each having its own.

• Add a send: choose + Add send… under Sends in the inspector (or + Send on a mixer strip) and pick the track to send to. → New reverb return creates a return track with a reverb on it, set fully wet, and sends to it.
• Level sets how much is sent, from −∞ to +6 dB.
• Post (the default) sends after the track’s fader, so the send follows the volume, pan and their automation. Pre sends before the fader, so turning the track down does not change what is sent.
• × removes the send.

A muted track sends nothing, and soloing a track keeps its returns playing. Sends are copied when you duplicate a track.

VCA groups

A VCA group moves the level of several tracks together without mixing their sound into one channel, so each track keeps its own effects, sends and output.

• + VCA in the mixer creates a group, with the selected track in it.
• The VCA menu at the bottom of a track’s strip puts the track in a group, or takes it out (No VCA).
• The VCA’s fader adds its level to every member’s own fader, automation included, and its M mutes them all.
• Rename a VCA in its strip; × removes it, and its tracks keep their own levels.

Built-in effects

Every track, and the master, has an effect chain. Sound flows through it from top to bottom.

Adding and editing effects

1. Select the track.
2. Under Track effects in the inspector, choose an effect in Effect and choose Add effect. It goes at the end of the chain.
3. Click an effect in the chain to show its settings below it.

On each effect:

• ⧉ opens it in a window of its own. See Effect windows.
• ⤳ opens its automation. See Automation.
• ↑ and ↓ move it up or down the chain.
• Bypass switches it off without removing it.
• × removes it.

Settings change while you drag and are heard at once, even while playing. Each change is one undo step when you let go. Built-in effects and VST3 plugins can be mixed in one chain. Effects with long tails (reverb, delay) extend the song’s length, so exports do not cut them off.

Presets

Every built-in effect has ten presets: 330 in all. Choose one in Preset… at the top of the effect’s settings for a starting point (a vocal compressor, drum glue, a sidechain duck, a de-esser, rooms and halls, slapback and dotted delays…), then adjust it to taste.

Effect windows

⧉ Window in Track effects opens the selected track’s effects and plugins in a window of their own, and ⧉ on an effect opens just that effect. Open as many as you like, for example one per track on a second monitor.

Each window is either Sticky (it stays on the track it opened with; the track menu at the top changes it) or Follow (it shows whichever track is selected; ⧉ Follow opens one). Switch between them in the window; new windows use the mode you used last. In a window you can add, reorder, bypass and edit effects and plugins, change the track’s output, and use MIDI Learn and Undo. Effect windows close with the main window.

The effects

Sidechain

The compressor, gate and expander can listen to another track instead of their own: choose it in Sidechain key. The classic use is a kick that ducks a bass or pad, so the two do not fight.

• The key is the other track’s sound after its own effects and before its fader, and it works even while that track is muted. A silent "ghost" kick track can duck a pad without being heard.
• Key low cut and Key high cut filter what the compressor listens to, so only part of the key sets the amount, for example only a kick’s lows, or only sibilance above 5 kHz.
• Compress chooses what is turned down on this track: the full signal, one band (Band low to Band high), or the key filter’s band. A band works like a dynamic EQ.

Tracks that would key each other in a loop are not offered.

The spectrum analyser

The EQ and Graphic EQ show the spectrum of their track (after its effects) while playing. For a larger view, ≋ on the master strip opens an analyser window for the master or any track, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz.

The master channel

The Master strip, at the right of the mixer, is everything you hear and export.

• Its effects come after every track and before the master fader. Click an effect on the strip, or Edit FX… (+ Master FX when it has none), to open the master effect window, and edit the chain as on a track. A compressor on the master can be keyed by any track. Add plugins with Add to master in the plugin panel (see Loading a plugin).
• Its fader sets the level of the mix. A limiter as the last master effect keeps exports from clipping.
• A opens the master’s automation: its volume (after the master effects, so a fade-out includes the reverb’s tail and the limiter) and every master effect setting. See Automation.
• ≋ opens the spectrum analyser.

