Simplex Plus · Full tutorial

Every Plus feature, mastered

The pairing guide shows you how Simplex and ChordCraft Lab fit together. This is the deep one — five chapters on the advanced features that only Plus unlocks, each with exact steps.

Check my access The pairing guide About Simplex

Before you start

You can follow every chapter in the free app to see where the boundaries are — the paid controls are marked and locked until Plus is on your account. Buy once ($19), sign in to Simplex with the same email, and each lock in this tutorial opens. No licence key, no second login. Plus is also included with ChordCraft Lab Pro while your subscription is active.

Chapter 01

Unlimited guided sessions

FreeFree Simplex guides three sessions a week — enough to learn the ropes.

PlusPlus removes the cap entirely. Every session you open gets the full walkthrough: setup, routing, tracking, mixing and export, calibrated to your DAW.

1
Open Simplex signed in with the account that owns Plus — the session counter disappears and the full checklist unlocks.
2
Start a session as usual: pick your DAW, your goal for the day and your rough time budget.
3
Let the guide run the whole arc. Where free Simplex stops after the third weekly session, Plus keeps going — idea at 9am, mix pass at 9pm, no rationing.
4
Use back-to-back sessions deliberately: a writing session, then a separate mixing session, each with its own checklist instead of one cramped pass.

From the field
The members who finish the most songs treat guided sessions like gym sets — short, frequent, always with a stated goal. Plus exists for that cadence.

Chapter 02

All DAW templates

FreeFree Simplex starts every session from a blank project.

PlusPlus ships session-start templates for Cubase, FL Studio and Ableton Live — routing, buses, send effects and a mixing preset already wired, so minute one is creative.

1
Choose your DAW on the session screen. Plus members see the template gallery: Songwriter Sketch, Full Band Tracking, Beat + Vocal, and Mix-Ready.
2
Load the template before you record anything. Tracks, groups and returns are already named and routed — a vocal chain, a drum bus, a parallel compression send.
3
Adapt, don't rebuild: rename the channels to your song, keep the routing. The point is a proven signal flow, not a blank canvas.
4
Save your adapted version as your own template inside your DAW — Simplex remembers which one you started from in your session history.

From the field
Mix-Ready is the quiet superpower: gain-staged buses and a reference track lane, so your rough mix is 80% done before you touch a fader.

Chapter 03

Mix troubleshooting playbooks

FreeFree Simplex answers general production questions.

PlusPlus adds step-by-step playbooks for the problems that actually stall a mix: muddy low end, buried vocals, harsh cymbals, lifeless drums, weak stereo width and more.

1
Describe the symptom in plain words — “the vocal sits under the guitars” — and pick the matching playbook.
2
Follow the ordered fixes. Playbooks are sequenced on purpose: subtractive EQ before compression, compression before saturation, level before width.
3
Each step tells you exactly where the control lives in Cubase, FL Studio or Ableton Live — no translating generic advice into your DAW.
4
Run the A/B check at the end of the playbook. If the problem survives all steps, the playbook routes you to the underlying cause (usually arrangement, not processing).

From the field
Most “bad mixes” are crowded arrangements. The muddy-low-end playbook's final step is a muting exercise — half the time the fix is deleting a layer, not EQ.

Chapter 04

Session history & notes

FreeFree Simplex forgets the session when you close it.

PlusEverything you log syncs to your account — every session, its minutes, your DAW and your notes — and appears on the Studio dashboard next to your practice progress.

1
Log a session from the Studio dashboard or let Simplex log it as you work; add a note about what you tried and what you'll do next.
2
Review the history before your next session. The note you wrote at midnight is the brief your future self needs.
3
Watch the weekly total on the dashboard. Hours in the DAW are the leading indicator — songs finished lag weeks behind hours logged.
4
Pair the log with your Studio practice progress: production time and theory time side by side show which muscle is being neglected.

From the field
Write the closing note as an instruction: “next: high-pass everything under 120Hz except kick and bass.” Future you will not remember the context.

Chapter 05

The ChordCraft handoff

FreeFree Simplex and ChordCraft Lab are neighbours — you switch between them manually.

PlusPlus adds the direct handoff: send a chord idea from Simplex straight into ChordCraft Lab to check the key, borrow chords and train your ear on it — then come back and finish.

1
Stuck on a chord move mid-session? Send the idea to ChordCraft Lab from the Simplex session screen.
2
In the Lab, check what key you're actually in, find the borrowed chord that gives the lift you heard in your head, and run it through the ear trainer until you can pick it out cold.
3
Return to Simplex and commit the change to the arrangement while it's fresh.
4
The full five-step pairing workflow — Make, Decide, Train, Finish — is documented in the Simplex + ChordCraft tutorial; this chapter is the short version.

From the field
The handoff is why Simplex is the front door to the Lab: every production session generates a theory question, and Plus makes answering it one click instead of a context switch.

Ready when you are

Unlock all five chapters for $19 — once

Payments are handled by Paddle as merchant of record, and Plus lands on your account the moment checkout clears. Covered by the 30-day refund policy.

Try the free 7-day trial first Or get Pro (includes Plus)