Dynamic latency ships as ruled; the restart cost is re-attributed to our own setActive and filed in TODO. The reflow splits canvas (W1-T4) from arrangement (W3-T1); preserve-time-stretch moves to W1-T5.
114 KiB
PLAN
The post-1.0 roadmap. Seventeen queued items consolidated into overlapping areas and
sequenced into a Phase → Wave → Track hierarchy that implementation specialists can be
dispatched against directly — plus Phase Γ, which did not come from those seventeen
(it came from a direct interview, 2026-08-01) and is scoped in
docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md.
What this doc is, and how it relates to the others
docs/PLAN.md(this file) — the active on-deck specification list. Each track is written so a specialist brief is writable from this file alone: goal, consolidated source items, surface boundary, behavior, acceptance criteria, open questions, prerequisites.docs/TODO-1.0.md— retained as the verbatim-provenance appendix. It holds Daniel's raw asks and every answer round, unedited; where this plan compresses a behavior bullet, that file is the backing record. Items are cited here by number (e.g. "consolidates items 1, 8, 14"). It is not a work queue any more; this file is.docs/TODO.md— deferred follow-ups with recorded rationale, unrelated to the seventeen (with one flagged intersection: see "Flagged for awareness" below).docs/COMPLETED.md/docs/ARCHIVE.md— doc-keeper's. When a track here finishes, its point is removed from this file and appended toCOMPLETED.mdwith any deviation between landed code and spec noted.docs/product/— the product-design reasoning behind prior phases. Grep for a cited section rather than reading a file whole.
Worktree slug convention: p<phase>-w<wave>-t<track>-<slug>. Greek phase letters
transliterate: Θ → th, Ξ → xi, Γ → g. So Θ-W1-T1 dispatches into
pth-w1-t1-zone-retirement and Γ-W1-T1 into pg-w1-t1-knob-interaction-law.
Decision state
Everything carried forward from TODO-1.0.md is classified [verify] (answerable by
reading code or running the DAW) or [propose] (a design call made at implementation
review with a proposal, not a Daniel call); that classification is preserved per
question, attached to the track that will answer it.
Θ-W3-T1's two genuine [Daniel] questions — which no amount of code-reading could
answer — are both ruled on and the track has landed; see docs/COMPLETED.md for the
full narrative. Reload tier = Grouping B (continuous knobs live: filter cutoff/Q/
morph/drive/mod amount/key-track, every envelope stage time and level; root note, loop
span, and start frame still trigger a full reload). Mid-stage rule = candidate (iv),
hold normalized stage position (φ = elapsed/duration held fixed across a duration
change, then advancing at 1/newDuration). Phase Γ opened six [Daniel]-class forks
(Γ-F1…Γ-F6) and all six are ruled (Daniel, 2026-08-01) — the rulings are folded into the
tracks below and indexed in docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §8. Γ-F6 closed
with a correction to the analysis, not merely a ruling: dynamic reported latency is routine
for VST3 instruments and REAPER handles it as a matter of course; what makes the mandated
restart expensive here is self-inflicted (setActive(true) calls reloadInstrument), so
the cost is ours to reduce and the reduction is filed in docs/TODO.md rather than designed
around. No track in this plan carries an unanswered [Daniel]-class question.
Flagged for awareness — not blocking, but decision-grade
-
Item 15 has an unresolved cross-artifact seam, and it is the phase's largest unknown. The instrument is a read-only bank consumer by invariant (
src/shell/instrument/CLAUDE.md), and the one previous attempt at an instrument→extension relay (S13) closed with a DEGRADED spike verdict and was deferred (docs/TODO.md). Resample requires that crossing. Ξ-W2-T1 opens with the architecture decision and this plan names the candidates rather than assuming the deferred relay shape; see that track. Consequence to hold: if every candidate fails verification, item 15's "one click from inside the VST" framing is what gives, not the read-only invariant — the fallback is a bindable extension-side action. -
Phase Γ must land before Ξ-W2, and this is a correctness point, not a preference. Ξ-W2's settled reset scope enumerates parameters by name; Γ adds rate, pitch offset and the limiter flag, so shipping the bake first means its reset list is incomplete on the day it lands. Γ's product doc pre-classifies all three against the ratified rule (all reset), so this costs no Daniel decision — only ordering. Second, weaker reason: Γ owns params-payload v14 and v15, and Ξ-W3's programmed-signal persistence will want the next rung; two phases contending for the ladder is the fight Θ's organizing constraint exists to avoid.
-
The taper work inside Γ-W1-T1 is a one-way door with respect to automation. Once VST3 parameters exist, the taper is the host-facing normalization, and re-tapering re-interprets every recorded automation point in project files we do not own and cannot migrate. Re-tapering is free today and permanently expensive afterwards. See
docs/product/parameter-automation.md§4 — that doc is scoping only, nothing in it is scheduled here. The same door applies to the stage-time ceiling, which Γ-F3 left at 2.0 s with a 10 s ambition recorded indocs/TODO.md: if that ceiling is ever raised, it wants to happen before the parameter system, not after.
Phase-wide acceptance criteria
These bind every track in all three phases and are stated once here rather than repeated per track. Phase Γ adds five of its own, stated in its phase header.
Structural (root CLAUDE.md, Daniel 2026-07-28)
- More directories is a must; more files is good; ~600-line file ceiling. The
ceiling is the bar; a responsibility seam is the method. Bisection-to-hit-the-
number is rejected.
sampler_core.cpp(956 lines) is the standing documented hot-path exception — Θ-W1-T1 re-seams it, and any surviving over-ceiling TU must carry the same explicit justification. - Templates where earned — compile-time dedup with zero runtime cost, off the hot paths. Not for types that differ in name only.
- SOLID is great, but saved CPU is better. No dispatch-stack blowouts anywhere; prefer static polymorphism where the types are compile-time-known.
Performance guardrails
Root CLAUDE.md's five extension-side guardrails (peaks envelope compute, audition,
realtime-capture tick, JSON, FxBypassGuard) are unchanged by this plan; no track here
touches them. The instrument adds a sixth surface that binds every Θ track:
process()— the per-voice-per-sample path — takes no new indirection. The filter tick, the envelope evaluation (staged and spline), the pitch-shift read, and the loop read all sit on it. Concrete, inlineable types only: noIEnvelope, noIFilter, no virtual per-voicetick(). A filter with two modes is a branch-predictable switch or a compile-time-known dispatch, never a vtable. Spline evaluation is a binary search over a point array, not a polymorphic curve object.- No allocation, no file I/O, no bridge call in
process(). The off-audio-threadreloadInstrument+ atomic pointer swap stays the only way new state reaches the audio thread. Every new parameter this plan adds follows that path. - A split that would add a hot-path indirection is out of scope — rework it or drop it.
Product invariants
- Capture and placement are separate acts. No track here may place a timeline item. Item 15's bake explicitly must not, and one of its candidate architectures uses a temporary arrange mutation — that candidate must leave the arrange byte-identical.
- Prune is the single, exclusive file-deletion authority. Item 15's "replace" never deletes bytes; item 17's consolidation may not weaken any protection prune has today.
- The instrument never writes the bank. Item 15 is the first feature that needs to, and it resolves that by asking the extension, not by breaching the invariant.
- Migration bar: a project saved before a change reopens sounding identical. Holds everywhere except item 16's genuinely-multi-zone case, where Daniel deliberately relaxed it.
- Every pure module gets a
<module>_teststarget that runs without REAPER or a DAW. New pure modules in this plan are not optional-test.
Phase Θ — ReaSampler 9000: one parameter set, a filter, shapeable envelopes, a legible editor
Ships: the instrument with the zone system retired, a resonant HP/LP filter stage in the voice path, curve-shapeable and spline-drawable envelopes on all three EGs, Gate-mode loop sustain, and a re-laid, high-DPI-clean editor — plus the two extension drag/drop defects that block getting captures into it.
Consolidates items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16.
All seven waves have landed — Phase Θ is complete. W1 through W7 each carry their own
landed note above; see docs/COMPLETED.md for every track's full narrative. Θ-W7 was
opened after Θ-W6-T1 shipped, to fix two rendering defects Daniel found by eye; it did not
exist in the plan when this phase was originally scoped.
The organizing constraint. Three surfaces in the instrument are single-writer by nature and dictate the wave shape:
- The parameter model (
zone_params.h+component_state_io) — every parameter addition touches both. Two tracks adding parameters concurrently is a merge fight and two competingComponentStateversion bumps. - The voice render path (
sampler_core.cpp) — filter insertion, envelope evaluation, loop read, and the Trigger tail all live there. - The Sample face (
editor_paint_sample.cpp516 lines /editor_input_sample.cpp583 lines) — every UI item repaints it, and both are already at the ceiling.
Parallelism in this phase therefore comes from splitting the Sample face into bands (done once, in Θ-W1-T1) and from extension-side work being genuinely disjoint — not from running two parameter-model tracks at once. Where a wave has one track, the collision is real and the serialization is the correct answer.
Θ-W1 — Collapse and re-seam
All three tracks have landed — Θ-W1-T1 (zone-retirement), Θ-W1-T2
(capture-handoff-bugs), and Θ-W1-T3 (filter-dsp-port) — see docs/COMPLETED.md for
the full narrative of each. Between them: the zone subsystem is retired, the wave's two
responsibility seams (the sampler_core split, the Sample-face band split) are in
place, the two extension-side capture-handoff defects are fixed, and the filter DSP has
landed as a standalone pure module — Θ-W2-T1 has since wired it into the voice path (see
below).
Θ-W2 — Filter in the voice path; waveform and chrome bands
Depends on W1 for: the one-parameter-set model and the sampler_core seam that T1
writes the filter into; the filter module T1 wires up; the Sample-face band split and
band-stack allocator that T2 and T3 fill; and W1-T1's key-range answer, which decides
what T3's piano strip displays. Authoring any of this against the per-zone model means
writing storage plumbing W1 deletes.
All three tracks have landed — Θ-W2-T1 (filter-voice-path), Θ-W2-T2
(stereo-waveform-lanes), and Θ-W2-T3 (toolbar-and-piano-strip) — see
docs/COMPLETED.md for the full narrative of each. Between them: the filter sits in the
per-voice signal path with its own deck, the waveform band shows both channels in
stereo mode behind a type-enforced full-height overlay contract, and the chrome band's
toolbar and piano strip are cleaned up per spec. The three tracks were disjoint by
band — T1 owned the parameter model and the deck band, T2 owned the waveform band, T3
the chrome band — and none re-allocated the band stack.
Θ-W3 — Live parameters, then the staged envelope system
Depends on W2 for: the filter envelope's existence — items 1, 8, and 14 govern three envelopes, and the filter is the third; and for the Filter deck, which must exist before it can receive a corner radio switch and inner curve dials. T1 additionally depends on W2-T1 for the filter itself: the filter is the first control set where the latched-at-note-on delivery model fails audibly, and it is what made the defect visible.
Both tracks have landed — Θ-W3-T1 (live-parameter-delivery) and Θ-W3-T2
(staged-envelope-curves) — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the full narrative of each.
Between them: every continuous playback control (filter cutoff/Q/morph/drive/mod
amount/key-track, every stage time and level on all three envelopes) now reaches a
sounding voice live instead of latching at note-on, and the envelope-overlay editor
grew from an amp-only fixture into the shared graphical surface for all three
envelopes — a corner radio switch per deck (none active by default), curve-shapeable
segments on every sloped stage (0.1–10 exponent, an inner dial paired with an overlay
knot), the release-right-anchored AHDSR layout against the pitch envelope's 1:1 AHD,
and the Trigger amp/filter fade pair folded into a Trigger AHD, consolidating what
were two staged-shape mechanisms into one. The Trigger × Preserve end-of-sample click
is fixed; the landed fix is wider than scoped, also ringing out Gate × Preserve ×
source-exhaustion, previously a hard cut. The ordering was deliberately serial — T1's
live-delivery mechanism landed first so T2's new curve exponents and Trigger AHD
fields were authored directly into it rather than backfilled afterward.
Θ-W4 — Loop sustain and the velocity deck
Depends on W3 for: the envelope system both tracks compose with — T1's loop-sustain is the Gate-mode sustain the AHDSR releases out of, and T2's bipolar pitch/filter curves modulate targets whose envelopes W3 just reshaped. T2 additionally depends on W2-T1 for the filter's existence and on W2-T3 for the preview button's toolbar position.
