Documentation

Welcome to the Skene user guide. Skene is a music and live-performance app for iPhone, iPad, and macOS that puts the whole show in one place: write the music, build the visuals, control the lights, and perform it all live — running together in real time.

What Skene does

• Compose in the DAW view — a clip-based timeline of MIDI and audio tracks, each driven by its own instrument rack of built-in devices, AUv3 plug-ins, and effects. Full MPE expression lets every note bend, slide, and breathe.
• Build sound and visuals in the node graph — patch instruments, effects, modulation, and GPU visuals as connected nodes, so your graphics react to the music in real time.
• Light the room with DMX512 — drive stage lighting and any DMX fixture (LED bars, moving heads, even a fog or haze machine) over Art-Net or USB, from the same graph that makes your sound and visuals.
• Perform live in the Arranger — compose on the fly by launching your existing DAW tracks and scenes (we call them skenes) on the beat, remixing a set as you play.

Everything is connected: an audio level can move a light, a MIDI note can fire a visual, and a scene change can take the whole show with it.

This guide is written page-by-page and grows over time. Some sections are fully fleshed out; others are short notes that will expand. Work-in-progress areas carry a Work in progress badge.

Start here

• Getting Started — the main views and how to move between them.
• DAW View — the core timeline: tracks, clips, the piano roll, and the instrument rack.
• MPE — per-note pitch, slide, and pressure editing. Most iOS DAWs don’t have this.
• Node View — instruments, effects, modulation, visuals, and DMX lighting as connected nodes.

Also covered

• Controllers — the on-screen piano, pads, and chord strips, plus hardware MIDI controllers.
• Mixer and Arranger — mixing and live, scene-based arrangement.
• Tools — the audio recorder and pitch tuner.
• Component Reference — every node, grouped by category.
• Keyboard Shortcuts and AUv3 Support.

Platforms

Skene runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Projects sync via iCloud, so you can start a session on one device and continue on another.