The Library and templates

The Library keeps the sounds you want to use again: patterns, kits, grooves, channel strips, your sample folders, arp patterns and the tracks of your other songs. Templates are whole songs to start a new one from.

Show the Library

Choose View ▸ Show or Hide Library. The Library is a tab in the right sidebar, beside the Inspector: click Library or Inspector at the top to swap them.

To give the Library a window of its own, for example on a second display, click the window button beside its tab, or choose Window ▸ Library in Its Own Window.

Search and filter the Library

  • Type in the search field at the top: a name, a tag or an instrument.
  • Click a chip to show one kind: All, ♥ (favourites), Patterns, Kits, Strips, Grooves, Samples, Arps, Songs or Racks (saved FX and instrument racks; see Racks in Mixing).
  • Click a tag under the chips to show only what has it. Click it again to show everything.
  • Sort orders the list: Best (favourites, then stars, then how often you use it), Fits Song, Recent, Most Used or Name.
  • Hidden shows what you marked Never Use.

A pattern or kit with notes shows how well it fits the song's key: In key, a percentage, or In key at +3 when moving it would fit.

Listen and add to the song

  • Click the play button beside a pattern or kit to listen. It plays through the Stereo Out in the song's tempo, and on the next beat while the song plays.
  • Drag a pattern or kit into the arrangement, or double-click it to add it at the playhead.
  • Double-click a channel strip to load it on the selected track.
  • Double-click a groove to quantize the selected MIDI regions to it.

Right-click an item for more: Listen, Add in Song's Key (when it would fit better moved), and Show Similar, which ranks the list by how alike the items are. Click the Like … chip to go back.

Favourites, stars and tags

  • Click the heart on an item to make it a favourite. Click a star to rate it from one to five.
  • Right-click for Rating, Never Use (hides it until you choose Use Again), Edit Tags… and Show in Finder.
  • In Edit Tags…, separate tags with commas.

To fill the Library, use the buttons at the bottom: Save Region as Library Pattern…, Save Selected Tracks as Kit…, Save Region as Groove… and Save Channel Strip…. Library Patterns, kits and grooves are kept in your Music folder, in Nebula ▸ Patterns, Nebula ▸ Kits and Nebula ▸ Grooves.

If a Library file cannot be read, the Library names it under the list.

The factory Library

Nebula comes with its own kits and patterns, marked Factory, so the Library is never empty. They are built from Nebula's own instruments.

  • Kits: Four to the Floor, Rolling Night and Broken Beat.
  • Patterns: Kick Four on the Floor, Kick Broken, Drums Offbeat Hats, Genesis Rolling Bass, Genesis Offbeat Bass, Genesis Lead Hook and Genesis Chord Stabs.

Place one and make it yours: the factory items themselves never change, so they have no stars, favourites or tags. Nebula keeps their files with its caches, never in your own Library folders, and makes them again whenever they are missing.

Samples in the Library

Click Samples, then Add Sample Folder… to add a folder of samples: a drive, a pack, your own. Nebula sorts what is in it by what each sound is, and only ever reads it.

  • Click a kind chip (Kick, Snare, Hi-Hat, Pad, Vocal and so on, or Any) and choose All, One-shots or Loops.
  • Click the play button to listen. Turn on Match Key to hear and place a sample in the song's key when the file or its name says its own.
  • Drag a sample into the arrangement, or double-click it to add it at the playhead.
  • Rescan reads the folders again. The cross beside a folder stops showing it; nothing in it is touched.

Loop files

Apple Loops, ACID WAVs and REX files say their own tempo, length in beats and key. Nebula reads them from the file and uses them before anything the file's name says, so a loop library works in the song's tempo and key as it does in Logic or Cubase.

  • A loop's row shows what the file says: for example Loop · 120 BPM · A minor · 8 beats · Apple Loop. Point at it to see where its tempo and key come from, and an Apple Loop's genre and descriptors. Search finds those words too, and apple loop, acid or rex.
  • Placed or heard, a loop plays at the tempo it states, stretched to the song's. A loop that states nothing is measured, and then its name is read.
  • A loop that says it is both major and minor, or neither, gives its root alone, such as B. With Match Key on, it moves root onto root, as Logic moves loops.
  • A file marked as a one-shot stays a one-shot, whatever its name says.
  • REX files are listed with their tempo and slices, but cannot be heard or placed: their audio needs Reason Studios' REX decoder, which Nebula does not include. Export them from ReCycle as WAV or AIFF.
  • Folders added before this version are read again on the next Rescan, so their loops gain what their files say.

Songs in the Library

Click Songs to see the songs you have opened or saved. Open one to see its tracks, buses and folders. Drag one onto the arrangement, or double-click it, and it comes in with its regions, plug-ins, sends and automation. Right-click a song and choose Import Tracks… to pick what to bring in.

Templates and the Project Chooser

Choose File ▸ Project Chooser… (⇧⌘N). Under New Song, choose Empty Project or one of Nebula's own templates:

  • Beat: Nebula Kick, Drums, Genesis bass and lead, the Sampler, and a drum bus.
  • Record a Band: eight mono tracks on inputs 1–8, a drum bus and a headphone mix.
  • Songwriter: a vocal, an acoustic guitar, Nebula Keys' electric piano and the chord track.
  • Mix: buses for drums, music and vocals, with reverb and delay returns.
  • Master: the mastering chain on the Stereo Out, a mix and a reference.

Each card shows the template's tempo, key and number of tracks. The new song is untitled, so the first save asks where.

Your own templates

  1. Make a song the way you like to start.
  2. Choose File ▸ Save as Template… and give it a name.

It is listed under Your Templates in the Project Chooser. Double-click it, or select it and click New from Template. Rename… and Delete… are beside it, and on its right-click menu. Deleting a template leaves the songs started from it as they are.

The welcome card

A new, empty song shows the Start Your Song card, with three ways to begin:

  • Start from a Template opens the Project Chooser.
  • Ask Claude to Start a Song puts a question for Claude on the clipboard: say the style, tempo and mood.
  • Record Audio opens New Tracks for audio tracks: choose the input, then arm and record.

Close the card with its cross. Once closed or used, it does not come back.

Claude and the Library

Claude can do much of this for you. Ask it to start a song from a template (Beat, Record a Band, or one of yours), to save the song as a template, to find samples in your folders and place one, to list your patterns and kits and place one, or to bring a track in from another song.