The Piano/Step Grid Mode: Quantised to Whole Cells

Piano/Step Grid takes the same bar field as the rest of the Bars engine and does one thing to it: quantized frequency steps form a musical grid. Quantisation is the entire identity of the mode, and everything else about it exists to make the steps visible.

How many cells a column has

The cell count is the Stacks control times four, with a floor of four. This mode ships a stack of 6, so each column is divided into 24 cells. A column's height is then its level rounded to the nearest whole number of those cells, with a minimum of eight tenths of one cell so a silent column still shows a stub rather than disappearing.

That minimum is the difference between a grid and a gap-toothed field. A readout where quiet frequencies vanish entirely reads as broken, because the viewer cannot tell an absent column from a rendering fault.

The dividers are painted, not left out

The obvious way to build a stepped column is to draw each cell as its own rectangle with space between them. This mode draws one continuous column and then paints thin horizontal strips over it in the background colour, at roughly a fifth of a cell's height each. The result looks identical and costs one fill per boundary instead of one fill per cell.

It also has a consequence that shows up in the control list. Background is normally a main-surface control only, because a layer composited over other layers has no background of its own to set. This mode and one other in the engine are the exceptions that opt it into layer scope, precisely because the value is being used as ink rather than as a backdrop. Set it to something that contrasts with your bars and the dividers appear; set it to match and the column goes solid.

Column count and the piano reading

The mode ships a Bar count of 72, higher than the engine's plain equalizer mode. Narrow columns plus discrete cells is what produces the keyboard reading the name points at. Every column still owns its own logarithmic slice of the spectrum, so the left of the field is bass and the right is air, and the grid is a way of displaying that rather than a musical scale in any strict sense.

As with every mode in this engine, the three audio-routing controls are out of scope: this mode ships a value for Audio contribution that no panel exposes. Sensitivity and the attack and release ballistics are the live ones.

When to reach for it

Hip hop, electronic, retro and chiptune material, hardware demos, and anything with a deliberately digital aesthetic. The quantisation reads as intent, which makes it a good choice when a smooth readout would look accidental. For the continuous version of the same field, read The Linear Equalizer Mode: Flush on the Edge, Rounded Only at the Cap; for the same data wrapped into a circle, The Radial Bars Mode.

Open Piano/Step Grid in the gallery or go to the editor.