ImproSculpt

ImproSculpt is a live sampler instrument.
It can be controlled via mouse and on-screen controls.
The main strength of the software is its large palette of processing techniques, as well as it's approach to organizing playback events, not in tracks but in processes.
You can set up a semi-automatic playback process that you give certain startup parameters, and then "let it wander on" by itself until you feel you need to "guide it into a new mood".
This is done via a combination of random and user-controllable parameters.

When you've got it running, you might want to take a look at the How it works and Getting Started sections

System requirements:
- Audio card with stereo input and output available simultaneously (full duplex)
- You need a version of Csound installed and working.
For this particular version of ImproSculpt you need a Csound version that supports FLTK GUI widgets.
To get Csound, info and download, see www.csounds.com

To run the software:

Windows users:
Create a new directory on your C: drive, call this directory "improsculpt" (without the quotes)
Unzip the ImproSculpt.zip file to this directory
Drag and drop the ImproSculpt.csd file onto the Csound executable (Csound executable is not included in ImproSculpt.zip, you can get the appropriate Csound executable from www.csounds.com).
Select audio input and output ports when you're asked to do so.

Other platforms (Mac, Linux ...):
If you're not on windows, you will need to edit the ImproSculpt.csd file in a text editor,
what you need to edit is the <CsOptions> section.
You also need to edit the path pointing to the included sound files,
and the path to file where you want to store your GUI presets.
This can most easily be found by searching through the ImproSculpt.csd file with a text editor,
replacing all text equal to "C:/improsculpt/" with the proper reference to the improsculpt directory on your computer.
Contact me for help if you're unsure how to do this.
I can be reached at obrandts@online.no

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How it works:

The ImproSculpt window is split into sections:
Input
Rhythm
Mixer, and effects
Sound List
Modules, different playback modules

The PitchTracker window is split into:
Recording
Playback

The PatternSequencer window
has three identical Pattern sections

The ImproSculpt window is the "main window"


Input
- contains controls for the sampling process.
You can sample individually from the left and right inputs of your sound card, here called input 1 and input 2.
Each sound can be up to 5.9 seconds long, this is a soft limit and can easily be changed for future releases.
Sounds are stored in "slots", you can have up to 14 audio slots. Be careful, you can easily overwrite sounds already sampled. This is done because I wanted it to be easy to dynamically change the contents of the sounds available, with the risk of losing some good sounds...
Just for clarity: Everything is done in RAM only, so no harm is done to any sounds you may have stored on your hard drives.

"Mix inputs 1 & 2 " mixes the signal from your audio card left and right inputs, and use this merged signal as the source input for this sampling module.
"Auto Sampling" Sampling is activated via level-sensing of the input signal, when you feed a lod enough sound into ImproSculpt, it will start sampling. When the audio level falls below the threshold, sampling will stop, and the sound will be stored in RAM. The Auto Sampling button also enables the audio inputs, so it needs to be active even if you use Manual sampling trig.
"Manual" Enable manual sampling trig. This button just enables, use "Trig" to trig sampling when in manual mode. You would normally not want to use Manual Sampling, use Auto Sampling unless you've got a very noisy input signal.
"Trig" When "manual" is enabled, "Trig" works as an on/off switch for sampling. As long as the button is active (light on), sampling will be done.
"Auto Cycle Slot" When activated, the next audio sampling will be written to the next available slot. When not activated, all new sound will be written to the same slot
"Current Slot" Display the sampling slot currently being used for sampling. When no sampling is being done, it displays the last slot where audio has been written.
"First Slot" The first slot you want to enable for writing audio to
"Last Slot" The last slot you want to enable for writing audio to
When audio have been written to the "last slot", the pointer "wraps arounsd" and the next sound will bee written to the "first slot", and then continue overwriting old sounds.
You can select certain sounds/slots to be "record protected" more on this in the "Sound List" section
"auto threshold" the audio level that needs to be exceeded in order to start audo sampling


Rhythm
- contains the master clock, tempo and meter control, and rhythmical patterns.
"Rhythm On" is the master clock on/off switch. A lot of processes depend on this switch being set to "on".

