Track Configuration

Every configured track has two layers of controls in its inspector panel: a set of always-visible blend controls in the main body, and a settings popover for everything else.

Click the ⚙ gear icon in the top-right corner of the track inspector header. The popover slides out to the right and stays open until you click elsewhere.

Track name and color

At the top of the popover:

Track Name — type a new name directly in the text field. The name appears on the track tile in the timeline.
Track Color — click any swatch in the 12-color grid to change the track’s accent color. This color is used for the track tile border, the inspector header icon, and the chain slot bar.

Blending

The Dry/Wet and blend mode controls sit in the main inspector body, always visible below the header.

Control	What it does
Dry/Wet	Controls how much of this track’s output is composited into the master mix. 0 = silent (invisible), 1 = full contribution.
Blend mode	The compositing operation used when merging this track’s output with the tracks below it. Options include Mix, Add, Multiply, Max, Screen, and others.

Both controls are MIDI-mappable — right-click either to assign a MIDI CC or open the mapping panel.

Feedback slider

When the active chain has Feedback Loop enabled, a Feedback slider appears directly below the Dry/Wet row. This controls the strength of the feedback blend (how much of the previous frame feeds back into the current frame).

Track FX

Enabled in the settings popover under the TRACK FX header.

Toggle	What it does
Pre FX	Adds a persistent effect slot that runs before every chain on this track. Useful for input processing that should always be applied regardless of which chain is active — for example, a colour correction or input mask. Effects added here are stored in `lockedPreEffects`. Enabling Pre FX also unlocks Track Macros for these effects.
Post FX	Same idea, but the effect slot runs after every chain. Useful for output-level processing — watermarks, output colour grades, or a persistent feedback blend. Effects are stored in `lockedEffects`.

When Pre FX or Post FX are enabled, their effect cards appear inside the main inspector body, labelled with TRACK PRE FX and TRACK POST FX dividers.

To add an effect to a Pre FX or Post FX slot, use the dashed Insert button that appears at the bottom of each section.

Options

All of these are toggles in the OPTIONS section of the settings popover.

Chain Crossfade

When enabled, switching chains triggers a smooth animated blend instead of an instant cut.

Three sub-controls appear in the main inspector body under a CROSSFADE header whenever this is on:

Control	Range	Default
Duration	0.01 s – 5.0 s	0.5 s
Blend Mode	Any blend mode, including the transition styles	Mix
Curve	Easing curve for the fade	Linear

Double-click the Duration slider to reset it to 0.5 s.

Alongside the standard blend modes, the Blend Mode picker ends with transition styles designed for smooth live chain changes: Center, Sides, Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Slide Left, Slide Right, Slide Up, Slide Down, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Rotate, Darker, and Brighter.

The Curve picker shapes the fade timing: Linear, Ease In, Ease Out, Ease In/Out, Cubic In/Out, Expo In/Out, Logarithmic, and Exponential.

Chain Play Controls

Shows a Prev / Random / Next navigation row in the main inspector body, plus autoplay controls. Use this when you want to trigger chain switches from the inspector rather than from chain slot tabs — or when you need to MIDI-map the navigation buttons.

Mask

Adds a mask directly to this track’s output. When enabled, a MASK section appears in the inspector body with an Alpha toggle, an invert toggle, and five mask modes:

Mode	What it does
Shape	Procedural shapes and gradients (circle, rectangle, diamond, triangle, linear, radial) with mappable position, size and feather parameters.
Image	A still image file (PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF) used as the mask.
Texture	A live texture routed from anywhere in the project — another track, a chain or effect output tap, an offscreen chain, camera depth, or the projection output.
Depth	Cuts the layer by its estimated depth: keeps what’s near, drops what’s far. No extra tracks or routing.
Draw	Freehand and rectangle shapes drawn on the canvas.

Texture mode options

Source — the same routing picker used by an effect’s input override. Leaving it on Input Texture self-masks the layer with its own image.
Channel — which component of the sampled texture becomes coverage: Luma, Red, Green, Blue, or Alpha.
Threshold — the black point of the coverage ramp. Everything below it is fully masked out.
Softness — the width of the ramp above the threshold. 0 is a hard cut-out, 1 passes the raw sample through as a smooth gradient.

Threshold and Softness are both mappable, so a mask can be opened and closed from audio, an LFO, or MIDI.

Depth mode options

Depth mode estimates how far away each part of the picture is, on your Mac’s Neural Engine, using the same model as estimated depth. Quality, Stabilize, the first-use model download, and the Model and Depth Rate rows work the same way. Until the model is ready, the layer passes through unmasked.

