Playing live, saving, sharing

Edit while it plays

Everything you type counts on the next tick: there is nothing to run. A few habits help on stage:

• Prepare blocks in an empty corner before you need them, and start them with a bang, a gate or a link when the time comes.
• Select and move. Drag across cells, or Shift + arrows, to select a block. Drag the selection, or Ctrl + arrows, to move it. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V copy, cut and paste it.
• Undo with Ctrl+Z, redo with Ctrl+Y.
• Hear one voice without waiting for its bang: put the cursor on it and press Enter, or double-click it.
• Right click (or a long press on a phone) opens the cell menu: hear it, explain it, load an example, change it by ±1, copy and paste, or put an operator there.
• Label your blocks with comments: # drums #. Close them with a second # when code follows on the same line.
• Zoom with − 100% + in the top bar, or Alt + wheel.

All the keys: Keys.

Tempo

The BPM box sets the tempo, from 40 to 999. A tick is a sixteenth note, so at 120 BPM there are 8 ticks a second.

From the grid, ! sets it while playing: !150 is 150 BPM, and it overrides the box. Any of its three digits can be fed from above, so a sequence can change the tempo between sections and a wave can make it breathe. With several !, the last one you typed or edited holds the tempo; ?! hands it over on a bang.

Breaks and sections

• - cuts all sound for some beats of a cycle, while clocks, movers and the screen keep going. -14 drops 1 beat in 4; -34 keeps only 1 beat in 4. Type it to start a break, delete it to bring the music back.
• ?V changes the palette on a bang and keeps it: a new colour for a new section.
• The example Sections builds a piece that changes on its own.

Stop, play, reset

Stop (Ctrl+Enter again) freezes everything, and play carries on from there. reset stops, puts the movers back where you typed them and clears the screen, without touching your code: a clean start for the next take. The TUTORIAL chapter Making it a song goes through arranging a whole piece.

Recording a video

● REC records the screen, four times enlarged (640 × 480, sharp pixels), with the sound of the chip. Press ■ STOP REC to finish: the video downloads, as WebM or MP4 depending on the browser. It uses the browser’s own recorder: if a browser cannot record, the app says so.

Keeping your work

• Automatically: the grid is saved in the browser at every change, and comes back next time you open Chipgrid, on the same device and in the same browser. A private window forgets it when closed, and clearing the browser’s data erases it.
• save downloads the grid as a text file (chipgrid-2026-11-09-14-30.txt): the grid as you see it, one line per row. open loads one back, replacing the grid (Ctrl+Z brings the old one back).
• link copies a web address that holds the whole grid and the tempo. Anyone who opens it gets your program. If the copy fails, the address is in the address bar.

The text files are plain text: you can keep them in a folder, send them, or edit them in any text editor (empty cells are .).

On a phone or a tablet

Tap a cell to put the cursor there, and type with the pad at the bottom. It has four tabs: operators, notes, 0–9 and a–z. The pad also has play, hear, the arrows, erase and undo. ⌨ opens the phone’s own keyboard instead. Double-tap a voice to hear it, long-press a cell for its menu.