O h m - L i v e s l i c e

Quickstart guide

Double click the machine to bring up the GUI
Click the open button to loat a wave file from disk (44.1 kHz 16 bit uncompressed wavefiles only) or click the buzz wavetable icon to import a loop from the wavetable (the wavetable slot can be changed by typing in a different number in the box)
The upper waveform is the original sound, the lower one is the current arrangement
Rearrange slices by dragging them (you can drag from both waveforms)
Playback starts when the play botton of buzz is pressed, and continues to loop until buzz is stopped.
To use liveslice with the buzz sequencer set the attribute labeled "wait for trigger parameter" to 1. Now create a pattern with the value 1 in the trigger column, an place it in your song.
Set the number of slices by clicking on the boxes next to the "slices:" label
Set the number of measures by clicking the "measures" box
Try randomizing the slices using the spacebar to toggle between your current arrangement and a random one
You can revert to the default (linear) arrangement using the "Def" button
Save a preset by right clicking on any of the 32 buttons in the bottom half of the window
You load a preset by left clicking or by using the keyboard shortcuts (see below)
Presets can be exported and imported to / from .sli files using the load / save buttons above the presets

Sample Import / Export

import
press the "open file" button to select a file from your harddrive. Samples must be 16 bit uncompressed. The selected sample is previewed - this can be turned off using a machine attribute.

press the wavetable button to load a file from the buzz wavetable. Select the slot by typing in a number in the box next to the button. If you loaded a sample from disk you can transfer it to the wavetable by right clicking this button. Useful if you want to share your bmx file.

export
the save button exports the re-sliced loop and all individual slices to the buzz wavetable. The loop is saved as it sounds - with envelope modifications, but without any attached peer effects - use the CnG recorder if you need those.

Parameter envelopes

There are four available parameter envelopes:

Volume
Panning
Pitch
Decay / Length
Slice - an alternative to the drag'n' drop editing of slices
Probability - 0: slice will never play 100: slice will always play
Two PEER controllers
(can be configured to control any buzz machine.)

To activate, say the volume envelope click the button labeled "Volume". Notice that the button changes color to indicate that the green volume envelope is editable. Clicking the button again will let the volume envelope remain visible but not editable (so that you can view the volume envelope while editing the panning envelope)
Peer controllers are configured by right clicking the machine and using the assignments menu (this procedure might change slightly)

Beneath the envelope selection buttons you find a bunch of icons. The lock is for locking all sliders in the envelopes (make them move together), the rest of them can be used to apply common envelopes (rising, falling, random, etc.) the slider below the icons define the bottom and top values (it's a double slider).

Fine tuning your slices

You can change slice points by dragging them. Move the pointer to one of the lines (upper waveform) and drag with the left mouse button.
There is an auto quantize feature that will move the slicepoints to the closest edge in the sound.
If you set the tempo or pitch to low values, slices will overlap - if this gets in your way you can use CTRL + left mouse button to change the decay of a slice, or use the DECAY envelope

Slice Preview

Click the right mouse button to preview a slice. If you click in the top loop, the sound will be played in the original tempo, and playback will loop the entire file.
Click in the lower loop to preview a slice with all length / volume / pitch / pan modifications

Wavetable Import / Export

Import
Type in the ID of the wave you want to import and click the wavetable icon. ID's are in hex - be aware that buzz sometimes displays the wavetable ID's in decimal - all ID's revert to hex when a file is reloaded however :-)
Note that you can move a loop that has been loaded as a file, to the wavetable by RIGHT-clicking the wavetable button - useful if you loaded from file, and want to move your bmx file to another computer.
Export
pressing the save-button with the little waveform label will export the slice arrangement (what you see in the bottom most waveform display) as well as all individual slices to wavetable slots starting from position 40(hex). The start position can be configured as an attribute - note that attributes are always decimal, but I guess most buzz users are quite skilled in hex / decimal conversions...
The slices are exported without any envelope modifications (pitch, volume, pan, etc.) - if you want each slice as they sound, re-import the exported loop into liveslice and do another export.

