Audio Damage Automaton - Manual (Page 7)

Operation
Automaton is a complex plug-in so we'll describe each of its features and controls in detail, but first we'll
provide a quick overview and introduce some terminology. Here is a screen shot of Automaton in action:
The rectangular grid at the top of Automaton's
window is the cellular automata world grid.
Each square represents one cell. If the square
is filled with white, the cell is alive. The
population of live cells changes each
generation when Automaton uses one of
several rule sets to calculate how the world
evolves.
The cells in the world do not directly affect the
audio flowing through Automaton. Automaton
has four signal processors, named Stutter,
Modulate, Bitcrush, and Replicate. These
processors operate independently and are
arranged in series. The row of colored buttons
below the world grid lets you choose which
processor's controls (knobs, sliders, and
switches) are displayed in the panel near the
bottom of the window.
The colored dots in the world grid are triggers.
The color of the triggers corresponds to the
colors of the processor selector switches. A
signal processor is turned on when there is a
live cell in the same square as one of its
triggers. We refer to a trigger that is in the
same square as a live cell as an active trigger.
If there are no active triggers for a processor
in the world, you won't hear that processor;
and if there are no triggers at all, Automaton
doesn't change the audio flowing through it.