Probability

Probability is one of Aconite’s pillars, not a single control. Any note in a pattern, any layer in a stack, any parameter in the signal path can be made to fire only sometimes, so a held pattern rearranges itself forever instead of looping identically. Those odds are authored in a lot of places, and this page is the one that gathers them: what the pillar is, and every shipped way to set, stack, and see the dice.

The design stance

Two ideas run through every probability feature, and knowing them makes the whole pillar click:

The odds ride the control they govern. There is no central “probability page.” If a knob, a fader, a step, or a lane can be made probabilistic, its odds live right next to it: a per-oscillator odds chip sits on the mixer fader it gates, a step’s chance lives on the step, a Probability route targets the exact destination it silences. You set odds where the sound already is, not in a separate mixer of dice.
Distributed authoring, centralized inspection. You set odds all over the surface; you see them fire in one consistent visual language (the chance-fire visualization). A gate that fires flashes the control it governs, everywhere, the same way.

One small vocabulary ties it together: a single % odds chip appears wherever you dial a probability. Values read 0 to 100, and a chip sitting at 100% is dimmed, because a coin that always lands is not gambling: it tells you at a glance which controls are actually rolling dice and which are playing straight.

Every probability feature ships off by design: full odds, zero depth, neutral shaping. A patch that never touches them sounds exactly as it always did, so you opt into the generative behaviour one control at a time.

The Probability modulation source

The general-purpose front door is a modulation source called Probability in the modulation matrix. Route it onto any destination and its Depth becomes the fire probability: Depth 30% means the destination is driven on roughly 30% of note-ons and gated on the rest (0% never fires, 100% always fires).

The key detail is how it gates. On a fire, the destination plays at the level you dialed on the knob or fader; on a miss it drops to silent. It does not jump to full scale and it does not nudge by a fixed amount: a Probability layer speaks only Depth% of the notes, and when it speaks it sits at the balance you set. That makes probabilistic layering the headline move: leave an oscillator’s fader at the level you want it to play at, add Probability → Osc 2 Level at 30% Depth, and osc 2 now joins about a third of the notes at that level while osc 1 plays every one. The same works on a filter cutoff, an FX send, pitch, anything you can modulate. Full walkthrough: Probabilistic layering.

Reach for the Probability source when the thing you want to make probabilistic has no odds control of its own. Where a control does own its odds (a mixer fader, a step, a note in a clip), set the probability right there instead.

Independent per-note dice

Every Probability route rolls its own die, so stacked routes are independent coins, not one shared roll:

Different destinations flip independent coins. Probability → Osc 2 Level at 50% and Probability → Osc 3 Level at 50% give you every combination: both layers, either one alone, or neither. Each oscillator decides for itself each note.
The same destination multiplies. Two Probability routes aimed at the same destination fire it only when both coins land, so the odds are the product: two routes at 50% each fire the destination about 25% of the time. Stack them to build very sparse events out of ordinary-looking percentages.

Chord notes decide independently (each voice rolls its own), and a bounce is reproducible: the same notes make the same choices.

Conditions: make a route depend on context

A Probability route can be made conditional so it does not just roll a flat coin, it reacts to another route or to its own recent past. On a Probability row the matrix’s Via column becomes a Cond menu offering Own die (the default flat coin), a Relate family (If Prev / If ¬Prev, fire only when the route above it fired or missed), and a History family (Not-twice, Max per bar N, Follows momentum). Use these to make two layers move together or in opposition, ration a rare sparkle, or let a part gather into runs and rests instead of scattering evenly.

This has its own full walkthrough on the matrix page; rather than repeat it here, see Conditions.

Per-oscillator odds chips

Each mixer source (Osc 1, Osc 2, Osc 3, Sub, and Noise) carries its own odds chip: the chance that source sounds on a given note. At 100% (the default) the source plays every note; drop Osc 3 to 60% and it speaks on roughly six notes in ten while the others play through. Each source rolls its own independent dice, so a static stack of oscillators keeps rearranging itself into ever-shifting combinations. It is the fastest way to make a fixed patch feel alive: dial back the odds on a layer or two and hold a pattern.

The chips are the same gate mechanism as the Probability source, brought right onto the faders so the odds ride the control they govern. Full walkthrough: Per-source Probability.

