your instrument,
made clear.

1. Touch the front wheel. Click or tap to start the sound. Drag it to bend its shape. The three smaller wheels let you choose synth, textures or nature.
2. Enter the instrument worlds. On the blue side, use play/stop beside “shape your sound”. Each world has its own level and mute, so you can blend all three.
3. Make one small change. Play a note, choose a different source or move the sound around you. Lock a section you like, then try Surprise on the rest.

BPM sets the shared tempo. The front, pad keyboard and sound-design BPM fields stay in sync; changes update arp timing, note loops, tempo-based delays and bar-length recording. The side navigation jumps straight to play, source, design, space or recording.

BPM at the top controls the arpeggiator, sub pulse, note-loop timing, synced delay and bar-length recordings. Type a value or use the adjacent controls. The homepage also has small tempo arrows. Steady samples and drones do not speed up with BPM. Loops go up to 4 bars, equivalent to 64 sixteenth-note steps; played loop notes snap to eighth notes.

Selecting a world opens its controls. Level and mute affect that world. All three can sound together; changing one world keeps the other two’s settings.

On a sample world, one slot plays at a time. Replacing a pad moves its previous sound into the sound library. Drag a library sound or an audio file onto any sample pad. On mobile, tap a pad first, then choose, load or record a sound.

The eight note buttons follow your chosen root and scale. Click them, or use A S D F G H J K on a keyboard. Use Z and X, or the octave buttons, to move the played notes down or up.

envelope

Attack is how gently a note arrives. Decay leads from its first peak to the sustain level. Release shapes its tail. Choose a feel preset, then adjust it; your edited shape becomes custom.

arpeggiator

Turn the arp on to step through notes in your scale. Choose its speed, octave range and gate. Patterns include up, down, up/down, down/up, outside in, inside out, double steps, return to root, two forward/one back and wandering. Gate controls the note’s held length; the envelope shapes its sound. Touch a note or the front wheel to move the arp’s starting note.

note loops

Choose “build a note loop” under note layering. Played notes snap to the eighth-note grid and repeat over the chosen phrase length. “Clear note loop” removes the notes in that loop. With the arp on, your recorded pad presses become repeating starting-note changes for the arp. “Play as” applies to each arp step too, including open fifths and scale chords.

drone

Four voices sit beneath the played notes. Each has a pitch, volume and mute; the drone also has a shared on/off switch and volume. Muting a voice preserves its level. Keyboard octave and the played-note pitch control leave the drone rooted.

sub pulse

A rounded low pulse with its own level, tuning, timing, attack and decay. It follows the instrument’s root and shared tempo. A slower attack softens its arrival; a longer decay lets the pulses flow together.

The sub has a dry, centred path. Wheel EQ, fuzz, delay, reverb and spatial effects do not process it. The synth world’s level and mute, and the main output, still control its overall level.

Root and scale live in “the instrument”. Lock that section too when you want to preserve the shared musical key while using Surprise.

The switch beside the octave controls enables hold / latch. Tap a synth pad or press its keyboard key once to sustain it; repeat to release it. Several pads can hold together. White pads show held notes. Turning latch off or stopping playback releases them. Latch temporarily replaces the arpeggiator and note loop; turn it off to resume those modes.

Select a texture or nature pad first. A stock sound, uploaded file or microphone take then loads into that selected slot. The eight pads keep eight choices ready to play.

• Choose a source: stock sounds are ready immediately. Each sample world begins with eight different sounds.
• Load samples: choose audio from your device. WAV, MP3, M4A, OGG and FLAC are accepted; decoding depends on your browser. Files must be under 64 MB.
• Record a sample: allow your microphone, record, then press stop. The world pauses for a clean take. Your “pax recording” enters the sample library and selected slot.
• Preview, download or remove: use the icons beside an uploaded or recorded sample. Preview has its own play/stop control while your world continues. Removing it affects this session; your original file stays on your device.

A microphone take is material for the instrument. Finished world recordings have their own list farther down the page.

Before importing files (including dropping them onto pads) or starting a microphone take, tick the rights confirmation. Only use audio you created or have permission to use for your intended purpose. Stock sounds do not need this step; see their credits and permissions. Donations require a separate permission and source note.

granular playback

Turn granular playback on to rebuild a source from small overlapping fragments. Grain size sets each fragment’s length; density sets how often fragments appear. Position chooses where they come from, while scatter spreads their positions, pitch variation and stereo placement.

New imports and stock replacements start with ordinary playback. Turn granular on when you want to shape them into a texture.

crop a sample

Drag the start and end markers on the waveform, or enter their times in seconds. The crop is reversible: “use full sample” restores the original region. Normal playback, grains, preview and WAV download follow the crop.

“Lock sample” keeps that pad’s sound and crop during Surprise. The other pads and unlocked effects can still change. Replaced sounds stay in the library with their crop, ready to assign again.

