The interface of State Machine: Faded Keys is made up of four pages:

• Home

• Synth

• MIDI FX

• Audio FX

Scroll down below for more information on each of these pages.

Home

Output

Control the output volume of the selected preset.

Limiter

Apply a limiter at the end of the signal chain with this button to prevent your output signal from clipping. Equally, you can achieve creative textures in the more aggressive & overdriven end of the spectrum by pushing your signal hard with this activated.

UI scale

Resize the plug-in window to suit your screen resolution.

Preset library

The preset library shows the name of the active preset, which is cassette ep in this case. Here you have the option to view 1 of the 7 preset categories, as well as your own user creations and favorite sounds in the 🤍 page.

Click the preset name to open up an expanded browser view of all presets in your selected category.

Sound library

Each preset is composed of two separate layers of sound, which are distant fields and movie grand in the preset pictured above. You can adjust the blend of these two using the dial in the middle, as well as cycle through sounds by using the arrow buttons.

Click the sound name to view all available sounds in a browser view. Clicking on the edit button takes you to the synth page for faster access to more controls for editing the selected sounds.

FX controls

These 2 rows show a handy overview of the 2 sets of available MIDI & audio FX options, allowing you to tweak simple parameters on the fly and quickly engage or disable effects.

More granular controls for the synth layers, midi fx and audio fx are available by selecting the options on the left side, or by simply clicking the module name in the case of the fx parameters.

Synth

Layers - A & B

As well as providing the options presented on the home screen, here you have the option to edit each layer individually using the select button as well as the option tolink & unlink the layers. When linked, any changes made to the leader layer parameter will be applied to both layers, and unlinking allows you to control each layer independently.

The setting per layer for each parameter is color coded: green for A and orange for B.

LFO

Tweak these to create different forms of movement to your sound, including to the filter, volume and panning. Choose from triangle, saw, square or randomized waveforms.

Source

These parameters affect the source of your sound, such as the tuning of each layer or adding a smooth pitch glide between notes. You can also choose whether the sound is mono (plays one note at a time) legato (plays one note at a time but allows glide between two notes) or poly (able to play eight notes simultaneously).

Filter

Use this to cut out or isolate certain frequency ranges using either a low-pass or high-pass filter. Alongside the classic A/D/S/R envelope controls, you can change the envelope amount and velocity sensitivity of the filter being applied to the signal.

Amp

This section contains an envelope that controls the behavior of the volume using A/D/S/Rparameters, as well as a panning dial. The velocity parameters control how sensitive the amp is to MIDI velocity input using the off, 50% & 100% options.

MIDI FX

Scale

This determines the musical scale of your MIDI input. Select from the 15 options in the dropdown menu, and adjust where the scale begins using the root note dial.

When activated, any notes that fall outside of the scale are shifted to the nearest semitone within the selected scale - keeping your performance in key at all times.

Chord

The chord function allows you to play multiple MIDI notes from one triggered note, with 13 shapes to choose from. The 3 dials below provide various functions:

• voice count : select the amount of notes which compose the chord.

• position: adjust the lowest note of the chord voicing. For example, in the 1-3-5 chord shown above a position setting of -1 changes the chord voicing to 5-1-3 with the 5th played in the octave below.

• spread: spread the chord voicing across a wider range on your keyboard.

Note that the available chord options change depending on whether the scale option is engaged or not.

Arpeggiator

A 16 step arpeggiator, with adjustable velocity and legato options for each step. The top dial determines the rate of the arpeggiator, with the following dials on the left:

• Direction: determines whether the arpeggiator moves up or down an octave, in both directions or entirely at random.

• Octaves: the number of octaves included in the arpeggiator sequence.

• Steps: select the number of steps in the arpeggiator sequence, from 1 to 16.

• Swing: delays the timing of even-numbered steps, giving the pattern a more swung feel as the dial is engaged.

• Gate: controls the note length per arpeggiator step.

Audio FX

EQ

Use the bass, middle and treble dials to boost or reduce the presence of elements in those frequency ranges. The tilt dial controls a series of filters, allowing you to shape your sound to make it darker or brighter.

Bitcrusher

Bitcrushing is a type of distortion which alters a signal by processing it at a reduced resolution. You can select from a bit depth of 1-16 and add randomized movement using the jitter dial, as well as determining the upper frequency threshold of the effect using the filter dial.

There's also the option for pre/post routing, which determines whether the filter is applied before or after the bitcrusher effect.

Phaser

Phasing is a classic modulation effect, which in simple terms works by splitting the input signal in 2, and combining a phase-shifted version with the original input.

The frequency dial effectively determines the rate of the phase effect, with feedback adjusting the intensity of the effect and a dial to control the stereo width.

Delay

A classic delay module. Control the tempo of the effect with time and align it with your project BPM with sync.

Feedback allows you to determine the amount of repetitions, while high cut lets you roll the top-end off to get a darker sounding delay.

Reverb

Classic reverb controls, with 4 different settings under type and dials for adjusting the decay time and tone of the reverb applied.