Scene changes in time

Changing to a scene in time with the music: a morph glides to it over 1 to 8 bars, a drop lands it hard on a bar line, and the crossfader puts the morph in your hand. Each starts with SHIFT + a scene key.

Timed scene changes

Everything that changes scenes in time with the music is one gesture, in one SHIFT hold: SHIFT + a scene key, tapped once per bar (1 to 8 bars; past 8, the key blinks red), and then, still holding SHIFT:

With SHIFT still held	Result
nothing: let go of SHIFT	Morph, gliding over the bars
press the transport knob	Drop: the scene lands hard on the last of those bar lines
turn the transport knob	Crossfader, the morph in your hand
a second scene key B	Build-up + drop: the morph to the first scene over the bars, and B dropping hard at its end

• The bars count from letting go of SHIFT, for a drop too: hold it as long as you like and let go in time with the music. Only the scene taps count; pressing the transport knob again does nothing.
• Whatever comes first holds until you let go of SHIFT: once you’ve pressed the transport knob, turning it does nothing, and the other way round. The crossfader takes over only after 2 detents in one direction, the second at least 150 ms old with no press of the knob meanwhile, so the knob moving under your finger as you press it doesn’t count.
• One at a time. A morph, a drop or a build-up runs until it lands; nothing joins it or adds to it in a later SHIFT hold:
  • SHIFT + a blinking scene key (the one it goes to, or the one it drops to) stops the whole sequence where it is: the knobs stay where the glide got to, the scene key pulses as edited, and a drop still waiting doesn’t happen.
  • SHIFT + another scene key stops it where it is and starts a new one from there.
  • A plain scene key recalls that scene at once and ends it.
• PLAY isn’t part of it: PLAY and SHIFT + PLAY only play and pause.
• Over MIDI, CC 3 and CC 83 follow the same rules (see Controllers).

Morphing to a scene

SHIFT + a scene key glides from where you are (the scene you’re in, with whatever you’ve changed since) to that scene, and lands exactly on a bar line: tap once and it lands at the end of the bar you let go of SHIFT in; keep holding SHIFT and tap the same key again and it lands a bar later, and so on, up to 8. A release in the last moment of a bar still lands on that bar’s end.

The glide starts when you let go of SHIFT: while you hold it, nothing moves, however long, and the bar lines don’t count yet. On the release it glides to the next bar line from there, plus one more for each extra tap, so you can hold it as long as you like and let go in time with the music.

• An effect on in both scenes: its knobs glide from their value to the scene’s. Stepped ones (delay division, slicer pattern, shifter shift, freezer length, filter LFO division …) switch on the bar line.

• An effect the scene turns on fades in: it comes on when the glide starts with the knobs that fade it at their defaults (below), and they glide up to the scene’s values. Its other knobs take the scene’s values at once.

• An effect the scene turns off fades out: the same knobs glide back to their defaults (the delay’s and reverb’s Level to off, so their tails fade with it), and on the bar line the effect goes off. It stays faded out and takes the scene’s settings when its key next comes on.

• The knobs that fade an effect are the one that brings it in, and on most also page 2’s Level (from and to 0 dB):

  • the folder and the crusher: all four of page 1 (they colour the sound with every one), page 2’s stereo and Level;
  • the filter: cutoff, resonance and LFO depth (not the LFO division), and Level;
  • the flanger: amount and Level; the phaser: depth and Level; wow & flutter: wow, flutter, age and Level;
  • the resonator: its feedback alone;
  • the delay and reverb: their Level alone, up from off and back down to off, so what comes back fades, the echoes or the room;
  • the chaos key: its two chances.

  Mix and Band take the scene’s values at once on these.

• The freezer, shifter and slicer have no knob that can glide them in (the shifter’s shift is stepped), so they fade with their page 2 Mix instead: one the scene turns off glides to dry and goes off on the bar line; the shifter or slicer the scene turns on comes on when the glide starts, dry, and its Mix glides up to the scene’s. The freezer coming on still switches on the bar line, so it grabs on the downbeat: a grab in the middle of a bar sounds worse than a hard one on the beat.

• The tape stop has nothing to fade with: it switches on the bar line, both ways. Coming on, it starts its stop there; going off, it spins up from there.

• SHIFT + the blank scene fades every effect out onto the bar line.

The bar lines are the effects’ (see Tempo and transport): the loop’s bars, counted from its start, with the loop’s end always one too, so a 2-beat loop morphs to its end; without a loop, the bars of MIDI clock or the tapped tempo, counted from when the clock locked, the last tap or power-on. A loop playing backwards or paused keeps counting bars.

