Sync1.02 USER MANUAL

Welcome to this little manual. As SYNC1.02 is my first PlugIn with an own editor window, it's manual is my first in html. Hope it doesn't leave any questions unanswered. If something is missing, feel free to write an email to: lichthaus@netcologne.de. Have a nice time with SYNC !

Thomas

Contents:

-Installation

-Quickstart

Starting SYNC
First Sound
A Pattern
Synchronisation
A second Pattern
A Song
Resynchronisation
Pattern Transfer
Mixdown
Multiple Windows

-Things you always should keep in mind

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Installation

To install Sync, just copy it to the Vstplugins folder. You'll find it near your Cubase.exe :

Quickstart

Let's just make a little Song together! Learning by doing is the easiest way.

Starting SYNC After Sync is installed, start Cubase and make a new song (menu-File-New Song). Choose 'Audio' from the menu, then select 'Monitors' (first item) and the VST Mixer will open.

Next click on the 'Insert' button in track 1 and the golden window will pop up.

Go to the topmost effect selector (it will show 'no effect') click on it and choose SYNC1_02 from the window that pops up now. After that turn on the power button and click on 'Edit'.

Now SYNC's window will be shown. SYNC must allways be the first effect.

First Sound

Now it's time to hear the first sounds. Let's just program one tone and run it: Click on the leftmost black trigger button. Now it shows with an X, that it's activated. Choose a frequency with the up/down buttons above. The lower one is for octaves, the higher one is for semitones.

Now have a look at the controlls in the upper left corner. The 'radio buttons' that controll the 'play mode' are switched to SeqOnce by default. Click on Pat.Loop and the sound will be played repeated. If you want to get rid of the sound, just select a different Play Mode.

Try different sounds and evelopes by using the blue and green faders near the blue windows, that will show you the sound and envelope curves.
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A Pattern

Now try to program a pattern. Each of the 16 sets of VOL/FREQ/TRIG controlls sets a sixteenth of the pattern. As a not very perfect musican, I allways set the triggers first and listen to the patterns rythm once, to check out if I did it right. Then I set the tone values.
At last choose the tempo of the pattern in the lower left corner. There are two up/down buttons again. The lower one for 10BPM steps, the upper one for 1BPM steps.

Synchronisation

Now that one pattern is ready, let's synchronize it with the rest of Cubase. Import the start.wav to track 1 (menu-File-import audio file), place and copy it where ever you want your pattern to be started. Set Play Mode to Pat.Trig. and let Cubase play. When the play locator meets the start.wav, the pattern will be played. The play locator should allways be set a little bit left to the start.wav before playing! That's because Cubase allways fails to play the first few samples of a wav file. And start.wav has only got 1 sample. Be shure to set the tempo of Cubase and SYNC to the same value! All patterns in a track have the same tempo. Don't ever put any samples but start.wav and restart.wav in SYNC's track!

A second Pattern

SYNC can store up to 16 patterns for each track. Switch to the other ones by using the Pattern controll right near the Play Mode controll. It will only work, if you put the Play Mode to Pat.Loop or Pat.Trig. mode!!! If you'd like to transfer the envelope and sound settings of one pattern to all the others, use the button at the bottom. Now make a second pattern, that fit's to the first one.

A Song

As a song consists of more than one pattern, Sync has a sequencer for patterns in the upper right corner. It can only be set, if SYNC is switched to pattern1!!!!
The upper contolls show the sequence of patterns, the lower ones define how often they will be repeated. If it's switched to 'end' the sequence of patterns will end here. Let's say you'll have programmed 3 patterns and put the sequencer to:

you will hear the following sequence: 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3

To play a song in a loop, switch Play Mode to Seq. Loop. Be shure to have enough copys of start.wav inserted, so that each of the patterns will be triggered. Or just put the left and right locaters of Cubase around a start.wav and let Cubase play a loop. (Remember to put the play locator left to the first start.wav before you start playing.)
If you choose the Play Mode Seq. Once instead, The Sequence will only be played once.

Resynchronisation

If you play a sequence like above, stop it somewhere, put the play locator to the left and start Cubase again, SYNC will continue where it stopped. To restart a sequence or reset it to 0 insert the restart.wav. And don't make the mistake that cost me hours: give start.wav and restart.wav different colors. If you change them and allways insert restart.wav, you'll allways hear the first pattern!!! To reset a sequence by hand (mouse), change the Play Mode.

Pattern Transfer

If you want to transfer the contents of pattern X to pattern Y, close the SYNC window and use the golden inserts window. Every pattern corresponds to a Cubase Program. So if you save program 1 e.g. to trans.fxp, switch to program 2 and load trans.fxp you have transfered the contents of pattern 1 to pattern 2.

Mixdown

When the Sequence for a track is ready you should write it to a wave file to relieve your processor. First go to the golden Inserts window and save the whole 'effect bank'. So all the patterns and therewith the whole sequence is saved, so you can reload it and change it whenever you want. Then place the left and right Cubase locators around all the start/restart.wav's. Select your track, switch on the SOLO button, choose (menu-file-export audio) and the wav file will be written. Be shure that the parameters are set to 16 Bit 44100 Hz 'include effects'. You also should select mono output, if you don't have placed any 'stereoing' effects in the line after SYNC. Cubase offers to insert the resulting sample into the track and the audiopool automaticaly. I prefer to do it 'by hand', because else it will have to be moved before you can delete all the start.wav's.

Multiple Windows

You can open up to 10 SYNC windows (4 different colors) for different tracks, but I think this would lead to big confusion.

At last - things you always should keep in mind:

SYNC must allways be the first effect in the insert line!

Never insert a sample into a SYNC track but start/restart.wav!

Give different colors to start.wav and restart.wav as soon as you've loaded them!

Allways place the play locator left to start/restart.wav before playing!

The pattern change controll only works if Play Mode is set to Pat. Loop or Pat.Trig.!

The sequencer will only work, if track 1 is loaded!