Beat Grab

A tempo-synced lookback effect: it replaces the incoming audio with audio from a set number of beats ago. Crank the feedback and those grabs recirculate into accumulating, canon-like echoes that layer the past over the present.

How it works

Beat Grab continuously records its stereo input into a ring buffer, then plays back the sample from Look beats earlier instead of the live signal. Feed that lookback back into the buffer and each pass stacks another tempo-offset copy, building polyrhythmic layers. Tempo comes from the Clock input — the time between rising edges sets the beat length — so the grab always lands on a musical division. When Look changes, an equal-power crossfade masks the jump so scrubbing stays click-free.

Controls

  • Look — how far back to grab, from 1/32 of a beat up to 32 beats. Short values stutter and glitch; whole-beat values throw clean rhythmic echoes.
  • Fbk — how much of the lookback is folded back into the buffer. Low for a single repeat; high for self-feeding, accumulating layers (internally capped so it won't run away).
  • Mix — dry/wet blend. Fully up replaces the signal with the grab; pull back to sit the effect under the live audio.
  • Clock — where the tempo comes from. Ext measures the pulses arriving at the clock input, which is how this module has always worked. Song follows the timeline's tempo directly, with no cable at all. Int runs at its own speed, set by the BPM field beside it. One thing worth knowing: in Ext the divisions are relative to whatever you clock it with, so feeding it sixteenths makes every label four times faster than it reads. In Int and Song the module knows what a quarter note is, so the labels mean exactly what they say.
  • BPM — the tempo for Int. In Song it greys out and shows you the timeline's tempo instead; in Ext it greys out too, because the cable is in charge.

Inputs & outputs

  • In L / In R — the stereo signal to record and grab from. The two channels are processed independently, so stereo width passes through untouched.
  • Look CV / Fbk CV / Mix CV — modulate each control; patch an LFO or envelope here to scrub the lookback or swell the feedback live.
  • Clock — patch a clock to set the tempo while the Clock control is on Ext. Unpatched, it sits at 120 BPM.
  • Out L / Out R — the processed stereo output.

Tips

  • Set Look to a fraction like 1/4 or 1/8 and you get tight rhythmic stutters locked to your clock.
  • Push Fbk toward max with whole-beat Look values to build evolving canons — the same phrase chasing itself a beat behind.
  • Send slow CV into Look CV to drift the grab offset across beats for warping, tape-like artifacts.