Meta-Q

Meta-Q is a quantiser that is basically similar to Quantermain, except it has only two channels.

It has fewer internal CV sources (currently, only LFSR. See [CopierMaschine/Quantermain for details), but comes with four ‘scale slots’ per channel — a package of scale, mask, root and transpose values —, which themselves can be sequenced to provide a lot of additional, structured variation to the input CV sequences (or the LFSR internal CV source).

Controls

	Left Encoder	Right Encoder
TURN	select channel	Navigation mode: move up and down through the menu items. Edit mode: increase or decrease the value being edited
PRESS	toggle channel	Toggle between menu navigation (selection) mode and value editing mode
LONG	copy selected scale/mask to all channels/slots	App selection menu

	Up Button	Down Button
PRESS	Transpose up: one octave (parameter menu)	Transpose down: one octave (parameter menu)
LONG PRESS	invoke screensaver	reset scale mask

I/O

	1	2	3	4
TR	clock input #1	aux. / scale sequencer clock #1	clock input #2	aux. / scale sequencer clock #2
CV	sample in # 1	(mappable)	sample in # 2	(mappable)
OUT	CV outputs #1, #2	CV outputs #1, #2	aux outputs #1, #2 (default to gate output)	aux outputs #1, #2 (default to gate output)

Description

Scale Editor

• works mostly the same (as in the other quantising modes). Notably, the up and down buttons behave slighlty differently, however: pushing up will point the editor to the next scale-slot, pushing down will point it to the previous scale-slot. This way, you can edit all the scale-slots more easily from within the editor.

• In the editor, you can also change the scale-type, root, and transpose settings: to do so, hold the up button (= ‘shift’) while turning the left encoder: that’ll change the scale, just like in the regular menu. to edit the root and transpose values, hold the up button, then push the left encoder (= ‘shift’ + push left): that’ll open a new window, displaying the slot’s root and transpose values. you can select which parameter to edit by using the left encoder; adjust the value by turning the right encoder; or use the up / down buttons to advance to a different slot. push the left encoder again to return to the basic scale editor.

  Scale Editor Controls

Control	Function
Left encoder (turn)	select note
Left encoder (push)	activate/de-active note
Right encoder (turn)	rotate mask
Right encoder (push)	exit editor
Up button (push)	go to next scale slot
Down button (push)	go to previous scale slot
Up button (hold) + Left encoder (turn)	shift: select scale
Up button (hold) + Left encoder (push)	shift: toggle root/transpose view
Right encoder (long press)	– (app selection menu)
Up button long press	– (screensaver)

Slots in Scale Editor

• Each scale ‘slot’ (= scale #) can be mapped to any of the available preset and user scales and/or scale masks (via the main menu or scale editor). The scale slots can also be assigned their own root and transpose settings.

• The scale editor in Meta-Q thus is slightly more complex than in the other modes: it allows you to edit the four scales-slots (not just one scale) from within the editor, ie both scale as well as the root and transpose values. In basic use, it works much the same as in Quantermain or Copiermaschine; notably, the up button behaves slighlty differently, however: in the Meta-Q scale editor it assumes a ‘shift’ functionality to access the (slot-specific) root and (diatonic) transpose settings (details see below).

Sequencer Mode

• What is more, said four scale-slots can be sequenced (or just toggled) by using a clock signal and/or by modulating the slot-parameter with a control voltage:

  • Use the auxiliary trigger inputs TR2 resp. TR4 to cycle through either 2, 3, or 4 adjacent scale slots: see the seq mode setting. Available settings are TR+1 (= plus next scale), TR+2 (= plus next two scales), TR+3 (= plus next three scales). Things wrap around slot #4. Thus, for example, when selecting scale # = 3 and seq mode = TR+2 (= scale #3 plus next two scales), when clocked via the aux. trigger input, the scale slots will step through the following sequence: #3, #4, #1, #3, #4, #1, #3, #4, #1, #3, #4, #1, #3 …

  • Setting the CV aux. parameter to scl# (= scale #) allows modulation of the slot-parameter with a CV signal applied to CV2 (channel #1) or CV4 (channel #2). (Alternatively, CV aux. can be routed to root, mask (= scale mask), trns (= transpose/scale degrees), or oct (transpose/octaves)).

  • NB: inputs TR2 and CV2 are hardcoded to service channel #1, TR4 and CV4 to service channel #2.

    aux-outputs-C-D

• when trigger source = TR1 - TR4, the aux. outputs (C, D) simply pass through the main trigger signal, with adjustable pulse-width (--> pw); when set to continuous (cnt), the aux. output goes high if/when the note changes (= trigger-on-note-change).

• the aux. outputs can alternatively output a transposed copy of the main channel CV (aux.output = copy), or output said CV, delayed by one clock (aux.output = asr).

Available settings (per-channel)

Setting	Meaning
scale	selected scale
--> edit	edit scale mask (for details see Quantermain and below)
seq mode	number of slots (-, 2, 3, or 4) to advance scale sequencer before reset (via TR2 resp. TR4)
scale #	selected scale slot (#1 - #4)
root #n	root note for scale slot n
transpose #n	offset (in scale degrees) for scale slot n
octave	offset in octaves (for all scale slots)
CV source	sample input, internal/external (CV1 - CV4, LFSR)
CV aux.	auxiliary CV input destination: scale #, root, transpose, octave, mask
trigger source	main trigger source: TR1 - TR4 , cnt+, cnt- (†)
--> latency	trigger-to-quantization latency (default: 0 = 60 us). Note: this is equivalent to the Trigger delay setting in several of the other apps, please see the Quantermain app documentation for a discussion of this setting.
aux.output	aux channel output: gate, copy, asr (††)
--> pw	pulse-width of triggers at C/D outputs (gate mode)
--> aux +/-	pitch offset at C/D outputs (in octaves) (copy and asr modes)
> LFSR length	length of shift register (when in LFSR mode)
> LFSR p	probability of flipping (when in LFSR mode)
> LFSR range	output range (when in LFSR mode)
> LFSR CV	destination of CV1 resp. CV3 (when in LFSR mode)
> LFSR TRIG	aux channel output (when in LFSR mode): echo, lsb, chng: clock through, track LSB, and output on note-change

• notes:
  • (†) cnt+ and cnt-= continuous quantization; in this case, a gate applied to TR1 resp. TR3 will shift the pitch up (cnt+) or down (cnt-) by one octave.
  • (††) copy simply duplicates the main channel output to the aux channel output. asr does the same, but delayed by one clock.

This documentation has been reformatted and republished from the original Ornament and Crime manual, with permission from the copyright holders