Sharing and opening libraries

Measurements travel between PedalScope libraries as measurement libraries — .pedalscope files. One holds a pedal (or one sweep or one fingerprint group): every measurement bundle, knob photos, calibrations, and a manifest that reassembles the structure on import. Importing is free — a measurement library published for PedalScope opens in full whether or not you have the Measurement Unlock.

Opening a downloaded library

Double-click the .pedalscope file. PedalScope opens and imports it, then reports what arrived — how many measurements, into which pedal. If the download reached you zipped, double-click the zip first; the .pedalscope file inside opens the same way.

Opening a library adds to yours — nothing is replaced or removed, and anything already present is left alone. (Restore, in Settings ▸ Library, is the one that replaces a whole library; it is a different thing.)

Several at once. Select any number of .pedalscope files and open them together — a Finder open, a drop on the Dock icon, or a multiple selection in the import picker. They import one after another, and a sheet names the library being imported and its place in the batch (“3 of 8”), so a long import reads as progress rather than a hang. PedalScope stays responsive meanwhile; the sidebar shows each pedal as its library lands. Cancel stops after the library in progress — each library is imported whole or not at all — and the report then says which ones arrived and which were not touched. Whether the batch finishes or is canceled, one report covers the whole of it.

The other two routes reach the same importer:

• File ▸ Import Measurements… (⌘O), or the toolbar’s Import button. The picker accepts .pedalscope libraries, plain exported container folders, and CLI-produced measurement or calibration JSON, several at a time.

• Dragging a .pedalscope file onto the app’s Dock icon.

Importing the same library twice never duplicates anything: measurements already in your library are recognized and skipped, and the report says so (“already in your library — nothing changed”).

A published library to start from. The website carries a free reference measurement library at pedalscope.com/library.html: the project’s own hardware Reference Box — six circuits whose distortion was computed before anything was plugged in — measured under a stated rig and published beside the arithmetic it was checked against, with the download’s size, SHA-256 and license beside the link. Unzip it and double-click the .pedalscope file inside; the set arrives under its own pedal, every record carrying the source rig’s calibration and the imported chip. Its Harmonic Distortion records were averaged over eight sweeps: a record you measure at the default of four, compared against one of them, shows Compare’s cross-averaging note — the instrument stating that the two sides have different resolution limits, not a fault on either side. Further sets join the page as they are measured.

Which pedal an import lands in

A library’s measurements are filed under the pedal with the same name and maker; when there is none, the import creates it. So a pedal renamed, or given a maker, after a library was exported no longer matches that library: importing it again adds a second pedal with its own copy of the measurements rather than filling the renamed one.

What an imported record says about where it came from

An imported record is a real record — every chart, summary, and comparison works on it. But it was not measured on your rig, and it says so permanently: the record header carries an imported chip stating when it was imported and when (and by which PedalScope version) the source library exported it. The chip travels into every exported chart PNG, and a comparison between an imported record and one you measured marks the imported side.

The calibration shown on an imported record is the source rig’s — that is its honest provenance, not a description of your interface.

Refusals

A library that is damaged — truncated download, missing files, a payload that doesn’t parse — refuses to import and says which file is at fault. Nothing is half-imported: your library is untouched by a refused import. A library made by a newer PedalScope than yours refuses with exactly that explanation; update the app and import again.

A library that imports can still hold a measurement of a kind a newer PedalScope added. It reads Made by a newer version of PedalScope in the sidebar and on its page, counts toward no fingerprint’s completeness, and keeps its kind when you export or share it again; updating PedalScope reads it.

Exporting

Export Pedal… / Export Sweep… / Export Fingerprint… (right-click in the sidebar) write a .pedalscope library; a single measurement’s Export… writes a plain bundle folder. The .pedalscope extension is only the package’s name: a bare folder with the same contents imports the same way.

An export is for sharing; it is not a backup. For that, see Backing up your library.