1. Introduction and getting started - Nebula Sound System manual

What Nebula Sound System is

Nebula is a digital audio workstation (DAW) — a program for writing, recording and arranging music. It is built around a modular synthesizer, a step sequencer, and a track-based timeline, in a flat, dark, keyboard-and-mouse-friendly window. It runs on Windows and Linux.

Nebula is free to use and its source code is not published, but the door to control it is open from day one: the Control API (chapter 9) and the OSC map (chapter 8) let scripts, hardware controllers and AI assistants drive a running Nebula the same way a click in the window does.

What is in the window, at a glance

A menu bar (File, Edit, View, Options, Help).
A transport bar: Record, Play, tempo (double-click the number to type one), Tap tempo, the song position, loop, the metronome switch, and — on the right — an Export button.
A PROJECT panel on the left: the project's name, an instrument/effect/sample browser with three tabs (INSTRUMENTS, EFFECTS, SAMPLES), and the track list.
A timeline across the top-right, showing every track's clips.
An instrument screen across the bottom: whichever track you last touched shows its sound here, with a switch between Keys/Pads (play it), Grid (the step sequencer) and FX (its effect chain). A LOG tab and a PIANO (piano roll, for editing a clip's notes) sit alongside it.
A help strip at the very bottom: point at anything in the window and a plain sentence explaining it appears there. This is the fastest way to learn the app — when in doubt, hover.

Installing and starting it

Nebula is installed with its installer. Press Download installer on the Nebula Sound System page, check the SHA-256 shown there if you like, run the installer and follow the steps, then start Nebula from the Start menu. Nothing else needs to be installed alongside it.

The first time it starts, Nebula creates its own folder for settings and logs:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Nebula\Nebula Sound System\
Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/Nebula/Nebula Sound System/ (usually ~/.local/share/Nebula/Nebula Sound System/)

and uses your Documents folder for the things you make:

Documents/Nebula/Projects/ — saved projects (.nebproj files)
Documents/Nebula/Samples/ — your own sound files (drop .wav files here to use them)
Documents/Nebula/Exports/ — rendered audio (see chapter 6)

You can open any of these from the File menu without hunting for them yourself.

Sound card setup

Nebula plays through WASAPI on Windows and ALSA/PulseAudio/JACK on Linux (whichever your system already uses) — there is no separate audio driver to install. Open Options > Settings (Ctrl+,) and look at the Audio page to choose the output device; if it says "Sound card closed" in the top-right corner of the window, open that page and pick a device.

Your very first sound

In the PROJECT panel's INSTRUMENTS tab, click a sound under SYNTH — try Lead.
The instrument screen at the bottom shows it, with the Keys/Pads view already selected.
Click Keys if it is not already selected, then either click the on-screen piano keys or play your computer keyboard: A W S E D F T G Y H U J K are notes, and Z / X move the octave down and up. Turn your volume down a little the first time — modular synths can be loud.

That is it — nothing needs to be added to a track to make a sound; every instrument in the browser is playable the instant you select it. Chapter 2 turns this into an actual song.