From a moment to a loop

qkit is a looper plugin designed for live performance: VST3 and Audio Unit on macOS, VST3 on Windows. It keeps listening to its input all the time so a loop can be taken from what you just played or recorded going forward. Each loop is a tape, locked to your DAW's beat: it follows tempo changes and automatically corrects any drifts. It can be reversed, layered, shifted and sent to its own output.

• Mac: unzip and copy qkit.vst3 to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 and qkit.component (Audio Unit) to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components. Rescan plugins in your DAW.
• Windows: unzip and copy qkit.vst3 to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3. Rescan plugins in your DAW.

1. Open qkit. The Activate qkit screen asks for your licence key.
2. Paste the whole key from your purchase email (it starts with QKIT-) and press Activate.

Activation needs the internet once per computer. After that, qkit works offline.

• Top bar, left to right: Settings (gear), the qkit logo (About), the status line, Start all aligns the lyrical "1", Play/Stop, the tempo and beat display, Phase (global phase offset), Init/Reset (clear everything), Add loop, MIDI (the MIDI map).
• Tapes: each loop is a cassette on the grid. The reels turn while it plays. The keys on a tape act on it directly; the › caret on its right opens the tape's panel with all its settings and its waveform.

Every tape is always listening. There are two ways to make a loop:

• Arm, then Stop. Arm starts a take (or waits for the input to get loud enough, if a threshold is set). Stop ends it and the tape loops from there.
• Capture. Loops what you just played, for the tape's length, straight away.

The tape keys

Overdubbing: with the tape's Input and Feedback both up, what you play is layered onto the loop on every pass. Feedback below 100% lets layers fade. The tape's Capture respects the Input value at all times.

• Input, Output, Feedback: how much of the input is recorded, how loud the tape plays, how much of the loop survives each pass.
• Length: 1/16 to 32 bars. Making a loop longer fills it from what the tape heard before, as far back as qkit kept it.
• Mute: silences the tape without touching its volume.
• Reverse, Phase offset: shifts the loop against the beat.
• Output: Main or Auxiliary 1-8.
• Action settings: what Stop ends in, the threshold, and how merges of different lengths behave. These come from the group or the global settings unless overridden here.
• Strip: clears every other tape. Eject: removes this tape from the template.

• The tempo shows --- until it's set. Sync adopts the DAW's tempo; Capture, or raising Input and Feedback, also syncs.
• With the tempo unset, your first Arm → Stop decides it from the take.
• ×2 / ÷2 double or halve it. A tempo set in qkit is its own: loops run on it until you press Sync.
• How loops follow tempo changes (Settings): Pitch preserving (the default), Pitch preserving (cached), which uses less CPU over long runs, or Varispeed, like tape: the pitch moves with the tempo.

In your DAW, route Auxiliary 1-8 to other tracks to mix or process tapes separately.

Main output

1, on qkit's own track

Auxiliary outputs

8

Groups (Settings → Projects → Groups) give several tapes one output, one set of action settings and one threshold, and let you Clear, Reverse or Mute them together.

MIDI

Press MIDI in the top bar, click a control, then send a CC or note (or type it in). Value controls can map to a range, e.g. Feedback 0.5-0.8. Tapes are mapped by their place on the grid. MIDI acts at once.

OSC

• Turn the server on in Settings → Connections (port 9595 by default). The OSC directory in qkit lists every address and builds messages for you. Examples: /StartRecord/0, /Capture/0, /SetParameter/0/Feedback 0.8, /Clear/*, /SyncHostTempo. Add /~1 to apply a message on the next bar.
• Allow other devices lets phones and tablets on your network connect; each one is asked about once.

• Settings → Projects: New, Save, Save as, Open, and the projects folder (default ~/Music/qkit/Projects). A project holds every tape's audio and settings.
• Your DAW's saved set also keeps everything, audio included.
• File format (Settings): 24-bit FLAC by default; 16-bit is smallest, 32-bit float is exact.

• Recording buffer: how many seconds of input qkit keeps for Capture and longer loops, from 192 seconds up.
• Memory: how much RAM the tapes' history may take.
• Arm threshold: Arm waits for the input to reach this level.
• Loop seam crossfade: how long a loop's end fades into its start.
• Free-run when stopped: loops keep cycling when the DAW is stopped.
• Use BPM Decider: enables qkit to detect BPM from the first take using Arm and Stop
• Stretch mode: the re-stretch mode that qkit uses.
• Collect diagnostic data: keeps a log (no audio) for bug reports. About → Save diagnostic report… writes it to a file you can send us.

• Logic / GarageBand, audio tracks: qkit only runs while the track has something to play: a region under the playhead, or input monitoring or record turned on. On a software-instrument track it runs whenever the track is selected.
• GarageBand might ask to “lower the security settings” when it loads qkit. That's expected for plugins that aren't from Apple; answering yes is safe.
• Windows Firewall asks once when OSC's Allow other devices is on; allow it for your DAW (Windows Security → Firewall & network protection → Allow an app through firewall).
• Mono and stereo tracks both work. On a mono track, Main plays the tapes' left and right mixed down.