The Master level in the transport only sets how loud you listen. It does not change exports.

Reference tracks

A reference track is a finished song you compare your mix against. Import it as a track, then tick Reference in the inspector. The track shows REF, and it is left out of your mix and your exports.

Ref in the transport (or B) plays only the reference track, straight to your speakers without the master effects; press it again for your mix. Switching while playing carries on from the same place, so you can flip back and forth. Use the reference track’s fader to match its level to your mix, so you compare the sound and not the volume.

Automation

Automation changes a setting over the course of the song: a fade-in, a filter sweep, a louder chorus. Volume, pan, every built-in effect setting and every plugin parameter can be automated.

Opening the automation window

• A on a track’s header or mixer strip opens that track’s automation window.
• ⤳ on an effect or plugin opens the track’s automation window too.
• Type in the box at the top to add a lane for any setting: Volume, Pan, any effect setting, or any plugin parameter (search by name, even for plugins with thousands).

Each lane shows the track’s audio, notes or drum hits faintly behind the curve, so you can see where things happen.

Drawing and editing points

• Right-click or double-click a point to delete it. Ctrl+drag draws with any tool.
• Shift+drag selects points with a box; Ctrl+A selects all of a lane’s points; Delete deletes the selected points.
• Snap chooses where points land: Arrangement (the arrangement’s snap setting), None, Measure, Beat or finer, with triplets. Alt ignores it.
• Curves: with the Points tool, Alt+drag the line between two points up or down to bend it, for natural fades and swells. Double-click the line to straighten it again.
• Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete and Duplicate (Ctrl+X, C, V, Delete, Ctrl+D) work on the selected range or points. A copy keeps the curve exactly; pasting at the playhead replaces that stretch. The clipboard is shared by every automation window, so you can copy a curve from one track to another.

Each lane has ● (record, see below), On/Off (keep the lane but ignore it), Clear (remove its points) and × (remove the lane).

The window zooms and scrolls like the arrangement: −, Fit, +, Ctrl+scroll and Shift+scroll. Link, on by default, keeps it in step with the arrangement’s zoom and scroll.

Recording automation

1. Choose ● on a lane to arm it.
2. Press Play and move the setting: its fader, its effect slider, its plugin slider, or a MIDI controller mapped to it (see MIDI Learn).
3. From the moment you move it, the lane is written with what you do, replacing what was there, until you stop. Holding still writes the held value.

Stopping commits the recording as one undo step. While a lane is armed it does not play back, so you hear the control you are moving.

Watching automation play

While playing, automated controls follow their lanes on screen in every window (faders, pan, effect sliders and plugin sliders), so each shows the value you are hearing. A control you are dragging is left alone. Automated effect settings show ⤳ in the effect’s settings, and the A button lights up on automated tracks.

Automation plays the same live and in exports, and is saved with the project. Freezing a track bakes its effect and plugin automation into the audio and keeps its volume and pan automation.

↑ Contents

Plugins

VST3 plugins

Foundry hosts VST3 effects and instruments. Each track has a chain of up to 32 slots, where plugins and built-in effects can be mixed in any order. Every slot is a separate copy of the plugin with its own settings, so the same plugin can be used several times.

Plugins run code on your computer: load only plugins you trust, from their makers. Foundry never scans your plugin folders by itself; you choose each plugin.

Loading a plugin

1. Select the track.
2. In the Desktop VST3 panel of the inspector, choose Choose trusted VST3….
   • On Windows, choose VST3 file or VST3 bundle folder (most plugins are a .vst3 file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3; some are folders), then pick it.
   • On Linux, VST3 plugins are folders. Foundry first offers the usual places where they are installed (~/.vst3, /usr/lib/vst3, /usr/local/lib/vst3), then opens the folder picker there. See Plugins on Linux.
3. The plugin is added to the end of the track’s chain, under Track effects.

The Plugin menu then holds the plugin you loaded (a plugin file that contains several plugins lists each of them). Add to track adds another copy of it to the selected track, and Add to master adds one to the master channel.

