Tap a loop to start it on the next bar. Tap an empty cell to record into it, or hold a loop for more options.
Capture
Record or import a short source — a tapped glass, a sung note, a creaking door. Ecou maps it across the keyboard.
Play guitar, bass or vocals live through the insert chain — turn on the Amp module in Mix. Use headphones. Expect some latency on Android.
For best results, record 20–30 cm from the mic: one clean hit or a sustained note. Silence is trimmed, gain normalized and the root note detected automatically. Video files are accepted — the audio track is used.
Record your voice into A, then pick a character. Robot and Vocoder chord turn speech into a playable synth; the others reshape it. Play it on the keys or use Record to pad.
Instrument
Recorded instruments (piano, guitars, basses, strings, winds, brass) load the first time you choose them. The rest are synthesized on your phone. Sound credits
DX7-compatible 6-operator FM. Import single voices or 32-voice banks. Sound Match turns the sound in Capture slot A into an editable FM voice that also plays on an FM-1.
LFO · pitch · transpose
Crossfade: both sources play, mixed by level.
Timbre transfer keeps A’s pitch and articulation and paints it with B’s spectral envelope. Spectral blend interpolates both spectra frame by frame (B is pitch-aligned and time-stretched to A). Both re-render a new source when you move the slider.
USB or Bluetooth controllers (Chrome). Velocity, pitch bend (±2 st) and mod wheel are supported — the mod wheel is a source in the mod matrix.
Play tracks on the FM-1
0 = Ecou plays it. 1–16 = the notes go to that FM-1 MIDI channel instead (FM-1 Open: channels 1–7 = tracks 1–7, 10 = track 8; V16: each Voice's receive channel).
FM-1 setup (firmware, effect channel)
Effect CCs: V16 uses CC 70–93, V15 uses CC 0–23, both on the Effect channel. Keep the Effect channel different from the voice channels.
FM-1 effects (remote)
FM-1 voices 1–8 (V16 multitimbral)
Set each Voice's MIDI Ch on the FM-1 to match. Preset sends Program Change; Level sends Expression (CC 11) on that channel.
Motion → FM-1 (phone, camera, pads)
Tilt the phone, wave at the camera or drag the XY pad to play the FM-1's filter, effects or expression. Enable Motion or Camera on the Mod tab first.
Record the FM-1 into Ecou (USB audio)
Over USB the FM-1 is also an audio input. Choose it here, then use Capture or an armed audio track as usual: FM-1 sounds become Ecou samples and Sound Match sources.
USB: Chrome on Android (USB-C/OTG) or desktop. Bluetooth: Chrome connects to the FM-1 directly, no pairing app needed. For playing FM-1 keys into Ecou without double sound, set LOCAL off on the FM-1 (MIDI ROUTING page).
Switch to Pro for sustain looping, filter resonance and full granular control.
Modulation
Play with one hand, shape with the other. Camera and motion sources stack on top of the XY pad.
Frame motion drives cutoff; brightness drives reverb. Point it at rain, traffic or a candle flame.
Tilt → cutoff. Roll → pitch bend.
Tap a cell to cycle depth: 25 → 50 → 100 → −50 → off.
Routing is preset. Switch to Pro to edit the mod matrix.
1 · Pick a layer below. 2 · Press ● Record layer and play pads or keys over the loop. 3 · When the loop sounds right, pick the next layer and record again. Then Add to song.
Fix timing (put what you played on the beat)
100% = exactly on the grid. 50–80% keeps some of your feel. Drums sit on 1/16 steps, so triplets apply to the melodic layers only. Undo with ↶ Undo take.
Pads
Tap the pads in time. With Record on, every hit is written to the grid (quantized to 1/16) — on the timeline it goes into a 4-bar pattern clip at the playhead.
Loads a reggae kit, a dub bass line and a skank organ into the current pattern at the right tempo. Then play the Dub siren, Dub echo and Tape stop punch-ins.
Hold a step to lock its pitch, level or ratchet (×2–×4 repeats inside the step).
Beatbox a groove (up to 8 s). Ecou slices every hit, classifies it as kick, snare, hat or perc, loads the best take of each onto the pads, detects the tempo and writes the pattern into the sequencer.
Song
Tap to add · tap a note to delete · drag a note to move · drag its right edge to resize · drag in the lane below for velocity. In-key rows are lighter, the key note is green.
Drums are programmed in the Pads tab — step sequencer, or finger drumming with Record notes on.
Choose an MP3 or WAV and Ecou writes out the notes, right on your phone. It works best with one instrument or a voice, recorded clearly.
For a full song: Ecou splits it into vocals, bass, other instruments and drums, and writes a staff for each. The first time, it downloads the stem splitter (about 175 MB, kept on the phone). Splitting is slow on phones without GPU support, so you pick a section first.
If the notes look rushed or stretched, adjust the tempo. The key follows the Key setting under Sheet music.
Notation of the whole arrangement (or the current pattern if the arrangement is empty): each melodic track on its own staff, drums on a percussion staff. Notes are quantized to 1/16.
Patterns play in this order in Song mode. Tap one twice to remove it.
Exports the patterns in this arrangement (notes and steps you programmed or recorded with Record notes). To capture something you play live without recording it, use ● REC at the top.
Projects auto-save on this device. Export file creates a portable .zip with all samples, patterns and settings.
Studio
1.1.1 · 0:00.0Generated at the project tempo, so every loop locks to the grid. Added at the playhead's bar on the selected audio track.
Rendered offline from bar 1 to the end of the last clip, with automation. Stems in Mix → Export use the timeline whenever it has clips.
Recordings are aligned automatically using the reported input and output latency. If takes still land early or late on this device, nudge the offset. With a multichannel interface, give each armed track its own input (In 1, In 2 or Stereo) and record them together. In a loop, every pass becomes a take.
Bluetooth headphones: while the mic is open, Android switches them to call mode (muffled, mono). Record with wired headphones or the phone speaker; Ecou releases the mic the moment recording stops.
Mix & effects
Each track becomes an object in 3D space, rendered binaurally (HRTF) for headphones. Drag a dot to set direction and distance.
Tracks with Insert FX on pass through the chain below, top to bottom. Reverb and delay are sends: set each track’s amount in the mixer, the return level here.
Tap Capture IR, then clap once. Ecou records the room’s impulse response and uses it as your reverb.
Renders the song once and sets Master so the export lands on the chosen target, and tells you how hard the limiter works.
play something…
Load a finished song you want to sound like.
True-peak-safe limiter: exports stay under the ceiling (−1 dBTP is the streaming standard). Every export reports integrated loudness and true peak. Tap ● REC to record a live performance with punch-in FX.