Creative tools for harmonic flow, structure and texture
The half of production that lives in the "should I?" question — should this go up a semitone, should this drop in at bar 33, should I sidechain the reverb, should I chop the sample at the off-beat. Five tools to make those calls less abstract and more visual.
Key Shift Visualiser
Pick a starting key and a target — the tool renders the notes of the source scale on a piano-roll and highlights the shifted notes in a contrasting colour so you can see what the shift actually does to your melody. Suggests diatonic chord substitutions so the shift doesn't break your harmony.
Unique: visualises the harmonic interval ("+3 semitones = minor third up, common in trance/techno lift") instead of just printing a number.
Camelot Wheel Helper
The 24-key Camelot wheel rendered as an interactive canvas. Your current key glows; the four most harmonically compatible keys (relative, energy up, energy down, parallel) glow brighter. Each shows a recommended mix-in / mix-out beat so you know when to drop.
Unique: includes a quick-quiz mode — pick your current key and the tool shows three compatible next keys; perfect for DJ trainees who need to drill the wheel.
Sample Chop Suggester
Enter your sample BPM and length. The tool generates a chopping grid using MPC / SP-404 conventions — half-bar, quarter, off-beat, reverse. Each chop is colour-coded by feel ("this one sits on the off-beat, use sparingly"). Outputs a pad-bank assignment you can punch into your sampler.
Unique: tells you the human-feel reason for each chop suggestion, not just the bar number.
Reverb Tail Advisor
Set BPM, style preset (intimate / hall / plate / cathedral), dry/wet and decay. The tool draws the reverb envelope over time and warns if the decay exceeds one bar — that's the threshold where the reverb tail starts to mask the next transient. Recommends a pre-delay in ms so the dry signal stays upfront.
Unique: shows how a sidechain duck on the reverb bus cleans up the low end without losing the space.
Track Structure Timer
Enter total length and your sections (intro / build / drop / breakdown / outro). The tool draws the arrangement timeline and converts each section into bar counts at your BPM, with genre-aware suggestions ("techno intro usually 32–64 bars"). Exports a printable arrangement sheet.
Unique: flags sections that are too short to feel intentional (e.g. a 4-bar breakdown in a 7-minute track reads as a mistake, not a build-up).
A typical creative workflow
- 1. Plan the harmonic skeleton in Camelot Wheel or Key Shift so the lift / drop actually works.
- 2. Chop your samples in Sample Chop Suggester; transfer the pad-bank assignment to your sampler.
- 3. Lay out the arrangement with Track Structure Timer before you commit to recording — changes are cheapest at this stage.
- 4. Add space and texture with Reverb Tail Advisor, tuning the decay to your BPM.