ETC Congo Family v6.4.0 - Manual (Page 675)

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The Play mode generally refers to the way the Series gets played back, so between
PartDirec and PlayMode you can change the direction of the channel source but have the
steps play back as written, or vice versa.
Mode
Content Effect can play back it's Series in three modes, Continous, Break and Build. The
result differs quite a lot. Some Series are set to a default mode, because they are designed
to be played back this way.
• In
a Continuous mode content effect, parts are always executing a step. In a three
color Red-Green-Blue effect, all channels would be in one of those three colors all
the time the effect is running.
• In
a Build mode content effect, all parts execute step 1 before they execute step 2.
Using the same series as above, all parts would become red using the step and
attack times until all channels are red, then they would each step into green until all
are green, then they would start stepping into blue.
• In
a Break mode content effect, assuming you have more parts than steps, then
part 1 will execute the "active" portion of the series and when done it will fade into
the Background state (step 0) and wait there (take a "break") until all the other parts
have executed the active steps in the series. When using Break mode, the "sustain"
and "release" times on the active steps come into play - if you think about the
stadium "wave" phenomenon at football matches you'll know what I mean - the
active step is to "Stand up and raise your arms" and the background state is "sit
down". The attack time is how long it takes you to stand up, the sustain time is how
long you remain standing, and the release time is how long it takes you to sit back
down again. The background state has no timing of its own, as it is used when the
channel is not doing anything else.
As you see in the example, the step time will control if each step goes into the
background between steps.