Preview has its own play/stop control and does not stop your playing world.

tone, pitch & dust

The pitch control belongs to the selected world. On the synth it transposes played notes; the drone and sub remain rooted. Tone changes brightness. Fuzz adds saturation; dust adds tiny crackles, with dust drift spreading them through the stereo field.

equalizer

Low shapes weight and warmth, mid shapes the body of the sound, and high shapes brightness and detail. Positive dB lifts a band; negative dB reduces it. Each world keeps its own three-band balance.

delay & reverb

Delay timing follows BPM. Ping-pong echoes move between left and right. Reverb decay controls the length of the space; shimmer adds a lifted, glowing tail.

The white wire illustration responds to sound and settings. It is a visual companion. Direct dragging belongs to the front-page wheel.

Ping-pong delay alternates clearly between left and right, with a stronger repeat path than stereo delay. Chorus adds a moving stereo double; amount controls the blend, rate the movement speed and depth the amount of detuning. These effects belong to the selected wheel and follow its effects lock.

The compact map shows the synth, textures and nature positions as S, T and N. Select a world, then use its controls or drag inside the small position map.

“Centre sound” stops movement and returns the selected world to the middle. Each world moves independently. Headphones make positioning easier to hear. World recordings export as stereo audio.

Spatial distance changes position without automatic volume fading. “Centre sound” stops movement and places the selected wheel’s sound and circle in the middle. Other wheels keep their positions.

Each section has a small lock icon. A highlighted lock means Surprise will keep that section’s settings. Press the lock again to let Surprise change it.

For example, lock the equalizer and spatial sound, then press “surprise textures”. The source, tone and effects can change while your EQ and movement settings stay. Lock “your sounds” to preserve every source slot in that world.

The synth also has separate locks for its instrument settings, envelope, arp, drone and sub pulse. Locks are kept separately for each world. You can still edit a locked section yourself.

Surprise belongs to the wheel named on its button. Shared BPM, output and world mixer levels and mutes stay where you left them.

Choose 1, 2 or 4 bars, then press the white “record this world” button. Bar recordings wait for the next bar, record four beats per bar and stop automatically. Free recording runs until you stop it, up to two minutes.

The result is a stereo WAV of the world’s output. Download it from “your worlds”. Filenames begin with pax-aurora and the local recording date and time.

“Share audio file” uses your device’s sharing options where available. For WhatsApp or email, download the recording and attach it in your chosen app. The instrument does not send messages for you.

Download before refreshing or leaving. Samples, settings and recordings are local to the session. A Pax Pass recovery key does not back them up.

We’re working on something major.
We’d love you to be part of it.

After recording, download your WAV from “your worlds”, then choose “donate your world” beside that recording. The contribution banner offers the same route.

Use donate your world or donate a sample to contribute an original sound. Prepare your credit and permission note, then upload the audio and note through the upload portal.

You keep ownership. The contribution permission covers PAX AURORA experiences and events, including ticketed events, with credit where possible. Commercial releases, published event recordings and public sample packs need separate permission.

Read the contribution page before uploading. Stock sources and their licences are listed under sound credits.

The front wheel is free to explore. The Pax Pass is a monthly subscription to this instrument, renewing until you cancel. See the Pax Pass terms for current pricing, VAT and your withdrawal rights. Cancel through “your Pax Pass”; access continues until the end of the paid period. The entry screen shows whether checkout is open.

After payment is confirmed, your Pax Pass screen shows a private access key before you enter the instrument. Choose “save key” or “copy key”. If you subscribed earlier and never created a key, open “your Pax Pass” beside the homepage instrument button to see your first key. It lets you restore access in another browser through “already have a Pax Pass?” on the entry screen. A new key replaces your previous key; already signed-in browsers keep access.

Keep the key private and keep your audio downloads separately. For payment or access help, email hi@paxaurora.nl with your receipt reference. Never email card details or your recovery key.

The homepage has an “enter your Pax Pass” button beside the main instrument button, opening the recovery-key field directly. In a browser that already recognises your paid pass, this shortcut reads “your Pax Pass” and opens your key and billing controls. To cancel, choose “manage or cancel subscription”; no email is needed. If you lost your key and signed-in browser, use “manage or cancel with your email” on the entry screen to reach Stripe billing. The browser you used to subscribe normally remembers you with a secure cookie, configured for up to 90 days. A different browser or cleared cookies needs your saved Pax recovery key. Stripe’s email login manages billing; it does not sign you into the instrument.

On desktop, the white Pax Pass side tab slides out to show your paid-through date and account controls. Tap it again to hide it. On mobile, use “your Pax Pass” instead.

• Press play: browsers need a real click or tap before audio starts. Returning from another app can pause the instrument; press play again.
• Check the mixer: the world may be muted or its level low. Check output, drone voice mutes and sub pulse on/off as well.
• Check the source: select a sample pad and choose its source. Granular controls become available after granular playback is enabled.
• Microphone unavailable: allow access in your browser, or load an audio file instead. Supported recording and file formats vary by device.
• Using a phone: tap note pads directly and use the side section buttons. If file sharing is unavailable, download and attach the audio manually.

For a closer listen, try headphones. For anything else, begin a conversation.