Each source’s odds are also a modulation destination — Osc 1/2/3 Probability, Sub Probability, and Noise Probability — so an LFO or envelope can fade a layer from “always there” to “rare sparkle” hands-free. The matrix gathers these into a dedicated Probability destination group alongside the sequencer’s master gate; see the destination list.

The Probability Filter

The Probability Filter makes notes probabilistic by where they sit in the register rather than by which layer or parameter they drive. It is a filter-shaped curve drawn over the keyboard: where the curve is high, notes in that register play; where it dips, they thin out. It shapes the notes the arpeggiator, chord lane, and clip produce.

Its axis is switchable, so the same idea reads three ways:

Register — the curve sits over the actual keyboard at absolute pitch, a fixed zone on the keys.
Range — the curve is measured relative to the pattern’s own span, so it tracks your playing and transposes with you.
Function — the curve is replaced by one fader per chord degree (Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th), so you thin notes by their harmonic role, hand in hand with the chord lane.

Its Cutoff is a full modulation destination, so an LFO or envelope can slide the whole response up and down the register and the pattern dissolves and re-forms by register on its own: the signature probability-filter sweep. Full walkthrough: The probability filter.

Step-sequencer probability groups

Inside the sequencer, each step and each note carries its own play chance, and the Chance lane lets you dial it per step. It combines with everything else on the step (its Conditional, the Euclidean fill, the global Probability) so a step fires only if it passes all of them.

Beyond per-step odds, notes can be tied into probability groups so their dice are correlated rather than independent:

Play All — the group plays all-or-none each loop: one shared roll decides whether the whole group sounds together.
Play One — exactly one of the group’s notes fires per loop, chosen at random, so a held chord voices a different tone each pass.

Groups are authored from the Chance lane’s buttons or with keyboard shortcuts. Full walkthrough: Probability groups.

Probability Clouds

The four Probability Clouds (Cloud 1 to Cloud 4) are independent per-note shaped-random sources you route from the modulation matrix. Where the Probability source flips a yes/no coin, a Cloud draws a fresh value each note from a distribution you shape with three controls:

Mutate — the lock-to-vary-to-random axis: how much the draw changes from note to note, from a locked repeating value through gentle variation to fully fresh randomness.
Spread — the width of the draw: how far values wander from the centre.
Bias — the centre of the draw: where the cloud sits.

Because each Cloud is an independent source, the classic pairing is Cloud 1 → Pan and Cloud 2 → Amp for independent, ever-shifting pan and velocity clouds across a phrase, with two more Clouds free for anything else you can modulate. The twelve shaping controls are themselves modulation destinations (Cloud N Mutate/Spread/Bias), so an LFO or envelope can breathe a cloud’s width, drift its centre, or ease a locked value toward fresh draws while a pattern runs.

The Clouds are routed today through the matrix like any other source; see the matrix sources.

Seeing the dice: the chance-fire visualization

Odds are set all over the surface, but you watch them fire in one consistent visual language, so a gate that lands is never invisible:

The control flashes. Whatever a Probability route targets brightens toward the generative accent colour on the note it fires: a mixer lane pulses, a knob’s ring or a fader’s lane flashes, a cutoff or FX send lights up. Any Probability destination flashes, not just the mixer.
The keyboard shows which oscillators fired. Each playing key’s front strip draws coloured bands for the probabilistic oscillators that sounded on that note (mixer-lane colours), so you can read the timbre as it rearranges. A source left at 100% shows a plain highlight with no band, because only the gambling layers carry information.

A single Chance pulse toggle in the gear menu turns the whole visualization on or off. Controls with no Probability route targeting them stay pixel-identical at rest.

Where each piece lives

Feature	What it does	Where
Probability source	Route onto any destination; Depth = fire probability; plays at the dialed level on a fire, silent on a miss	Modulation matrix
Conditions	Make a route depend on another route or its own history	Matrix Cond menu
Per-oscillator odds	Per-source “chance this sounds” chips + matrix destinations	Mixer
Probability Filter	Thin notes by register, range, or chord function; sweepable cutoff	The probability filter
Step probability & groups	Per-step chance plus Play All / Play One groups	Step sequencer, Piano roll
Probability Clouds	Four shaped-random sources (Mutate / Spread / Bias)	Matrix sources