Troubleshooting
Most problems are one of two kinds. Either the tracker is hearing the wrong thing, or it is hearing the right thing and reading it wrong. The pitch trace tells you which: if the line on screen matches what you played, the trouble is downstream in the synth. If it does not, start here.
No sound
Check the input channel first. Contour only makes sound while it is tracking a pitch, so if the wrong channel is selected — or the right one is getting nothing — there is nothing to track and nothing to hear. Confirm the device and channel in the plugin header, then confirm signal is actually arriving on that channel from somewhere outside Contour, on a level meter elsewhere in the chain.
If signal is arriving and the trace is still empty, the NOISE GATE may
be above your playing level. Lower it.
Feedback squeal
An escalating squeal almost always means Contour is listening to its own output. It happens when the selected input channel is a loopback or monitor-mix return instead of a real microphone input — see setup for the full explanation. Switch to channel 0, or whichever channel your microphone actually arrives on, and the squeal stops.
Notes appear when you are not playing
Room noise, breath between phrases, or a neighboring instrument bleeding
into the mic is loud enough to count as a note. Raise NOISE GATE in the
synth panel's TRACKING section until the silences stay silent. If notes
still appear on breath rather than on tone, lower SENSITIVITY.
The pitch jumps an octave
Usually at the end of a note, as the tone falls apart into vocal fry or
the tail of a breath. Lower SENSITIVITY so those tails stop counting as
pitched. Moving the mic closer, so the tone dominates the noise, helps
for the same reason.
The pitch wanders or will not settle
Contour follows one pitch at a time. A chord, a strummed guitar, or two
sound sources reaching the same mic give it more than one to choose
between, and it will keep changing its mind. Isolate a single line. If
the input is already a single line, a longer GLIDE will smooth small
wobbles, at the cost of some responsiveness on fast runs.
Quiet playing gets missed
Lower NOISE GATE so soft notes reach the tracker, and raise
SENSITIVITY so they count once they get there. If both are already
generous, the input level itself is probably too low — bring up the
preamp before compensating in the plugin.
Plugin missing after install
Most hosts only scan for new plugins on launch. If Contour does not appear in the plugin browser:
Trigger a manual rescan
Most DAWs have a "rescan plugins" action in preferences, separate from the automatic scan at launch.
Fully restart the DAW
Quit the application completely, not just the project. A rescan alone sometimes misses a plugin that failed validation on a previous launch.
Intel Macs
The installer ships one universal .pkg that covers both Apple Silicon
and Intel, so Contour runs natively on either. Rosetta is not required.