Both tracks have landed — Θ-W4-T1 (gate-loop-sustain) and Θ-W4-T2
(velocity-deck-and-bipolar-curves) — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the full narrative of
each. Between them: loop points are now a usable feature, with a Gate-mode loop acting
as the sustain and a parameterized crossfade at the seam; and the three velocity-curve
popups (amp, pitch, filter) now live together in a new VELOCITY deck group, with the
pitch and filter curves bipolar and flat-by-default so their modulation is off until
drawn, while the amp curve stays unipolar and unchanged, and the preview button's text
is replaced by a drawn play-triangle glyph. Params payload reached v11 with T1's loop
block and v12 with T2's velocity→pitch curve appended after it.
Θ-W5 — Spline EGs
Depends on W4 for: the bipolar velocity-curve domain (W4-T2) — the spline algorithm is singly implemented and multi-referenced, so its enhancement must land against the final consumer set, and the last consumer to change domain is the pitch/filter velocity curve; and for the Gate-mode loop (W4-T1), since "Gate is unavailable in Spline mode" is only a real, testable rule once Gate has something to be unavailable for. It also depends on W3's radio switch, which is how a spline contour reaches the overlay at all.
Θ-W5-T1 has landed — spline-egs — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the full narrative.
It shipped a free-drawn alternative to every staged envelope: pitch, filter, and amp
EGs can switch Staged → Spline and have their contour drawn directly on the waveform
overlay. The one shared monotone-spline implementation gained hard points — sharp
corners, no smoothing on either adjacent segment — flowing to every consumer including
the existing velocity→amp transfer curve, no fork. Both Staged and Spline state persist
simultaneously (saved-but-inactive, lossless round-trip); params payload reached v13,
and v12 projects still load. Gate is unavailable while a Spline EG is active; the
contour is a pure time function over the full sample length, normalized and drawn 1:1
with the sample's time axis. Point grammar converged on left-click add / right-click
delete / control-click hard-smooth toggle, one grammar across both spline consumers.
Staged segment knobs and their inner curve dials render disabled and reject edits while
Spline is active. Point-count ceiling: 128, a musical bound rather than a performance
one. A follow-on change in the same track reworked deck cell width: -1 in cellIds
now means one cell's width, reserved and redistributed, rather than a blank cell holding
geometry — a Trigger face that drops Sustain and Release gets wider cells instead of
dead slots; group widths, row packing, deck height, and Gate-mode cell widths are
unchanged.
Θ-W6 — Editor legibility pass
Depends on W5 for: the last change to a drawn surface. Item 13 is an audit whose
output is a disposition list over "every class of drawn surface," and item 10's sizing
pass is judged by eye over the finished layout — running either while the spline contour,
the disabled-knob state, or the deck inventory was still moving would have meant
auditing and then re-auditing. Θ-W5-T1 has landed (see docs/COMPLETED.md), so that
surface has stopped moving and this dependency is satisfied. The source doc names this
sequencing as an observation (item 13 after the layout/knob work); this plan adopts it
as the boundary.
One track. Both items repaint essentially every surface in the editor; concurrent tracks would collide everywhere.
Θ-W6-T1 has landed — legibility-and-antialiasing — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the
full narrative. It shipped both halves together: knobs grew 28→40 px (inner curve dial
14→20), the deck cell 48×58→60×74, and the label band 12→16 px, now drawn in
Font::Label rather than Font::Micro — group captions and toggle segments deliberately
stayed Font::Micro, since bumping them would outgrow row 1's headroom at the floor
width. The editor's default/minimum size grew 840×620→980×680 to fit the wider deck at
floor width; an existing saved instance's window grows on open, and the floor is
validated by a derived test rather than literals. All fourteen time-constant labels now
read in ms (display-only; internal representation untouched) — holdFraction knobs,
Len %, and the bank panel's duration readout stayed out of scope. Double-click resets
each ring independently — outer ring resets the value, inner dial resets the exponent to
1.0 — reaching the chrome's preview-velocity knob too via a shared inKnobFace rule.
The antialiasing audit fixed knob arcs and needle, the inner dial arc and needle, staged
and spline envelope slopes, the spline contour, the velocity-popup trace, the waveform
outline, and the preview triangle; node handles, curve knots, knob discs, buttons, piano
keys, loop markers, borders, gradients, and text were already clean. The disposition
table is a standing artifact in docs/product/visual-design-language.md §8. The
piano-key open question is answered: not aliasing — every key is an axis-aligned
LICE_FillRect, so the earlier width defect was integer-division residue in the tiling,
not a sloped edge. High-DPI host scaling itself is unverified (deferred, see
docs/TODO.md).
All visual outcomes remain pending Daniel's by-eye sign-off on dev.
Θ-W7 — Arc-and-spline antialiasing fix
Depends on W6 for: a drawn surface to find a defect on — this wave did not exist in the plan; it was opened after Daniel found two rendering defects by eye once Θ-W6-T1 shipped, so the audit's own output is what surfaced them.
One track.
Θ-W7-T1 has landed — arc-and-spline-aa — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the full
narrative. The stacked-LICE_Arc knob and dial rings never reached an opaque core (peak
alpha measured 138/255), and the staged/spline envelope and velocity-curve traces were
fully aliased rather than gapped, from integer cy quantizing the slope. Both defects,
plus the two needles, now route through one pure analytic thick-stroke rasterizer —
coverage in a new core/ui/stroke_aa, the single LICE blend in a new
shell/instrument/editor_stroke — replacing LICE_Arc and LICE_ThickFLine outright.
Measured: arc peak alpha 138/255 → 255/255, arc perpendicular-weight ripple 67% → 5%,
spline weight ripple 29% → 3%, at a cost of +0.09 ms per full editor repaint. Daniel then
ruled every sub-2 px stroker width up to 2 px, since the stroker only guarantees an
opaque core at width ≥ 2 px; the knob track arc, the inner-dial needle, and the deck's
mini velocity trace each moved 1.0 → 2.0 px. docs/product/visual-design-language.md §8
is corrected — a false "keeps every ring antialiased" claim is deleted, the rows are
re-dispositioned with measurements, and the audit's methodological lesson (verifying
which primitive was called is not verifying what it rasterized) is recorded as a standing
blockquote. All visual outcomes remain pending Daniel's by-eye sign-off on dev.
Phase Ξ — The resample loop
Ships: one consolidated, fully robust provenance/usage tracking system, and on top of it the one-click in-sampler resample — dial → bake → dial again, with the bank as the medium each iteration passes through.
Consolidates items 15, 17.
Why these two and not more. Item 17 is a prerequisite of meaning for item 15's bank-side half: the replace-vs-add rule is "does provenance-tied usage exist," which denotes nothing until the consolidated lineage records exist. Item 17 is otherwise independent of the editor chain — which is what makes Ξ-W1 concurrency-safe with Θ.
Ξ-W2 onward requires Phase Θ complete. Item 15 presupposes the processing surface it
bakes — "filtering, pitching, amp all set up nice" is the instrument items 1, 2, 3, and 14
build — and its settled reset scope enumerates the filter parameters, the spline contours,
and the loop points by name. Baking a processing chain that does not exist yet is not a
schedule preference; the feature is not expressible. Phase Θ landed as of Θ-W7-T1 (see
docs/COMPLETED.md); this gate is satisfied.
Ξ-W1 — Consolidated tracking, and the programmed-note model
Ξ-W1-T1 — tracking-consolidation
Landed — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the full narrative. The provenance/usage
territory is now one system: a new src/core/tracking/ directory holds origin_ledger
(the record family — OriginRecord/OriginKind, the insertion-ordered OriginLedger,
its JSON codec, and the Fresh/Loaded/Unreadable/FutureVersion load
classification) and tracking_authority (the one decision surface: pruneProtection
and tiedUsageExists), retiring core/model/owned_manifest. Both prune's protected set
and the resample's replace-vs-add decision are computed from one borrowed
TrackingState, so the two safety-critical consumers cannot drift apart.
sample_usage deliberately stays in core/wire — the consolidation is of the
decisions, not the codecs. The deferred persisted-instance-identity fix was not
folded in — the deferral is restated in docs/TODO.md, its one home. This track
landed OriginRecord's birth-time parentSampleId chain as the lineage mechanism, but
Ξ-W2-T1's "naming and lineage" open question (jointly held with this track) is
unaffected and still theirs to close — display naming and user-readable iteration
lineage were not decided here.
Ξ-W1-T2 — note-program-model
Landed — see docs/COMPLETED.md for the full narrative. The programmed-capture-
signal model is a new pure module directory, src/core/instrument/note/ — a fourth
peer of engine//map//ui/ under core/instrument/ — holding musical_division,
tempo, and note_program (Velocity, the denominated OffsetAmount, the anchored
StartOffset/EndOffset, NoteProgram, resolveNote). Both open questions below
are answered, for Ξ-W3-T1: negative offsets are legal in both directions (sign
uniform, positive is later in time; only an inverted window is refused, reported via
ResolvedNote::windowCollapsed), and the denomination seam is confirmed — note length
stays musical-division-only, and an offset stores the denomination it was entered in.
Ξ-W2 — The bake chain
Depends on Ξ-W1 for: the consolidated lineage records that make replace-vs-add computable (T1) and the programmed-note record the offline pass renders (T2). Also depends on all of Phase Θ — see the phase note above.
One track. The bake is one gesture and one chain; the architecture decision at its head governs every step after it.
Ξ-W2-T1 — resample-bake-chain
Goal. One click bakes the dialed sound into a bank capture, re-points the instance at it, and hands the instrument back at neutral — the dial → bake → dial-again loop, run without leaving the sampler.
Consolidates item 15 (the chain; the popup UI is Ξ-W3-T1).
Surface boundary — owns: whichever seam the architecture decision selects (see below),
plus shell/capture/capture_orchestrator (a resample entry point alongside
captureAndIndexOne), core/model/bank_model + owned_manifest at the add boundary,
shell/actions (a new action, if the decision needs one), and the instrument-side bake
trigger. Does not own the capture-signal popup's UI — that is Ξ-W3-T1.
The architecture decision — this track's first deliverable, before any chain work
Item 15 requires a click inside the VST3 editor to cause a bank write, and the instrument is a read-only bank consumer by invariant. The one prior attempt at this crossing (S13) closed DEGRADED and was deferred. Resolve this before building the chain. Two orthogonal choices:
Decision 1 — how the click crosses to the extension.
- (1a) Ext-state request key + extension-side timer poller, with a claim/clear nonce —
the shape S13 spiked and deferred. It needs a new instrument WRITE seam into ext-state,
though the
rsusage_-prefixed guarded write already establishes the precedent that such a seam can exist without weakening the read-only-bank invariant. Known cost: the cross-process handshake race the S17 spec rejected. - (1b) Direct action invocation over the VST-host bridge — the lead candidate. A
REAPER-hosted VST3 already resolves REAPER API functions by name over the host
callback (that is how the instrument reads
GetProjExtState), and can fetch its own host context — the track/take/project it was instantiated in. IfNamedCommandLookupandMain_OnCommandresolve the same way, the editor can invoke the extension's bake action synchronously, with no request key, no poller, and no nonce — which dissolves the S13 problem for this case rather than re-litigating it. [verify] againstvendor/reaper-sdk/sdk/(reaper_plugin.h,video_processor.h,reaper_plugin_functions.h) that both resolve over the callback, and that calling them from the editor's UI thread is safe. This is a verification task, not an assertion — do not build on it until confirmed. - (1c) No crossing — a bindable extension-side action only. Fallback. It abandons Daniel's "from directly inside the ReaSampler 9000" framing, so it is the answer only if (1a) and (1b) both fail. If it is taken, say so explicitly rather than quietly shipping a panel button.
Decision 2 — what actually renders the audio.
- (2a) Headless voice-engine render, extension-side. The extension reads the instance's
component state, reconstructs the engine from the shared pure core, renders the
programmed note, and banks the result through the normal capture add-path. Exact and
fully deterministic. Trade-off: the extension currently links
component_state_iobut deliberately notsampler_core/pitch_shift—component_state_iowas split out precisely to avoid pulling the voice engine into the extension. This reverses that. - (2b) REAPER offline render of the hosting track, with the programmed note. Reuses
OfflineRenderBackendand with it the whole precision-invariant apparatus — exact bounds, bit-identical repeats, relative paths, tail control — for free. Trade-offs: it needs a temporary arrange mutation to program the note (the realtime backend's temp-track-created-and-removed-cleanly is the precedent), and the existing scope model has no "this one FX only" scope, so post-instrument track FX would be baked in unless a new bypass scope is added. The arrange must be byte-identical afterward. - (2c) The instrument renders, the extension banks it. The instrument produces the audio (it already owns the engine) into a temp file or shared buffer; the extension moves it into the bank and indexes it. Splits the work along the existing ownership line — but adds a handoff artifact and its cleanup.
