Stem Shovel is a web-based collaboration tool for musicians, songwriters, bands and producers with emphasis on creativity, simplicity, and affordability.

Quarter, eighth, triplet or sixteenth notes at the tempo.

The pattern runs at the session tempo (the metronome's, shared with the drums), or at half or double it.

Up, down, up and down, as played, or at random through the held notes.

With patterns lined up with bars, the pattern starts again from its first note at every bar (or two), whatever was left of it, so it lands the same way each time.

The pattern climbs through this many octaves before it repeats.

How much of each step the note sounds: short and clipped, or running into the next.

Every second eighth or sixteenth lands late, up to a triplet feel at full. Quarter notes and triplets stay straight. One swing for the chord player: the strum pattern's and the drum machine's too.

How far apart the notes fall as the hand sweeps across them. Off plays them together, as the Strum button does.

Down sweeps from the lowest note up, Up from the highest down, and Alternate turns over each time through the pattern (press by press with Once).

With the strum on, a press strums the chord; holding the wedge strums it again and again in this pattern at the session tempo, down and up strokes as a guitarist's hand. Once keeps to the press. The arpeggiator takes over while it is on.

Each slot of the pattern is an eighth, or a sixteenth, at the session tempo (120 bpm) and the arpeggiator's tempo ratio.

Which note of the chord lands hardest: the top (the melody note), the bottom (the bass), or none.

Every second slot lands late, up to a triplet feel at full. One swing for the chord player: the arpeggiator's and the drum machine's too.

Two to six: how the pad groups its bars, and where the arpeggiator's and the strum's patterns line up.