Source — what to estimate depth from. Leave it on Input Texture to cut the layer by its own depth (on an effect’s mask, that’s the picture going into the effect, so a destructive effect like Datamosh doesn’t spoil the cut), or pick another track or a camera to cut this layer by that picture’s depth. Masks and 3D tracks that read the same source share one depth estimate.
Near — the depth that is fully kept.
Far — the depth that is fully cut. Raise it to drop more of the background. With Near and Far close together you get a hard edge; set Near below Far to keep the background instead.

Near and Far are mappable. The mask’s Invert toggle swaps what is kept and what is cut. Depth updates on its own schedule (see Depth Rate), so on fast motion the cut can trail the picture slightly.

You can also quickly toggle the mask on and off from the track settings cog menu without re-opening the full mask editor.

Syphon Out (Pro)

Sends this track’s isolated render output to its own independent Syphon feed alongside the main canvas output. Any Syphon-compatible app on the same Mac can receive it as a source named Arkestra: <track name>.

Transform

Adds a built-in transform (geometry adjust) to this track — position, scale, zoom, and edge behaviour — without needing a separate effect. When enabled, a TRANSFORM section appears in the inspector with sliders for position and scale, a zoom control, and an Edge Mode picker (Black, Transparent, Repeat, Mirror, Clamp) that controls how content outside the transformed bounds is handled.

Transform is also available on individual effects and devices — the same controls appear on any effect card via its own transform toggle.

Momentary Mode

Turns the track into a hold-to-show trigger instead of a static layer. While the assigned button or key is held, the track is active; releasing it hides the track output.

When enabled, three sub-controls appear in the inspector body:

Control	Description
Attack	Fade-in time when the button is pressed
Release	Fade-out time when the button is released
Range	Switches the time scale: 0–500 ms (fast mode) or 0–10 s (slow mode)

Background Render

Forces the track to render at a fixed rate independent of the display refresh. Useful for tracks with content that needs frame-exact timing or is computationally expensive enough that it should run on its own cadence.

16-bit Pipeline

Renders the track’s entire ISF pipeline in 16-bit float (RGBA16F) instead of 8-bit, reducing colour banding in gradients and preserving over-range (HDR) values from generators, feedback, and additive blends.

Arkestra enables high precision automatically in two cases: when a 3D track uses this track as a displacement source, or when a Tonemap effect sits in the chain. Use this toggle to force it on manually — for example, when you need banding-free output feeding a 3D scene, a displacement texture, or another downstream consumer.

Scenes Store Blend Mode

Off by default. When enabled, saving a scene also captures this track’s blend mode (and its Blackout state), and triggering that scene restores it. Leave it off when the blend mode is a fixed property of how the track sits in the mix; turn it on when a section needs the same chain composited differently — for example Add for a build and Multiply for a break.

Scenes saved before you enable the toggle hold no blend mode, so re-save or Overwrite with Current State on the scenes you want it captured in.

Blackout

Forces this track’s output to composite as black — the track remains in the signal chain but contributes nothing visible. Toggling Blackout also automatically converts the track’s blend mode between its normal and blackout variant (e.g. max ↔ maxBO), so the transition is clean.

This is the same toggle exposed by Convert to Layer / Convert to Effect Bus in the actions section — those buttons flip Blackout and update the track type simultaneously.

Chain Snapshots

Shows a row of 8 numbered snapshot slots below the active chain name in the inspector. Each slot stores a full parameter snapshot for that chain (all effect parameters at the moment you save). Snapshots are MIDI-mappable for instant recall during a performance.

See Snapshots → for details on how they work.

Feedback Loop

Toggles isFeedback on the currently active chain — the same switch found on the chain’s own settings. It’s surfaced here as a convenience so you can enable feedback from the inspector without digging into the chain bar.

When enabled, the chain’s effect list splits into PRE FEEDBACK and POST FEEDBACK sections, and the Feedback slider appears in the blending area.

Projection Mapping assignment

When the project has at least one Projection Mapping surface defined, a Projection Mapping section appears in the main inspector body (not the settings popover). It shows which quad the track is currently assigned to, and a button to open the Projection Mapping editor.

Projection mapping is managed at the project level — see Going Live → for setup details.

Actions

These appear at the bottom of the settings popover for all tracks except the master track.

Make Master Track

Promotes this track to the project’s global Master Track — the final compositor stage whose output goes to all displays and recordings.

If the existing master track already has effects, a dialog asks whether to Append (add this track’s chain effects to the master’s first chain) or Replace (swap the master’s chains entirely with this track’s chains).

The source track is removed from the timeline after the operation.

Convert to Layer / Convert to Effect Bus

Flips the track between Layer mode (produces its own output) and Effect Bus mode (processes output from other tracks, composites as black by default).

Convert to Effect Bus — enables Blackout, rewrites the blend mode to its BO variant, sets track type to effectBus.
Convert to Layer — disables Blackout, reverts the blend mode, sets track type to layer.

Delete Track

Removes the track from the project. This cannot be undone.