h o w - t o - b u z z

First of all create some machines and connect them if you haven't already done this, then go to the pattern editor, create a melody or beat, anything will do. Now you should see some changes in the sequencer, the generators you use should have their name there, if not then you are using an old version of buzz, then click [ctrl]+[enter] and choose the generator you made a pattern for. Or in the Buzz 1.2 BETA versions you can rightclick to get a menu from which you can add a machine of choice.

Choose the desired machine among all generators and effects you use in your song

-Placing the playbar

Press play and you will see that a playbar starts scrolling down, it will however stop at the end of the loop and start from the beginning again. To place this play bar where you want it just leftclick on the leftmost side of the sequencer, on top of the tick numbers.

-Loop end and beginning

The loop point is the point where the playbar stops to return to the beginning again, this is shown as a dotted line. There is also a loop beginning, this is where the song starts, in a blank song this is set to row 0, but this can easily be changed. Move the cursor the the place where you want to make a new loop end/beginning press [ctrl]+[B] to make a beginning and [ctrl]+[E] to make an end, note that the beginning can never be placed after the end.

-Placing the patterns

Placing the patterns in the sequencer Place your marker on one of the generators, you should now see a list to the right with possible patterns to use. something like 0. 00 - this means 0 on your keyboard represents pattern 00, 0 will always represent the first pattern in alphabetical order in the sequencer. Imagine you had two patterns one called bassline and one called intro, then it would be 0. bassline - 1. intro and so on. To place a pattern in the sequencer simply press the key representing the pattern you wish to place. If you do not see any patterns on the right side of the screen, make sure you have created patterns for it. Forgot how to? back to the pattern editor again then.

pattern list

-Mute & break

You will also notice two other commands in the list on the right side of the screen, these are mute and break. Mute works by muting all sound from the machine at the tick it is placed, note though that it will only mute that machine, if a trilok is routed to a reverb the trilok will stop if you place a mute on it, but the reverb will still sound. Note though that the reverb will likely produce a small click, this is where break comes in. Break is used for telling buzz to stop reading from a pattern, this command unlike the mute command will still give sounds, use this when you want something to echo out, use mute when you want to make something completly silent

-Cut, copy & paste

In buzz1.2 BETA or newer you are able to cut, copy and paste in the sequence editor, this is done by selecting a field. This you either do by holding shift while moving the marker around. Or in the Buzz 1.2 BETA you can left click the mouse drag the marker around and select a field, either way works just fine. When you are done with that you just choose the cut, copy and paste commands from the edit drop down menu, or use the quick commands - crtl c, ctrl v and ctrl x. You can also rightclick to get a menu with cut, copy paste as possible options.

-Sequencer programming

Sequencer programming in buzz is actually quite easy, there are no advanced commands or techiques to learn, everything is 100% based on what patterns you have, the sequencer only arranges them. Some of you may have noticed a small detail by now, the generators are sometimes connected to effects, altering the effects will alter the sound from the generator. Meaning you can alter the effect and the generator at the same time in the sequencer, if you have 2 patterns for both you can make 4 combinations that sounds completly different. This is one of the most important things to learn in buzz, this means you do not have to make 10 different patterns of the same melody just to be able to do different sound changes, you just make a couple and make 4 effect patterns.

-Tips & Tricks

There are three things I'd like to mention that are quite hard to spot in the beginning.
Here they are:

tip 1. You are allowed to use the same synth as multiple machines in the sequencer, just press [ctrl]+ [enter] and make a new one of a machine you already have in the sequencer. This way you can use less machines when you want to have two similar machines routed through the same effects set.

tip 2. Don't always place patterns using 16 as the step setting, try placing patterns on unewen unmbers, like 3 or 15 and see what this does for you. Using this technique you can easily place a crash cymbal hit anywhere you please by using a 1 row long pattern. Also remember that using the pattern editor you can move sounds cents of a tick if you are using a sample based tracker, this allows you to fit in vocals or similar things that you have recorded yourself. By placing it cent wise you can fit it very perfectly with the song.

tip 3. If you use multiple machines and not all start at row 0, mute the others. If a machine is included in the sequencer and you start the song at row 0 and the machine has no pattern there, let's say it comes in on row 32, the machine will still be able to make noises. It will however be completly silent until told otherwise if you place a mute command on row 0.

Now the only part that's left to grasp is the wavetable window, if you have no intentions of giving samplebased tracking a shot yet, skip the stage and move on to programming machines. You can always look up the wavetable window functions when you feel ready for it.