Recommended sequence for the decision: verify (1b) first — if it holds, the crossing is nearly free. Then pick between (2a) and (2b) on the strength of the "only-the-instrument, not the track chain" requirement: Daniel's ask says "send a trigger or gate through the sampler offline," which favours (2a) or (2c) unless (2b) gains a single-FX bypass scope. Record the verdict in this track's review, and if the verdict is DEGRADED, escalate rather than improvise — the fallback is (1c) + (2a).
Behavior — the chain.
- One gesture, whole chain. A single click performs: offline pass → capture → bank update (replace or add-distinct) → instance re-point → parameter reset. One action from the user's side, not a wizard.
- Offline pass through the instrument's own processing. The audio is produced by sending a trigger or gate through the sampler offline — the instrument's own voice path, with filtering, pitching, and amp exactly as dialed. The recapture is of that processed output, not of the raw source.
- The recapture is a bank capture like any other — project-relative, indexed, browsable from any surface that browses the bank, recorded in the owned-file manifest, and governed by the same safety rules as every file the system creates.
- The note is the capture's root. The rendered note is the capture's root note — which is exactly why the root-note parameter is not reset by resampling: capturing at root is what makes root survivable, and resetting it would detune every subsequent iteration.
- Gate's hold and tail come from the programmed window. The programmed note length is the Gate hold bound — the gate holds for the note length, then releases; a Gate loop cycles within the held span and the render still terminates. The end offset is the home of the tail policy: captured time past the note's end is where the release rings.
- Replace, or add distinct. When nothing else references the source capture, the recapture replaces it as the bank entry; when other references exist, the original entry stays and the recapture is added as a new distinct capture. "Other reference" means any usage of the source capture tied to it by the provenance/recapture system — Ξ-W1-T1's records. Read plainly: the reference universe is the resample system's own lineage records, not the prune-protection universe. Bank multi-membership, items placed in the arrange, and a plain hold by another instance outside any recapture lineage do not force add-distinct, and need not for safety — the superseded file survives until prune, and prune's protection universe is unchanged and broader.
- Replacement never destroys audio bytes. "Replace" means the bank entry now denotes the recapture; the superseded file is not deleted. Prune remains the system's only file-deletion authority — resample writes a new file and retires the old one to reclaimable-by-prune status; it never overwrites or deletes it. Until a prune reclaims it, the pre-bake audio survives on disk — the iterate loop's built-in recovery floor.
- The instance re-points at the new/corrected bank capture and plays the baked sound.
- Parameters reinitialize to default — destructive to the dialed settings by design: the processing now lives in the recaptured audio, and neutral controls are the starting point for the next iteration.
- Reset scope: only what the bake baked in. Ratified by Daniel, not derived:
- Reset (their effect is in the audio): the envelope contours — staged and spline alike — the filter parameters, master gain, the pitch envelope/engine settings, the velocity transfer curves (their effect at the programmed velocity is in the audio), and the loop points (they shaped the render, and old positions are meaningless against new audio).
- Survive (mapping facts, not present in the audio): the root note, whatever remains of key mapping (key-tracking; any key-range concept Θ-W1-T1 settled), and the VOICE group (polyphony behavior leaves no trace in a single rendered note).
- No timeline item, ever. Resampling is a capture act: it writes a file to the bank and updates the index; nothing is placed in the arrange view. Any framing that auto-inserts the recapture is invalid — and if architecture (2b) is chosen, its temporary programming item must leave the arrange byte-identical.
- Undo/recovery: a plus, not a requirement. Welcome if it falls out cheaply; the feature ships without it. The guaranteed recovery path is the superseded file surviving on disk until a prune reclaims it.
Acceptance criteria.
- On a dialed-in instrument, one click yields all of: a recapture in the bank, the instance holding that recapture, and the baked-in audio parameters at their defaults — with the root note and the other surviving mapping parameters untouched.
- The bake is audible and faithful: after the click, playing the programmed capture note (root, at the programmed length, offsets, and velocity, in the active mode) through the now-neutral controls sounds as the dialed instrument sounded just before the click — the processing has moved from the controls into the audio.
- A Gate-mode bake terminates on its own: the gate holds for the programmed note length, then releases — even with loop-sustain active, the render ends. No indefinite capture.
- After the bake the root note is unchanged — iteration never detunes; the next bake plays the same root.
- Sole-reference case: the bank afterwards shows the recapture where the source capture's entry was; no other bank entry is disturbed. Other-references case (provenance-tied usage of the original exists, computed by Ξ-W1-T1): the original entry is untouched, a distinct new entry appears, and every other holder of the original sounds exactly as before.
- The click deletes no file: the superseded audio file still exists on disk afterwards, and only a later prune — under the settled orphan rules, only when nothing references it — can reclaim it.
- The arrange timeline is untouched: no item appears anywhere, on any track, and if a temporary programming item was used it is gone and the arrange is byte-identical.
- Iteration composes: dial → click → dial → click bakes the second pass onto the first's result, repeatable indefinitely.
- Save/reload: an instance holding a recapture reloads and plays it exactly like any other loaded capture.
- The bake adds nothing to
process()— the offline pass runs off the audio thread.
Open questions.
- The architecture decision [propose, with a verification step]. See above. The (1b) bridge verification is [verify]; the choice among the candidates is [propose].
- Extension presence [propose]. The instrument plays self-contained with the extension absent, but the bank is the extension's surface and resampling mutates the bank. The natural answer is that resample requires the extension present and is cleanly unavailable — not silently lossy — without it; propose the exact behavior at review.
- Reset-scope edge cases [verify]. The rule is settled and the per-parameter classification is ratified. Only a genuinely new parameter — one arriving with a Θ track and absent from the ratified lists — is classified against the rule and surfaced at review. Not a new Daniel call. (Θ adds: curve exponents → reset; spline contours → reset, already named; the filter's velocity/key-tracking mod → reset with the filter; loop crossfade → reset with the loop points; the Staged/Spline mode flag → classify.)
- Naming and lineage [propose, jointly with Ξ-W1-T1's lineage-record question]. When add-distinct fires, the new capture needs a display name (derived from the original?), and the bank some way to read iteration lineage across repeated bakes. One proposal, both tracks.
- Provenance of the recapture — homed in item 17, i.e. Ξ-W1-T1. A resample's recipe is the instrument's own settings, not a track's chain. Nothing to decide here beyond consuming that answer.
Ξ-W3 — The capture-signal popup
Depends on Ξ-W2 for: the bake chain that the popup programs and its preview must not diverge from. The acceptance criterion "preview and bake cannot diverge" requires one render path, which W2 owns — building the preview against a second path is exactly the defect the criterion exists to catch.
One track.
Ξ-W3-T1 — capture-signal-popup
Goal. Let the user program the capture signal — note length, offsets, velocity — and hear it before committing the bake.
Consolidates item 15 (the popup sub-feature).
Surface boundary — owns: core/instrument/ui/curve_popup's sibling — a new pure popup
geometry module for the capture-signal sheet (mirror the curve_popup precedent: centered
sheet, width/height clamps, title row, Close button rect, outside-sheet dismissal test) —
plus the editor's popup paint/input wiring in the deck or chrome band, and the preview
trigger's call into W2's render path. Reads Ξ-W1-T2's note-program record; does not
re-own it.
Behavior.
- A popup menu programs the capture signal: note length, start and end offsets — in ms AND in beats — and velocity.
- A preview trigger button auditions the capture note exactly as currently programmed — the user hears the bake before committing it — and the offline pass renders that same programmed performance.
- Note length is a musical-division picker spanning 1/64th to 64/1 with dotted and triplet multipliers.
- Offsets are anchored — start to note-on, end to note-off — and each is readable and editable in both ms and beats, the two views of one stored value.
- Beat-denominated values resolve against the project tempo under the cursor. The shell reads the tempo; the arithmetic is Ξ-W1-T2's.
- The programmed velocity is the render velocity — material because the velocity transfer curves modulate amp, pitch, and filter at that velocity.
- House-consistent: drawn through the shared kit by palette role, geometry pure and CTest-covered, no decorative animation.
Acceptance criteria.
- The popup exposes: note length as a musical-division picker spanning 1/64th to 64/1 with dotted and triplet multipliers; start and end offsets, each readable and editable in both ms and beats, anchored to note-on and note-off respectively; and velocity.
- Its preview trigger auditions the capture note exactly as programmed, and the bake renders that same programmed performance — preview and bake cannot diverge. Verify structurally (one render path), not just by ear.
- Beat-denominated values resolve against the project tempo under the cursor: the same programmed division yields a correspondingly different rendered duration when the tempo at the cursor differs.
- The programmed signal persists with the instance and round-trips save/reload.
- The popup's geometry and dismissal test are pure and unit-tested; no hit-test math lands in shell code.
Open questions. Both of Ξ-W1-T2's residuals (negative offsets; the note-length denomination seam) surface here as UI consequences — if T2 answered them, this track implements the answer; if T2 deferred either, this track is where it becomes visible and must be closed.
Phase Γ — The instrument's control surface
Ships: the deck reflowed into two categorical rows with a double-height MASTER bus deck, a PITCH/RATE deck with playback-rate and baseline-pitch controls, a master limiter with dynamic reported latency and a real output meter, one consistent knob interaction/taper law across every variable control, a fix for staged contour traces drawing straight, and a re-approached loop/crossfade marker UX under an explicit chrome-row loop enable.
Consolidates: none of the seventeen. Phase Γ came from a direct interview with Daniel
(2026-08-01); the product reasoning, the measured layout table, the invariant collisions and
the fork rulings are in docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md. Read §1.2 (the
layout table) and §7 (collisions) before dispatching any track here — every number in this
phase is derived there, and docs/TODO.md's old deck-rework geometry is superseded.
Fork state — all six forks are ruled; nothing in this phase awaits Daniel. Indexed at spec §8, folded into the tracks below:
- Γ-F1 —
kEditorMinHeightstays 680. - Γ-F2 — the limiter has lookahead with DYNAMIC reported latency (zero when off, the lookahead when on, reported to host PDC). This inverted the product recommendation; W1-T2's scope grows accordingly — spec §3.1.1.
- Γ-F3 — the stage-time ceiling stays 2.0 s in this phase. The 10 s ambition is
carried in
docs/TODO.mdwith its rationale and its prerequisites. - Γ-F4 — there is an explicit loop enable, and it lives on the chrome row, not in a deck. W2-T2's scope grows accordingly — spec §6.4.
- Γ-F5 — MASTER's reserved slot is one cell. The 90 px headroom argument behind that is spec §1.6 and governs every future control addition.
- Γ-F6 — ship dynamic latency as ruled. The
restartComponent(kLatencyChanged)deactivate/reactivate the SDK mandates is accepted: "the limiter will either be on or off on its instance, toggling during playback is not a use case." No constant-latency fallback, no measurement gate. This ruling also corrected the analysis — spec §3.1.1.
What the Γ-F6 ruling changed in the analysis, not just in the plan. Dynamic latency
reporting is routine for VST3 instruments and REAPER handles it as a matter of course;
the SDK's deactivate/reactivate requirement (pluginterfaces/vst/ivsteditcontroller.h:105-108)
is the normal contract, not an exotic one. What makes the cycle expensive here is entirely
our own doing: ReaSamplerProcessor::setActive(true) calls reloadInstrument() — a bridge
read plus a full WAV re-decode (reasampler_processor.cpp:89-97) — where a typical plugin's
setActive only allocates and frees buffers, and the deactivate side's freeing of
live_/draining_/graveyard (:98-107) is likewise our own design. The cost is therefore
ours to reduce if it ever matters, and the reduction is decoupling reload from activation —
not abandoning dynamic latency. That improvement is filed as a docs/TODO.md entry with its
trigger condition; it is not scheduled in this phase.
Sequencing against Phase Ξ — Γ runs BEFORE Ξ-W2. Two reasons, both the same shape as Ξ's own stated gate:
- The bake bakes the control surface. Ξ-W2's settled reset scope enumerates parameters by name; Γ adds rate, pitch offset and the limiter flag. Shipping Ξ-W2 first means its reset list is incomplete on the day it lands. (Γ's doc §3.4 pre-classifies all three against the ratified rule — all reset — so this is a sequencing point, not a new Daniel question.)
- One params-payload ladder. Γ takes v14 and v15. Ξ-W2 does not currently bump the payload, but Ξ-W3's programmed-signal persistence will, and two phases contending for the ladder is exactly the fight Θ's organizing constraint calls out.
The organizing constraint. Five surfaces are single-writer and dictate the wave shape:
ui/deck_values.cpp (the taper law, then the two new controls), editor_paint_waveform.cpp
(the contour trace, then the loop marks), ui/deck_groups.cpp (the row predicate, then the
PITCH/RATE descriptor, then the reflow's row consumption — three tracks, three waves),
engine/voice.cpp (the Preserve read path, then the rate compounding into it), and the
params-payload ladder. Every wave boundary below is one of those collisions, not a
preference. Where a wave has more than one track, the tracks are disjoint by surface.
