Beatmaker's sketchbook is developed to be as intuitive to use as possible. As you know, it is Open Source and will change and improve over time. Each firmware with new features has its own manual with updates from the previous version.

Last edited: 12.03.2026

As the last edit was for version 9.6, there might be more features implemented, that described in this document. The plan is to have one sheet with all keys and shortcuts to check the whole functionality at once.

Below the encoders is a row of function buttons. These are:

FUNK        The function key, to be used in combination with other keys to reveal more options
MENU        This button will open a menu on the bottom of the screen 
SWITCH      Will change the internal keyboard to a real keyboard for playing samples cromatically pitched
            OR it opens a dialog, e.g. for sample browsing on the SD-card
PLAY, STOP  
RECORD      Start and stop recording something from the selected input
INPUT       Lets you select the input source for recording (see LEDs aside / green = internal mic, orange = line-in, red = resample)

Below this row are 24 keys. The correspond to two octaves on a piano keyboard. In this manual they are sometimes called Note keys. Whenever you need to enter alphanumerical characters, you use the Note Keys. The white keys correspond to letters, the black keys to numbers and special characters. See the picture for exact character positions.

The fader on the bottom of the front panel is not a crossfader as in a DJ mixer. It is a potentiometer, used to input values. Whenever the fader is active, the LED right below the fader is turned on.

The cursor keys have a SET button in the center. It is always used to

The most important key-compinations to know, as they are essential, are:

MENU+ENCODER1   Sampler (sample)
MENU+ENCODER2   Sequencer (sketch)
MENU+ENCODER3   Arrange Mode (arrange)
MENU+ENCODER4   Live mode (play)

FUNK+SET        Is the undo and sometimes delete function. Like CTRL+Z on a PC.

MENU            Hiding the menu will cancel the current menu action

First of all, a logo is shown. In the background, the hardware will be initialized and it is checked, if a SD card is available. If there is no SD card plugged into the teensy, you cannot work with beatmaker's sketchbook. So be sure to have one attached.

Beatmaker's sketchbook is designed to work with one song at a time. When powering the device up, the Song selector is shown. Select a song by turning ENCODER1 or the UP/DOWN button. The hit SET or PUSH ENCODER1.

Select create a new song, enter the name of the new song via the Note keys as mentioned above to start a new empty project. If you decide not to create a new song, push FUNK+SET to cancel the operation and return to the song selector. There is no space key - just use the RIGHT key. Song names can only have 8 characters. To enter the name, confirm with SET.

The main contexts sample, sketch, arrange and play are assigned to the four encoders. If you are in the main menu, just hit one of the four encoders to jump to the corresponding context. If you are in a context, use the shortcut MENU+ENCODER 1/2/3/4 to change the context.

Keeping the MENU key pushed for more than five Seconds, will always bring you back to the main screen.

The "black keys" menu shows up to ten tree-letter abbreviations. They are clustered in four bundles with three or two abbreviations. As the name says, these abbreviations correspond to the black keys of the piano keyboard. Whenever the black key menu is open, the white keys do not act as sample- or note selector. Hit MENU again to hide the menu and the Note keys can be used as expected. Some operations lock the menu, until the operation is finished - e.g. deleting a sample: you need to hit the delete option again to confirm the delete process.

To record from the internal microphone, the Line IN or to resample something, hit the RECORD button. To record something, you need to select the input. Use the INPUT key to switch between the inputs. The three LEDs beside the INPUT button correspond to: MIC, LINE IN and RESAMPLE. When two LEDs are shining at the same time, it is a combination of RESAMPLING and MIC or LINE IN.

There is a peak meter shown on the display to show the input level. When recording from the microphone, use ENCODER1 to adjust the gain. Pay attention, when the volume of the speakers is too high and the gain, too, there might appear a feedback noise. Best results will appear while recording with a headphone, as the speakers are switched off, when the headphone is plugged in. With the SWITCH key you can toggle the peak meter from screen to the three input selector LEDs.

Turning ENCODER1 changes the gain level.

To start the recording, hit RECORD again. To stop the recording, hit RECORD once again. If you hit RECORD by accident, hit FUNK+RECORD to cancel recording. This does not work while recording.

After recording, the record will be shown in the sampler. If you do not delete the latest recording, it will always show up, when entering the sampler context. If you record something else, the latest recording will be overwritten. Hiding the menu will cancel the operation.

