Notes are relationships, not grid positions

Click a hotspot to see what each interaction does on the piano roll.

Shift-click to link — Pick a master, pick a slave. The slave's frequency becomes a pure ratio of the master — 3:2 for a fifth, 5:4 for a major third, 7:4 for a harmonic seventh.
Double-click to cycle — Step a link through the harmonic series. H1, H3, H5, H7, all the way to H32 — every interval from the overtone series is one click away.
Dynamic hierarchies — Any note can be master and slave at once. A → B, B → C, C → D — the whole graph resolves in real time.
Move the anchor — Transpose a root and every dependent note cascades along, preserving every relationship. No retuning, no recalculating — the graph just follows.

The full tension spectrum

Arbit doesn't just make things sound "pure." It gives you the widest possible range of harmonic tension — from absolute consonance (zero beating, pure fusion) to extreme dissonance (collisions between different harmonic anchors that create beating patterns like Balinese gamelan). Intervals the ear has no template for. The harmonic series isn't a set of rules to follow — it's a space to explore. Every ratio is a creative choice, and the composer is the one who arbitrates.

Chord tools that understand harmony

Not just chord names and MIDI numbers — Arbit's chord tools work with pure ratios and harmonic relationships, so a detected chord is a structure of intervals, not a label on a stack of pitches.

JI-aware chord detection

Real-time analysis against 50+ chord templates built on pure ratios — not equal-temperament approximations. Arbit reads what a voicing actually is harmonically, including harmonic 7ths, neutral thirds, and altered extensions that 12-TET has no name for.

Auto-link from chords

Detect a chord and generate the harmonic links that match. A major triad spawns 5:4 and 3:2 links automatically. Turn an entire progression into a fully linked harmonic graph in seconds.

Progression-aware retuning

Each chord defines its own tuning context. A I–vi–ii–V progression retunes per chord — no comma drift, no wolf intervals, no compromise between keys.

Harmonic analysis

See the actual frequency relationships between notes, not just their names. Inspect how a voicing's ratios stack up, where the beating sits, and how each link contributes to the chord's character — Cmaj7 detected as 4:5:6:15/8 instead of an opaque chord symbol.

Transforms

30+ transforms — from quantize to neural pitch baking

Apply across selections, individual tracks, or the whole project. Every transform respects harmonic links and is fully undoable.

Timing & rhythm

Quantize — Snap notes to grid
Legato — Extend per-pitch to fill gaps
Staccato — Shorten notes by factor
Reverse — Mirror positions in time
Humanize — Random timing & velocity nudges
Double length — Scale position + duration ×2
Halve length — Scale position + duration ÷2
Arpeggio — Spread chord notes across time with shape, span, and direction controls
Strum — Stagger chord starts like a strum, S-curve sweep with adjustable timing

Harmony & linking

Auto Tune — Smart chord grouping retunes selection to pure JI ratios
Auto Link — Link selected notes to the hovered master in one shortcut
Chain Masters — Wire masters together end-to-end into a single hierarchy
Chain Retune — Walk a master chain and re-resolve every dependent note

Pitch & expression

Transpose — Shift selection by ± semitones
Voicing Spread — Distribute pitch classes across octaves at a target interval
Vibrato — Generate pitch-bend curves with depth, rate, and shape
Draw Pitch — Hand-draw the F0 contour directly on a note
Erase Pitch — Wipe user pitch edits, restore the source curve
Freeze Pitch — Lock specific sections of the pitch curve so other edits don't disturb them
Bake Pitch to Points — Convert a continuous pitch curve into editable breakpoints
Load Rendered Pitch — Pull the rendered F0 from a vocal render back as edit data

Note management

Consolidate — Merge overlapping fragments into single clean notes
Split Notes — Break a long note into N equal pieces
Merge Notes — Join adjacent notes of the same pitch into one
Generative — Algorithmic note generation across a selection
Mute — Toggle muted state on the selection
Set Track — Move selection to another track (0–15)
Consolidate Sample — Render attached audio with all transformations into a clean WAV

Velocity

Set Velocity — Absolute value across selection
Scale Velocity — Multiply current velocity by a factor

Vocal-specific

Split Sentence — Split multi-word lyric notes into one note per word — equal, syllable, or phoneme distribution
Fill Lyrics — Auto-distribute a lyric block across selected notes

Ready to think in relationships?

The harmonic MIDI editor is free in Arbit and expands into a production system in Arbit Pro.

Download Arbit See it in your DAW