Resequenced 2026-08-01 (Daniel), two changes. The prior four-wave shape put the reflow at W3 and the Preserve stretcher at W4; both moved.
- The reflow is split, canvas from arrangement. The window floor and the width budget it is derived from land early (Γ-W1-T4), so every other UI track in the phase is drawn, tested and judged at the final 1190 × 680 window instead of at a size a later wave changes under it. The two-row arrangement stays late (Γ-W3-T1), because it can only be measured once the final PITCH/RATE and MASTER descriptors exist. The seam is stated at Γ-W1-T4.
preserve-time-stretchmoved W4 → W1-T5. It is the longest pole in the phase and has zero dependency on any UI work — a purecore/instrument/engine/module. Scheduling it last was a scheduling error. Consequence: it is no longer Rate's successor but its prerequisite, which retires the interim resample-and-cancel stand-in entirely — see Γ-W2-T1.
Net: four waves become three, and both of the phase's DSP unknowns (the limiter, the stretcher) are exposed in wave 1 rather than one of them landing last.
The params-payload ladder is unchanged by the resequencing, and re-checked against the new
membership. Exactly one bump per wave, owned by exactly one track: W1-T2 owns v14 (the
limiter flag), W2-T1 owns v15 (rate + pitch offset), and every other track in the phase
owns no rung — W1-T4 changes no persisted field, W1-T5 adds no parameter, W2-T2's loop
enable maps onto the already-persisted SampleLoop::hasLoop, and W3-T1 is layout only. The
ordering still works because v14 lands a whole wave before v15, and neither of the two tracks
that moved touches the codec.
The editor's deck is knowingly mis-composed between Γ-W1-T4 and Γ-W3-T1, and that is not a defect report. Raising the floor without the reflow leaves the greedy whole-group wrap packing two ragged left-aligned rows with categorically wrong membership. Γ-W1-T4 states the exact interim layout; do not "fix" it in a track that does not own it.
Phase-wide acceptance criteria (in addition to the ones stated at the top of this file):
- Bypassed means byte-identical. With the limiter off, the per-sample output path is
byte-identical to today's bare ramped multiply — the same discipline that makes
live == nullptrbyte-identical to the pre-live core and the filter's exact skip atmodAmount == 0hold the at-rest path unchanged. - No
ComponentStatesound change. A project saved before this phase reopens sounding identical: absent rate lifts to 100 %, absent pitch offset to 0 st, absent limiter flag to bypassed. Re-tapering a knob (Γ-W1-T1) changes needle angles only — the payload stores raw engine doubles, so saved values reload bit-identical. kVelocityPitchRangeSemitones/kPitchDepthMaxSemis(24.0) does not move. It is load-bearing in the v12 wire format. The new Pitch knob reads it; it does not mint a second ±24 constant.- The window floor is 1190 × 680 and must not exceed 1280 × 720. Γ-W1-T4 sets it, in
wave 1; no other track in the phase may move it, and from that point every track is
authored and judged at it. A track that pushes the floor past 1280 has failed, not overrun.
kEditorMinHeightstays 680 (Γ-F1). The remaining 90 px of width headroom is the budget for the life of this layout — one deck cell is 60 px, so there is room for exactly one more, once. Spec §1.6 states the ledger; read it before adding any control. Chrome-row additions are a separate purse (they are paid for out of the title slot, not the floor) and must not be charged against this one. - Reported latency is zero unless the limiter is on.
getLatencySamples()returns 0 with the limiter bypassed, in every track and at every point in the phase. Only W1-T2 may introduce a non-zero value, and only under the limiter-on condition. - Geometry stays pure. Every new layout, cap, label and hit-test rule lands in a pure
CTest-covered module (
knob_deck,sample_bands,waveform_view), never in a painter.
Γ-W1 — Foundations
Depends on: nothing in this phase. Five tracks, disjoint by surface — re-verified against this membership rather than carried over from the four-wave shape:
| Track | Owns |
|---|---|
T1 knob-interaction-law |
ui/deck_values, ui/param_slider, the three shell/instrument/editor_input_* drag paths, the shared modifier helper in editor_internal.h |
T2 master-bus-audio |
new pure engine/limiter + engine/meter_ballistics, shell/instrument/reasampler_processor + processor_state, map/component_state_io + params_payload (v14) |
T3 contour-trace-curves |
shell/instrument/editor_paint_waveform.cpp's staged trace + a pure tessellation helper |
T4 editor-floor-and-row-law |
ui/sample_bands.h (the floor), ui/knob_deck.h (budget constants + two invalidated header notes), ui/deck_groups (the row predicate only), five test fixtures |
T5 preserve-time-stretch |
engine/pitch_shift + a new pure stretcher module, engine/voice.{h,cpp}'s Preserve read path |
One shared file in the wave, named rather than discovered at merge:
src/core/instrument/engine/CMakeLists.txt. T2 declares two new pure libraries and their
test targets there; T5 declares one. Both are append-only additions in separate blocks —
textual merge adjacency, not semantic contention. Whichever lands second rebases.
Two near-misses that are avoided by construction, and must stay avoided. (a) T3's
tessellation helper lands pure (ui/envelope_overlay or a new pure module), not in
editor_internal.h, which T1 is editing — this also satisfies the phase's geometry-stays-pure
criterion, so it costs nothing. (b) T4 touches deck_groups but adds only the new row
predicate; it does not touch sampleDeckGroups, which W2-T1 and W3-T1 own in later waves, and
it does not touch deck_values, which is T1's.
Both of the phase's DSP unknowns are in this wave — T2's limiter and T5's stretcher. That is deliberate: they are the two tracks whose gate can fail, and failing in wave 1 is recoverable in a way that failing in the last wave is not.
Γ-W1-T1 — knob-interaction-law
Goal. One consistent, unit-category-driven interaction and taper rule across every variable control, landed before any new control is added so the new ones are authored into it rather than retro-fitted.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §4.
Surface boundary — owns: core/instrument/ui/deck_values (the taper maps, the
snap-unit table, resetDeckParam), core/instrument/ui/param_slider (the drag law),
shell/instrument/editor_input_* (modifier read + re-anchor), and the modifier-reading
helper the three input paths share. Does not own any deck descriptor, any parameter, or
the waveform painter.
Behavior.
- Shift snaps to whole numbers in the control's displayed unit; Ctrl scales the drag by 0.05; Shift+Ctrl = Shift wins (Ctrl is ignored — with an integer-quantized output a finer drag yields the same sequence, so this is identity, not a compromise).
- Snap unit by category: ms knobs → whole ms; semitone knobs (incl. Rate, when it arrives) → whole semitones; percent/fraction knobs → whole percent; the 12 curve-exponent inner dials → whole numbers (which puts 1.0, the linear neutral, one snap away); master gain → whole dB; already-integer controls unchanged. Full table in the spec §4.2.
- Mid-drag modifier transitions re-anchor — on every press and release during an active
drag, the current value becomes the anchor value and the current cursor position the anchor
position. The value is continuous across the transition; only the rate changes. Without
this the grab-anchored absolute drag (
kKnobDragRangePixels = 128) jumps by(1 − 0.05) ×the accumulated delta. - Millisecond knobs become log-scaled. Exactly 0 s at norm 0 and exactly
kEnvTimeMaxSecondsat norm 1, monotone throughout; 10 ms lands within 0.12–0.20 of travel and 100 ms within 0.42–0.52. The ceiling stays 2.0 s — it readskGateStageMaxSeconds, which the AHDSR overlay's schematic scale is derived from, and the two must agree. - Semitone knobs become log2/centre-expanded. Symmetric, exactly 0 at centre, exactly
±
kPitchDepthMaxSemisat the ends, monotone; ±7 st reached at 50–58 % of each half-travel. resetDeckParambypasses the taper — it writes the default value directly instead of round-tripping throughnorm → value. This removes the power-of-two dependency the header currently documents rather than working around it; that comment (deck_values.h:42-46) becomes wrong and must be rewritten.- Scope is the parameter, not the widget. Deck knobs (outer ring and inner dial), envelope stage nodes and curve knots all honour it — they are surfaces onto one model, and a snap on one but not the others is a divergence. Waveform markers are explicitly excluded: they carry a shipped zero-crossing snap on the same modifier space and their domain is frames.
Acceptance criteria.
- Every taper change is verified persistence-neutral: a project saved before the change reopens with bit-identical stored values and identical audio; only needle angles move.
- Holding Shift mid-drag on each unit category lands the documented whole unit; releasing it does not jump the value.
- Holding and releasing Ctrl mid-drag is continuous — no step at either transition.
- Double-clicking any knob (outer ring and inner dial independently) lands exactly on its
default at every taper, verified against a default-constructed
PlaySecondsrather than a round trip. - The log/log2 landmark positions above are asserted in
deck_values' own tests. - One shared modifier-read helper serves all drag surfaces; no second modifier grammar exists.
Open questions. None [Daniel] — fork Γ-F3 is ruled: the ceiling stays 2.0 s. The
10 s ambition Daniel described ("a horrifically long decay with tight exp") is carried as a
docs/TODO.md entry, and this track lands both of its prerequisites: the log taper (which
is what makes a higher ceiling usable at the low end rather than unusable) and the reset
bypass (which retires the power-of-two dependency — 2.0 is a power of two, 10.0 is not).
Neither is optional on that basis alone — they are already required by this track — but
the engineer should know the reset bypass is doing double duty, and should not "simplify" it
back into a norm round-trip.
Γ-W1-T2 — master-bus-audio
Goal. The master limiter and the meter's audio and publication halves, plus the plugin's first latency reporting — no editor drawing. Landing the audio ahead of the deck is what lets Γ-W3 draw against real published state instead of a stub.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §3.1, §3.1.1 (latency — read this
first; it was rewritten when Γ-F6 closed, so an older reading of it is wrong), §3.2–3.3,
§3.5, §7.10, §7.11, §8.2.
Surface boundary — owns: a new pure limiter module and a new pure meter-ballistics
module under core/instrument/engine/ (each with its own <module>_tests target),
shell/instrument/reasampler_processor (the chain, the published block state, and the
getLatencySamples / restartComponent(kLatencyChanged) path), and params payload v14
(the limiter enable flag). Does not own MASTER's deck geometry or any drawing — that is
Γ-W3-T1.
Behavior.
- Chain:
voice mixer → master gain (existing ramped multiply) → limiter (bypassable) → output bus, with the meter tapped at the bus output, post-limiter. - Limiter: a single toggle, no configurable controls. Baked ceiling −0.3 dBTP. Default off. No makeup gain, ever, of any kind — transparent at rest. Stereo-linked detection (max |L|,|R| drives one gain) so the image is not moved.
- True-peak detection is sidechain-only — an oversampled detector in the sidechain, never oversampling the signal path. Factor is the engineer's call under the measure gate.
- Lookahead, with DYNAMIC reported latency (Γ-F2, ruled).
getLatencySamples()returns 0 when the limiter is off and the lookahead in samples when it is on; the toggle callsIComponentHandler::restartComponent(kLatencyChanged). None of this exists today — there is nogetLatencySamplesoverride, nokLatencyChanged, and norestartComponentcall site anywhere insrc/; the plugin ships the SDK default of 0. This track introduces the plugin's first latency reporting. - The restart is routine; the fencing is against a standing scar, not against the flag.
Dynamic latency reporting is ordinary VST3-instrument behaviour and REAPER handles it as a
matter of course. The SDK's deactivate/reactivate requirement
(
pluginterfaces/vst/ivsteditcontroller.h:105-108) is the normal contract. What makes the cycle expensive here is this plugin's ownsetActive— reactivate callsreloadInstrument(), a bridge read plus a full WAV re-decode (reasampler_processor.cpp:89-97), where a typical plugin only allocates buffers; deactivate freeslive_/draining_/graveyard (:98-107) for a documented reason (ghost sustained voices). Γ-F6 is ruled: ship it — the toggle is a patch-design gesture, not a during-playback one. Do not build a constant-reported-latency fallback and do not gate the deliverable on a measurement. The reduction of that self-inflicted cost is filed indocs/TODO.md("Decouple the instrument reload from VST3 activation") with its trigger condition; it is out of scope here. The four requirements below survive as engineering hygiene against thekIoChangedscar, and all four are acceptance criteria:- Verify the whole call sequence against the vendored Steinberg SDK before writing it,
including the ordering rule that the new latency is what
getLatencySamplesreturns aftersetActive(true)— so the reported value must derive from persisted state, not from a transient the deactivate clears. - Prove the restart does not disturb the output bus arrangement. The output stays one permanently-stereo bus, never renegotiated.