In general, we have three sample banks which are selectable via the LEFT and RIGHT keys. The LEDs will indicate which Bank is active. Each sample bank can hold 24 samples. One sample corresponds to one key. In total there are 72 samples per song.

Within the sampler, all samples are played directly from the SD card. Playing multiple samples at a time is not possible in this place.

The latest recording is never assigned to a sample unless you save it to one.

In general, just follow the instructions on the screen.

The Options in the Black keys menu are:

SAV   Save the current sample
SAS   Save the current sample/selection to another sample slot
DEL   Delete the current sample

CUT   Cut the current sample
C4    Option to set the basenote of the sample. Default is C4. Label adjusts to basenote.

The Sample library (SWITCH at an empty sample slot) displays all samples on the SD card. You can browse the whole SD-card filesystem. Samples will always be played for pre-listening, as you scoll through a directory. Hit PLAY to pre-listen to the sample again. Use SET to select the selected sample, cancel by pushing SWITCH again. You can also use the LEFT and RIGHT cursor keys to go navigate through the filesystem.

When cutting a sample (Menu -> CUT), ENCODER1 moves the start pointer, ENCODER2 moves the end pointer. ENCODER 3 adjusts the volume. Playing the selected part is always possible by hitting PLAY.

To fine-adjust the start- and end-point, use FUNK+ENCODER1/2. The amount of 16 Bits (one amplitude change) will be shown on top. Pay attention that it resets to zero, if you change it again without holding FUNK.

You can push ENCODER1 and ENCODER2 to give control over the marker to the fader. Push the Encoder again to set the position from the fader and fine-adjust it.

LEFT and RIGHT move the selected area around. This is for cutting loops into same-sized slices.

When the right part is selected, you can SAV it and overwrite the current sample with the selected part. With SAS (save as) the selection can be saved to a free sample slot. Free sample slots light up green.

The most right item in the menu show by default C4. When hitting it, you can hti any key on the piano keyboard to set this as the midi base note for the sample. LEFT and RIGHT will change the octaves. When done, hit SET to save it. The menu item label changes to the new set base note.

Changing the base-note is relevant for chromatically pitching the samples. Before this feature, the sequencer was assuming that a sample is always C4. Playing it in the piano mode would be wrong in terms of frequencies.

The sequencer is just a matrix with 8 lines (channels) and almost endless columns. It is called a sketch. Sketches can be divided into sheets (on other devices it would be called pattern). One channel is not bound to anything. You can place different samples right after each other. If one sample is still playing, the next one will stop it and play itself. While a sample is playing, Parameter changes can adjust the volume and panning of a sample. Each Sample can be adjusted by volume, panning, (chromatic) pitch with a midi basenote of 60 (C4) and a probability to be played. Swing can be added to a single sample or swing groups. Swing can only be used to delay the playback of a sample. To play a sample before the timing, you need to trigger it one step earlier and delay it with swing. Samples can be assigned to swing groups. When the swing value of one sample in the group is changed, all samples in the group will inherit the same value. Swing groups are displayed in different colors. Samples with swing are marked with a small vertical line on the grid. The value of swing is displayed below the grid on the right side (above probability) on a 11 raster bar. Use ENCODER1 for volume, ENCODER2 for panning, ENCODER 3 for pitch and ENCODER 4 for probability. If you do not want to turn the encoders, you can always push the encoder and the current value of the fader will be taken instead.

Black key Menu Options

SEL
To start a selection. Move the cursor and a selection will span. PLAY will play just the selection. Use SNI to save the selection as a snippet.

MOV     
Move a grid cell or selection to another position. Go to the source cell, hit MOV, go to the destination and hit MOV again.

DBL     
Double a cell or selection. This makes a copy of the cell you hit DBL on. Move the cursor to the copy detination and hit DBL again.
If you hit DBL twice, a copy of the current active cell will be added to the cell right beside it - if it is empty.
When a selection is done before, you can select a position where the selection should be copied to.

SNI
Snippets. Can be saved to one of the 14 white keys of the keyboard from a selection. Free slots will light up on the keyboard.
When entering the SNI mode while the cursor is within a snippet, you can use PLAY to listen only to the snippet or delete it by deselecting the lighting white key again.

SND     
Sound has two Options. It can be used as a Parameter change for playing samples (Volume, Panning and fine grained Pitch) and as a Note off to stop the currently playing sample.
Hit it once, it's a parameter change, hit it again, it becomes a Note Off (Sample only, not a Midi Note off).

