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Programming triggers and gates
As described in Advanced Tutorial 3, Triggers and Gates only differ in their duration. Triggers are
short pulses. Gates are longer, sustained pulses. Triggers are great for triggering short sounds like
drum sounds; however, Gates are needed for playing the sustained notes of a synth sound, for
example using the Z4000 envelope generator with the Sustain knob set high.
To enter a Trigger on a step, press the desired step in the given view to place a trigger there. The
step button will illuminate green. Press the same step button again to remove the trigger and the led
will turn off.
Programming Gates requires holding the first and last step buttons down for a short period. All of
the steps between the first and last being held will turn red. Gates place information throughout the
entire length of the timeline they occupy which allows editing of the Gate.
To remove a Gate hold the first step button in the Gate until all of the steps in the Gate are cleared.
This makes removing Gates a single button operation instead of having to remove each step of the
Gate individually.
Gates can be edited for length or broken into several shorter gates by pressing but not holding any
step. The step pressed will turn off and two new Gates will appear. The first step of the second half
becomes the start of the Gate and holding it will remove the entire Gate.
A single press of the last step of a Gate will shorten the Gate by one step. This is useful for trimming
the duration in small increments.
Channel Step Editing
One way to speed up the process of programming a base pattern for all Presets without using copy
and paste or change is to use Channel Step Editing. Channel Step Editing lets you edit multiple
presets simultaneously even with looping on or off. Holding down the Channel button for the desired
channel will apply any entered step to every Preset included in the Preset Loop.
To use Channel Step Editing:
• Use the Preset Loop editing function to include the desired Presets in the Loop. Note that by
default all Presets are included.
• Select the Channel button to apply the steps to for all Presets
• Hold the same Channel button down and wait 3 seconds before editing
• All steps entered while holding the Channel button applies them to every Preset in the Preset
Loop
• Release the Channel button to exit
