Mixer & effects
Mixer mode is the final stage — balance the four tape tracks, polish the master, and export the finished thing. Four pages: MIX · EQ · FX · OUT.
MIX
Four live VU faders, one per track, each with a pan dot and a level readout in its track color. The LEVEL / PAN chip flips what the four knobs control — levels or pans. The PATH chip swaps the meters for spool.’s signal path so you can see the whole chain at a glance:
ENGINE → INSERT FX → TRACK → MIX → MASTER FX → EQ → DRIVE → OUTEQ
A 3-band master EQ — LOW · MID · HIGH — on the whole mix.
FX — the master effect
One effect across the entire mix, with its own LFO routing. The same rack is available here as on each track’s insert slot:
| Effect | What it is | Knobs |
|---|---|---|
| BAT | dual-band resonant filter — two peaks, like bat ears | LOW · HIGH · RES · SWEEP |
| DELAY | tempo-syncable delay | TIME · FBACK · TONE · MIX |
| SPRING | spring/plate reverb | SIZE · DECAY · DAMP · MIX |
| GRID | drive + bitcrush | DRIVE · CRUSH · TONE · MIX |
| PUNCH | compressor — glue and thickness | THRESH · RATIO · ATTACK · MAKEUP |
| SWIRL | chorus/ensemble width | RATE · DEPTH · SPREAD · MIX |
| JET | phaser | RATE · DEPTH · FBACK · MIX |
| WAVE | tremolo / auto-pan | RATE · DEPTH · SHAPE · STEREO |
| STUT | beat-repeat stutter | DIV · CHANCE · FEEL · MIX |
| HALO | pitch-shifter / harmonizer | PITCH · FINE · FBACK · MIX |
DELAY, JET, WAVE and STUT can lock their timing to the tempo. The free version includes SPRING, BAT, PUNCH (and bypass); the full rack unlocks with Spool Pro.
Remember: insert effects belong to tracks, so each of the four tape tracks keeps its own effect, and this page holds the one master effect on top.
OUT — master and export
The OUT page has the master VOL and DRIVE knobs — and a brickwall limiter always guards the output, so your mix never clips.
This is also where songs leave the app — two ways:
The easy way — FROM TOP. One tap: the tape rewinds to bar 0, plays your whole song down through every effect, and stops by itself at the end of the last take. The display shows the pass rolling; when it lands on CAPTURED, tap EXPORT WAV to save it — named after your project — into Files → On My iPhone → spool. → Mixdowns, then share it anywhere with the share icon.
The performance way — MIXDOWN. Tap MIXDOWN and spool. records everything you hear at the master output until you tap STOP. The tape doesn’t roll by itself here — go to the Tape screen, rewind, and press PLAY yourself. That’s the point: you’re recording a live pass, so twist knobs, ride faders, punch effects, even play the keys over the top. Everything you do lands in the mixdown. Tap STOP, then EXPORT WAV.
Mixdown export is a Spool Pro feature.
Next: Sampling →