- Ship a regression test in the spirit of
testDualMonoStereoSampleRendersCentered— a dual-mono capture rendered across a limiter toggle stays centered, L ≡ R. restartComponentis never called fromprocess(). Main/UI thread only, and coalesced so repeated clicks produce one restart per settled state. This is NOT the changereasampler_processor.cpp:66-68forbids. That warning is against reintroducing per-mode bus renegotiation (kIoChangedclass), which panned a dual-mono capture hard right in the host's pin re-routing;kLatencyChangedis a different flag and the bus is untouched. But the precedent — mid-sessionrestartComponentin this plugin has already shipped one real regression — is exactly why (2) and (3) are non-negotiable.
- Verify the whole call sequence against the vendored Steinberg SDK before writing it,
including the ordering rule that the new latency is what
- Flipping the toggle during playback: apply immediately, do NOT defer to a transport
boundary (product ruling, spec §3.1.1). A deferred restart leaves the plugin misaligned by
the lookahead with no visible cue, which is worse than a visible interruption; and the host,
not the plugin, schedules the deactivate/reactivate anyway. Daniel has accepted the
interruption outright (Γ-F6) — it is not a case to design for. Two things remain in scope,
and neither is a mitigation for it:
- A short (≤ 10 ms) equal-gain crossfade over the engage/disengage. Kept as a quality
measure, not a mitigation: a limiter engaging is a gain-path change, and this codebase
already ramps every gain-path change (
kGainRampSeconds,ValueRamp). It also earns its keep independently of the restart, because we do not control when the host acts on the request — our own transition must be clean in the window before it does. - The limiter enable is classified NOT automatable
(
docs/product/parameter-automation.md§3.8) so nothing can flip it at rate. It is also not the plugin'skIsBypassparameter.
- A short (≤ 10 ms) equal-gain crossfade over the engage/disengage. Kept as a quality
measure, not a mitigation: a limiter engaging is a gain-path change, and this codebase
already ramps every gain-path change (
- Per block the processor publishes, as relaxed atomics: per-channel peak
max|x|, a latched clip flag, and the block's maximum gain reduction. No dB conversion, no ballistics, no hold timers on the audio thread — the UI converts and runs ballistics from block peaks and elapsed time. This widens the existing advisory-peak pattern (reasampler_processor.h:109-113), which is not reusable as-is. - Meter ballistics (pure, unit-tested): instantaneous rise; fall 20 dB/s; peak-hold latched at the running max, held 1.5 s, then falling at the same rate; scale linear in dB over −60…+6 dBFS; clip latches at block peak ≥ 0 dBFS and is cleared on request.
ComponentStatepayload v14 appends the limiter flag as a strict suffix on the existing discipline; a v13 blob is a strict prefix and lifts to bypassed.
Acceptance criteria.
- With the limiter bypassed the rendered output is byte-identical to the pre-change build, asserted by a regression baseline, not by ear.
- With the limiter engaged, no output sample exceeds the ceiling on program material that exceeds it by up to +12 dB; with it bypassed and gain driven, the output does exceed 0 dBFS (proving the toggle is doing the work).
- Nothing is louder at rest with the limiter on. A signal that never reaches the threshold is bit-identical engaged and bypassed.
- No allocation, no lock, no transcendental on the per-sample path; the measure-and-report gate reports per-voice-block CPU with the limiter engaged at 32 voices.
- The meter-ballistics module is pure and CTest-covered: rise, 20 dB/s fall, 1.5 s hold, clip latch/clear, and the dB↔pixel map are all asserted without a host.
- A project saved before this change reopens with the limiter bypassed and sounding identical.
getLatencySamples()returns exactly 0 with the limiter off, and the lookahead in samples with it on — asserted against the persisted flag, and correct across a deactivate/reactivate cycle.- A dual-mono capture rendered across a limiter toggle stays centered (L ≡ R), and the output bus arrangement after a latency-change restart is identical to before it.
- The plugin emits no hard step at the toggle — the engage/disengage crossfade is asserted on a rendered signal, not judged by ear.
Open questions.
- No [Daniel] questions. Fork Γ-F6 is ruled — dynamic latency ships as specced, the deactivate/reactivate is accepted, and there is no fallback design and no measurement gate. Do not reintroduce either; the constant-reported-latency option is closed, not shelved.
- [verify]
temp_cortex/has already been assessed and rejected (spec §3.5) — do not re-litigate it, and do not transplant from it. - [record, not a gate] While the limiter is in REAPER under your hand, note what the
restart actually costs — do notes cut, is the re-decode perceptible, does transport hiccup —
and record it in this track's review. It is not a gate on shipping and no outcome changes
the design; it is the trigger-condition evidence for the
docs/TODO.mdentry "Decouple the instrument reload from VST3 activation," which is where that cost gets reduced if it ever matters. Do not restructuresetActivehere: its destructive shape is deliberate and its reasoning (ghost sustained voices on reactivate) is documented at the call site.
Γ-W1-T3 — contour-trace-curves
Goal. Staged envelope segments draw as the curve their exponent defines, so the mid-segment knot stops floating off its own trace.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §5.
Surface boundary — owns: shell/instrument/editor_paint_waveform.cpp's staged-envelope
trace and any pure tessellation helper it needs. Does not own the loop/crossfade marks
(Γ-W2-T2), envelope_overlay's vertex model, or the drawn-EG (spline) trace.
Behavior. The defect is verified: editor_paint_waveform.cpp:218 drops knots
(if (v.knot) continue;) and joins the remaining vertices with straight strokes, and
curveMap is never called in the paint path even though the exponent is in scope at :211.
Knot positioning already honours the exponent via curveMidLevel
(envelope_overlay.cpp:94-105) — that divergence is the visible symptom. The fix draws each
sloped stage through the same curveMap the audio uses, so trace and sound cannot
diverge; tessellation approach is the engineer's call.
Acceptance criteria.
- At every exponent the knot's centre lies on the trace, within 1 px — the reported defect, stated as the gate.
- At exponent 1.0 the segment is visually identical to today's straight line.
- No visible faceting at the widest segment the canvas can produce; a fixed low tessellation count is not acceptable at full width.
- All three envelopes, both play modes, all sloped stages (attack/decay/release) — one paint path, one fix.
- The established trace grammar is unchanged: one weight,
kEnvTracePx = 2.0, through the analytic stroker. Both overlay layout policies (AHDSR right-anchored schematic, AHD 1:1) are honoured unchanged. The spline overlay's own trace is untouched. - Audio is unchanged — this is a drawing defect only; a regression baseline proves it.
Γ-W1-T4 — editor-floor-and-row-law
Goal. Commit the canvas — the window floor, the width budget it is derived from, and the row every deck group belongs to — so every other UI track in the phase is drawn, tested and judged at the final window size. The arrangement inside that canvas is Γ-W3-T1's.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §1.1 (the two categories), §1.2 (the
floor arithmetic block), §1.6 (the headroom ledger), §7.1 and §7.4 (the two invalidated
knob_deck.h notes).
Surface boundary — owns: core/instrument/ui/sample_bands.h (kEditorMinWidth),
core/instrument/ui/knob_deck.h (the declared budget constants and the two invalidated header
notes), core/instrument/ui/deck_groups.{h,cpp} (the new row predicate only), and the five
test fixtures that read the floor — test_sample_bands.cpp, test_deck_groups.cpp,
test_knob_deck.cpp, test_sample_chrome.cpp, test_keyboard_strip.cpp. Does not own
layoutDeck / deckRowCount / deckHeight behaviour, the justification law, any descriptor,
MASTER's inventory or interior, any painter, or any parameter. It changes no drawing code at
all.
Behavior — what it commits.
kEditorMinWidth980 → 1190.kEditorMinHeightstays 680 (Γ-F1).- Three declared budget constants in
knob_deck.h: the row block both rows will justify inside (1020), the right-anchored spanning deck's reserved width (MASTER 142), and the ceiling (1280). These are declarations of budget, not measurements — nothing computes them from a descriptor, and Γ-W3-T1's job is to prove its content fits inside them. - The floor is derived, not asserted as a literal.
1020 + kDeckGroupGap(12) + 142 + 2·kPad(8) = 1190.kEditorMinWidthstays a literal insample_bands.h— do not add an include edge fromsample_bandstoknob_deck, which would invert the allocator's deliberate independence from the deck (it takesdeckHeightas a parameter for exactly that reason). The identity is asserted intest_deck_groups.cpp, which already includes both headers. This is the Θ-W6-T1 derived-floor precedent, landed once and never rewritten. - Row membership becomes a property of the group id:
DeckRow { Sound, Contour, Spanning }deckRowFor(DeckGroupId)indeck_groups, an exhaustive switch on theisLiveDeckParamdiscipline, so a future group is a compile error rather than a silent default. Partition: Sound = PITCH/RATE, FILTER, VELOCITY, VOICE; Contour = PITCH ENV, FILTER ENV, AMP ENVELOPE; Spanning = MASTER. Nothing consumes it until Γ-W3-T1 — that is the seam, and it is why the predicate is safe to land now: membership is a property of the group, width is a property of the descriptor, and only the widths are still moving.
- Γ adds no new deck group, so no later track amends this predicate.
The seam, stated as what this track can and cannot assert.
Can assert today:
- The derived floor identity above, and
kEditorMinWidth ≤ 1280with 90 px of headroom. kEditorMinHeight == 680, asserted so no later track drifts Γ-F1's ruling.deckRowForis total overDeckGroupIdand yields exactly the partition above.- Row 2's natural width already fits the block, in both play modes:
252 + 312 + 312 = 876 ≤ 1020, leaving both its gutters ≥
kDeckGroupGap. Mode-stable because FILTER ENV's and AMP's reserve slots hold them at 312 in Gate and Trigger alike. - MASTER's reserve is not yet spent:
deckGroupWidth(MASTER) == 72 ≤ 142. - At the floor, deck band 216 and waveform band 358 — the reflow's 112 px arrives here, two waves early (see the interim layout below).
Cannot assert yet, and must not force:
- Row 1's natural width does not fit the block. Today it is PITCH 150 + FILTER 524 +
VELOCITY 192 + VOICE 164 = 1030, against the 1020 block. The 50 px deficit is exactly
what the two descriptor changes buy: PITCH → PITCH/RATE +42 (Γ-W2-T1) and FILTER's
Band|Notchmoving to the caption corner −92 (Γ-W3-T1), netting 980. Record the target and the two contributions as a test comment; assert the fit in Γ-W3-T1, and do not pre-empt either descriptor change to close it early. - Gutter distribution, the filter tie-line at x = 636, flush outer edges, MASTER's interior and its meter — all Γ-W3-T1. Every one of them measures a descriptor that does not exist yet.
The interim editor, stated exactly so it is not filed as a defect. At the new floor,
availWidth = 1190 − 2·kPad = 1174, and the unchanged greedy whole-group wrap packs:
row 1 PITCH 150 · PITCH ENV 252 · FILTER 524 = 950 used, 224 px ragged right
row 2 FILTER ENV 312 · AMP 312 · VELOCITY 192 ·
VOICE 164 · MASTER 72 = 1100 used, 74 px ragged right
Two rows, not three — so the deck band is already 216 and the waveform already draws at its final 358 px, in both Gate and Trigger. After Γ-W2-T1 lands PITCH/RATE the pack is row 1 = 992, row 2 unchanged; still two rows. The composition is wrong in exactly the way the reflow exists to fix — PITCH ENV sits up with the sound decks, VOICE and MASTER sit down with the envelopes, MASTER is still a single-height 72 px box, and both rows are left-packed with dead space at the right. Worse than today in composition, better in proportion. That is the accepted transitional state for the rest of the phase.
Do not convert the two-row interim into a claim. It is a coincidence of the greedy wrap at
exactly this width, not a guarantee — which is precisely why Γ-W3-T1's criterion is "two rows
by construction, asserted against the group inventory, not observed as a wrap outcome."
testDeckFitsInsideTheEnforcedMinimumWindow currently asserts deckRowCount == 3; relax it to
an upper bound (<= 2), which is a real regression canary throughout the interim and is
subsumed by Γ-W3-T1's exact claim. An exact == 2 here is acceptable only with a comment
naming it as a wrap outcome the reflow replaces.
Acceptance criteria.
- The floor is 1190 × 680, reached by a derived test over the three budget constants, not by a literal — and the derivation is the one Γ-W3-T1 later reads rather than a second copy.
