Bastl Instruments Thyme User manual
9/26/2018 Thyme Manual
https://bastl-instruments.github.io/thyme/manual.html#/Introduction 1/48
Introduction
This document is intended as a complete reference manual of Thyme’s functionality.
Look here if you are searching for explanations of specic features or if you are one of those
persons who like to read through manuals before they use stuff. If you just want to know the
bare minimum to get started, check out the short manual which gets shipped with the device.
What is Thyme
Thyme is a versatile sound processing unit: It takes an audio input signal, modies it and
sends it to the output . The digital sound processing performed by Thyme can be summarized
as a “Sequenceable Robot-Operated Digital Tape Machine”. Here you see a greatly simplied
illustration of its core functionality.
Imagine the tape moving from left to right (motor turning clockwise). The signal that is written
to the tape by the write head will be read by multiple read heads after certain time periods.
These signals are summed, sent to the output and also added back to the input signal,
creating a feedback loop.
All signal processing parameters can be tweaked live; either manually or by modulation
sources which we call "Robots". Robots are similar to LFOs but go much further. On top of
that, you can switch between different congurations at the push of a button or with the
integrated sequencer.
Functionality Overview
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Before we dive deeper into Thyme’s signal processing, let’s take a bird's eye view on the
instrument, its function blocks and how they interact.
The core of the instrument is the Digital Tape Machine at which we took a brief look in the
previous section. Its operation is dened by 9 parameters which can be tweaked manually or
each by their own dedicated Robot.
All settings of all parameters and all Robots combined is called a Sound. There are eight of
these fully customizable Sounds, one being active at a time. You can switch between the
Sounds manually or let the internal sequencer handle it for you - according to customizable
patterns.
Now, we are ready to investigate the function blocks in more detail.
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Digital Tape Machine
Here’s a complete illustration of Thyme’s Digital Tape Machine. The knobs symbolize
parameters that can be manipulated.
Input Gain Before the input signal can be processed it needs to be amplied or
attenuated depending on the signal source. This parameter sets the gain
of the preamplier. It ranges from complete attenuation of the input
signal to a maxium gain of 20dB (factor 10).
It is the only parameter that cannot be controlled by a Robot and is
constant for every Sound. Set and Forget.
The white LED indicates that some signal is detected at the input, the red
one indicates that the gain is too high so the signal clips and is being
distorted at the input.
Tape Speed Dene how fast the tapes moves.
Delay Coarse
and Delay
Fine
Control the position of the main read head in relation to the write head.
With full tape speed the coarse knob ranges from zero to 2.7 seconds, the
ne one just goes up to a few milliseconds. They both add up. If you lower
the tape speed you can achieve longer delay times but with more digital
tape character.
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Spacing Macro control to change the position of the three remaining read heads
together.
Levels The read heads controlled by Spacing can have individual contributions to
the feedback and output signal. This knob controls all of them at
simultaneously. In the last quarter the loop gain is greater than one,
allowing self-excitation.
Feedback The sum of all the read heads is scaled by this factor before it will be fed
back to the input signal. On full, you get a loop gain of exactly one
(provided Levels is off).
Filter Next to scaling, you can also lter the feedback and output signal. In the
lower half you control the cutoff frequency of a lowpass lter, in the upper
half it’s a highpass. Right in the center position the lter is bypassed.
Wet/Dry Mix between processed and unprocessed signal.
Volume Control the overall output volume. This parameter is global but different
Sounds can add different modulations by their Robots.
All parameters have their individual knobs, allowing you to tweak them all at the same time.
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Mono Input Mode
When you insert a mono cable into the audio input, it would normally be interpreted and
output as a stereo signal with one channel being silent.
To avoid this, activate Mono Input Mode, which uses the single channel of the input signal
for both channels.
Hold down FN and press BYPASS to toggle mono input mode. The current status is
indicated by the BYPASS LED.
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Knob Freezing
Before you start tweaking some knobs, you should be familiar with the special yet
intuitive way the knobs react.
In different views and different Sounds one single knob is used to set different values.
This is realized by a concept we call Knob Freezing. It is based on each knob being
equipped with a dimmable LED that indicates the current value of the knob - from 0 to
full amount.
A knob can be frozen meaning the value it holds (indicated by the LED) does not match
the physical position of the knob. This happens for example when you switch to a
different Sound which has this particular parameter set differently.
To modify the value, the knob needs to be unfrozen which can be achieved in two ways:
Quickly move the knob a slightly in any direction. The parameter value will
transition to the current value of the physical knob position and will start tracking
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its movement. This method allows a quick but glitch-free modication of the
controlled parameter.
Move the knob slowly to the value indicated by the LED. After they match, the knob
value will be tracking the physical knob position. This method ensures a very
controlled modication of the parameter.
Switches
In addition to the knobs, there are three switches that alter the behavior of the signal
processing chain. You can activate them independently from each other with their dedicated
buttons.
Delay Sync
The position of the main read head denes the time between writing the signal to the tape
and reading it back. This time can be chosen freely or - with the SYNC switch activated -
quantized to rhythmical intervals (eight-notes, quarters,..). The intervals are derived from the
tempo of the sequencer. See the sequencer section for how to set this tempo. The possible
multiplications / divisions of the tempo are: 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16,
32, 48, 56 and so forth. Sync is also active for extra read heads - unless this is deactivated.
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Delay Link
As the tape speed changes, it also takes a different amount of time for the tape to travel a
xed distance between write head and read head. Sometimes it might be desirable to keep
this time constant. With the LINK switch enabled, the position of the main read head will be
automatically adjusted when the tape speed changes in order to compensate for any effect
on the delay time . In other words: Tweaking the tape speed will not affect the nal delay
time.
Freeze Mode
The Freeze Mode turns Thyme into a looping device. To achieve this, the owgraph is
dynamically recongured and some parameters slightly change their meaning:
Once you trigger the FREEZE Mode (either by activating it or by activating a Sound that has
freeze mode enabled), the clean input signal is written to the tape for the time equal to the
main read head’s delay time. During that period the feedback and delay knob LEDs are turned
off. The input signal is also routed directly to the output.
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After that the input is disconnected and will only be reconnected once you deactivate freeze
mode. There is now a closed loop with the tape and the feedback path.
The overall amplication of the loop is controlled by the FEEDBACK knob. When it is on full,
there will be a steady loop; if it is lower, the signal will fade out over time.
The signal from the three extra read heads is not mixed into the loop but only added to the
output. This way you can use them to spice up your loop but also go back to the clean version
at any time you wish. In the second half of the LEVELS knob this behavior changes and the
signal from the extra read heads start to get mixed into the loop.
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Extended Parameter Settings
For some parameters there exist additional switches that allow to slightly alter the behavior
of the machine. As they are less performative they are a bit more hidden.
Parameter Extended Setting
TAPE SPEED LoFi Tape (LED off; default). When lowering the tape speed, the input signal
is just resampled at a different rate with no additional ltering. This will
cause interesting aliasing effects. Furthermore, the upsampling process is
intentionally made less accurate with low tape speeds, emphasising this
character even more.
HiFi Tape (LED on). Before resampling, the input signal is lowpass-ltered
to reduce aliasing; in the upsampling process linear interpolation is used.
This implementation is closer to the behavior of an analog tape machine.
FEEDBACK Negative Feedback (LED off; default) or positive Feedback (LED on). When
building a comb lter, this will result in odd or even harmonics.
SPACING The three extra read heads either react to the SYNC switch (LED on; default)
or not (LED off).
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