Here’s what we know so far about step components. They can be added to any track per step. They can be stacked (i.e multiple step components can be added per step). They can’t be edited in the case where the pattern length is greater than 16 steps.
List of OP-Z step components
From a recent pic of the OP-Z manual we can derive the full list of step components for the OP-Z. Each component can be set to 10 values which differs by component. For example, the
Let’s go over each of them and try to piece it together with previous information and videos that we’ve seen.
| Component | Values |
|---|---|
| pulse | count 1-9, 0 is random |
| pulse | hold count 1-9, 0 is random |
| multiple | multiply by 1-8, 9 is ‘broken chord’, 0 is quantize |
| velocity | 1-9 are -4 to +3 velocity, 5 is default, 9 is mute, 0 is random |
| ramp up | 1-9 are the number of steps and octaves, 6 and up is 3 octaves |
| ramp down | 1-9 are the number of steps and octaves, 6 and up is 3 octaves |
| random | 1-9 are the number of steps and octaves, 6 and up is 3 octaves |
| glide | 1-8 are amount of glide, 9 is ‘direct’, 0 is random |
| sweepthrough | 0-9 take different parameters and sweep including filter, synth, and panning |
| tonality | 0-9 changes things like pitch and transposition |
| jump | Shifts the step to a different time signature or reverses |
| param spark | See note below |
| comp spark | See note below |
| trigger spark | See note below |
A few notes on sparks thanks to sammyjams from the operator-1 forums: ‘sparks’ are similar to conditional trigs you would find in Elektron devices. For example, a param spark component triggers the step each time, but only triggers param change on every nth time through the pattern. Components can be triggered together conditionally when using the comp spark. The trigger spark will only play the step every nth time. Fascinating!
Thanks to u/drlbradley on Reddit for posting a picture of the manual!