Sequence Flow§

By default in 2step the sequencer simply proceeds to the next step each time it receives a clock signal. This article goes into detail about all the ways 2step can be pushed off that beaten path.

Flow parameters§

The first and most major way you can manipulate the sequence flow is using the flow parameters: div, stride, jump, and chance.

div§

div is the simplest and doesn't really change the flow itself. It acts like a clock division, waiting out div clock pulses before advancing a step and possibly sending a trigger to the shape generator. The divided step is not retriggered each time a div'd clock pulse is received, it is only triggered once. Possible values range from 1 to 8, then in powers of 2 up to 1024, before reaching ∞ as the highest possible value.

To access div, press the div button once. By default it is set at 1.

stride§

Stride manipulates the distance 2step hops each time it advances a step. By default this is 1, but any value up to (but not including) the sequence length is possible.

To access stride, press the jump button twice.

What happens to the stride and jump parameters when the sequence length is changed? If you have a stride set at 15 and a sequence length of 16 (so the sequence runs backwards), then shorten the sequence to 8 steps, the stride will temporarily wrap around, and you'll end up with a stride of 7, which still runs backwards.

If you bump the sequence length back up to 16, you'll end up with a stride of 15 again, unless you've fiddled with it in the meantime. The same set of behavior applies to the jump parameter.

jump§

When set, jump overrides stride. So no jump is the default value of jump, and if you set it at a channel level the sequence will only ever repeat the one step. Jump is most often only assigned on particular steps, which then jump to other places (often the top of the sequence) after they play.

Channel-wide jump can be very useful, however, when combined with a CV mapping. The CV then determines the step that plays. This is in fact how you achieve the infamous envelope wavetable mode of 2step operation.

To access jump, press the jump button once.

chance§

The chance parameter sets a probability on the step trigger firing. By default, this is 100% so each activated step always fires. Should the random threshold you set not be satisfied on some step advance, the trigger will not fire for that step and the previously active step will continue to control the shape parameters.

To access chance, press the gate button, then the page button. This shortcut will move soon, putting chance on the jump button instead with the rest of its sequencing friends.

Live looping and FX§

The various live performance features also interact with the sequencer flow.

Looping§

The loop feature causes 2step to wrap its stride around a certain region should it ever pass through it. So even if a stride is so long that it skips over the looped area, it will begin looping within it, wrapping the stride as many times around the loop as it needs to land within it.

Should a jump exist in the loop that leaves the loop, that jump is allowed to execute.

FX§

The two live sequencer FX in 2step both loop some particular step repeatedly, taking the sequencer out of flow. One of them just locks the sequencer to a step so only it plays with each trigger, the other one also slams the repeat count up to ∞.

In both cases, the sequencer keeps track of its "true" current step while the FX are ongoing. This includes loops, strides, and jumps. Let go of the FX button and the sequencer will resume playing from where it would have been had the FX never been invoked.

Chained steps§

Covered in more detail in their own section, chained steps are an upcoming feature in 2step that lets you combine the shapes of several contiguous steps into one virtual autoplaying megastep, allowing for really high envelope stage counts.

As mentioned in that section, this feature is invisible to most of the sequencer and is mostly concerned with enabling autoplay (end-of-chain next step trigger) on the chained steps leading to the last one. Each step is still an individual step in the eyes of the sequencer, and you may land in the middle of the chained sequence as a result of some jump or stride. In this case, the chain will start playing from that point and proceed to the end of the chain.

Also, if a clock signal results in a step advance event while a chain is running, the sequence will skip the rest of the chain and proceed onto the next step following the chain.