Type a rhythm.
Hear it gate.

A rhythmic gate you program in one line. x ~ x [x x] chops a pad, a vocal, a guitar chord, in that shape, locked to your DAW. Euclidean rhythms, alternation, swing and drift are one symbol each.

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VST3 · AU · macOS and Windows · 14-day trial · $39.99, launch price $29.99

Strand's editor with a drum loop folded onto one bar under a son clave pattern, the gate envelopes drawn over it

Try the language

The same parser, in your browser.

Type, press Play, and a synth pad goes through the gate. Everything you see is one cycle: a bar at 120 BPM.

x a hit, any word works

~ a rest

[a b] split a step

[a, b] layer two sequences

<a b> alternate per cycle

a*n n times inside its step

a/n once every n cycles

a? half the time, a?0.8 for 80 %

a(k,n) Euclidean, k hits over n

What's in it

A display that tells the truth

Every bar is the real gate envelope: your attack rises it, your release trails it, Length closes it. Swing and Drift move bars and leave ghosts where they were. Your audio sits underneath, folded onto the cycle, bright where it survives.

Mutate, with intent

One click makes a small musical change that always parses and always sounds different. Right-click to choose: Push a hit off the grid, Fill the end of the bar, Ghost a rest, Roll, Space, Answer, Shuffle. Undo keeps sixty-four steps.

Evolve

Mutate automatically every 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 cycles, landing exactly on the boundary. The counter says when. Nothing in Strand is random in the usual sense: bar 37 always plays the way it played last time.

Groove that fits the pattern

Swing follows the pattern's finest subdivision, so it always has something to move. Drift adds micro-timing that holds the same every bar, or varies, your call.

MIDI both ways

A note-on restarts the cycle, so the gate locks to what you play. The gate goes out as notes, so a synth or a sampler can follow the same pattern.

Fifty-five presets and a cheat sheet

Claves, breaks, grooves, evolving patterns and dynamics tools, by feel. Save your own as small JSON files. The whole notation fits on one panel, one click away.

Stereo and filter

Offset the right channel by a grid step for ping-pong chops. A low-pass that closes with the gate for darker cuts.

Hear it with nothing plugged in

Built-in pad, keys, bass, drums and noise sources follow the same clock, so you can audition a pattern before you commit a track to it.

Seen, not described

The notation cheat sheet open over the lane — The whole notation, one click away. Hover for an example, click to load it.

Evolve after a few cycles: the pattern has grown from x ~ x x — Evolve, five seconds in. The pattern started as `x ~ x x`.

A slow attack and long release drawn as the bar shapes on a pad — Attack and release are the shape of the bar, not numbers you have to imagine.

Swung sixteenths on a drum loop with ghost outlines where the bars would sit unswung — Swing on a drum loop. Ghosts show where each hit would have landed straight.

Pricing

$39.99

Once. Every update to Strand 1, no subscription. Prices are shown in your currency at checkout; VAT or sales tax is added where it applies.

Launch price $29.99 for everyone on the list, for the first two weeks.

VST3 and Audio Unit for macOS 10.13 and later, Universal.
VST3 for Windows 10 and later, 64-bit.
14-day trial, everything on. Then a key by email; activate on the machines you use.
Sold through Paddle, our merchant of record, so refunds and invoices are handled by them. Refund policy.

Strand is launching soon.

Leave an address and you'll get one email when it's out, with the launch price. Nothing else, ever.

Questions

Do I need to know TidalCycles or Strudel?: No. The notation is a dozen symbols and the cheat sheet is one click away in the plugin. If you do know them, you already know Strand.
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. No AAX yet.
Is there a trial?: Fourteen days, everything on, from first run. Afterwards audio passes through untouched until you enter a key. Your patterns and presets are kept.
How does licensing work?: You get a key by email. Activate it on the machines you use; move it by deactivating. No account required, no dongle, no phoning home beyond a daily check that a licensed machine is still licensed.
What does Mutate actually do?: It parses your pattern into a tree, picks one place in it, and makes one small move: nudge a number, split a step, flip a hit, wrap it in an alternation. It never deletes, never goes silent, and always changes what you hear. A complexity budget keeps it from ballooning.
Can I automate the pattern?: Every knob and selector is a host parameter. The pattern text is saved with your project but is not automatable; use Evolve, alternation and presets for changes over time.

Everything else is in the manual.

Type a rhythm.Hear it gate.