HiHat

Tools for making beats,
agreements for sharing them.

HiHat is a set of composable tools for music creation. Each tool works on its own. Together they form a flow from first idea to shared, attributed work. The contract layer is modular — use it with HiHat projects or bring your own.

01

Capture

Four input modes meet you where you are. Tap a rhythm on screen. Sing a melody and let pitch detection snap it to a scale. Beatbox into your mic and watch kick/snare/hat patterns write themselves. Or just hit record for raw audio capture.

Every mode quantizes to your project's BPM. Echo playback loops your last phrase so you can layer ideas without leaving the page.

tap sing beatbox record pitch detection scale snap echo loop
02

Sequencer

A 16-step grid with multiple tracks. Assign samples, toggle pads, adjust BPM and swing. Web Audio plays everything in the browser with sample-accurate timing — no server round-trip in the loop.

Pattern presets give you genre starting points. Euclidean rhythms generate mathematically-spaced hits. Undo and redo keep you exploring without fear.

16-step grid multi-track BPM / swing web audio presets euclidean undo / redo
03

Canvas

A modular workspace. Drag generators, effects, and controllers onto a canvas. Wire them together. Somewhere between a DAW and a Eurorack — visual, tactile, nonlinear.

drag & drop generators effects modular
04

Guitar

Real-time tuner with frequency, note, and cents readout. Fretboard visualization highlights what you're playing. Circle of fifths for key selection; chord transition trainer scores your clean changes. A practice companion, not a recording tool.

live tuner fretboard circle of fifths chord trainer
05

Brain

Binaural beat generator with presets for deep focus, flow state, calm, sleep, and meditation. Set a timer or leave it running. Put on headphones, pick a preset, disappear into the work.

binaural beats focus / flow / calm timer
06

Discover

Make a project public and it shows up in Discover. Anyone can listen. Anyone can fork it — a full copy with provenance intact. The fork chain records who started what.

public projects fork provenance
The contract layer

Agreements that travel with the work

The contract layer is a separate, composable tool. It can pipe into HiHat projects — or run entirely on its own. Think of it the way Unix thinks about programs: small, sharp, connectable.

With HiHat projects

Add layers — lyrics, melody notes, arrangement ideas — and each layer carries its author. The contribution graph walks the fork chain to build a complete picture of who made what.

Export an artifact: a signed JSON document with a SHA-256 content hash, every track's pattern data, every layer, every contributor, and the royalty splits you've agreed on. The artifact is the contract — portable, verifiable, human-readable.

layers contribution graph artifact export SHA-256

Without HiHat projects

Already have a band, a production team, a writing room? The contract tooling doesn't require you to make beats here. Define contributors, assign roles, set royalty splits, and generate the same verifiable artifact for any creative work.

The data model is the same either way: people, contributions, splits, a hash. HiHat is one possible upstream — not the only one.

standalone BYO project royalty splits portable
What an artifact looks like
{
  "version": 1,
  "content_hash": "sha256:a1b2c3...",
  "project": {
    "title": "Late Night Loop",
    "bpm": 92,
    "time_signature": "4/4"
  },
  "tracks": [
    { "name": "Kick", "sample": "kick_deep.wav", "pattern": [1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,...] },
    { "name": "Snare", "sample": "snare_crack.wav", "pattern": [0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,...] }
  ],
  "layers": [
    { "type": "lyrics", "author": "mx_writer", "content": "..." }
  ],
  "contributors": [
    { "user": "beat_maker_1", "role": "beat_maker" },
    { "user": "mx_writer", "role": "contributor", "layers": ["lyrics"] },
    { "user": "original_artist", "role": "original_creator" }
  ],
  "royalty_splits": {
    "beat_maker_1": 50,
    "mx_writer": 30,
    "original_artist": 20
  },
  "forked_from": "sha256:d4e5f6..."
}
The creation flow
01
Capture tap, sing, beatbox, or record an idea
02
Sequencer arrange it into a beat on the step grid
03
Canvas compose spatially with modular routing
04
Discover share it publicly, let others fork and remix
05
Contract add layers, define splits, export the artifact
fork chains carry provenance back to the start