While it morphs:

• The scene key blinks on the beat. The scene is the active one from the press: saving meanwhile saves the scene as it will land.
• The knobs and keys already show the scene. Turning a knob changes where that parameter lands. The FX keys work as usual, except on an effect waiting to switch on or off (fading in, fading out, or waiting for the bar line): there they decide whether it’s on once that’s done. A select (SHIFT, then the key) decides nothing.
• A plain scene key ends the morph and recalls that scene at once (the morph’s own key jumps straight to the end).
• SHIFT + its blinking key stops it where it is: every knob stays at the value the glide got to, and an effect still waiting to switch stays as it was, so one fading out stays on, unless you pressed its key meanwhile: then it’s as you left it. The scene key pulses as edited, since the sound is now between two scenes: save it to keep it.
• SHIFT + another scene key stops it there too and starts a morph (or drop, crossfade, build-up) from where it got to; an empty one blinks red and changes nothing.

Dropping to a scene

A drop switches to the scene hard, on the downbeat, where a morph glides (like the “drop mode” of the Neuzeit Instruments Drop). Hold SHIFT, tap a scene key, and press the transport knob before you let go of SHIFT: the scene lands all at once, as a recall would, but in time, on the bar line the morph would have landed on. Tap the scene key more than once and it lands a bar later per extra tap (up to 8), also after the press. The bar lines are the morph’s, counted from letting go of SHIFT: the loop’s bars and its end, or those of MIDI clock or the tapped tempo.

• Build-up + drop: hold SHIFT, tap scene key A (once per bar), then scene key B, and let go: the morph glides to A over the bars, and B lands hard on the line where it ends. Use it to ride a build-up right to the downbeat. A blinks white on the beat, B red. More taps of A add bars; B again, another scene key or the transport knob do nothing.
• On the line: an effect the scene turns on starts on the line, as after a recall: the freezer grabs, the slicer attacks, the tape stops, the shifter swoops. An effect it turns off has faded out by the line (it goes off 25 ms before), so nothing of it spills past the downbeat. Until then, everything sounds as it was.
• While it waits, its scene key blinks red on the beat, and the knobs and keys already show the scene, as in a morph. Turning a knob changes where it lands.
• A plain scene key meanwhile recalls that scene at once and takes the drop back. SHIFT + its red key (or a build-up’s white one) in a later SHIFT hold stops it where it is: the drop doesn’t happen.
• Pressing the transport knob doesn’t touch the loop’s speed while it makes a drop.
• Once the transport knob has the morph as the crossfader, a press does nothing, and the crossfader can’t take a drop.
• Over MIDI, CC 83 drops to a scene (see Controllers).

Crossfading by hand

A morph at the speed of your hand instead of the bar clock (like the Octatrack’s crossfader). Press SHIFT + a scene key as for a morph, and before you let go of SHIFT, turn the transport knob. After 2 detents one way, and 150 ms without a press of the knob (which would make it a drop), the morph is yours, where those detents put it: the scene you’re in (with whatever you’ve changed) on the left, the one you picked on the right, and everything in between, back and forth as often as you like. 24 detents take it from one end to the other. It works with or without a loop, and the bar lines don’t count while you hold it.

• What fades is what a morph fades: knobs on both scenes glide with the transport knob; an effect only the new scene has fades in as soon as you’re off the left end, one only the old scene has fades out and goes off at the right end. The freezer, shifter and slicer fade with their Mix, as in a morph. What can’t fade switches in the middle, either way: stepped knobs (delay division, slicer pattern, shifter shift …), the tape stop, and the freezer coming on, which grabs there.
• Let go of SHIFT to leave it:
  • all the way right: you’re in the new scene, as after a recall;
  • all the way left: you’re back where you started, the scene you were in as it was (pulsing if you had changed it, steady if not);
  • in between: it stays where it is, as stopping a morph leaves it: the knobs where the fade got to, the new scene’s key pulsing as edited. Save it to keep it.
• LEDs: the two scene keys light in their mix, one brighter as the other dims, and the transport LEDs show the position in white instead of the speed: the left one for the old scene, the right one for the new.
• Letting go without turning is a plain morph: it glides to the bar line. While you hold a morph, SHIFT + turn crossfades instead of stepping the speed in 5ths and octaves; once you’ve let go, the transport knob is back to speed and scrub at once.
• Over MIDI, CC 80 is the crossfader (see Controllers).