Audio Damage Automaton - Manual (Page 9)

Automaton’s Control Panels
Next we’ll look at the panels of controls for each of Automaton’s signal processors, and for the controls which
affect the operation of the world grid and how Automaton mixes its output with the incoming signal. Click on
the corresponding button near the center of Automaton’s window to reveal each panel.
Common Controls
Many of the knobs in the signal processor panels have two adjacent sliders. These sliders
modify the values set by the knobs. The first slider, labeled ?, randomly changes the value set
by the knob. The further upwards you move this slider the more the associated parameter will
vary randomly from the value set by the knob. In most cases the randomization slider will
increase the parameter's value, so you may notice that it produces a greater range of variation
if the knob is set to a low value.
The second slider, labeled P, is the Population Modulation slider. This slider varies the value set by the knob
by counting the number of active triggers for the processor. The amount that the Population Modulation slider
affects the parameter depends upon several things: the total number of triggers placed in the world grid for
the processor, the number of active triggers in the current generation, and the height of the slider itself. The
more active triggers there are, the greater the effect of the Population Modulation. The effect is also scaled by
the position of the slider: the higher the slider, the greater the effect. Population Modulation always increases
the value of the parameter above the value set by the knob, so again you'll usually hear the influence of this
slider more clearly if the knob is set to a relatively low value.
That all sounds complicated but it boils down to this: the greater the number of active triggers, and the higher
the setting of the P slider, the more that the associated parameter will be increased above the value set by
the knob. Thus the P slider allows the activity in the world grid to not only activate Automaton's effects
processors, but also change the way they sound.
On the right-hand side of each processor's panel you'll find three controls labeled CLEAR, SOLO, and
MUTE. Click the CLEAR button to remove all of the processor's triggers from the world grid. (If you
want to remove all of the triggers for each processor and all of the live cells, click the CLEAR ALL
button in the Sequencer panel.)