An instrument can only be the first slot of a MIDI track; it then plays the track’s notes. Later slots are effects.

Plugin windows

On a plugin’s slot in the chain:

• Editor opens the plugin’s own window. It controls the copy that is playing, so every change is heard at once.
• Live loops the selected track through the chain and opens the plugin’s window. It is only needed when Foundry’s audio engine is not running; normally just press Play and use Editor.
• ↑ and ↓ move it in the chain, Bypass switches it off, and × removes it.

Foundry compensates for the delay plugins add (their latency) automatically, so every track stays lined up. Audio settings shows how much is being compensated.

Plugin parameters

Every parameter of a plugin is also listed in Foundry, however many it has, under Normalized parameter controls in the panel and in effect windows. Each is a slider from 0 to 1.

• Search by name or unit, or by #number. Enter jumps to the first result and Esc clears it.
• Filter to Edited, ★ Starred or MIDI-mapped parameters, or to a group guessed from the names (such as "Osc 1" or "Filter").
• ★ keeps a parameter at the top of the list (Foundry remembers it for that plugin).
• Edited parameters are highlighted; ↺ puts one back to the plugin’s saved value.

Parameter sliders can be automated and mapped to a MIDI controller.

Plugin presets

Above a plugin’s parameters, type a name and choose Save preset to keep the plugin’s current settings. Choose a preset from the menu to load it into the slot; Undo returns to the settings before. Delete removes the preset shown. Presets belong to the plugin, not the project, so every copy of the same plugin in every project can use them.

Freezing a track

Freezing renders a track through its plugin chain into audio. Do this to save computer power on a heavy plugin, to commit a sound, or to edit a plugin instrument’s part as audio.

1. Select the track.
2. Set Tail (0 to 10 seconds) so effects such as reverb can ring out at the end.
3. Choose Render / freeze chain.

The track becomes an audio track with the result, keeping its place and mixer settings, and its chain is cleared. Undo brings back the original track and its chain. A track can be frozen when it is at most 4,000,000 samples long including the tail, about 83 seconds at 48 kHz. Buses cannot be frozen.

Crash-safe plugins

Every plugin runs in a protected process of its own. If a plugin crashes, or stops responding, only that plugin goes silent: Foundry says the plugin was switched off for the session, and the rest of the song keeps playing. You can still save; the plugin keeps the settings it last saved. The next time the project opens, the plugin is loaded again.

The plugin crash log

Foundry writes down every plugin that crashes, stops responding or fails to load: which plugin, what it was doing (loading, playing, showing its window, saving its settings, freezing), how it ended, and the last things it reported. Open it with ? → Plugin crash log….

The log is a text file, plugin-crashes.log, in the logs folder of Foundry’s settings folder. It stays on your computer. If a plugin keeps crashing, the log is what its maker (or Foundry’s support) will want to see.

Plugins in projects

A project saves each plugin’s settings, and loads the plugin again from where it was installed. Foundry asks before loading a project’s plugins (see Opening projects with plugins). If you move or uninstall a plugin, projects that used it open without it.

Plugins on Linux

• Linux VST3 plugins work; Windows-only plugins do not. A Linux VST3 plugin is a folder ending in .vst3.
• The Flatpak sees the system’s plugins under /run/host; Foundry’s plugin picker offers them under their usual names. A system plugin that needs libraries the Flatpak does not have may not load there; the .deb or .rpm avoids that.
• Plugin windows open at your desktop’s display scale. If a plugin’s window still looks too small or too large, start Foundry from a terminal with FOUNDRY_PLUGIN_SCALE=1.5 foundry (any value from 0.5 to 4).
• Plugin windows are X11 windows; on a Wayland desktop they run through XWayland automatically.

↑ Contents

Importing and exporting

Importing

Import… opens the sample browser, where you find, preview and import sounds. You can also drop files onto Foundry’s window: each audio file becomes a track of its own.

