Pocket DAW

Pocket DAW is the desktop studio for the Pocket Chordsmith music family.

Pocket Chordsmith is the fast sketchpad.
Pocket DJ is the live remix deck.
Pocket DAW is where a small idea becomes a fuller track.

Import a Pocket Chordsmith song, lay it out on a timeline, edit the musical parts, shape the mix, add audio or MIDI material, and export music for games, videos, demos or standalone tracks.

Current build

This first public build is an early Windows alpha. It is already useful for testing the core Pocket Audio workflow, but it is not a finished professional DAW yet.

In the current version, you can:

• Import Pocket Chordsmith PCS1: share codes and compatible JSON projects
• Receive Pocket Chordsmith handoff data through the developing PocketHandoff path
• Turn Chordsmith song sections into editable timeline clips
• Edit Chordsmith-style chords, drums, bass, melody and guitar parts inside Pocket DAW
• Import audio and MIDI files as timeline material
• Edit basic MIDI notes in the compact piano-roll inspector
• Move, split, trim, duplicate, copy, paste, mute and loop clips
• Use a simple mixer with volume, pan, mute, solo, bus routing and first-pass automation
• Save and reopen .pocketdaw projects
• Export full-song WAV and MIDI files
• Export stem WAVs and game-audio manifest previews for Godot and web projects

What it is for

Pocket DAW is for people who want a friendlier bridge between quick music sketches and usable production assets.

It is especially aimed at:

• game background music
• looping level themes
• menu music
• soundtrack drafts
• remix sketches
• small songwriting experiments
• AI-assisted music workflows
• moving Pocket Chordsmith ideas into a bigger arrangement workspace

Known early-alpha limits

Pocket DAW is still rough. The current build is a foundation release, so please expect missing features, unfinished edges and fast iteration.

• No live voice or instrument recording yet
• No plugin host or full professional mixing console yet
• No deep waveform editor yet
• Game exports are manifest previews and current renderable assets, not full finished asset-pack ZIPs yet
• Some native media reload, relink and cache workflows still need more real-world testing
• The Windows installer may show warnings because this is an early unsigned build

Part of the Pocket audio ecosystem

Pocket DAW is being built alongside:

• Pocket Chordsmith - the compact composition sketchpad
• Pocket DJ - the live remix and performance deck
• Pocket Audio Core - the shared audio/runtime direction for future tools
• Godot and web game integrations - so music can move into games more cleanly

The long-term aim is simple: start with a Pocket Chordsmith song, arrange and polish it in Pocket DAW, perform it in Pocket DJ, or move it into a game project without losing the structure and feel of the original idea.

Feedback wanted

Feedback is very welcome, especially around:

• Windows install and launch behaviour
• Pocket Chordsmith import and handoff
• timeline editing feel
• MIDI and audio import
• save/open reliability
• export quality and file usefulness
• game music workflows
• anything that feels confusing, fragile or unnecessary

This is the bigger studio branch of the Pocket Chordsmith idea, built carefully one useful feature at a time.