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B. Stutter
Stutter is not a new idea to me, I discovered it way back in the '80's after building my very first sampler. A
rather large and power heavy TTL driven beast with a whopping 3 seconds of sampling time was going into a Yamaha
CS-10 synth and I accidentally shorted an address pin with some wire. The sound that resulted was amazing in the
day! I'd never heard anything quite like it, so implemented a bunch of toggle switches to further explore this.
Happily, this can be done in software in the Reflex, and was going to be implemented in the expansion module.
Once the PlayFX "Fine" mode was changed to inside toggle control, I saw no reason not to use the now free "hold"
on the P.SEL button.
-To turn on Stutter, simply hold the P.SEL button > 1 second, and the 2 red PlayFX LEDs will light.
-To adjust Stutter on either AC out channel, turn the ST knob (R) and the END knob (L). fully CCW is off.
Stutter is a "try and listen" type of mode, but it may be of some benefit to understand what it is doing:
A binary number produced by
the knobs is laid onto the
sampler's pointer in memory.
This will cause some locations to
repeat, depending on what the
binary weight is, large or small
loops will occur.
Because the knobs can select
many combinations of 1's & 0's
there may be big loops, with little loops beside them, or loops within loops.
As you turn the knobs you may have noticed the GM blue LED flashing. This indicates larger loops that have no
small loops inside, which becomes a pure stutter on a slower scale. If the two knobs are set on "blues" but at
different positions, you get a fancy stereo stutter, even from a mono input (normalized to left input)
Drone:
After a while you may notice multiplications of the same note. At full sample rate this will primarily be 100Hz, or
F# on a musical scale. The reason for this is the tiny loops in some control positions will create their own waveform
from your sample. Varying the Rate to the key of the piece you are working with is one way of dealing with this.
Because the Rate CV is 1v/octave, it can also be moved around and Stutter can follow what the rest of your rack is
doing. It opens up a lot of possibilities!
Fine Mode:
Stutter also has a "Fine" mode, which to be honest, sounds nothing like normal mode.
-Tap P.SEL to toggle fine mode. Settings in course mode will remain active, so if you don't want them, CCW knobs.
In fine mode the pointer's lowest bits are being XOR'ed with your adjustment on the knobs. This creates tiny
loops that will make aliasing, harmonics, and distortion/rumble. This mode is great for percussion, but has
surprising twists with synth sounds and anything triangular. During Echo, slices can be created to save these
sounds if desired, as they are still being recorded.(Remember to pause echo or stop before playing slices!)
CV Control:
As if Stutter wasn't already exciting enough! The knobs can be CV controlled with the knobs as an offset. If the
Knob+CV > 5V, then it'll roll around to the start. When in Fine mode, the coarse stutter values remain, and when in
coarse mode, the fine values remain. An LFO on Fine mode is fun. Be warned, this can be a chaotic time!
Running Off Sample:
At times, the Stutter may be larger than the echo (for echo times < half a second) so will stutter over blank
memory space, or old samples, that the echo hasn't recorded over yet. I could have added a routine to stop this
from happening, but it's something to explore for the bold!
Rule of thumb: If doing very tight echo's (Karplus) stick to Stutter Fine Mode, which is "fine" ;)
Keeping the coarse Stutter settings low (< 9 o'clock) can generally defeat this in reverb speed echos.
Tips:
If you are using two channels in a live (Echo) setting, it can be useful to leave one channel "original" with knob all
the way CCW, and monkey with the other, then switch. This way there's always the original beat in "sync" so
listeners won't be lost by knob tweaking antics!
Try syncing up an echo (by hand) and turn down the feedback to it's a pure delay. This allows full Stutter control
at 1 "beat" (or more) behind. Trust me, it won't matter once stutter gets a hold of it!