The sample browser

• Choose folder… picks a folder, and Recent folders lists the ones you chose before; the last one opens again next time. Click a folder in the list to open it, and ↑ Up (or Backspace) to go back up. Filter narrows the list.
• Click a sample, or move with ↑ and ↓, to see its length, channels and waveform and to hear it. Auto-play plays each sample you select; Play, Stop and Space play it by hand, and Volume sets the preview level.
• Ctrl+click or Shift+click selects several samples. Import, Enter or a double-click imports them, each as a track.
• Browse files instead… opens your system’s file picker, for single files and projects.

When you choose Load on a drum pad, the browser’s button becomes Load onto pad, and the browser closes once the sample is loaded.

The browser only lists folders you chose, and only the audio, MIDI and drum files in them.

What you can import

Audio at another sample rate is converted to the project’s rate as it is imported.

Exporting audio

Export… (Ctrl+E) renders the song to audio files.

• What: The mix, Stems (one file per track that plays to Main), or The mix and stems. A bus’s or folder’s stem includes everything routed into it. Stems leave out the master effects but get the same loudness change as the mix, so together they add up to the mix before the master effects.
• Format: WAV 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit float; FLAC 16-bit or 24-bit (lossless and smaller); or MP3 at 320, 256, 192 or 128 kbps.
• Loudness: As mixed, Peak at −1 dBFS, or a loudness target: −14 LUFS (streaming services), −16 LUFS (podcasts) or −23 LUFS (broadcast, EBU R128).
• Keep peaks at or below −1 dBFS turns the level down if the loudness target would push peaks past −1 dBFS; the message then says so. Keep it on for MP3, which can overshoot full scale.
• Dither 16-bit files adds a tiny noise that makes quiet fades smoother in 16-bit files.

A single file is saved where you choose. Several files (stems) go into one folder you choose; existing files are never overwritten (a number is added to the name instead).

Exports include every plugin and effect, rendered at full quality, along with all automation, sends and routing. The metronome, reference tracks and the transport’s Master level are left out. When the export is done, the status bar reports its loudness and peak, and warns if a fixed-point file clipped (lower the track levels, use a loudness target, or put a limiter on the master).

MP3 files can be up to 48 kHz, so a project at a higher rate is exported at 48 or 44.1 kHz. Exporting needs a licence (see The demo).

MIDI files

• Import MIDI (or dropping a .mid file) adds the file’s parts as tracks and takes its tempo, time signature and tempo changes. Drum parts on channel 10 become drum tracks when they repeat in a loop, with one pad per drum sound; other parts become MIDI tracks.
• Export MIDI writes every MIDI and drum track to a standard MIDI file (type 1, 480 ticks per beat), with the tempo map and controller lanes. Notes are written as they are in the piano roll, before MIDI effects. Drum tracks are written as General MIDI drums on channel 10 (kick 36, snare 38, closed hat 42, open hat 46, clap 39, tom 45, rim 37, cowbell 56), with their repeats written out. Exporting needs a licence.

Samples are not part of MIDI files; use Export drums to share a drum track with its samples.

↑ Contents

MIDI hardware

MIDI devices

Choose MIDI ▾ → Devices… (it opens in a window of its own):

• MIDI In: the keyboard or controller that plays and records notes on the selected MIDI track. Thru plays what you play through the built-in synth.
• MIDI Out with Send out: plays the song’s MIDI notes on external gear, such as a hardware synth, during playback. Stopping sends all-notes-off.
• Send clock and Follow clock: see MIDI clock.

On Linux, MIDI devices are the system’s ALSA MIDI ports.

MIDI clock

• Send clock sends MIDI clock to MIDI Out while playing: 24 pulses per beat following the tempo map, Start from the top, or song position and Continue from anywhere else, Stop when you stop, and the position again when a loop jumps back. Drum machines and sequencers then play in time with Foundry.
• Follow clock makes Foundry start, stop, continue and move when the device on MIDI In does. The incoming tempo is shown; Use tempo sets the song to it. Otherwise Foundry keeps its own tempo, so audio is never sped up or slowed down.

