THE_BRIDGE Manual

• DRUMS / MELODY / RECORD — the three tabs. A tab with a padlock isn't unlocked on this computer yet. Click it and the footer tells you what opens it.
• Status pill — what THE_BRIDGE is doing right now: LISTENING, SENDING, READY TO RECORD, RECORDING, TEACHING, CALIBRATING, or AUDIO NOT RUNNING.
• Sample rate and buffer — the format your audio device is running at.
• Device chip — the input THE_BRIDGE listens through. Click it to open AUDIO INPUT.
• LISTENING pill — how many plugins are connected right now.

• Left: INPUT — what THE_BRIDGE listens to, how loud it is, and calibration.
• Centre — the tab you're in: the SOUNDS grid, the MELODY readout or the RECORD transport.
• Right — the tab's settings (DETECTION, VOICE or REQUESTS), and OUTPUTS underneath.

• Left — the hint line, or the help for whatever your mouse is over.
• Right — MS IN THE_BRIDGE: how long THE_BRIDGE itself takes to turn a sound into an event. In MELODY this includes the pitch tracker.

• MIC listens to your audio device's input.
• SYSTEM AUDIO listens to whatever your computer is playing, in any app, with no routing. It's made for RECORD: play a track in your browser or music app and capture it as a reference.

On macOS, SYSTEM AUDIO needs macOS 14.2 or newer, and macOS may ask for permission the first time you use it. If it can't start, the INPUT panel says why.

Which channel THE_BRIDGE analyses. SUM uses left and right together. Pick LEFT or RIGHT when your mic is plugged into one input of a stereo interface.

A vertical level meter in dBFS. In DRUMS it also shows the FLOOR line: the level a hit has to reach before THE_BRIDGE takes it seriously. It moves with SENSITIVITY.

Trims the signal THE_BRIDGE analyses, from -24 to +24 dB. Drag up or down, hold Shift for fine steps, double-click to reset to 0 dB. Calibration sets this for you.

By default the mic never reaches your speakers. Click to pass it through when you want to monitor yourself. Use headphones: on speakers, a passed-through mic will feed back.

1. STAY QUIET — two seconds of your room. The floor every hit must clear is set from this.
2. YOUR LOUDEST KICK, THREE TIMES — the gain is set so your loudest hit lands at -6 dBFS with nothing clipping.
3. YOUR QUIETEST HIT, THREE TIMES — a soft hat or a tick. The floor moves down until that still counts, if the room allows it.

1. STAY QUIET — two seconds of your room. The threshold a note has to clear starts from this.
2. HUM YOUR LOUDEST NOTE, HOLD IT — the gain is set so a sustained note peaks at -12 dBFS. While you hum, the card shows the note it's tracking, so you know it can hear you.
3. HUM YOUR QUIETEST NOTE, HOLD IT — the threshold lands between the room and this note, so quiet notes still start.

SKIP moves on with what's been heard so far. Skipping the loud step keeps the gain as it is. Skipping the quiet step sets the floor, or threshold, from the room alone.

When it's done, the card shows what was set and whether your room lets it work:

Below the numbers, THE_BRIDGE tells you plainly if something needs fixing: the input clipping before the app even sees it, a loud room, a quiet sound buried in the noise, or notes outside the range it can track. DONE keeps the numbers (Return does the same). AGAIN runs the three steps once more.

Calibration isn't available in RECORD or with SYSTEM AUDIO. Recordings are written before GAIN, so there's nothing to calibrate there.

Every card shows:

• Its state — DEFAULT (the built-in version of that sound), YOURS (you taught it), or TEACHING.
• A fingerprint — the shape of the sound you taught it.
• A match meter — a thin bar that jumps when your last hit came close to this sound. It's the quickest way to see which of your sounds get confused.
• THRESHOLD — how loud a hit has to be to count as this sound. off means it follows the floor. Drag to set it, double-click to turn it off again.
• OUT — the note it sends.

Nobody beatboxes the same kick. The five defaults are a starting point. For the tightest results, teach THE_BRIDGE how you make each sound.

1. Click a card. The SOUNDS panel turns into the teaching card.
2. Make the sound once. THE_BRIDGE captures the hit, shows its waveform and level, and what it sounded like.
3. KEEP or REDO. Keep it if that was the sound, redo it if it wasn't. Return keeps, Backspace redoes.
4. Eight hits and it's yours. Every kept hit tightens the match. The card now reads YOURS.

While you teach, listening pauses whenever a hit waits for your verdict, and nothing reaches your plugins until that sound is done. CANCEL, or a click on the same card, stops teaching. ESC does too, as long as no hit is waiting. While one is, ESC redoes it. The nine sounds fold into a strip under the teaching card, so you can jump straight to another sound.

