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==== The Echotron Unit ====
The Echotron is a stereo synthesizer in its own right.
At the heart of the Echotron is a carousel of "slots", each of which
holds an instance of an echoing note:
---------------------------------------
| | <--- WARP FACTOR
| Note Carousel |
| | <--- DELAY TIME
| Slot 0 < Slot 1 < Slot 2 < Slot 3 |
| | <--- FEEDBACK
---------------------------------------
|
|
v
note out
The carousel is constantly "revolving", outputting the note held in
the current slot (the left-most slot in the above diagram), then
shifting the slots.
The speed at which the carousel revolves is controlled by the DELAY
TIME.
Each time a note echoes its volume will decrease by an amount
controlled by the FEEDBACK setting. If FEEDBACK is set to its highest
value (255) then the note will echo forever, or until all the slots in
the carousel have been used up, and a new incoming note "overwrites"
it.
Each time a note echoes its pitch can be raised or lowered by the
current WARP FACTOR.
The number of slots in the carousel is configurable and can be set
interactively via the Parameter Menu (see below) to between 1 and 4.
----- Tropes ------
The above description of the note carousel is a simplification. In
fact, each slot can contain not just a note, but also a pointer to a
"trope" (an arpeggiation pattern) in ROM. Each time the carousel
revolves it will play the next note in the arpeggiation pattern for
that slot.
