River Help

River is an audio mixer, plugin host and sequencer for iPad and Mac. Its defining feature is Snapshots: saved states of every plugin's parameters, crossfaded between instantly or over time.

Getting help

• Tap the ? button at the end of the tab bar to open the page for what's in front: the Audio Canvas, the Mixer or a plugin tab.
• Long-press or right-click it for Jump to Help for View, which enters Help mode:
  • Areas of the screen light up; tap one to open its page here.
  • Panes nest — tapping inside the piano roll opens the piano roll's page, not the launcher's.
  • Tap the ? button or the mode's pill, or press Esc, to leave Help mode.
• Search from the sidebar: page titles first, then headings, then anything in the text.
• Still stuck, or found a bug? Email Log File in Settings writes a mail to us with River's log attached, which helps us see what happened.

Sections

• Release Notes — what's new in each version.
• Workspace — how the screen is laid out: toolbar, tab bar, canvas, palette.
• Audio Canvas and MIDI Canvas — where blocks of plugins live.
• Routing — patching audio and MIDI between blocks.
• Mixer — levels, pans and sends for every block.
• Plugin Tabs — plugin editors, side by side, full screen.
• Sequence Launcher — the sequencer: channels, sequences, the piano roll and keyboards.
• Snapshots — saving and crossfading plugin states.
• Modulation — LFOs, dials and controllers patched into parameters.
• MIDI Learn — hardware controllers on anything on screen.
• Undo — two histories: structure, and values.
• Sessions and Settings.
• Keyboard Shortcuts — for the Mac and iPad keyboards.

Acknowledgements

River is built with open-source software.

• The Tiny synth is an interface for Emilie Gillet (Mutable Instruments) Plaits which in turn builds on stmlib.
• The Plate Reverb is the reverb from Emilie Gillet's (Mutable Instruments) Rings.
• Yams by JP Simard for reading and writing YAML files
• Ableton Link for syncing tempo and transport

You can view the licenses here