One melody over the whole progression
On a piano roll: four rewrites, one per chord.
Dm7G7Cmaj7Am7
In Refrain:
chords = <d3'm7 g3'7 c3'maj7 a3'm7>
0 2 4
The sequencer
you write.
Notes, chords and drums, from one line of notation. The editor knows every word, so you don’t have to.
Free when it ships. No key, no account, nothing held back.
VST3 · AU · macOS and Windows · free
The editor
It reads over your shoulder.
Type two letters. It offers the rest, and says what each one is.
Refrainx = C3 · C3 major · on Dm7riff = 0 ~ 2 [4 2]
bd sn hh o
- off(and again, a fraction of a cycle later
- ohan open hat, A#1
- openan open hat, A#1
What it is good for
Things that are a pain
to draw by hand.
Every one of these is a line of text. None of them needs a grid, a mouse, or the patience to place a hundred notes.
Three against five, sharing one bar
On a piano roll: two grids, worked out on paper.
bd
sn
In Refrain:
[bd(3,8), sn(5,8)]The riff again an eighth later, backwards
On a piano roll: copy, paste, nudge, reverse, repeat.
riff
echo
In Refrain:
riff = 0 ~ 2 [4 2]
[riff, off(0.125, rev, riff)]A slide into the note, not a jump to it
On a piano roll: a bend lane, drawn again for every note.
c3g3&
In Refrain:
c3 g3& ~ ~Four chords, four ways of spreading them
On a piano roll: every chord opened up note by note.
closedrop 2shellopen
In Refrain:
c3'maj7'close f3'maj7'drop2
g3'7'shell c3'maj7'openA swell on the mod wheel under the line
On a piano roll: a curve, dragged point by point.
In Refrain:
[0 2 4 2, cc(1, ramp(1, 127, x*16))]There is a lot more where that came from.
See everything it can doIn the plugin: the same sheet, one keypress away.
Mutate
Random is easy.
Musical is hard.
Every change has a name, and every one of them is a move a player would make. Press it again and it makes another.
from0247~542Ghost0247[~7?0.4]542
Rhythm the pitches stay as they are
Pitch the rhythm stays as it is
Sixteen in all, counting Surprise. Evolve does it on the bar, every 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 cycles, and bar 37 always plays the way it played last time.
Slots
Eight patterns.
One line makes a song.
chain
1 1 2 312345678
Switching lands on the next bar, never mid-phrase. Patterns drag out as MIDI clips and drop back in as text.
Price
Free
No key, no account, no trial that runs out, nothing held back for a paid tier. Refrain is the on-ramp to the pattern language, and a language nobody can get to is not worth writing.
- VST3 and Audio Unit for macOS 10.13 and later, Universal.
- VST3 for Windows 10 and later, 64-bit.
- A standalone app on both, with its own MIDI port, for writing with nothing else open.
- Ninety-seven presets, the whole notation on one panel, and a manual.
- The same notation as Strand, so nothing you learn here is spent.
Not out yet
It ships when it is right.
Refrain 0.3.0 is built and playing; what is left is the unglamorous half: every host it claims to support, a Windows build, and a long run without a crackle. Leave an address and you'll hear the day it lands.
Questions
Short answers.
Everything else is in the manual.
Something the manual doesn't cover?
Write to the people who wrote the code. Replies usually land within a working day.
hello@monoglyphaudio.comIs it really free?
Yes. No key, no account, no trial that ends, nothing withheld. Refrain is how the pattern language gets into your hands; the plugins that grow out of it are what we sell.
Do I need to know TidalCycles or Strudel?
No. The whole notation is on one panel inside the plugin, the editor completes words as you type and says what each one means, and ninety-seven presets go from a single note to a finished song. If you do know them, you already know Refrain.
What does it actually output?
MIDI. Point it at any instrument in your host, or drag the pattern out as a clip. There is a small synth built in so you can hear a line before routing anything, and drum words go out on their own channel.
Which formats?
VST3 and Audio Unit on macOS 10.13 and later, Universal for Intel and Apple Silicon. VST3 on Windows 10 and later, 64-bit. A standalone app on both. No AAX.
How is this different from Strand?
Strand gates audio with a pattern; Refrain plays notes with one. They read the same notation and share the same engine, so what you learn in one works in the other.
What does Mutate actually do?
It reads your pattern as a tree and makes one musical move: push a hit off the grid, answer the first half with the second, pull a wide leap into stepwise motion, add a third underneath. Sixteen named kinds in two families, one for rhythm and one for pitch, and the kind sticks so you can keep pressing. It will not break the bar or go silent.
Can I automate the pattern text?
Every knob and selector is a host parameter. The text itself is saved with your project but is not automatable; use Evolve, alternation, and the eight slots with a chain for changes over time.