Audio Damage Automaton - Manual (Page 14)

Stutter
The Stutter processor takes small slices of audio and plays them a number of times, producing buzzes, beeps,
and glitchy buffer effects. This processor has three knobs, labeled REPEATS, LENGTH, and PITCH.
The REPEATS knob sets the number of times that the slice of audio is repeated. The available values are
powers of two, that is, two, four, eight, 16, etc. on up to 128. Since the duration of this effect is set by the
SEQUENCE LIFESPAN, the length of the repeated slice of audio is equal to the SEQUENCE LIFESPAN divided
by the STUTTER REPEATS. So for example if the SEQUENCE LIFESPAN is 1/8 and the REPEATS is four, the
Stutter audio slice will be equal to the duration of a 1/32 note. That audio slice will be repeated four times
when the Stutter processor is triggered.
Since the SEQUENCE LIFESPAN ranges from a quarter note down to a 1/32 note, and since the Stutter
REPEATS parameter goes from 2 to 128, it follows that the Stutter processor uses audio slices ranging in
length from that of an eighth note down to the equivalent of a 1/4096 note, if there were such a thing. This is
why Stutter can sound like anything from a short loop of audio to a high-pitched tone. At a tempo of 120bpm,
a 1/4096 note is only a little more than 1/10,000 of a second long. Our ears don't perceive something that
happens 10,000 times per second as discrete events; instead we hear a high-pitched tone with a frequency of
10,000Hz. It is also entirely possible, depending on the signal you're running through Automaton, that there is
nothing but silence within the first 1/4096 note of the audio present when the Stutter effect is triggered. This
means that at some combinations of extreme settings, there's a good chance that you won't hear anything at
all when Stutter is triggered.
The STUTTER LENGTH knob acts like a gate that silences part of each repetition of the audio slice. This knob
can be set from 1% to 100%. At 100%, the gate is on all the time and has no effect. As you rotate the knob
counter-clockwise, the gate starts to silence part of the audio slice. If the LENGTH knob is set to 50%, the
second half of the slice is silenced each time it is played. Since the gate duration can be as short as 1%, you
may not hear anything at all at low settings of the LENGTH knob, depending on your input material and the