Getting Started with Earthwire

Build a Kit (OP-1 / OP-1 Field)

1. Open the Kit Designer (the home page). On your first visit you'll see a landing screen — click Build a Kit to enter.
2. In the Sample Browser on the left, search Freesound for drum and instrument samples, or Bird Sounds (Xeno-canto) for field recordings. You can also upload your own files under My Sounds.
3. Drag a sample onto one of the 24 slots in the Kit Builder on the right, or click a sample to preview and then drop it into the next empty slot.
4. Click the ✂ trim icon on a slot to open the waveform editor and set trimStart/trimEnd for that slot.
5. Pick a device mode — OP-1 (mono, 12s max) or OP-1 Field (stereo, 20s max).
6. Click Export to download a ready-to-load .aif drum kit. If any slots come from Freesound, a -credits.txt sidecar is downloaded too.
7. Copy the .aif into your OP-1 / OP-1 Field's drum folder and load it like any other kit.

Stream Live Data → MIDI (Sequencer)

1. Open the Sequencer from the top nav (or go to /sequencer). On your first visit, click Start Listening to initialize the audio engine.
2. Press Play in the transport bar to start the sequencer. The demo synth will activate if any channel is routed to it.
3. Use the source dropdown on a channel strip to switch between data sources (Earthquakes, ISS Position, Bird Activity, MBARI Ocean, Solar Wind). Click the info icon next to the source to visit the data provider's website.
4. Choose a field — each source exposes different data dimensions (magnitude, depth, temperature, etc.).
5. Select a time range (1 Hour, 1 Day, 1 Week, 1 Month) to control how much historical data the sequencer steps through.
6. Adjust BPM, subdivision (1/4 through 1/32, including triplets), and swing % to control playback timing.
7. Tune Norm (auto/manual) and Smooth to shape how raw data maps to the 0–1 output range.
8. Set the output target — Demo Synth to hear it immediately, or MIDI CC/Note/Trigger to send to your DAW.
9. Click + Add Channel to map multiple data streams simultaneously.

MIDI Setup

1. Use Chrome, Arc, Edge, or Brave — browsers that support the Web MIDI API.
2. Connect a virtual MIDI port (see IAC Driver setup below) or a hardware MIDI interface.
3. Select your MIDI output port in the MIDI Out dropdown in the top bar.
4. Set a channel's output to MIDI CC, MIDI Note, or MIDI Trigger.
5. In your DAW, set the corresponding track's MIDI input to the virtual MIDI port.

IAC Driver Setup (macOS + Logic Pro)

Using Chrome's built-in MIDI output directly can cause confusing port names in Logic Pro (e.g., "MIDI Out" instead of a clear input label). The recommended approach is to use macOS's IAC Driver as a virtual MIDI bus:

1. Open Audio MIDI Setup (search in Spotlight or find in /Applications/Utilities/).
2. If you don't see the MIDI Studio window, go to Window → Show MIDI Studio.
3. Double-click the IAC Driver icon.
4. Check "Device is online" to enable it.
5. Click the + button under Ports to add a new bus. Name it something clear like "Earthwire".
6. Click Apply and close Audio MIDI Setup.
7. In Earthwire, select "Earthwire" (or "IAC Driver Bus") from the MIDI Out dropdown.
8. In Logic Pro, on your software instrument track, set the MIDI input to "Earthwire" (under the IAC Driver section).

This gives you a clean, named MIDI bus that shows up correctly in Logic Pro and works reliably across sessions. You can create multiple buses for different channel routings.

Windows: Use loopMIDI to create virtual MIDI ports. The setup is similar — create a named port, select it in Earthwire, and set it as the input in your DAW.

Data Sources

Earthquakes (USGS)

Historical earthquake data — magnitude, depth, latitude, longitude. Fetched from the USGS GeoJSON feed.

ISS Position

International Space Station orbital data — latitude, longitude, altitude, velocity. Computed from TLE orbital elements.

Bird Activity (eBird)

Individual bird observations from the Cornell Lab eBird API — individual counts, cumulative species diversity, and latitude per observation.

MBARI Ocean

Oceanographic data from Monterey Bay sensors — depth profiles for temperature, salinity, and oxygen, plus chlorophyll, fluorescence, and nitrate measurements. Data from the MBARI STOQS database.

Solar Wind (NOAA/NASA)

Real-time solar wind plasma data — wind speed, plasma density, plasma temperature from NOAA SWPC, plus solar flare intensity from NASA DONKI. Data updates every few minutes with 7-day history.

Location Filtering

Some sources support geographic filtering to focus on data near you:

Earthquakes (USGS)

Click the crosshair icon to use your browser location, then adjust the radius slider (50–2000 km) to filter earthquakes near you. Uses the USGS FDSNWS query API.

Bird Activity (eBird)

Select a region from the dropdown (US states, countries) to see bird observations from that area.

Signal Monitor

The Signal Monitor panel (above the channel strips) shows real-time data flow for each channel: raw values from the source, normalized output, and a scrolling waveform visualization. Use it to verify your data is streaming and to tune normalization and smoothing settings.