Master tab
Tempo can be multiplied with 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, or 4 by pushing the buttons thus named
Tempo can be adjusted by tapping the "tap tempo" button several times in succession in the tempo you wish to set.
Tempo can be manually set by clicking and dragging on the "Adjust" value.

Time Signature can be set by clicking one of the buttons named 4/4, 5/4, 3/4, and so on.
A Metronome can be heard if activating the "Metro" button

Phrases tab
Here you find setup of rhytmical phrases used to trigger playback of sounds in some modules.
To be more specific, the two Random Play modules and the Random Access Granulator (RAG) module.
Even if the rhythmic module is active, it might happen that for instance the Random Player does not make a sound, this can be because there is no sound stored where the Random Player expects to find it, or it might be part of the musical processing (e.g. you've limited the polyphony of the Random Player so that not every rhythmic trigger gets to play a sound).
There is 7 preprogrammed rhythmical phrases. Your means of manipulating these rhythms is
- select tempo multiplication, double or halve the tempo the phrase will be played in, relative to the master tempo.
- phrase pause, how many beats of pause after the phrase is finished, before it starts playing from it's start again.
- phrase loop, enables the phrase to "bite it's tail" and restart playing from the start even if it's last beat is on an offbeat. This enables the phrase to move realtive to the basic meter, creating polyrythmic effects.
- force phrase, force trig every beat. This will lead to a repetitive pattern of just the first beat in the phrase.
You can hear a hihat sound playing the rhythms when enabling "Tick", this is meant to be just for testing purposes.


Mixer

Level
This is a central Section where each of the playback modules have their activation button,
as well as output volume and stereo panning.
There's green/red level meter for visual monitoring of signal output from each module,
and a master output level knob and level meter.
Presets for storing and retreiving settings of all parameters are accessible in this panel.
To store a preset, select the preset number you wish to store to and press "store".
The same goes for recalling presets. Presets are only stored in RAM, until you press "Save Set".
"Save Set" saves all presets currently in RAM to a file on disk. The preset file will currently be called "ImproSculpt.pst" and be stored at the path C:\
You will always get a warning when saving presets to disk, asking if you want to overwrite the file.
To open previously saved presets from disk, press "Open Set".

RingMod
Amplitude Modulation
A sine wave oscillator modulates the amplitude of signals sent to this effect.
"Mod Freq" set the frequency of the modulation oscillator
"Mod index" set the balance between modulated and unmodulated output, thus providing a way to control the depth of the effect
"LFO Freq" set the frequency of an LFO that affects frequency of the modulation oscillator
"LFO Amt" set the amount of influence the LFO has on the frequency of the modulation oscillator
"Amp-Freq" set the amount of influence the amplitude of the input to the effect has on the frequency of the modulation oscillator

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

FreqMod
Frequency Modulated delay line
A delay line is used to provide a vibrato, if this vibrato is run very fast it turns into a frequency modulation effect.
"Mod Freq" set the frequency of the modulation oscillator
"Mod index" set the modulation index, thus providing a way to control the depth of the effect
"LFO Freq" set the frequency of an LFO that affects frequency of the modulation oscillator
"LFO Amt" set the amount of influence the LFO has on the frequency of the modulation oscillator
"Amp-Freq" set the amount of influence the amplitude of the input to the effect has on the frequency of the modulation oscillator

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

Filter 1
A state-variable filter, with separate output volume for the LowPass, BandPass and HiPass filtered signals.

"Cutoff Freq" set the cutoff frequency of the filter
"Filter Q" set the sharpness or resonance of the filter
"AmpLP" output volume of the LowPassed signal
"AmpBP" output volume of the BandPassed signal
"AmpHP" output volume of the HighPassed signal
"LFO Freq" set the frequency of an LFO that affects Cutoff freuency
"LFO Amt" set the amount of influence the LFO has on the Cutoff frequency
"Amp-Freq" set the amount of influence the amplitude of the input to the effect has on the Cutoff frequency

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

Distortion
A distortion effect with a lowpass filter after the dist.

