Rev. 5 – Jun 2020 Page 46 of 91
If the selected channel is CV A or CV B, USTA will hold
the given value (i.e. it will not calculate other stages’ val-
ues); if the selected channel is Gate A or Gate B, USTA will
perform a sort of legato (if the gate is high when the chan-
nel button is pushed) or mute (if the gate is low).
After releasing the buttons, the sequence will return to
playing from the position reached by the playhead in the
meantime.
6 ADVANCED EDITING
COMPOSITION MODE
If you prefer to compose when USTA is not playing,
e.g. if you have to handle longer polyphonic sequences,
crossing several patterns on multiple tracks, USTA pro-
vides a system for asynchronous voltage monitoring
called Composition Mode.
When USTA is in Edit Pattern Mode and paused (red
Play/Pause LED – C.1), select the CV layer you want to
edit and double-click the desired track button: this will set
Gate A and Gate B high, and the cyan playhead will light
up on the last played stage. In case the last played stage is
in a different pattern than the selected one, the first stage
of the selected pattern will light up cyan and open its gate.
Rotate the Navigation Encoder (B.14) back and forth to
move the playhead across the different stages: this will al-
low you to manually “scan” through the sequence in or-
der to check and edit the current stage settings. This pa-
rameter will work in both directions just like an analog
reel-to-reel recorder, and it will work through different
patterns: once the 16th stage is reached, further clockwise
rotation of the Navigation Encoder will move the playhead
to the first stage of the following pattern, while rotating
counterclockwise past the first stage of a pattern different
than the first move the playhead to last stage of previous
pattern.
The display will automatically update the stage data
(CV A, CV B, Gate A, Gate B, and Length) according to the
selected stage.
Once you have finished your editing operations, dou-
ble-click again the selected track: USTA will get back to
the original sequence and it will play it starting from the
last played stage (i.e., before entering the Composition
Mode). In case you want to hear your sequence from the
beginning, simply push the Reset button (B.12).
If you push the Play/Pause button (B.13) while still being
in Composition Mode, the sequence will play after the one
currently selected. This feature can be very useful in case
you want to hear portions of your sequence starting in
other stages than the first one.
Composition Mode is not available when the Track Menu is
open, and it ignores Green or Red CV/Gate stage colors,
being Gate on that track always high and CV always re-
producing exactly the selected stage value.
USE AN EXTERNAL CV/GATE KEYBOARD
In order to compose your sequence with an external
keyboard (or any other 1V/oct controller), you need the
current track to be stopped (red Play/Pause LED – C.1)
and in Composition Mode.
Connect the keyboard gate output to the Auxiliary Gate
input (D.2) and the keyboard CV output to the CV A in-
put (D.3). From now on, pushing a key on the keyboard
will overwrite the defined note (CV A) of the stage high-
lighted in composition mode, and the keyboard gate out
coming from the key release will move the playhead to
the following stage.
This method inputs only the pitch values, regardless of
the stage length: to set the rhythm, refer to the section
about setting the Length, see above §3.4.1).
Bear in mind that when composition mode is enabled, the
main function of the Auxiliary Gate input is bypassed to allow
the use of the external keyboard composition mode.
STORE PATTERN: LAST PLAYED OR LAST FULL
Should you prefer a less deterministic compositional ap-
proach, e.g., by progressively adding some degree of var-
iation through the green and blue layers, while your se-
quence is playing, or adding external modulations via
CV, until you find the perfect combination, USTA stores
the last played values of a pattern, allowing you to recall
and reproduce them.
Every time USTA plays a stage, its values are stored in
volatile memory until the playhead crosses it again, over-
writing it. This leads to a constantly updating 16-element
array, one per stage, per each track, which can be trans-
ferred anytime over the desired pattern.
The data stored per last played stage are the values for
all the Channels (CV A, CV B, Gate A, Gate B) as well as the
Length: no data about Variation Index, Range, or Stage Colors
is stored.
There are two store modes, Last Full Pattern and Last
Played. The difference between the two is that former up-
dates the full array at the end of the pattern, while the
latter updates the array every time a new stage is played,
while removing the oldest array element.
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