INS
Adds a MIDI Out message. You can adjust the MIDI parameters Velocity, Channel and Note with ENCODERS1..3.
To send a corresponding Note Off, you need to send the exact same Note/Channel combination with a Velocity of zero. If the velocity is zero, it will be marked with a red X on the grid.

REV
Reverse changes the playback direction of a sample. Can be used with parameter changes to change the playback direction while playing a sample.

MUT
Mutes the channel the curseris currently on. Muted channels are displayed with a red line on the right side of the screen.

CLS
Clear Selection -> when used on a selection
Clear Song -> removes everything from the current sketch. Affects, when no selection is active. You need to confirm that operation with a second hit on CLS.

Playback behavior

PLAY    Play song
PLAY    Stop playback (when playing) and start next playback at the beginning of the sheet the cursor is located on
STOP    Stop playback and start next playback from the beginning

Shortcuts

FUNK+ENCODER3   move cursor (fast) horizontally
FUNK+ENCODER4   change song/grid length

FUNK+UP         Zoom in
FUNK+DOWN       Zoom out
FUNK+LEFT       Sample Bank down
FUNK+RIGHT      Sample Bank up

FUNK+NOTE       Pre-listen Sample at note key position
FUNK+PLAY       Pre-listen the sample at cursor position

MENU+UP         Create a sheet divider before the current cursor position.
MENU+DOWN       Removes a sheet divider at the current cursor position.
MENU+RIGHT      Jumps to the next sheet.
MENU+LEFT       Jumps to the previous sheet.

SET+LEFT/RIGHT  Changes the swing value of a single sample or the value of a complete swing group, if a group is selected (different colors).
SET+UP/DOWN     Changes the swing group the sample is assigned to.

ENCODER1        On an empty grid cell, it will change the playback speed BPM

While playing

FUNK+ENCODER1   Change playback BPM

A lot of functions are working even while playing, but they might impact the playback speed, as refreshing the display takes some time (needs to be fixed).

The arrange mode gives the option to chain sheets from the sequencer to a complete song. Each cell of the grid can hold one sheet. You can navigate within the grid via the CURSOR keys. The grid plays from left to right and top to bottom. The arrangement will stop playing, if there is an empty cell. This way you can create multiple arrangements. The first arrangement can be played in the play mode, too, via pushing the PLAY key.

Shortcuts

WHITE KEYS   Insert a sheet to the highlighted grid cell. Each white key corresponds to a sheet from the sequencer.
FN+SET       Delete the sheet from the active cell.
PLAY         Play the arrangement, starting at the active cell. 
             If the arrangement is currently playing, it will be paused. Hitting PLAY again will start at the paused position.
FUNK+UP      The selected cell will be played as many times as you hit the combination. Indicated via (+1, +2,...)
FUNK+DOWN    Remove one repetition of the selected cell.

When recording to a DAW, e.g. via USB audio, you can solo a channel with the first eight black keys. This way you can record all eight channels to different channels in your daw and fine-tune them there.

ToDo: update this section, as the user-interface changed and icons were added in addition to the color scheme.

Play mode is for live performances and playing samples or snippets, PLAY and STOP your arrangement in the background and scratch samples with the fader. Each key on the keyboard can be assigned to a sample or a snippet, as well as a mute button for scratching a sample. All three banks can be used - 72 slots in total can be assignet. Each note on the keyboard can be triggered from external MIDI gear on MIDI channel 1 (the channel will be configurable in future versions). Each slot is by default assigned to the corresponding standard MIDI note of the position (e.g. the first C on the second bank is note 60). The midi note for each slot can be changed by a) selecting a note or b) learning from an incoming MIDI signal.

With FUNK + NOTE KEY you can edit a slot on the keyboard. If it is not assigned yet, you will be prompted to select what type of action the slot should trigger. Use LEFT/RIGHT to change the value, hit SET to enter. Then select a sample or snippet from the keyboard. SET will assign the played snippet/sample. In the third step, different parameters can be set.

When there are samples and/or snippets assigned to slots, the slots will be displayed in different colors. Pushing a SLOT key will play the saved configuration. For editing a slot again, hit FUNK+SLOT KEY to enter the edit mode again. Use SET to save the configuration and return to the overview or hit FUNK+SET to remove the sample/snippet from the slot.

