The routing philosophy
Why only half of Tonverk's 16 tracks make sound — and why the silent half is the point.
Tonverk · 9 min read
Tonverk has 16 tracks, but if you arrive expecting 16 samplers the machine seems to fight you: only tracks 1–8 will play a sample. Tracks 9–16 take trigs, run sequencers, fill the screen with parameters — and produce no sound of their own. The manual tells you what each track is (§5.3), but never quite says why the machine is split down the middle. This piece is about the why.
Here is the model that makes the whole chapter fall into place: Tonverk is two instruments in one box — an eight-voice sampler and a mixing console — and the console is sequenced like an instrument. Tracks 1–8 are the sampler. Tracks 9–16 are the console: four group channels, three effect returns, and a master. Read rows 9–16 as a mixing desk and every routing decision in the manual turns into a standard studio move.
Four kinds of track
The sequencer has 16 tracks: 8 audio/MIDI tracks, 4 bus tracks, 3 send FX tracks, and one mix track (§5.3). The numbering is fixed — [TRIG 9] is always bus 1, [TRIG 16] is always the mixer. In console terms:
- TRK 1–8 — the voices. Each audio track plays mono or stereo samples (or multi-sampled instruments) through its SRC machine and carries a full preset: SRC, FLTR, AMP, FX, and MOD pages, two insert FX slots, separate sends to the three send FX, two voice LFOs, a modulation envelope, and two FX LFOs (§5.3.2).
- TRK 9–12 — the group channels. A bus "lets you route multiple tracks into one channel to process them simultaneously — one signal chain to affect an entire group of tracks" (§5.3.3). Each bus has its own two insert FX slots and its own sends.
- TRK 13–15 — the effect returns. Each send FX track holds one FX machine that becomes one of the pattern's three send effects (§5.3.4). Think of them as SEND FX 1, 2, and 3.
- TRK 16 — the master. The mix track carries the mixer parameters — track levels, external input settings — plus one FX machine that acts as the pattern's main FX (§5.3.5).
Why bake the console into the sequencer at all? Because every one of the 16 tracks — buses, sends, and the mixer included — is a sequencer track (§5.3). Even the mix track has a TRIG page (§15.2). The desk doesn't sit outside the music: it runs on the same clock, takes the same trigs, and accepts the same parameter locks. That decision is what the rest of this page unpacks.
A switch and three faucets
Open FX PAGE 1 on any audio track and the track's entire relationship with the rest of the machine sits in four parameters: SND1, SND2, SND3, and ROUT (§12.8). These are the two words of Tonverk's routing grammar:
- ROUT is a switch. One destination per track: MIX AB (the default), OUT CD, OUT EF, or BUS 1–4. The track's audio goes there, and only there (§12.8).
- SND1–3 are faucets. Continuous levels that tap the track's signal off to send FX 1–3 — in parallel, without touching where ROUT points (§12.8, §14.5).
That is a classic console channel strip: a routing assignment plus aux sends. The textbook dry/wet reverb move works exactly as it would in a studio — leave ROUT on MIX AB, raise SND3, and shape the reverb itself on the return track.
The map
Below is §4's sound architecture as a live map. Every arrow it can draw comes from the option list of a real ROUT record in the compiled manual data — the diagram cannot assert a route the manual doesn't document. Click a block to make it the start of the chain, change its ROUT, toggle its sends, and read the resulting signal path.
Click a block to read what it is; click a track, bus or send FX to follow its signal. ROUT picks one destination for that block — the MIXER, an output pair, or one of the four buses — while SND1–3 feed the send FX in parallel. Every destination offered here comes from the ROUT parameter's own option list.
TRK 1–8 are the audio tracks. Each one has two insert effect slots, separate sends to the three send effects, and its own routing destination.
- Routing is primarily done in the ROUTING menu ([FUNC] + [MUTE]); the ROUT parameter on FX PAGE 1 mirrors it. In the menu you can also hold the [TRIG] key(s) of the track(s) and press the [TRIG] key of the destination — OUT CD and OUT EF are [KEYBOARD A] and [KEYBOARD B].
- ROUT and SND1–3 are separate parameters on the same FX PAGE 1: ROUT selects where the block's audio goes, SND1–3 set how much of it is sent to SEND FX 1–3.
- The manual pairs SND1–3 with SEND FX 1–3 and puts the three send FX on TRK 13–15, but never prints which track number is which SEND FX number. This map follows track order (SND1 → TRK 13).
- The map redraws the sound-architecture illustrations of §4.1–§4.3. The routing switches marked A, B, C, D and E there are the ROUT parameters and the HP.MON level shown here.
Two things worth noticing while you play. First: only audio tracks (and the external inputs) can enter a bus — a bus can't feed another bus, and neither can a send; their destinations are MIX AB and the direct outs only (§4.4.1). The console flows strictly downstream, so a feedback loop is impossible by construction. Second: everything that lands on MIX AB leaves through the main FX to OUT A/B, always (§4.4.1).
