Quick Start

Quick Start

1. Load it. Dubcycling is an instrument: put it on a MIDI/instrument track in your DAW and open its window. It needs no MIDI to play: in the default Autoplay mode it simply follows the host transport.

2. Load two loops. Click LOAD in the L1 header and pick an audio file (wav, mp3, flac, aif, aiff), or drag a file onto the lane. Do the same for L2. Loop 1 is the loop that always plays; Loop 2 supplies the parts that come and go. See Loops and Regions.

3. Check the bars. BARS next to each loop is suggested from the file length and the host tempo. If a loop plays too fast or too slow against the host, correct it with the arrows or type the number. The top bar shows the combined length as Cycle: n Bars.

4. Add region boundaries. Double-click in a lane to add a boundary (it snaps to the beat grid; hold Shift to place it freely), drag it to move it, double-click it to remove it. For drum loops AUTO suggests boundaries at the transients. Give Loop 1 a few regions (say, one per bar) and Loop 2 its parts. Right-click a region to hear it once.

5. Set the rules. Click a Loop-1 region. The rule panel below lists one row per Loop-2 region:

   • WEIGHT: how likely that Loop-2 region plays when Loop 1 enters the selected region.
   • GATE / ONE: GATE repeats the region until Loop 1 leaves its region, ONE plays it once.
   • REV: plays the region backwards for this rule.
   • MIX: the balance of the two loops while it plays (centre = both full).
   • Silence shows the rest up to 100 %: the chance that Loop 2 stays silent.

   Repeat for every Loop-1 region. A Loop-1 region without a rule never starts Loop 2. See Rules.

6. Play. Start the host transport. Loop 1 plays; at every Loop-1 region the draw picks a Loop-2 region, tinted green in the lane while it sounds.

7. Add effects. Click a Loop-2 region and switch on Region … in the BITCRUSH, FILTER, FLANGER or REVERB module, or click its marker in the strip under the Loop-2 lane. Tweak the sliders: they apply to every region that uses that insert. See Effects.

8. Keep good passes. When a run of Loop 1 sounded good, click SAVE in the pad bar at the bottom: the last finished pass goes into the lowest free of 8 slots. Click a pad to repeat that pass, PLAY to chain all filled slots, PLAY again to go back to random playing. See Pass Slots.

9. Save the preset. Click SAVE in the top bar, type a name (and, the first time, a bank name) and confirm with OK. The preset stores loops, regions, rules, effects and pass slots; your DAW project stores everything too. See Presets and Banks.

Want to start and stop the loops from a keyboard instead? Switch Autoplay to MIDI in the top bar and hold a note. See Autoplay and MIDI Mode.