Make your first sound

About 5 minutes

1. Open Juicelab and press Play

Open Juicelab in a new tab and keep this page beside it. Nothing plays by itself: browsers need a click first.

1. Press ▶ Play at the top. You hear a short, high blip.
2. Press the Space bar. It plays again. Space is the quickest way to listen once you start changing things.

That blip is a sound made of one layer. The Layers list shows it, and the Timeline above shows when it plays and how loud it is.

2. Get a new sound with one click

Under Start from there is a row of buttons: Pickup, Jump, Hit, Explosion, Power-up, Laser, Blip and Surprise me. Each one makes a new sound of that kind, a little different every time.

1. Press Pickup, then ▶ Play.
2. Press Pickup again and play it. It is a different coin-like sound.
3. Try Explosion, Laser and Surprise me. Keep pressing until one sounds close to what you want.

3. Change it a little

1. Next to Mutate choose by a little, press Mutate, and play. The sound is nearly the same but not quite.
2. Press it again a few times. Each press wanders a little further. Choose a lot for big jumps.
3. Or pick a ready-made one from Example sound. They are sounds from the FunAnanas games, a good way to hear what is possible.

4. Take a change back

Mutated into something worse? Press Undo (or Ctrl+Z, on a Mac ⌘+Z). Redo puts it back. It remembers your last 100 changes, so try things freely.

5. Look inside a layer

1. In the Layers list, press the layer. The panel on the right shows its settings: Timing, volume and pan, Pitch, Fade, and switches for Filter, Vibrato, Tremolo and Metallic (FM).
2. Drag the Pitch slider and play. Higher numbers are higher notes, and the nearest note name is shown beside the number.
3. Not sure what something does? Press the round ? button beside it for a one-line explanation.