- Headroom is exactly 90 px against the 1280 ceiling, asserted.
deckRowForis exhaustive overDeckGroupId; adding a group without classifying it fails to compile.- Row 2's natural width and MASTER's unspent reserve are asserted, in both play modes.
- All five floor-reading test fixtures pass at the new floor — including the chrome row, whose title slot gets more room at 1190, not less.
- No drawing code changes, no descriptor changes, no parameter changes, no audio change. A regression baseline proves the last of those trivially.
- The two invalidated
knob_deck.hnotes (§7.1's fourteen-pixel headroom figure, §7.4's cells-and-floor pairing) are re-derived against the new floor, not deleted — §7.4's restatement is the deck's cell metrics AND its group/row composition both drivekEditorMinWidth; none of the three may move alone.
Open questions. No [Daniel] questions. [propose at review] whether the three budget
constants belong in knob_deck.h (the deck owns the row block and the spanning-deck reserve)
or in sample_bands.h (the allocator owns the floor they derive). The plan's lean is
knob_deck.h with the identity in the test, because it adds no include edge; either is
defensible, but the derivation must live in exactly one place.
Γ-W1-T5 — preserve-time-stretch
Goal. A real pitch-preserving time-stretcher for Preserve mode, written from established state-of-the-art literature — landed before the control that drives it, so Rate ships onto a finished engine rather than onto a disposable stand-in.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §2.5.
Moved from Γ-W4-T1 (Daniel, 2026-08-01). It is the longest pole in the phase and has zero dependency on any UI work. The consequence is the interesting one: it inverts the relationship with Rate. Under the old order the stretcher was Rate's quality upgrade and Γ-W2-T1 shipped an interim resample-and-cancel path to make Rate complete on day one; under this order the stretcher is Rate's prerequisite and the interim path is not built at all. Skipping a stand-in that was only ever going to be deleted is the win; see Γ-W2-T1's named contingency for what happens if this track's gate slips.
Precedent for landing a DSP module ahead of its consumer: Θ-W1-T3 (filter-dsp-port)
landed the filter DSP as a standalone pure module a wave before Θ-W2-T1 wired it into the voice
path, for the same reason — the unknown is the DSP, not the wiring.
Surface boundary — owns: core/instrument/engine/pitch_shift and whatever new pure module
the stretcher needs (each with its own <module>_tests target), plus voice.{h,cpp}'s Preserve
read path. Does not own any parameter, any UI, the varispeed path, or the deck. It adds no
ComponentState field and takes no rung of the payload ladder.
Behavior and constraints. The algorithm is the engineer's call under a measure-and-report gate — this plan deliberately names none. The constraints:
- The stretch ratio is an argument, not a parameter. Nothing publishes a non-unity ratio until Γ-W2-T1's Rate knob does. Until then the Preserve read path runs at ratio 1.0 and must be bit-identical to the shipped Preserve read — a stronger and cheaper regression gate than the old plan's A/B-against-an-interim-path, because the baseline is a build that exists.
- CPU stance (Daniel, verbatim intent): "we should be efficient but accept the cost of high-quality algorithm choices. It's 2026, most people's computers can handle audio with ease. Just don't be wasteful."
- RT-safe: no allocation, no I/O, no lock in
process(); buffers sized at voice allocation or at the off-audio-thread reload, onpitch_shift's existing pre-warm precedent. - Per-voice state, holding up at the 32-voice ceiling. The gate is 32 simultaneous Preserve voices at 50 % and 200 %, not one voice at 100 %.
- No new third-party dependency (
pitch_shift's standing property). - No dispatch on the per-sample path — concrete, inlineable types; no
IStretcher. - Onset behaviour is a regression surface. GA2 eliminated Preserve's ~25 ms onset latency by priming the ring with the actual upcoming source. A stretcher that reintroduces an onset delay or a first-frame smear is a regression, not a trade-off.
Acceptance criteria.
- Ratio 1.0 with no shift is bit-identical to the shipped Preserve read, asserted by a regression baseline — the null case, and the criterion that makes landing this ahead of Rate safe.
- Preserve speaks on frame 0 — no added onset latency, no first-frame smear, in any ratio/shift combination.
- No audible metallic or phasey artefacting on sustained tonal material at ±6 st and 75–133 % ratio; transient material at 50 % / 200 % is no worse smeared than varispeed playback at the equivalent ratio — the honest "what does preserving pitch cost" reference, and the one that needs no disposable implementation built to serve the comparison.
- The Gate sustain-loop contract is unchanged: loop the source, shift the output — loop points remain source-frame facts.
- Measure and report before the algorithm is final: per-voice CPU at 32 voices, added latency (must be zero at the onset), and A/B recordings on three material classes (one-shot, tonal sustain, full-mix bounce). Report to Daniel; the choice is not final until he has heard the A/Bs.
Open questions. [propose, with a measurement step] the algorithm family itself.
[verify] that core/instrument/CLAUDE.md's "WDL_Resampler is not a Preserve engine —
never wire it as the duration-preserving path" is honoured: under Preserve, Rate legitimately
changes duration, so a resampled read is an explicit duration control — but the
pitch-preserving mechanism must not be a resampler. No [Daniel] questions.
Γ-W2 — New controls, and the overlay's marks
Depends on Γ-W1 for — four dependencies, two of them new:
- T1 ← W1-T1 (taper law). Rate and Pitch must be authored into the finished taper/modifier law, not retro-fitted into it, and the semitone taper must exist before a second semitone knob does.
- T1 ← W1-T5 (the stretcher) — NEW, and the reason the interim path is gone. Preserve Rate has no engine without it. Under the prior four-wave order this dependency ran the other way and was paid for with a disposable resample-and-cancel stand-in; the resequencing inverts it. Rate must not ship before its Preserve engine.
- T2 ← W1-T3 (the contour trace). Both write
editor_paint_waveform.cpp; running them together is a merge fight in one file. - T2 ← W1-T1 and W1-T4, weakly. W1-T1 also edits
editor_input_waveform.cpp(the modifier read), which T2 rewrites for marker hit-test routing — serial, so not a conflict, but T2 rebases onto it. And T2's "the enable costs no window width" criterion is now asserted against W1-T4's derived floor test rather than one this track has to write.
T1 additionally inherits engine/voice.{h,cpp} from W1-T5 — a hand-off, not a conflict:
W1-T5 defines the Preserve ratio seam, and T1 feeds it. Serial across waves by construction.
Disjointness — re-verified against this wave's membership, not carried over. Both tracks
stayed in W2 and nothing entered or left it, so the prior finding is re-checked and stands. T1
owns the parameter model, the engine and the deck descriptors; T2 owns the waveform band's
marks and their pure geometry and the chrome row's loop enable. The two are disjoint at the
module level with one named exception: shell/instrument/editor_session.cpp. T1 may touch
it for the third commit tier's routing; T2 owns pickedMarkers and applyMarkers there and
nothing else. The partition is by function and the two do not overlap — textual merge
adjacency, not semantic contention — but it is a shared file in a phase whose wave boundaries
are otherwise single-writer surfaces, so it is stated rather than discovered at merge. Whichever
track lands second rebases onto the first. No new in-wave adjacency was created by the
resequencing: T2 touches neither deck_values nor deck_groups nor voice.
The format ladder stays clean. The loop enable maps onto the existing
SampleLoop::hasLoop, which is already persisted and whose start/end are already written
unconditionally — no new field, no version bump — so T1 keeps sole ownership of payload v15
exactly as specced.
Γ-W2-T1 — pitch-rate-deck
Goal. PITCH becomes PITCH/RATE: three knobs (Key Trk | Rate | Pitch) under the
existing Varisp|Presrv toggle, with both new controls wired through the engine.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §2.
Surface boundary — owns: core/instrument/engine/play_params.h +
core/instrument/map/play_seconds.h (the two new fields),
core/instrument/map/component_state_io + params_payload (payload v15),
core/instrument/engine/voice.{h,cpp} (the compounding and the note-on latch),
core/instrument/ui/deck_groups (the PITCH/RATE descriptor and the three-state live
predicate), core/instrument/ui/deck_values (the two new bindings). Does not own the
deck's row layout — that is Γ-W3-T1 — nor the time-stretcher itself (Γ-W1-T5, already landed
by the time this track runs).
Behavior.
- Rate: 50 %–200 %, default 100 % at true knob centre, exponential taper — 50 % = −12 st, 200 % = +12 st, musically symmetric. This is linear in semitones over ±12 and is the stated exception to W1-T1's centre-expansion law (which applies to semitone knobs whose throw exceeds ±12).
- Pitch: a baseline pitch offset, ±24 semitones, centred, on W1-T1's centre-expanded
semitone taper. Reads
kPitchDepthMaxSemis; does not mint a second constant. - Varispeed: keytrack ratio × rate ratio × pitch-offset ratio compound into a single
read-increment multiply; the rate offset applies to the varispeed pitch. Composes with
the pitch envelope's existing per-frame
ratio_multiply — no new per-sample stage. - Preserve: rate is an absolute value driving duration only; keytrack and pitch
offset drive the pitch shifter. Rate drives the stretch ratio Γ-W1-T5's stretcher already
consumes — there is no interim path. The stretcher is this track's prerequisite, not its
successor; the resample-and-cancel stand-in the prior plan carried is retired unbuilt (see
Open questions for the contingency).
core/instrument/CLAUDE.md's "never wireWDL_Resampleras the duration-preserving path" is honoured by construction. - Rate is latched at note-on, delivered by a third commit class: published into the
live block like any live parameter, read only by
snapLive, never byapplyLive.isLiveDeckParam/liveCommitForwidens from two states to three (Live/NoteOnLatched/Reload) in that one predicate — not a second table, and not the reload tier (a swept knob must never trigger a WAV re-decode). Record the reason in the header: loop resolution and contour mapping are note-on folds, so live rate means re-folding a resolved loop and re-mapping a contour mid-note. - Pitch is live — under Varispeed one more factor in a multiply the pitch envelope already performs; under Preserve an addend to a shift the pitch envelope already modulates.
- Loop points scale with rate; contours scale with rate. Neither rewrites stored values: the loop is source-frame facts traversed at the new increment (Varispeed) or the new read rate (Preserve), and a contour is a function of normalized position. Staged envelope stage times do NOT scale — 30 ms is 30 ms at any rate. That asymmetry is deliberate: a contour is of the sample, a staged envelope is of the performance.
- Deck descriptor: three cells;
captionWidth70, hard ceiling 80 (above that the caption row overtakes the 180 px knob row and the group exceeds 192). If the text will not fit at 80, narrow theVarisp|Presrvsegments 48 → 44 (ceiling becomes 88) — do not widen the group. - Payload v15 appends both fields as a strict suffix; a v14 blob lifts to rate 100 % / pitch 0 st, bit-identical playback.
Acceptance criteria.
- Rate at 50 % plays an octave down and half speed under Varispeed; at 200 %, an octave up and double speed. Under Preserve the same settings change duration only — pitch is unchanged within the stretcher's tolerance. Preserve Rate is a finished feature the day this lands, because Γ-W1-T5 already shipped its engine; a degraded or inert Preserve Rate is a failed track, not an acceptable interim.
- Rate at exactly 100 % and Pitch at exactly 0 st render bit-identical to the pre-change build, in both engines.
- Shift-drag on Rate lands on whole semitones (so an octave and a fifth are reachable by hand); Shift-drag on Pitch lands on whole semitones; Ctrl gives cents on both.
- A Rate change while a note sounds does not alter that note; the next note-on takes it. It does not trigger a reload or an engine rebuild — assert the tier, not just the sound.
- A Pitch change does move a sounding note, in both engines.
- With a loop set, changing Rate changes the loop's audible period without moving either waveform marker.
- The PITCH/RATE group measures exactly 192 px; adding the two
DeckParams produces a compile error inisLiveDeckParam's exhaustive switch until they are classified. - A v14 project reopens at rate 100 % / pitch 0 st and sounds identical.
Open questions.
- None [Daniel].
- [propose at review] Rate's clamp behaviour at the range extremes as it meets the stretcher's own ratio bounds — one clamp, resolved where the two meet, not two that can disagree.
- Named contingency, not a plan item, and not to be taken silently. If Γ-W1-T5's
measure-and-report gate has not passed when this track is ready to dispatch, the pre-agreed
fallback is the resample-and-cancel composition spec §2.5 records — a resampled read with
the resulting pitch change cancelled in the existing SOLA shifter — shipped as an interim
Preserve path with the stretcher as its later quality upgrade, i.e. a return to the prior
four-wave order. Escalate to Daniel rather than taking it: it revives a disposable
implementation and re-opens the
WDL_Resamplerguardrail conversation, and the whole point of the resequencing was to avoid building it.