MIDI Learn

MIDI Learn connects the knobs, faders, pads and keys of a MIDI controller to Foundry’s controls.

Assigning controls

1. Choose MIDI ▾ → MIDI Learn (or Ctrl+L). Controls that can be assigned get a dashed outline.
2. Click a control in Foundry.
3. Move a knob or fader, or press a pad or key, on your controller. It is assigned.
4. Click the next control to keep going. Esc (or the menu again) finishes.

Right-click a control while learning to remove its assignment. MIDI Learn works in every window, including pop-out and effect windows.

What can be assigned: every button and toggle (Play, Stop, Record, Loop, Undo, Save, Export, the editors’ tools…), sliders and number boxes (Master, Tempo…), menus (Snap, Time signature, the piano roll’s Key and Scale…), each track’s volume, pan, mute and solo, every built-in effect setting and effect bypass, and plugin parameter sliders.

Knobs, faders and pitch bend sweep the whole range of what they control; pads and keys press buttons and flip switches. Moves are heard immediately and become one undo step when the control rests. Every MIDI input is listened to, and a message that is assigned to a control does not also play notes or record.

Mappings

MIDI ▾ → Mappings… lists every assignment: the controller (CC or note, channel and device) and what it controls, with options for each. Remove assignments one at a time, or all at once with Clear all. Learn in the list starts MIDI Learn: the list steps aside while you click a control and comes back afterwards. Mappings in own window keeps the list visible in a window of its own, so you can watch assignments appear.

Assignments are saved with the project. New keeps the transport and menu assignments and drops the ones for tracks and effects. Assigning a control that is already assigned replaces the old assignment.

Encoders, range and invert

• Endless encoders (knobs that turn forever) are recognised when you learn them, including which kind they are (offset 64, signed bit or 2’s complement); the mapping shows it and you can change it. Each detent moves the setting a small step, or one option of a menu.
• Min and Max limit a control to part of its target’s range (the list shows what they mean, for example "−20.0 dB … 0.0 dB"), and Invert reverses it.

Feedback to the controller

With Send back on (the default), Foundry sends each assigned setting’s value back to the controller whenever it changes, for whatever reason: the mouse, Undo, opening a project. LED rings, button lights and motorised faders then always show the truth. Nothing is echoed while you are moving a control, so motorised faders do not fight your hand. Turn Send back off for a device that would react to the messages itself, such as a keyboard whose own sounds listen to volume messages.

↑ Contents

Settings and help

Audio settings

Audio… chooses the sound card Foundry plays through.

Shown on Linux. On Windows the drivers are ASIO, Windows Audio and DirectSound.

• Driver:
  • Windows: ASIO, the driver your audio interface installs, gives the lowest delay; Driver panel… opens the driver’s own settings, often where its buffer size is set. Next best are Windows Audio in exclusive or low-latency mode, then shared mode, and DirectSound. An ASIO driver serves one program at a time.
  • Linux: JACK (or PipeWire’s JACK support) gives the lowest delay; ALSA plays straight to a sound card. PipeWire, the sound system of most current Linux desktops, provides both.
• Output: the device to play through.
• Sample rate: 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz are the usual choices. If the song is at another rate, Foundry converts it as it plays.
• Buffer: smaller buffers mean less delay between what you do and what you hear, but need more computer power. If playback crackles, choose a larger buffer.

The dialog shows the resulting output latency, and the plugin delay that Foundry is compensating. Foundry remembers your choice.

Pop-out windows

⧉ Editor and ⧉ Mixer beside the bottom panel’s tabs, and ⧉ Own window in the piano roll’s toolbar, move that panel into a window of its own, for example on a second monitor. Everything keeps working there: editing, the playhead, faders, MIDI Learn and the keyboard shortcuts. The main window shows Bring back in its place; closing the window brings the panel back too. With both the editor and the mixer in their own windows, the arrangement takes the whole main window.

Foundry remembers the size and position of each window. MIDI devices, MIDI mappings, effect windows, automation windows, the takes window and the sample browser open in windows of their own as well. All of them close with the main window.