The color coding for each slots is described here:

For samples these are: Velocity (will be overwritten when triggered from an external MIDI device with velocity value), panning and pitch.

ENCODER 1 (push) will toggle between normal and scratch playback. Scratch modes are:

• tape mode uses the fader to adjust the speed of the sample playback. Middle position is 0, right is fast forward, left side is fast backward.
• vinyl mode uses the fader to calculate the acceleration, like pushing a vinyl record back and forth. when the fader reached the edge, it can be reset to any position with the Adjust fader position key.
• DVS mode uses the lline-in signal from a 1khz timecode signal, like the serato timecode vinyls, to scratch the sample.

FORWARD and REVERSE (push ENCODER 2) will change the playback direction.

ENCODER3 changes the playback behaviour. complete always plays the whole sample. while hold plays the sample as long as the key is pressed. Bot options have a subline to define if the sample should loop or not.

ENCODER 4 changes the assigned MIDI note (will not affect the slot position on the internal keyboard). Pushing ENCODER4 will set the device into the learning mode and wait for an incoming MIDI note on channel 1. Pushing ENCODER4 again will assign the MIDI note. If the note is displayed in red, the MIDI note is already assigned to another slot. If you save (SET) with an already assigned MIDI note, it cannot be triggered from external gear. Push SET to save the sample configuration.

For snippets the parameters are: play complete / instant stop (ENCODER1) will play the complete snippet or stop the snippet when the snippet is triggered again. LOOP/ONCE (ENCODER2) will play the snippet only once or loop it until it is triggered again. The MIDI note functionality (ENCODER4) is identical to the one of the samples.

When triggering a snippet slot, it will play immediately. If you want to sync a second snippet, keep the slot button of the first snippet pushed, push the slot button of the second snippet, release the slot button of the second snippet and release the slot button of the first snippet. The LED of the second snippet slot will blink until the first snippet reaches its end (and loops again). When a snippet is playing, whe LED of the slot is turned on. To stop a snippt's playback, just push (and release) the snippet's slot button. The stop behavior is configured with the snippet parameters.

ToDo: add a short video to expplain this.

ENCODER1 in the overview will change the playback speed of the snippets. The initial value is taken from the sequencer and can be overwritten. Changing the speed in play mode will not affect the BPM set in the sequencer.

SWITCH will ask you to select a sample. When a sample is selected, it can be played chromatically via the keyboard. This mode is called PIANO mode. Only one Sample can be assigned to PIANO mode and it is displayed in red on the overview. Whenever you hit switch on a live performance, the PIANO mode will start with the selected sample. The PIANO sample can be played via an external MIDI keyboard on MIDI channel 2 (default, changeable in the configurations) - with up to 8 notes (polyphony) at a time. FUNK+SET in piano mode will clear the sample from piano mode.

To record a live performance, hit RECORD, select resample via the input selector, start recording and switch back (MENU+ENCODER4) to play mode. Hit RECORD again to stop recording your session. The recorded session is saved to the internal SD card and will immediately be displayed in the SAMPLE mode.

The menu item CFG on the home screen opens a configuration screen for the device. You can change the following parameters:

• MIDI channel Play - defines on which channel the play mode listens to trigger samples
• MIDI channel Piano - defines on which channel the piano sample listens
• Send MIDI Master Clock - you can enable or disable using the device as the MIDI master clock
• Send MIDI start/stop - enable/disable sending midi signals for start and stop in sketch, arrange and play mode. Useful for recording single channels to a DAW.
• Receive line-in via USB audio - when this is active, the analog line-in will be ignored and recording to via line will be done via USB audio.

Everything is stored on the SD card on the teensy 4.1 microcontroller. There are two directories on the root folder of the SD-Card.

/SAMPLES    
This is the directory where the sample library is stored. Samples may only be saved as 44khz mono .raw files.

/SONGS      
The subdirectories below this folder contain one song, each. If you want to delete a song, just delete the corresponding directory. 

To update the firmware of your Beatmaker's sketchbook, just compile the sources of this project or get a pre-compiled version. The latest pre-built version as .hex file is stored here.

To install it, you need the Teensy Loader application installed on your PC or Mac. Make sure to read the very short manual and upload the .hex file to the teensy inside Beatmaker's sketchbook. If you need to hit the program button, open the device and push the program button on the teensy microcontroller board.