Get Started

Sign up (free) and you land in the studio. Hit Project Menu → New Project or use Ctrl+N. You get a blank arrangement timeline at 120 BPM in 4/4 — change the BPM and key from the transport bar at the top. Every project starts with the full toolset: all 13 synth engines, all effects, the step sequencer, mixer, and AIRESS are ready to use.

Click the + button in the track list to open the Add Menu. Pick any of the 13 engines — each one uses a different synthesis method, so they sound fundamentally different, not just different presets of the same engine. The track opens with the piano roll ready. Play notes with your mouse, keyboard, or a MIDI controller. Every engine has its own preset browser — start with a preset, then tweak the knobs to make it yours.

Add a Drum Track from the + menu. The step sequencer opens with a 16-step grid — each row is a channel (kick, snare, hat, etc.) and each channel runs its own synthesized drum engine. These aren't samples — they're real-time synthesis with full parameter control. Toggle steps to build your pattern, drag velocity bars to add dynamics, and dial in swing per-pattern. Switch between 16, 32, or 64 step grids for more complex rhythms. Each channel has independent volume, pan, pitch, decay, and send levels.

onomo has two playback modes. Clip Mode loops a single pattern — use it while you're writing. When you're ready to build a full song, switch to Song Mode. Drag clips onto the arrangement timeline, duplicate sections, set loop brackets around your verse or chorus, and use the section system to organize your structure. Each clip can have fade in/out curves, and each track has its own tail mode setting that controls how notes behave at clip boundaries.

Open the mixer to see every track as a channel strip — fader, pan knob, mute/solo, and 3-band EQ built in. Add effects from the 12 available processors — each one has an AudioWorklet for real-time playback AND an offline renderer for export, so what you hear is exactly what you get. Create buses for group processing (route all drums to one bus, compress them together). Use sidechain routing on the compressor or gate for that pumping effect. Every single parameter of every effect is automatable from the arrangement timeline.

AIRESS (AI for Recording Engineering and Sound Support) isn't a chatbot bolted onto a DAW. It reads your entire project state — every track, every note, every clip, every automation curve, every mixer setting — before generating a response. It knows your key, your tempo, what instruments you're using, and what musical roles are missing. Ask it to “write a trap hi-hat pattern” and it generates an interactive canvas you can preview, edit, and apply — not just text advice. It routes through 12 genre-specific drum agents, dedicated melody/bass, chord, and songwriting agents based on what you ask.

Add an Audio Track from the + menu, arm it (the red record button), and hit record. Your browser requests microphone access — then you're recording directly into the DAW. Use count-in to get ready, loop recording to capture multiple takes over the same section, and the takes system to comp the best performance. Audio clips appear on the timeline with waveform display — drag them, trim them, add fades. You can also drag audio files directly onto the timeline to import them.

When you're done, open the Export Panel. onomo doesn't just record the output — it re-renders every track offline through the full effects chain, bakes all automation curves, computes clip fades, and runs the master limiter. The result is identical to what you hear in playback, but at maximum quality. Free users get MP3 export. Pro and Ultra get WAV + individual stem export with full FX processing baked into each stem.