Γ-W2-T2 — loop-crossfade-ux
Goal. Give the loop an explicit enable, make the loop and crossfade marks legible, and paint the crossfade where it is actually heard.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §6 — read §6.1 (the diagnosis),
§6.4 (the enable) and §6.5 (trade-offs) in full before starting. This is the phase's one
genuinely designed surface; the sections are the brief.
Surface boundary — owns: shell/instrument/editor_paint_waveform.cpp's marker/loop draw,
shell/instrument/editor_input_waveform.cpp's marker hit-test routing,
core/instrument/ui/waveform_view (cap rects, label boxes, the label-suppression rule — all
pure, all CTest-covered), and — new, from the Γ-F4 ruling —
core/instrument/ui/sample_chrome (the enable's rect in the toolbar control run),
shell/instrument/editor_paint_chrome + editor_input_chrome (its draw and hit-test), and
shell/instrument/editor_session.cpp's pickedMarkers / applyMarkers only (the
retention rule — see the wave header for the shared-file partition). Does not own
loop_span, the crossfade model, any parameter, or any ComponentState version. This
track changes drawing, hit-testing and one editor-state retention rule — no format change.
Behavior.
- An explicit loop enable on the CHROME ROW (Γ-F4, ruled). A two-segment
Loop Off|Ontoggle joins the toolbar row's right-anchored control run, immediately left of theMono|Stereotoggle, with Browse still rightmost. Loop is a waveform-overlay concept and has no deck — a deck cell was never the right home. Because the run is right-anchored and the title slot absorbs it, this costs zero window width and none of the 90 px headroom; if the title will not hold its text at the 1190 floor, the enable's segments narrow — the floor does not move. - The enable IS
SampleLoop::hasLoop. No new field, no version bump. The field already exists (play_params.h:210), is already whatresolveLooprefuses on (loop_span.cpp:12), and is already persisted in the payload'sloopOverrideblock — wherestart/endare written unconditionally whateverhasLoopsays (params_payload.cpp:31-36), so the wire can already carry "off, with a span remembered." What changes is the field's provenance: today it is derived from the marker gesture, and after this track it is user-owned, with the gestures as shortcuts onto it. - Collapse-to-off survives as a shortcut, not as a second state machine.
hasLoopis the single authority; four gestures reach it:Gesture Enable Span Crossfade Enable → On on retained retained Enable → Off off retained retained Collapse the span onto itself off destroyed, re-parked at defaultLoopBoundszeroed Drag either loop mark while off on takes the drag retained, re-clamped - Two consequent behaviour changes, each with its reason. (a)
pickedMarkers' re-park (editor_session.cpp:221-226) currently triggers on!hasLoop; it must become conditional on the span being invalid (collapsed / inverted / out of range) rather than on the enable being off — a toggle whose off→on does not restore what was there is a delete button, not a toggle. (b)applyMarkers' crossfade zeroing (:240-243) moves from "the enable is off" to "the span was destroyed." The original reasoning is preserved, not overruled: it zeroes so a stale length cannot silently re-apply against a span that no longer exists; with the span retained, its clamp bound is retained too and there is nothing stale. - The "drag me" affordance splits into two off-states. Off with no span ever set —
pair parked at
defaultLoopBounds, Disabled, captionDRAG TO SET LOOP. Off with a span retained — pair Disabled at its own positions, captionLOOP OFF(there is nothing to "set"). In both, dragging a mark turns the enable on — the shipped drag-to-create gesture survives and now teaches the enable by demonstration. - In Trigger the enable draws Disabled and inert, and does NOT clear
hasLoop— Disabled-not-hidden, the same grammar as the marks, with its state restored on the return to Gate. This transitively covers the drawn-EG case viaenforceGateUnavailableWhileDrawn(play_params.h:198-205), which forces Trigger whenever an envelope is drawn — one predicate, not a second rule. Disabled-but-grabbable (the off marks) vs. Disabled-and-inert (Trigger) is deliberate: the user's own off is reversible by the very gesture on offer; Trigger's refusal comes from the engine and no drag can talk it out of it. - One mark grammar: line + shaped cap + label. The cap IS the grip. Four marks:
START (
accent/primary, solid right-pointing triangle cap, solid line — the only primary-ink mark, because it is the only one always in effect); LOOP (accent/secondary, L-cap opening right); END (accent/secondary, L-cap opening left); XFADE (accent/secondaryreduced alpha, ramp cap, dashed line — a soft boundary). This replaces the bare 10 px orphan tab that today marks the crossfade with no line of its own. - Labels in
Font::Micro/TextDim, drawn beneath the trace and handles in z-order. A mark's label re-draws on top on hover or drag of that mark. A label is suppressed if its box would overlap one already placed; placement order is grabbed/hovered first, then START, LOOP, END, XFADE. Occlusion by an envelope node is accepted and named — the cap shape carries the identity permanently, the label is for learning. - The crossfade moves to
[loopEnd − crossfade, loopEnd)— where it is audible. The handle moves to the loop-end side; drag direction is unchanged (left lengthens), so the muscle memory survives. - The crossfade region draws as a top-and-bottom edge wedge, NEVER as a second fill. A
triangular band at the overlay's top and bottom edges growing from zero at
loopEnd − crossfadeto ~10 px atloopEnd. This is a hard constraint: the region is now inside the loop span, where a translucent fill would stack on the 0.20 loop fill, and the envelope trace crossing that fill is a known, accepted under-floor pair at 2.25:1 (editor_paint_waveform.cpp:28-34), whose own note says the FILL is what changes if it is ever resolved. The loop fill's peak alpha must stay exactly 0.20. - The ingredient draws as a ghost.
[loopStart − crossfade, loopStart)draws the mirror wedge at half alpha, no handle — a hairline dashed outline at rest, filling in on hover or drag of the crossfade handle. This makes thecrossfade ≤ min(start, loopLength)clamp self-explanatory: the fade stops growing exactly when the ghost's left edge reaches START or LOOP, so the user sees the reason instead of hitting an invisible wall. - Trigger mode: the loop pair and the crossfade mark draw Disabled and are not
grabbable, with a dim
LOOP — GATE ONLYcaption — Disabled rather than hidden, matching the editor's existing Gate-segment grammar, and because hiding a set loop on a mode flip destroys information the user put there. START stays fully live.
Acceptance criteria.
- The four marks are distinguishable by ink and cap shape with the labels suppressed, and named when they are not.
- The shaded crossfade region sits over the frames where the fade is audible — verify against a rendered loop, not by reading the code.
- Every mark is grabbable by its cap; grabbing a mark shows its label.
- The crossfade at its clamp shows the ghost's left edge coincident with the bounding mark.
- The loop fill's peak alpha is unchanged at 0.20 and the accepted 2.25:1 trace pair is neither improved nor worsened.
- In Trigger, no loop mark accepts a grab, the chrome enable is Disabled and inert, and the reason is on screen. Returning to Gate restores the enable's prior state.
- Turning the enable off and on again restores the loop exactly — same span, same
crossfade, no re-park. Collapsing the span instead turns it off, re-parks at
defaultLoopBoundsand zeroes the crossfade. Both paths asserted. - Dragging a loop mark while the enable is off turns it on, in both off-states.
- The enable costs no window width:
kEditorMinWidthis unchanged by this track, asserted by the same derived test that guards the floor. - No
ComponentStateversion moves; no new persisted field;resolveLoopis untouched; audio is unchanged. The enable round-trips save/reload through the existingloopOverrideblock, in both states, with the span retained across an off. - All cap/label/suppression geometry is pure and unit-tested; no hit-test math in the painter.
The enable's rect lands in
sample_chromealongside the rest of the control run.
Open questions.
- [propose at review, then verify by hand] The claim-arbitration inputs change:
markerHandleRecttoday gives a tab to the crossfade only, andresolveWaveformClaimbreaks ties by smallest nominal target area. Giving every mark a cap-grip changes the candidate set and every nominal area in it. The arbitration must be re-derived, anddocs/TODO.md's open entry "Pre-existing staged-envelope-node shadow at zero-attack" must be re-evaluated against the new cap geometry and its outcome recorded — resolved or worsened, either is acceptable, silence is not. - No [Daniel] questions. Fork Γ-F4 is ruled — there is an explicit enable and it is on the chrome row, in this track. The prior framing ("an enable needs a cell, so it is a Γ-W3 layout decision") was wrong and is retired: loop has no deck, so it never needed one.
- [propose at review] every site that currently infers
hasLoop— two ineditor_input_waveform(:255,:258), two ineditor_session(:222,:236) — is now writing to a user-visible control rather than to an internal flag. Re-read each in that light; "it still compiles" is not a disposition. - Named escalation, not a fallback to take silently: if the top strip reads crowded in the DAW, the pre-designed answer is the marker rail (spec §6.2, Direction 2) — a larger build that would also dissolve the arbitration problem structurally. Escalate; do not improvise a half-rail.
Γ-W3 — The reflow
Depends on Γ-W2 for: the PITCH/RATE descriptor (W2-T1) — the reflow measures the real three-cell group, and laying it out against a forecast of that group means re-measuring afterward. This is the whole reason the arrangement is late, and it is why the canvas was split out of it into W1-T4.
Depends on Γ-W1 for: W1-T2's published meter/GR/clip state, which MASTER's deck draws (drawing against a stub would mean building the meter twice), and W1-T4's floor, budget constants and row predicate, which this track consumes rather than re-derives.
One track. The row law, the group inventory and the double-height deck are one geometry
decision spread over knob_deck, deck_groups and the deck painter. Splitting it would put two
tracks in the same pure modules. The window floor is no longer part of it — W1-T4 set it
two waves ago, and this track must not move it.
Γ-W3-T1 — deck-reflow
Goal. Two categorical rows plus a double-height MASTER bus deck, inside a 1280 × 720 ceiling, returning 112 px to the waveform.
Spec: docs/product/instrument-control-surface.md §1 (the whole section, incl. the §1.2
measured table and §1.6, the headroom ledger) and §3.2–3.3 (what MASTER draws). §7 lists
the invariants this track invalidates or widens — read it before touching knob_deck.h.
Surface boundary — owns: core/instrument/ui/knob_deck (the row law, the double-height
group, the justification — consuming W1-T4's budget constants, not restating them),
core/instrument/ui/deck_groups (consumption of W1-T4's row predicate, FILTER's Band|Notch
caption move, MASTER's inventory), and shell/instrument/editor_paint_deck (the MASTER
meter/limiter/bubble draw). Does not own kEditorMinWidth or any budget constant — those
are W1-T4's and are read, never moved — nor any parameter, the limiter DSP, or the
waveform band.
Behavior.
- Row 1 (sound), one row, non-negotiable: PITCH/RATE 192 · FILTER 432 · VELOCITY 192 · VOICE 164 = 980 natural.
- Row 2 (contour): PITCH ENV 252 · FILTER ENV 312 · AMP ENVELOPE 312 = 876 natural.
- MASTER is double-height (216 px) and right-anchored, outside both rows, 142 px wide.
- FILTER's
Band|Notchmoves from its row-toggle position to the caption corner, taking the group 524 → 432 (−92 px). It occupies FILTER's currently-unusedcaptionToggle2slot — no new geometry is required. - VOICE keeps its
Retrig|Legatorow toggle. Moving it to the caption makes VOICE wider (226, not narrower), because its caption row is the binding side. Verified; do not "fix" it. - Justification law, applied to BOTH rows: space-between within the row block; slack
divided equally among the row's (n−1) gutters, integer residue to the leftmost;
no gutter narrower than
kDeckGroupGap(12). Decks are never stretched. MASTER is not part of either row's justification. - Row block = 1020 px at the floor, giving row 1 gutters 12/14/14 and row 2 gutters 72/72,
at which width FILTER's right edge and FILTER ENV's right edge both land on x = 636.
That tie-line, row 2's equal gutters, and row 1's minimum gutter being exactly
kDeckGroupGapall hold at 1020 and only at 1020 — this is why the floor is 1190 and not 1186. Above the floor the tie-line drifts and that is accepted (spec §1.3). - The floor is already 1190 × 680 and the bands are already 216 / 358 — Γ-W1-T4 landed all
four in wave 1, and the greedy wrap happened to reach two rows at that width. This track
changes none of those numbers; it makes them true by construction instead of by coincidence.
Row 1's natural width fits the block only after this track's
Band|Notchmove: 1030 today, +42 from W2-T1's PITCH/RATE, −92 here, = 980. That is this track's fit assertion and W1-T4 deliberately left it open. - The 90 px of remaining headroom is the budget for the life of this layout, and one deck cell is 60 px. This is why MASTER's reserved slot is ONE cell (Γ-F5, ruled): two would spend 60 of the 90 up front on a control nobody has named, leaving 30 — which would freeze row 1 forever, since any later row-1 addition needs 60. Widening MASTER later costs the same 60 it would cost now, and by then the trade is against a real control instead of a guess. State this ledger where a future reader will hit it — spec §1.6 is its home, and a reader proposing a new knob needs to see it before they propose.