Buzz syncronization

By default LiveSlice will sync to the buzz tempo. However buzz does not report it's exact playback position to the machines so LiveSlice needs a little help to tighten the synchronization. To do this create a pattern that resets the playback position to slice 0 at regular intervals (there is a trigger parameter for that).
If you use alternating TPB values to control the groove, you need to create patterns with the "sliceposition" parameter, ranging from 0 the number of slices you are using.
If you change the bpm often, you need to turn off the BPM synchronization of live slice by setting the "Sync to bpm" parameter to zero.

Recording

There are two recording modes in LiveSlice.

When you press record in buzz, all preset changes and mute/ unmute changes will be recorded to the current buzz pattern. This is useful for arranging your presets. First create a number of different grooves (presets) straight - stop-time - break - variations - silent, and then play them using the keyboard, and record them to a pattern.
When the record button in liveslice is pressed, everything you hear will be recorded to presets 25-32 (the last row of presets). The recording continues, overwrites existing presets, until the record button is pressed again.

Keyboard shortcuts

Preset control
the preset shortcuts are layd out as on the screen:

the first row of keys (1-8) selects the first row of presets (1-8)
the second row of keys (a-k) selects the second row of presets (9-16)
etc.

Save preset: hold down SHIFT while pressing the corresponding key to

Slide display mode:     TAB
Toggle Mute:               Return
Toggle Randomize:        SPACE
Toggle Recording:      [.] (the dot)
Envelope values:            Arrow keys (up/down changes value, left/right selects slice)

Parameter desription

In addition to the GUI, Live Slice can be controlled by various buzz parameters

Sync to bpm
Can be used to disable sync to buzz tempo
Playback pos
Forces live slice to play the slice at a particular position in current arrangement
Current preset
Switch to one of the 16 presets
Manual
Override the preset in the GUI (tells live slice not to read from the preset)
Play slice
Manually play a particular slice, overriding the preset
Reverse slice
reverses the slice about to be played
Wavetable slot
defines the wavetable slot for the import function
Import wave
from selected wavetable slot
Randomize
randomiz the slices in the GUI
Revert
go back to linear ordering of slices
Global Pitch
A note that controls the global pitch (C-4 is the default)
Inertia
not yet implemented
Reset position
starts playing back from position 0 in the slice arrangement
Mute
mutes the sound

Track parameters (commands)

Each track contains a caommand / value pair. Possible commands are:

cmd	description	value
00	load wavetable	slot
01	num. measures	1-4
02	num. slices	4-32
03	quantize	sensitivity (0-254)
10	randomize envelope	envelope 1-8 (1: vol. 2: pan, etc)
11	reset envelope	1-8
12	set evelope to "rising"	1-8
13	set evelope to "falling"	1-8
14	set evelope to "gap1"	1-8
15	set evelope to "gap2"	1-8
16	edit envelope	1-8
17	show envelope	1-8
18	hide envelope	1-8
1A	set minimum envelope value	0-254
1B	set maximum envelope value	0-254

Attributes:

Internal tempo
Pr. default liveslice will follow the buzz tempo, and will do some calculations on bpm changes - this is not good if you use bpm changing groovemachines. Therefore you can use this to disable bpm sync and have liveslice define it's own bpm

Crossfade length
Each slice is faded in and out to avoid clicks in the sound. The slices are faded in before they actually start, to avoid getting slow attacks (on snares for instance), but maintain accurate timing. This attribute defines the lenght of these fades

Pitch envelope range
In semitones - up to 240 semitones ! good to turn everything into clicks

Interpolation
0 = none (cool lofi sound)
1 = simple linear interpolation
(hermite interpolation coming up...)

First wavetable slot for export:
defines the first slot for the export function

Play preview:
remember to disable previews if you want to load waves in a live situation

Disable double buffering:
saves CPU, display might flicker a bit - use this if you have to use the MME driver and / or your computer is slow

Cut slices on end:
If the pitch is lowered one octave, all slices are twice as long - this can be changed using the length envelope, or by setting this attribute to 1 and force all slices to be muted before the next slice starts.