Rev. 5 – Jun 2020 Page 50 of 91
through specific menu settings. One input can be as-
signed to multiple modulation options.
To enable the external CV modulation for a given
track, enter the Track Menu, and scroll to the Shift section.
The options available are PitchShiftA, PitchShiftB, Root
Shift, Gate ShiftA, Gate ShiftB, Stage Shift, Vari Shift,
Phase Shift, Pattern Shift. Choose the selected destina-
tion, push the encoder and select the source among None,
Ext CV A and Ext CV B.
7.3.1 Pitch Shift
Pitch Shift can be performed witch CV layers in Pitch
mode.
In this mode, the input is continuously sampled and
rounded to the smallest interval available in the quanti-
zation scale selected (by default it is a semitone, but it can
be changed, see below §9.1). Each time the quantized
value changes, the modulated track will shift its pitch ac-
cordingly, even while the stage is playing.
If the Variation layers (Index and Rang) are used to modify
a stage value, this will be taken into account by USTA at
the beginning of the stage, before the Pitch Shift, and such
variation will not be performed again during the stage,
even when the external Pitch Shift changes value.
The resulting value is then quantized in reference to the
Scale, Root and Quantization Direction in use (§9.1).
Example: in C major, a stage with Variation Range value
2 (so ±4 semitones) has a normal note Value of D. The
Variation Range coin toss specifies +2 semitones, resulting
in a note value of E. If the pitch shifting is 0 at the begin-
ning of the stage, USTA will play an E. If the CV modu-
lates mid-stage from 0V to 0.5V (+6 semitones), the re-
sulting Pitch Shift would change the E +6 semitones to
A#, which would then be quantized, according to the
quantization direction preferences, to B or A.
It is not possible to perform Pitch Shift when using Raw
CV mode: it would make more sense to sum non-quan-
tized voltages outside USTA, using, for instance, a 333
module.
Pitch modulation “à la” mod wheel is suggested to be
performed with a 333 as well, to avoid the stepped effect
of the dynamic quantization.
7.3.2 Root Shift
This CV destination lets you modify the root of the
scale/mode selected for the Dynamic Quantization (see below
§9.1). If, for instance, the selected mode is Locrian, any
incoming CV will change the root and create other Lo-
crian modes to which quantize the ongoing melody. It
can be very useful to create modal pieces with CV auto-
mations: if the same CV is routed both to the Root Shift
and the Pitch Shift, the result will be an exact transposition.
It goes without saying that if the selected scale is chro-
matic the Root Shift will not produce any noticeable effect.
7.3.3 Gate Shift
This parameter uses the incoming external CV to in-
crease or decrease the gate values played by USTA in a
given stage. The lower and higher values will still be 0
and 16: this means that if the stage has a defined value of
0 gates (i.e. it counts as a musical pause), a negative offset
will not produce any audible effect; the same happens if
the stage has a defined value of 16 gates and it receives a
positive offset.
It is possible to use this modulation to mute a given
stage by providing a negative offset that will set the gate
value to 0.
7.3.4 Stage Shift
This modulation shifts the stage values of the four chan-
nels of the track while retaining the original stage length
defined by the sequence. In other words, while the
playhead keeps the rhythmic structure, the melodic con-
tent is changed according to other stage values further
down the pattern.
When Stage Shift is in effect, and any of the four channels
are selected, the cyan playhead will display the target
stage, i.e. the “shifted” one; when the Length parameter is
selected, it will display the regular stage sequence.
An example: a pattern is set up with a stage length of 1
unit from stage 1 to 8, and stage length 0 from stage 9 to
16. The normal behavior when playing it in loop is that
the stages are played from the 1 to the 8 then back from
the 1st and so on. The CVs and gates generated are the
values set in their stages. With Stage Shift, the individual
length of the stages is unaltered, but their CV and Gate
values will be replaced with the one of the target stages,
determined by the incoming CV offset. In this case, if a
steady offset of 2 is detected, the pattern will have the
length of stages 1-8, but the values of stages 3-10.
The stage shift does not cross patterns, so whenever the
result of the shifting is bigger than 16, the number is then
folded back from stage 1.
The stage shift is calculated on the stage change: this
makes possible to obtain shifts, or drunk modes or any
kind of strange stage sequence without affecting the
rhythmic structure of your composition.
In order to enable the Stage Shift mode, select the desired
track, enter its menu and navigate until StageShift, select-
ing the CV channel you want to use as a source for that
shifting. Either CV 1 or 2 can be used for this purpose.
7.3.5 Vari Shift (Variation Shift)
Another possible destination for external CV is the Var-
iation Range for the CV A and CV B, which is manually set
by the blue layer. With this option, it is possible to auto-
matically increase or reduce the spectrum of values in
which USTA can pick whenever the CV Variation
chance parameter is higher than 0.
To Next Page
Loading...