One workstation for sound and visuals, beside your DAW
VerkLabs is a digital audio-visual workstation: a place to write and arrange music, build a sound from nothing, and make the visuals for it, for sound and visuals together, in a browser tab with no install. Notes can move between VerkLabs and a DAW as MIDI files. It is not a replacement for a DAW's finishing work: it has no plug-in support, no multitrack audio recording, and no EQ in the mixer. For a finished multitrack mix, use it beside Ableton Live or another DAW. This page says how the two can sit together.
What goes in and out
| You want to… | In VerkLabs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bring a song or a part in | Import a MIDI file | Each track becomes its own part with a suggested instrument. A drum track is split into one part per drum. A multi-track file lands in a group named after the file. |
| Take a part out | Download a clip as a MIDI file | The notes only, not the sound, so open it in a DAW and choose an instrument there. |
| Balance the tracks | The Mixer (Window menu) | A fader, pan, mute, solo and level meter for each track and group, and a master fader. The meters turn red when a level goes over full scale. What you set is in recordings and audio files too. Mix events on the Runsheet automate a fader, a pan or the master, and hold their last value. A send on each strip feeds a shared reverb or echo, which comes back as a strip of its own. |
| Take the sound out | Download the sound as a WAV file (Settings) | Every Audio and Music track you can hear, mixed into one stereo file from the start of the project to the end of the last sound and its tail, with no video. Muted tracks are left out. Stems give one file for each track or group, all the same length, in a zip. |
| Take the whole project out | Download all music as a MIDI file (Settings) | One file with every track you can hear, named after the tracks, with the tempo and the beats a bar. Muted tracks are left out. Drums go on channel 10 as General MIDI drum notes. |
| Reuse the music in another VerkLabs project | Export a music pack (Settings) | The tracks, notes, instruments (sampled ones too) and references to audio files in one file, to add to any project. Not for a DAW: use the MIDI file for that. |
| Play it from a MIDI keyboard | Connect a controller (Settings, Music) | Keys play a Live Music event, the pads play drums, and the knobs, faders and strips are learned by moving them and then drive an instrument or a visual. Chrome and Edge only. |
| Record what you play | The Record button on the on-screen piano | Notes, not audio: it records to the end of the event (or until you stop), quantized if you like, as a track you can edit, loop and layer. |
| Make written notes sound played | Style of Play (Settings, Music) | Swing, a rolling chord, a phrase that breathes, a pause for rubato. The notes are never changed, only how they are played, with styles from jazz ballad to a drunk pianist. |
| Draw or edit notes | The piano roll | Ghost notes from other tracks, velocity lane, and a Fit button. Stays above the timeline. |
| Start from ready-made sounds | The instrument library | Synths, basses, keys, strings, drums, effects and buses, with sampled orchestral instruments. |
| Use your own sampled instruments | Load an SFZ file or a sample pack | An SFZ is a sampled instrument mapped across the keyboard. Many sample libraries are available in this format. |
| Build a sound from scratch | The instrument editor | Oscillators, filters, envelopes and effects wired as nodes. A first step into synthesis. |
| Process several parts together | Groups, buses and a track's own instrument | A reverb, delay, low cut or sidechain pump on a track or a group, built as an instrument. |
| Share the result | A link to the project, or a recording | A recording captures the run, with the sound, as a video file. For the sound alone, Download the sound as a WAV file (Settings) saves the whole mix, with no video. The same button gives per-track stems in a zip. |
Synthesis by wiring. Ableton's Operator or Wavetable can hide what an oscillator, filter and envelope do. Here a student draws the chain and hears each stage.
At home, no license. Students without a DAW installed can still practise arranging and sound design in a browser, then bring the ideas to the studio session.
Visuals for the music. The timeline can drive visuals from the sound, for courses that ask for a visual, a performance or a short film with sound.
A way in for non-musicians. The guided lessons need no music theory: a first techno track, chords and a melody, and building your own instrument. An AI can draft the notes for a part (Notes from AI), which students can then edit.
What it is not
No plug-ins (VST or AU), no recording of audio from live instruments, and no EQ in the mixer.
A MIDI keyboard can play VerkLabs' own instruments, but VerkLabs does not send MIDI to a DAW's synths or follow a DAW's clock. Move notes between them as files.
It is for sketching, learning and audiovisual projects. Mastering and production for release belong in a DAW.
A simple way to use both
Sketch a part or a sound in VerkLabs, download the notes as a MIDI file, and finish the track in your DAW. Or do the opposite: export a MIDI file from the DAW, import it, give it instruments and a visual, and share the project by link. The Instruments and Music chapter of the manual covers each step.
Try it, or talk it through
Free, in a browser tab, nothing to install. The guided lessons run beside a student's own project, so you can try one yourself in a few minutes. If you would like a short demo, example projects or a conversation about how it could sit next to your course, get in touch.
Try the lessons Teaching with VerkLabs Email education@verklabs.ai