Draw a line and it plays. Height becomes pitch, length becomes duration, and the shape of the stroke becomes the phrasing. Stack layers for melody, harmony and drums, pick an instrument for each, then push the whole thing through sound tools and an effects rack until it stops sounding like a drawing.
The canvas is scanned in steps. Every stroke that crosses a step becomes a note, its vertical position is mapped onto a scale, and the sound tool assigned to that stroke decides how the note is articulated.
The novelty wears off in about a minute. What keeps you there is that everything underneath the canvas is a real synth and a real effects chain.
A stroke is a phrase. Vertical position sets pitch, horizontal extent sets when and how long it sounds, and the contour of your hand becomes the contour of the melody. It is the fastest way anyone has found to get an idea out of your head and into audio.
Add a layer per part - melody, harmony, bass, drums - and give each one its own instrument. Every layer can be hidden while you work on another, locked so you cannot draw on it by accident, or deleted outright.
Piano, guitar, violin, cello, flute, sax, trumpet, harp and organ for pitched parts; kick, snare, hi-hats, clap, toms, cymbal, conga, cowbell, rimshot, maracas and a full MPC kit for percussion. One canvas holds both.
Assign vibrato, granular, glide, stutter, glitch, slow-mo, echo or reverse to a stroke and it changes how that phrase is articulated, not just how loud it is. The same drawing sounds like a different player depending on the tool.
Chorus, delay, reverb, phaser, distortion and filter, applied to the mix. This is what takes a sketch from "interesting toy" to something you would actually put under a track.
Pick the scale your drawings are quantised to - pentatonic when nothing should sound wrong, chromatic when you want the whole keyboard, phrygian dominant when you want it exotic. Play along from a MIDI keyboard, work at speed with undo, redo, clear and generate on the keyboard, and hit export to record a full pass to an audio file.
The mapping is consistent enough that you can plan a part before you draw it.
A single stroke climbing left to right is an ascending run, quantised to the scale. Draw it steeper and the intervals widen.
Short horizontal marks at the same height on a drum layer become a steady pattern. Move a couple up or down to change which drum they hit.
Up and back down in one stroke gives you a phrase with a natural peak. Add glide as the sound tool and it becomes a portamento line rather than steps.
Dense overlapping strokes on a granular tool produce a cloud rather than notes. Layer it under something tonal and it works as an atmosphere.
Pick an instrument and draw a single stroke across the canvas. Hearing what your own handwriting sounds like is the whole onboarding.
New layer, drum palette, short flat dashes on the beat. Rhythm is the fastest way to make a drawing sound intentional.
Glide for legato lines, stutter for rhythmic ones, granular for texture. This is where two identical strokes stop sounding identical.
Pentatonic minor keeps everything consonant; switch to major or dorian to change the mood without redrawing a stroke. Then open the effects rack and add reverb and delay to taste.
| Type | Drawing-based instrument and graphic sequencer |
|---|---|
| Input | Mouse, trackpad or touch drawing; Web MIDI keyboard input |
| Mapping | Stroke height sets pitch against a scale, horizontal extent sets timing and duration |
| Layers | Unlimited, each with instrument assignment, visibility, lock and delete |
| Instruments | Piano, guitar, violin, cello, flute, sax, trumpet, harp, organ |
| Drums | Kick, snare, hi-hat, clap, toms, cymbal, conga, cowbell, rimshot, maracas, MPC kick / snare / hat / perc |
| Sound tools | Normal, vibrato, granular, glide, stutter, glitch, slow-mo, echo, reverse |
| Effects | Chorus, delay, reverb, phaser, distortion, filter |
| Tools | Draw, eraser, grid, live mode, clear, undo, redo, pattern generator, quick presets |
| Shortcuts | Undo, redo, select all, clear, save, toggle grid and more on Ctrl-key combinations |
| Settings | Audio quality and canvas resolution, saved between sessions |
| Scales | Pentatonic minor, pentatonic major, major, minor, blues, dorian, phrygian dominant, chromatic - spanning C3 to C6 |
| Export | One-click audio export - records a full pass of the master output and downloads it |
| Requirements | Any modern browser with Web Audio. Touch drawing supported. |
Anyone can draw a shape that goes up and then down. Far fewer people can enter that same phrase into a piano roll before losing it. Wave Rider takes the gesture seriously: the stroke you make is scanned into steps, quantised onto a scale, and played by a real voice, so the idea survives the trip from your hand to the speakers.
Under the canvas sits the same machinery as a conventional instrument - a palette of pitched and percussive voices, per-stroke articulation, a six-module effects rack, layers you can mute and lock, undo and redo, eight scales, and MIDI input if you would rather play a part than draw it. The drawing is an input method, not the whole product.
Because the mapping between shape and sound is visible and immediate, Wave Rider is one of the clearest ways to show someone what pitch, duration and articulation actually mean. It is also the fastest way to get a half-formed melodic idea into audio before it evaporates.
Wave Rider shares the same audio graph and Sound Tools system as the rest of the catalog, so a sketch made here sits naturally next to the drum machines, samplers and effects. One subscription covers everything, and a 7-day free trial covers the deciding.
The canvas is scanned in steps. Any stroke crossing a step becomes a note, its vertical position is mapped onto a musical scale so it stays in key, and its horizontal extent sets the timing and length. Nothing you draw comes out atonal by accident.
As many as you want - you add them as you go. Each layer has its own instrument and its own visibility, lock and delete controls, which is how you keep a drum part and a melody on the same canvas without drawing on the wrong one.
Pitched voices include piano, guitar, violin, cello, flute, sax, trumpet, harp and organ. The percussion palette covers kick, snare, hi-hats, clap, toms, cymbal, conga, cowbell, rimshot, maracas and a set of MPC-style kit sounds.
Per-stroke articulation: vibrato, granular, glide, stutter, glitch, slow-mo, echo and reverse. They change how a phrase is played rather than how it is mixed, so the same drawn line can come out legato, chopped or smeared depending on which one is assigned.
Yes. Wave Rider requests Web MIDI access and any connected class-compliant controller can play the current voice, which is useful when you want to audition a sound before drawing with it.
Whichever you choose. Eight are available - pentatonic minor and major, major, minor, blues, dorian, phrygian dominant and chromatic - and the selection is remembered between sessions. Pentatonic is the default because it leaves no wrong notes on the canvas.
Yes. Export records one complete pass of your composition from the studio master output and hands you the audio file - it starts playback, captures the pass and stops itself, or you can click again to stop early. Drop the result into a sampler, a drum machine or any DAW.
Wave Rider comes with the GOONS Studio subscription at €9.90/month, alongside every other app in the catalog. Start with the 7-day free trial - no credit card, cancel whenever.
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