- MASTER's interior (spec §1.4, exact to the pixel): caption row with the limiter toggle
and a round 12 px
warnGR bubble in the far corner (non-interactive — the same slot the envelope decks' radio uses; round so it reads as a lamp, not a control); gain knob in the upper-left cell at box-relative y = 26 and a reserved empty slot at y = 138 — i.e. the two cells land on row 1's and row 2's knob baselines exactly, which is what stitches the spanning deck to both rows; meter column 62 px wide × 186 px tall on the right. - Three rules not to generalise wrongly: MASTER's left column uses fixed cell slots at the two baselines, NOT the horizontal run-division law (that law would stretch one knob over 186 px); the reserved slot draws nothing (blank reads as breathing room, a dashed placeholder reads as unfinished); the meter is one rect spanning both baselines, not two per-row meters.
- The meter draws W1-T2's published state, with the ballistics run on the UI timer.
Bar count follows the same
LaneSplitdecisionwaveformSurfacealready folds (channel mode ∧ source channel count) — one wide bar when the waveform draws one lane, two skinnier bars when it draws two. Not a second rule: a mono source in stereo mode is dual-mono, and two identical bars would be a lie. - Meter appearance: bar in
accent/primary; peak-hold tick 2 px intext/primary; clip cap inwarn, latched, click-to-clear; scale linear in dB over −60…+6 with ticks every 6 dB and numerals at 0/−12/−24/−36/−48/−60, the 0 dB tick heavier. No green/yellow/red segmentation —warnstays reserved for clip states.
Acceptance criteria.
- At the floor width the deck lays out in exactly two rows plus the spanning MASTER, by construction — asserted against the group inventory, not observed as a wrap outcome.
- Every group's width matches the §1.2 table exactly, in both Gate and Trigger (row 2's natural width is mode-stable at 876 because the reserve slots hold FILTER ENV and AMP at 312 in both modes — assert it).
- Row 1 and row 2 are flush left and flush right; at the floor width the filter tie-line is exact (both edges at x = 636) and row 2's two gutters are equal.
- Row 1's natural width is 980 and fits the 1020 block — the fit Γ-W1-T4 could not yet
assert, closed here by the
Band|Notchmove. kEditorMinWidthis still 1190 and the floor is still ≤ 1280 × 720 — unchanged by this track, verified against Γ-W1-T4's derived test rather than a second copy of it.- The waveform band is 358 px at the floor, and the deck band is 216 — unchanged from the
interim, now reached by construction:
deckRowCountat and above the floor is 2 because the row predicate says so, not because a wrap landed there. Assert against the group inventory. - MASTER's gain knob shares a knob baseline with FILTER's knobs; its reserved slot shares one with AMP ENVELOPE's.
- The meter reads correctly in mono and stereo, the peak-hold tick holds 1.5 s, the clip cap latches and clears, and the GR bubble lights only while the limiter reduces gain.
- With the limiter engaged the clip cap never latches on material the limiter is catching; if it does, that is a defect report against W1-T2, not a user error.
knob_deck's andsample_bands' tests are updated to the new law, and the invalidated notes inknob_deck.h(the fourteen-pixel headroom figure; the cells-and-floor pairing) are re-derived, not deleted — spec §7.1, §7.4.
Open questions.
- [propose at review] Whether the greedy whole-group wrap survives at all as a sub-floor
degrade, or is replaced outright by explicit row assignment. What is not optional: at
and above the floor width the layout is the specified arrangement, reached by construction.
DeckLayout::rowCount/::heightchange meaning either way (spec §7.3). - No [Daniel] questions. Forks Γ-F5 (one cell) and Γ-F1 (680 stays) are both ruled; they are stated in Behavior above, not carried here as options.
- [verify]
deck_groups.cpp'skEnvModeSegW = 23ceiling rises to 47 once PITCH ENV is on row 2 (AMP binds at 55). No change is required; the comment stating the old ceiling stops being true and must be corrected (spec §7.2).
Traceability — all seventeen items
The check that nothing was dropped. Every row points at a track that exists above.
| # | Item (short) | Phase-Wave-Track | Worktree slug |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Envelope editor: radio switch, curve dials, overlay recolor | Θ-W3-T2 | pth-w3-t2-staged-envelope-curves |
| 2 | MM preamp Filter — resonant HP/LP stage | Θ-W1-T3 (DSP) + Θ-W2-T1 (integration) | pth-w1-t3-filter-dsp-port, pth-w2-t1-filter-voice-path |
| 3 | Alternative Spline EGs | Θ-W5-T1 | pth-w5-t1-spline-egs |
| 4 | Bug: end-of-sample click, Trigger × Preserve | Θ-W3-T2 | pth-w3-t2-staged-envelope-curves |
| 5 | Bug: drag-out sometimes lands without audio | Θ-W1-T2 | pth-w1-t2-capture-handoff-bugs |
| 6 | Bug: FX-container drop loses the capture | Θ-W1-T2 | pth-w1-t2-capture-handoff-bugs |
| 7 | Stereo waveform shows both channels | Θ-W2-T2 | pth-w2-t2-stereo-waveform-lanes |
| 8 | Release anchoring; the Pitch AD becomes AHD | Θ-W3-T2 | pth-w3-t2-staged-envelope-curves |
| 9 | Loop points — regression + Gate loop-sustain | Θ-W4-T1 | pth-w4-t1-gate-loop-sustain |
| 10 | Knob/label sizing, ms units, double-click reset | Θ-W6-T1 | pth-w6-t1-legibility-and-antialiasing |
| 11 | Preview glyph; VELOCITY deck; bipolar curves | Θ-W4-T2 | pth-w4-t2-velocity-deck-and-bipolar-curves |
| 12 | Toolbar cleanup; full-width piano strip; tooltips | Θ-W2-T3 | pth-w2-t3-toolbar-and-piano-strip |
| 13 | Antialiased rendering audit for high-DPI | Θ-W6-T1 | pth-w6-t1-legibility-and-antialiasing |
| 14 | Trigger amp/filter fade → AHD consolidation | Θ-W3-T2 | pth-w3-t2-staged-envelope-curves |
| 15 | One-click in-sampler resample | Ξ-W1-T2 (note model) + Ξ-W2-T1 (bake chain) + Ξ-W3-T1 (popup) | pxi-w1-t2-note-program-model, pxi-w2-t1-resample-bake-chain, pxi-w3-t1-capture-signal-popup |
| 16 | Retire the zone mapping system | Θ-W1-T1 | pth-w1-t1-zone-retirement |
| 17 | Consolidate provenance/usage tracking | Ξ-W1-T1 | pxi-w1-t1-tracking-consolidation |
Work in this plan that is not one of the seventeen
The table above is a completeness proof over TODO-1.0.md — every row points at a track,
so nothing from the source was dropped. It is deliberately not an index of the plan:
work that did not come from the source doc has no row, and inventing one would weaken the
proof it exists to give.
- Θ-W3-T1 —
live-parameter-delivery(pth-w3-t1-live-parameter-delivery). Arose from Θ-W2-T1's implementation review, not fromTODO-1.0.md. The first such track in this plan; see Θ-W7-T1 below for the second. - Θ-W7-T1 —
arc-and-spline-aa(pth-w7-t1-arc-and-spline-aa). Opened after Θ-W6-T1 shipped, when Daniel found two rendering defects by eye in the editor — not fromTODO-1.0.md, and not a track this plan originally scoped. The second such track in this plan today; if others appear, they belong on this list rather than in the table. - All of Phase Γ (
pg-*). Eight tracks across three waves, from a direct interview with Daniel (2026-08-01), not fromTODO-1.0.md. Listed here as a block rather than per track, because the whole phase is outside the source doc; the product reasoning lives indocs/product/instrument-control-surface.mdand the automation scoping it defers indocs/product/parameter-automation.md. Γ-W3-T1 additionally discharges thedocs/TODO.mddeck-rework entry, whose original "one row of taller decks with within-deck stacking" shape Daniel explicitly superseded.
Deliberate compressions
Recorded so a reader of TODO-1.0.md can see what this plan did to the source, rather
than discovering it later:
- Item 2 is split across two waves. The DSP port (Θ-W1-T3) is deliberately separated from the integration (Θ-W2-T1) so the external-input dependency on Daniel's Cortex-M4 code sits on a standalone, disjoint track instead of blocking a wave. Item 2's acceptance criteria are split accordingly — the range/resonance assertions land in W1-T3's tests, the audible/pipeline/deck criteria in W2-T1.
- Item 2's filter envelope ships twice. W2-T1 ships it in the existing staged AHDSR shape; W3-T2 gives it the curve treatment and the mode-driven Gate→AHDSR / Trigger→AHD shape. This is deliberate: waiting would put the filter behind the whole envelope system.
- Item 4 lands in Θ-W3, not Θ-W1. Its fix region is the region item 14 retires, and the only earlier instrument-side track owns the entire engine. Its acceptance gate is stated as the post-consolidation gate. It is not gated behind the whole editor chain — three waves of six — and the source doc itself requires re-verification under the surviving mechanism either way.
- Item 11's filter velocity curve is split from item 2's filter velocity modulation. W2-T1 wires the modulation path (following the amp/pitch precedents); W4-T2 sets the curve's bipolar domain and default and homes its button. Neither track can do the other's half.
- Item 15's undo/recovery is carried as a note, not a criterion — Daniel set it at exactly "a plus." The guaranteed recovery floor (the superseded file surviving until prune) is a criterion.
- Nothing else was compressed. Every other item's behavior bullets and acceptance criteria are carried at full strength into the track that owns it.
Outline at a glance
Phase Θ — ReaSampler 9000: one parameter set, filter, shapeable envelopes, legible editor
W1 Collapse and re-seam
T1 zone-retirement ......................... 16
T2 capture-handoff-bugs .................... 5, 6
T3 filter-dsp-port ......................... 2 (DSP) [needs Daniel's M4 code]
W2 Filter in the voice path; waveform and chrome bands
T1 filter-voice-path ....................... 2 (integration)
T2 stereo-waveform-lanes ................... 7
T3 toolbar-and-piano-strip ................. 12
W3 Live parameters, then the staged envelope system [T1 before T2 — serial]
T1 live-parameter-delivery ................. (not one of the seventeen)
T2 staged-envelope-curves .................. 1, 8, 14, 4
W4 Loop sustain and the velocity deck
T1 gate-loop-sustain ....................... 9
T2 velocity-deck-and-bipolar-curves ........ 11
W5 Spline EGs
T1 spline-egs .............................. 3
W6 Editor legibility pass
T1 legibility-and-antialiasing ............. 10, 13
W7 Arc-and-spline antialiasing fix
T1 arc-and-spline-aa ....................... (not one of the seventeen)
Phase Ξ — The resample loop (W1 concurrency-safe with Θ from Θ-W2 onward)
W1 Consolidated tracking, and the programmed-note model
T1 tracking-consolidation .................. 17
T2 note-program-model ...................... 15 (model)
W2 The bake chain [requires all of Phase Θ, and Phase Γ before it]
T1 resample-bake-chain ..................... 15 (chain)
W3 The capture-signal popup
T1 capture-signal-popup .................... 15 (popup)
Phase Γ — The instrument's control surface (none of the seventeen; runs before Ξ-W2)
W1 Foundations [5 tracks, disjoint by surface]
T1 knob-interaction-law ....... modifiers + ms/semitone tapers + reset bypass
T2 master-bus-audio ........... limiter + meter ballistics + dynamic PDC [payload v14]
T3 contour-trace-curves ....... staged traces draw curved, knot on its trace
T4 editor-floor-and-row-law ... floor 1190x680 + budget constants + row predicate
T5 preserve-time-stretch ...... real stretcher [measure-and-report gate]
W2 New controls, and the overlay's marks [2 tracks]
T1 pitch-rate-deck ............ Rate + Pitch, Varisp/Presrv compounding [payload v15]
T2 loop-crossfade-ux .......... four-mark grammar; fade painted where it is heard
W3 The reflow [1 track]
T1 deck-reflow ................ two rows + double-height MASTER, by construction
Resequenced 2026-08-01: the reflow split canvas (W1-T4) from arrangement (W3-T1), and
preserve-time-stretch moved W4 -> W1-T5, which retires Rate's interim stand-in.
Shared files, named: engine/CMakeLists.txt (W1-T2 | W1-T5) and editor_session.cpp
(W2-T1 | W2-T2) — both textual adjacency, not semantic contention.