Roostbox

Roostbox is a groovebox that looks like a retro arcade cabinet and plays like one. It makes techno and other electronic music live, by hand: fly a ship through a beat, ride the faders, flick the stick, and every gesture you make is recorded and loops with the beat.

It is a different way to play electronic music live. There is no step grid to program and no timeline to edit. Everything on screen is a control, you play it with two thumbs, and the loop keeps what you played.

Two kits are in the box, and everything is free: both kits, the whole performance surface and the AUv3 plugin. No purchase, no account, no ads.

Play it standalone on iPhone or iPad, or load it as an instrument inside AUM, Loopy Pro, Cubasis, Drambo or Logic Pro for iPad.

TWO KITS IN THE BOX

SPACE: fly a ship through a beat. Where the ship goes picks the groove: four-on-the-floor, backbeat, offbeat, broken, sixteenths. The cockpit page holds the mixer, a stick for filter and grit, overdrive, pump, tape, delay, reverb, crush and a DJ filter. A 303-style acid bass and a drum synth make the sound.

PLIVKA: a four-track techno box. Kick, bass, snare and hat, each with a pattern control and a hit control, laid out over five pages: Rhythm, Sound, Perform, FX and Mix. The bass line is a Turing machine that mutates as much or as little as you let it.

UNDER THE HOOD

- Euclidean rhythm generators, a Turing machine sequencer and a trigger sequencer drive the patterns.
- A drum synth and a 303-style acid bass synth make the sound. No samples.
- Every fader move is recorded as motion and loops with the beat. Undo and redo if you change your mind.
- Scenes: snapshot the whole kit and switch on the next sixteenth, beat, bar or pattern.
- Master effects: delay and reverb sends, filter, crush, tape, compressor, sidechain pump and a limiter.
- MIDI learn: map any control to a hardware controller.
- Landscape only. Made for two thumbs.

AUv3

The plugin is the same instrument as the app, with the same two kits, and it is free. It follows the host tempo and transport. Jam in the standalone app; record into your DAW with the plugin.

WHAT 1.0 IS

Two kits, built to be played. Building your own kits is not part of this version.

Roostbox is made by one person. If something is broken, tell me: reach.freefall.studio@gmail.com