Concepts - Social Entropy Engine User Manual

CONCEPTS

Engine is a multitrack step sequencer with eight polyphonic tracks. Composing music with
Engine consists of selecting tracks, assigning patterns or pattern chains to a track, setting
pattern types and recording steps into the patterns. These configurations can be captured
into snapshots and sequenced into a song structure. The remainder of this manual will
focus on these activities.
Engine is all about the ability to both compose and perform live from a dedicated
interface. This means several things in the context of Engine.
First, almost everything that you can do as a live performance can be recorded directly
into a sequence. This includes pitches, arpeggiators, drum rolls, accents, slides, etc. The
sequencer can enter or leave record mode from almost any of the live performance
modes, making it extremely easy to capture an interesting musical event.
Second, most changes to a sequence are quantized to the loop point. This means that
changing the selected pattern, snapshot, scale, shuffle or length won't cause patterns to
fall out of sync with each other during live performance. There are still a few functions
that apply immediately, such as muting and transpose which can be used for other
interesting performance options.
Almost all functions can be used momentarily or they can be double-clicked (pinned) to
stay in a function without being forced to hold down a button. This is great when certain
functions are needed consistently for live performance, such as track muting or drum
muting.
Everything in Engine can be done while the sequencer is running. This means that your
performance doesn't need to be interrupted by stopping the sequencer to access certain
functions or enter certain modes.
2 USER GUIDE