GUI Overview
The interface of State Machine BitFlip is made up of four pages:
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Home
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Synth
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MIDI FX
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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 noisy swell 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 square swell and long throw 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 purple 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).
The keyboard parameter determines whether the layer responds to keyboard tracking from incoming MIDI notes or not. When disabled, the layer will only play back at middle C but can still be tuned using the transpose & detune controls. This is particularly useful for percussive/FX sounds and creative arps.
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:
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voice count: select the amount of notes which compose the chord. -
position: adjust the lowest note of the chord voicing. For example, in the1-3-5chord shown above apositionsetting of -1 changes the chord voicing to5-1-3with 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:
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direction: determines whether the arpeggiator moves up or down an octave, in both directions or entirely at random. -
one shot: Triggers the full step sequence once, start to end, independent of how long the incoming note is. Try turning on thechordeffect along with super fast rates (e.g. 1/64) and different step count settings for characteristic chiptune effects. -
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.
DIY Chorus
Chorus is a form of phase modulation intended to mimic a human 'chorus' by applying subtle pitch and time differences to a signal.DIY chorus is our own rugged interpretation of this principle, chaining together a BBD chorus and circuit-bent filter for a heavily distorted sound.
Adjust the spread of the signal using stereo width and the cutoff frequency of the circuit-bent filter with the frequency dial. Resonance boosts the signal at which the frequency dial is set, and tone serves as a low-pass filter to control how dark or bright the signal sounds.
Frequency and Resonance work in tandem to provide unique sounding filtered and distorted effects depending on the signal you're feeding into it, rather than functioning as you'd expect traditional filter controls to. We recommend a bit of experimentation with this one.
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.
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.
Lofi Reverb
Inspired by classic gaming devices, our lofi take on reverb comes with 4 different settings under type as well as dials for adjusting the decay time and tone of the reverb applied.