Keyboard shortcuts

Changing shortcuts

Open ? → Change shortcuts…. Choose Change beside a command and press the new key combination: Esc cancels and Backspace leaves the command without a key. A key that another command used moves to the new one. Reset all goes back to the defaults. Shortcuts are saved on this computer.

The shortcuts below are the defaults.

Transport keys

Marker keys

Editing keys

Piano roll keys

Project and view keys

The help (?) lists the main shortcuts too.

Tips

• Right-click twice on any slider, number box or menu to put it back to its default.
• Hold Alt to ignore the snap grid for one drag or click.
• Watch the status bar: it says what every action did, and why one could not be done.
• Point at a button to see what it does and its shortcut.
• Double-click a clip to open it in the editor; see Double-clicking a clip.
• Loop the part you are working on with Shift+drag on the ruler, and turn on Return to hear the same bit again each time you press Play.
• Change things while playing: playback never needs to stop for an edit.
• Save templates of your usual setup to start songs faster; see Templates.

Troubleshooting

No sound

• Check Audio…: the right Driver and Output. On Windows, if another program is using an ASIO driver, Foundry cannot use it at the same time; close the other program or choose Windows Audio.
• Check the Master level in the transport, the master fader, and that no track is muted or another soloed.
• On Linux, make sure PipeWire or PulseAudio is running; with JACK, that the JACK server is running.

Crackles or dropouts

Choose a larger Buffer in Audio…, close other programs, or freeze tracks with heavy plugins.

Recordings land late

Set the Latency fix in the recording settings. See Lining up takes.

A plugin does not load

• Make sure it is a VST3 plugin for your system (Windows plugins on Windows, Linux plugins on Linux), in its 64-bit version.
• On Windows, try choosing VST3 bundle folder instead of VST3 file, or the other way round.
• In the Flatpak, see Plugins on Linux.
• Look in the plugin crash log for why it failed.

A plugin stops working

Foundry switched it off to keep the song playing; see Crash-safe plugins. Save, then open the project again to reload the plugin. If it keeps happening, check the plugin crash log, update the plugin, and send the log entry to the plugin’s maker.

A plugin window is too small or too large on Linux

Start Foundry with FOUNDRY_PLUGIN_SCALE set; see Plugins on Linux.

Foundry does not start on Linux

• AppImage: make it executable (chmod +x), and install fuse3 if your system lacks FUSE.
• On Ubuntu, the .deb is the most reliable choice: it installs the security profile Foundry’s window needs.

Foundry will not save or export

Foundry is running as a demo: enter your licence key in Licence…. If Foundry was licensed before, check the licence there; a refunded order’s licence is withdrawn.

The mix clips

The status bar warns when an export clipped. Lower the loudest tracks, put a Limiter last on the master, or export with a loudness target and Keep peaks at or below −1 dBFS ticked. For a clipping audio clip, Clipping — click to normalize in the status bar lowers it.

A project opens without some plugins

The plugins are no longer where they were installed, or you chose Open without plugins. Reinstall or move the plugins back, then open the project again.

A MIDI device does not appear

Check that it is connected and switched on, then look in MIDI ▾ → Devices…; the MIDI ▾ menu shows whether MIDI is available. If it still does not appear, restart Foundry with the device connected. On Linux, MIDI devices are the system’s ALSA MIDI ports.

Glossary

Support and legal

Support: write to Art Le Bel at art@artlebel.com. For a plugin problem, include the entry from the plugin crash log. Your licence key and orders are under My Account → Foundry licence on the Foundry website.

Licence agreement: Foundry is licensed to you under the Foundry End User License Agreement, which the Windows installer shows before installing, and which is in LICENSE.txt in the folder where Foundry is installed. The music you make with Foundry is yours.

Third-party software: the components Foundry is built with, and their licences, are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md in Foundry’s folder.

Copyright © 2026 Art Le Bel. All rights reserved. VST and ASIO are trademarks of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Other names may be trademarks of their owners.