Two ways to steer
Routing lives in two places that mirror each other (§12.8). The ROUT parameter on FX PAGE 1 moves the active track. The ROUTING menu — press [FUNC] + [MUTE] — shows the whole pattern's routing state at once and moves any track (§4.4.1):
[UP]/[DOWN]switches the view between the audio tracks and the buses/send FX (§4.4.1).- Press a
[TRIG]key to select a track, then turn LEVEL/DATA to pick its destination (§4.4.1). - Or skip the knob entirely: hold the
[TRIG]key(s) of one or several tracks and press the destination track's[TRIG]key. OUT CD and OUT EF are picked with[KEYBOARD A]and[KEYBOARD B](§4.4.1).
Hear what a bus is
Goal: Route tracks into a bus and process them as a group.
- Get a pattern playing on tracks 1 and 2 — any two audio tracks with trigs.
- Select track 9, bus 1:
[TRK] + [TRIG 9]. Give it an insert effect: press [FX] until FX PAGE 2, then[FUNC] + [FX]and pick something unmissable — COMB FILTER, CHRONO PITCH. You hear nothing yet: nothing is routed into the bus. - Select track 2, open FX PAGE 1, and turn ROUT from MIX AB to BUS 1. Track 2 now speaks through the bus's effect chain.
- Now the fast way:
[FUNC] + [MUTE], hold[TRIG 1]and[TRIG 2]together, press[TRIG 9]. Both tracks jump into the bus at once.
Routing as musical material
Here is where Tonverk leaves the studio metaphor behind. ROUT is a track parameter, and track parameters can be locked to a different value on any step (§10.10.1). Hold a trig, turn ROUT, and that one step goes somewhere else. Destination stops being setup and becomes a per-note property — something no physical mixing desk can do. The official tutorial demonstrates exactly this, calling the result "evolving and chaotic pretty quickly".
P-lock a step into a different world
Goal: Give individual steps their own routing destination.
- Load a different insert FX on bus 2 and bus 3 (
[TRK] + [TRIG 10]/[TRIG 11], then [FX] to FX PAGE 2 and[FUNC] + [FX]). - On a playing audio track, enter GRID RECORDING mode with [RECORD].
- Hold one of the track's note trigs, open FX PAGE 1, and turn ROUT to BUS 2. Hold a different trig and lock it to BUS 3.
- Listen. Most steps stay on the track's normal path; the locked ones dive through their own effect chain and come back. The pattern is re-mixing itself, step by step.
The outside world
External audio — the IN A/B jacks and audio over USB — enters the same console, with two twists (§4.4.1). Twist one: its routing is not in the ROUTING menu. It is set with the ROUT parameters on the Mix track's SRC page, and the destination list is wider: MIX AB, OUT AB, OUT CD, OUT EF, BUS 1–4, or directly into an audio track TRK 1–8. Twist two: when you aim an input at a track, the audio enters at the track's insert FX — it bypasses the overdrive, filters, and amp (§4.4.1).
The tutorial's best scenario stitches the outputs and inputs into one loop — outboard gear grafted into the console as a send effect:
Graft a pedal into the console
Needs hardware + cablesGoal: Use an external effect pedal as send FX 1.
- Route send FX track 13 to OUT CD:
[TRK] + [TRIG 13], FX PAGE 1, ROUT → OUT CD. - Cable OUT C/D into your pedal's input, and the pedal's output back into IN A/B.
- In [SETTINGS] → AUDIO ROUTING, set EXT AUDIO IN to PATTERN; on the Mix track's SRC page, point the input's ROUT at MIX AB.
- Raise SND1 on any audio track. The signal detours: track → send 1 → OUT C/D → pedal → IN A/B → mixer. Your pedal is now send effect number one.
The fine print
- MIX AB always exits through the main FX (§4.4.1). Don't want one? The mix track's FX machine list has BYPASS at the top — the tutorial's own move.
- MIX AB also feeds OUT E/F (headphones) by default; the HP.MON parameter on the mix track's FLTR page sets that level (§4.4.1).
- OUT CD and OUT EF are pre-mixer escapes: audio routed there skips the mix track's main FX and levels entirely (§12.8).
- Hold [FX] and press [PLAY] to reset the selected FX machine's parameters — shown in the official tutorial, printed nowhere in the manual.
- The SEND FX 1→TRK 13 / 2→14 / 3→15 pairing is confirmed by the official tutorial but still awaits a hardware double-check here — it is one of the documentation gaps this project tracks.
The one-sentence takeaway: eight tracks make the sound; the other eight decide what the sound means. When a pattern feels static, the sound-design reflex is to reach for an LFO. The console's reflex is to reach for ROUT, a couple of sends, and a parameter lock — and both reflexes live on the same sequencer. That is the routing philosophy.