Audio Damage BigSeq2 - Manual (Page 8)

The small rectangles immediately below the squares are the gate locks. (That little symbol to the left of the
row is a stylized image of a padlock.) When a step’s gate lock is turned on, that step is not affected by the
rand, reset, and clear buttons. A locked gate will remain either on or off when you click RAND or CLEAR, and
when RESET is turned on. You can still turn the gate on or off by clicking it with the mouse. The gate locks let
you keep parts of the gate pattern the same while other parts change randomly, producing patterns that have
some resemblance to each other but change over time.
The GLOBAL RESET popup menu at the bottom left of the Gate Sequencer panel determines whether, and
how often, the effects block’s sequencers are reset to their first position when your host DAW’s transport
reaches the beginning of a measure. Since BigSeq2’s sequencers can have patterns of any length from one to
32 steps long, and since the steps can have lengths other than simple durations like an eighth note, the
sequencers can potentially reach the end of their pattern at times that do not line up with the measures (or
major beats, e.g. quarter notes) of your host sequencer. Sometimes this is desirable since it can create effects
that move in and out of phase with your music in interesting ways. Other times, however, it is useful to
always have BigSeq2’s sequencers jump back to their first step at more predictable times, regardless of what
they’re currently doing.
If the GLOBAL RESET menu is set to “Off”, the sequencer will not be reset automatically in response to the
host DAW’s actions. The sequencer will merrily cycle along by itself, synchronized to your music’s tempo but
willfully ignorant of the placement of your music’s bar lines. If the GLOBAL RESET menu is set to any of its
other choices, which are “1 Measure” through “4 Measures”, the sequencer will jump back to its first step
whenever your host DAW’s transport crosses the corresponding number of bar lines. For example, if the
GLOBAL RESET menu is set to 2 Measures, BigSeq2’s sequencer will jump back to its first step at the
beginning of every other measure.
Note that the GLOBAL RESET menu affects both of the sequencers in all of the effects blocks. Each pair of
sequencers can have a different number of steps and step size (as we’ll describe shortly) and hence can
advance and cycle independently, but when a bar line triggers a reset in response to the GLOBAL RESET
setting, all of BigSeq2’s sequencers jump to their first steps.