Bitbox Micro Firmware: Pad Controls

What you get from these controls depends on how the preset is built.

Building a Preset for This

There is nothing to set up on the module. Every control has a fixed CC that works on every preset. Set your controller to send those CCs and you are playing. But an old preset only gives back what it was built to do. Eight Sample pads on one MIDI channel, with the delay turned down and the LFO wired to nothing, will answer barely a third of these controls.

Here is what matters, in rough order:

• Give every pad its own MIDI channel. Put them all on one and every pad answers at once.
• Pick pad modes deliberately. The granular controls only work on a Granular pad, and Play Through only on a Slicer pad. See which pad types work.
• Park the FX parameters you will drive at their minimum, so a CC has room to travel. See getting the full range. Whatever you do not drive stays as saved, so a reverb saved with no decay stays silent.
• Point the LFO at something, such as the filter. See LFO.
• Leave a modulation slot or two spare. A full pad stops taking new routings. See LFO.

Editors Worth Knowing About

Two browser editors build presets on a computer, with a mouse and a waveform you can see. Neither is 1010music's, and neither needs this patch.

• BITBOXER: free, and runs in the browser. It edits pad parameters, effects and whole presets, and it reads and writes the XML the module already uses. It handles WAV, SFZ and zip archives too.
• Preset Manager for Bitbox: ten euros, paid once. It offers waveform editing with loop and sample markers, effects sends and audio preview. It needs a Chromium browser. Bitbox Micro is fully supported, and MK2 support is experimental.

Check what either one writes before you trust a whole card to it. Back up any preset you care about.

The controls fall into five groups. Take them in any order.

Delay and Reverb

Delay send and Reverb send: each pad has its own, so it sits in the effects by its own amount. They are the fastest way to make a static loop move. Recorded-sample pads have no FX sends in stock firmware, so there is nothing to reach.

Four controls set up the delay itself, which the whole preset shares. They answer on any channel.

• Beat Sync locks the delay time to tempo rather than milliseconds.
• Ping-pong bounces repeats across the stereo field.
• Filter on/off and Filter width shape the repeats. Darkening each echo is the classic dub move, and width sets how hard.

Delay time and feedback are not here. They already work over MIDI without this patch.

Delay Time and Beat Sync

The delay keeps two time values, and Beat Sync picks which one plays. Map a CC to delay time, switch Beat Sync off, and the CC goes dead. It is still driving the value that is no longer in use. Map both to the same CC. This is stock behaviour.

LFO Rate: this has the same trap and the same fix. There is one control on screen and two values underneath, and the LFO's Beat Sync picks between them.

Playback

Loop Mode: None, Forward or Bidirectional, as three even bands across the throw. Bidirectional plays forwards then backwards, which is lovely or seasick depending on the material.

Loop Crossfade: softens the join. A loop that clicks usually needs a little. Long crossfades on short loops blur the sound, which is sometimes what you want.

Reverse: plays the sample backwards, on Sample, Multi-Sample and Granular pads. Clip and Slicer pads have no reverse setting.

Play Through: on Slicer pads only, this decides whether playback carries on past the end of a slice into the next.

Stopping a Pad

Stop this pad: send All Sound Off or All Notes Off, CC 120 or 123, on the pad's own channel. Either one releases the note. Use it to cut a long clip cleanly instead of letting it play out. Most DAWs send these when you press Stop, so stopping the DAW stops the pads too.

Granular

These five only work on a pad set to Granular mode. 1010music marks them "Mod Target? No", so until now the encoder was the only way in.

Density: how many grains play at once, while Grain Size sets how long each one lasts. Between them they take you from a recognisable sample to a smeared pad to a sparse cloud.

Window: the shape each grain fades in and out with. Softer windows sound smoother. Harder ones click, and that is sometimes the point.

Scatter: randomises grain timing, and Pan Rnd randomises their place in the stereo field. Both turn a regular texture into a diffuse one.

Scatter does nothing unless Density is below half. That is stock behaviour. It will fool you. Send Density at 63 or lower, because 64 is already a shade above half. Pull Density down to about a quarter and Scatter is obvious.

Speed is not here. It already works over MIDI without this patch.

These are the controls most likely to cost CPU, Density above all. Watch the CPU bar.

Envelope

Sustain: this is the control the patch adds, and the one that makes Decay work.

Decay is how long the sound takes to fall from its peak to the sustain level. With Sustain at full, Decay has nowhere to go, which is why a decay knob so often feels dead. Pull Sustain to zero and Decay becomes a length control.

Try It on a Hi-Hat

Both use the same sample on the same pad. Open the hats through a build and tighten them for the drop, from a knob, while the pattern plays. Then try it on snares, claps and anything else with a tail.

Attack, Decay and Release could always be modulated. Sustain could not, until now.

LFO

Three controls, Wave, Beat Sync and Retrigger, shape the pad's LFO. It does nothing until you point it at something, so until then all three seem broken. The manual never says how:

1. Touch the pad, then press right arrow twice to reach Pad Parameters.
2. Scroll to Filter on the Main page. The three small boxes on the right edge mark it as something that can be modulated.
3. Press right arrow again for the Modulation Parameters screen.
4. Find a Source slot reading None and turn the bottom knob to LFO.
5. Turn up the Amount for that slot. It starts at 0%, so the LFO is connected and inaudible until you do. This is the step everyone misses.

The filter is the best first destination, because it is the easiest to hear.

Wave: ten shapes, as ten even bands across the throw. Beat Sync locks the rate to the tempo. Retrigger restarts the LFO on every note, so a wobble lines up with your hits instead of drifting against them.

LFO is further round the Source list than you might expect. Keep turning.

If the bottom knob will not change a None slot, the pad is full. Each pad has twelve modulation slots and the firmware keeps three, so a preset with lots of mapped CCs can use up the rest. It looks like a dead encoder. Free a slot by removing a mapping you do not use.