Right-click a taught card to forget it. The default comes back.

Three extra sounds that aren't in the default set: a rimshot, a tom, a vocal chop, anything you can make with your mouth. They only exist once you teach them.

Teach IGNORE the noise that must never fire: a breath, your chair, bleed from your speakers. Once it's taught, sounds like that are thrown away instead of turning into hits.

With ONLY YOURS on, only the sounds you taught can fire. The five defaults stay quiet. Use it once your own kit is complete.

• SAVE KIT writes every sound you taught to a .mouthkit file.
• LOAD KIT brings a .mouthkit file back, on this computer or another one.
• FORGET ALL drops every taught sound and brings the five defaults back. Click it twice: the first click asks SURE?

• SENSITIVITY — how quiet a hit may be. Higher hears more, and misfires more. Default 40 %.
• MIN GAP — the shortest time between two hits, from 0 to 200 ms. Raise it when a single hit fires twice. Default 45 ms.
• INSTANT — decides 3 ms after the start of a hit, for the tightest feel.
• ACCURATE — waits 12 ms and hears more of the sound, for fewer mix-ups between similar sounds.
• LAST HIT — the last sound recognised, and how closely it matched.

• The big note — what you're singing right now. The last note stays dimmed after you stop.
• Hz and the cents meter — how far above or below the note you are.
• SENT AS — the note and the MIDI channel it goes out on.
• The pitch trace — the last four seconds of your melody, so you can see what you just sang.

• SENSITIVITY — how quiet a note may be before it counts. Default 50 %.
• HOLD — how long a note survives a gap before it ends, from 20 to 300 ms. Raise it if a long note breaks into several. Default 80 ms.
• OCTAVE — shifts every note from -2 to +2 octaves before it goes out. Hum comfortably and play a bass line or a lead anyway.
• LEGATO — slides from note to note: the new note starts before the old one ends.
• RETRIGGER — every change ends the old note first, then starts the new one.

The VOICE panel shows whether THE_BRIDGE hears a voiced note (VOICED or SILENT) and its level.

A note starts once the pitch holds for 10 ms above SENSITIVITY, and ends after HOLD of silence. THE_BRIDGE tracks notes from E2 to C6. Pro tip: sing with a clear start, like "da", for the tightest timing. A whisper or a breathy "hmm" gives the tracker far less to follow.

1. Pick the input in the INPUT panel: MIC to perform, SYSTEM AUDIO to capture a track playing in any app.
2. Pick a LIMIT: NONE records until you stop, or 30 S, 1 MIN or 5 MIN stops on its own.
3. Hit RECORD. The clock runs and the level history shows the last eight seconds of input.
4. Hit STOP. The file is written, and every connected plugin is told about it.

The RECORDINGS list shows your newest recordings with their length, their source and, if a plugin asked for one, which plugin. Click a recording to show it in Finder (or Explorer). OPEN FOLDER opens the whole folder.

Recordings are saved in a folder called THE_BRIDGE CONTENT/Recordings. It sits inside your Phil Speiser content folder: the one you chose in the PHIL SPEISER CONTROL CENTER, or the one THE_BRIDGE asked you about the first time it opened.

A plugin can start a recording from inside your DAW and pick up the file the moment it's done. THE_STRIP 3's CREATE PROFILE works this way: play a reference track, let THE_BRIDGE capture it, and THE_STRIP 3 turns it into a profile.

The REQUESTS panel lists every plugin that's waiting for a recording right now, and which plugin the current recording is for.

OUTPUTS lists every Phil Speiser plugin connected to THE_BRIDGE, with what it's there for: DRUMS, MELODY or RECORDINGS. OPEN means the plugin is connected but isn't taking events right now.

If the list is empty, no plugin is listening yet. Open a Phil Speiser plugin that supports THE_BRIDGE in your DAW, and it appears here.

Your Phil Speiser plugins don't need the MIDI port. They hear THE_BRIDGE directly, in any DAW, with nothing to route.

Turn on MIDI OUT and THE_BRIDGE also sends every event out a MIDI port, so your voice can play any instrument, in any DAW.

• Melody notes go out on the channel set in CH (1 to 16). Drag to change it, double-click to reset to 1.
• Drum hits always go out on channel 10.

On macOS, THE_BRIDGE creates its own virtual MIDI port called THE_BRIDGE. In your DAW, pick it as the MIDI input of an instrument track.

On Windows, an up-to-date Windows 11 (with Windows MIDI Services) gives THE_BRIDGE its own THE_BRIDGE port, and you pick it in your DAW the same way. On older Windows, or to use a different port, click OTHER PORT (or PICK A MIDI PORT) and choose one from the list. AUTO goes back to THE_BRIDGE's own port.