"Dist Drive" amount of distortion
"Dist Shape" shape of the distortion function, higher values give sharper and harsher dist
"Post Filter" Cutoff frequency of a lowpass filter after dist
"Amp-Drive" set the amount of influence the amplitude of the input to the effect has on distortion drive

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

Filter 2
A Lowpass filter with a 18dB/octave slope, and internal distortion.

"Cutoff Freq" set the cutoff frequency of the filter
"Resonance" set the sharpness or resonance of the filter
"Distortion" amount of distorion in the filter
"LFO Freq" set the frequency of an LFO that affects Cutoff freuency
"LFO Amt" set the amount of influence the LFO has on the Cutoff frequency
"Amp-Freq" set the amount of influence the amplitude of the input to the effect has on the Cutoff frequency

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

Delay 1
Dual delay line, time synchronized to the tempo set in the master rhythm section.
Each of the two delay lines are hard panned to left and right output respectively.

"Tempofactor" set a multiplication factor, of how the delay tempo relates to the master tempo,
0 will actually mean 0.5 (half tempo), 1 will mean 1, 2 will mean 2(double tempo), 3 will 3(triplets), and so on
"Unlink" disable the linking of delay times to the master tempo altogether

"deltime subdiv" delay time for the Left and Right delay line, in subdivisions of "tempofactor"
"straight/dotted/triplet" well,...guess. in musical notation terms a further specification of the delay time subdivision as straight, dotted or triplet note values.
"delaytime" should display the actual delay time, but is currently disabled.

"time fine L" fine tuning the delay time, can be used if you want delay times that are not exact subdivisions, but a delay that rushes or drags a bit. This can make the delay patterns more organic and groovy if used with care.
The value is a multiplier/offset, a value of 0.1 will offset the delay time by 10%
"time fine R" same as above, for Right delay channel
"LFO Freq" frequency of an LFO used to modulate the delay times
"LFO amt L" amount of LFO influence on the delay time for the Left channel delay
The value is a multiplier/offset, a value of 0.1 will offset the delay time by 10%
"LFO amt R" same as above, for Right delay channel
"Feedback" amount of feedback in the delay line, controls the number of repeats
"Fb filter" Cutoff frequency of a low pass filter applied to the feedback audio signal

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

Delay 2
Another delay unit, build exactly like Delay 1

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.

Reverb
A FDN Waveguide reverb. Based on a reverb coded in Csound by Sean Costello.

"Reverb feedback" controls reverb time. 0.8 = small hall, 0.9=large hall, 0.96 huge hall...
"Pre Delay" delay from direct signal to reverb tail
"HF damp" Hi frequency damping, the cutoff frequency of a lowpass filter in the reverb network
"LF rolloff" Low frequency damping, the cutoff frequency of a hipass filter in the reverb network
"Pitchmod" the amount of pitch modulation in the reverb delay network, too little results in a more metallic reverb while too much results in a wobbly "out of tune" reverb. 0.98 is fine for most applications.

Output Level, panning, and a level meter can be found at the bottom left of the effect window

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this effect, for dry signals and as sends to the other effects processors.



Sound List

"Sound Length"
14 value fields or number boxes that display the length the audio sample currently stored in each sample slot.
When ImproSculpt is started, these fields are empty as no sounds have been sampled yet.
As you fill up memory with live captured samples, you can use these fields as an indicator of what sound is stored in what sample slot. And of course, as an indicator that the sampling process is working as expected. A graphic representation of the waveform would have been better, but this is what we've got at the moment.

"Test Play Sounds"
Numbered buttons used for playback of single samples. Mostly for the purpose of testing that samples have been captured correctly. Playback of the sounds is done through the R.Play 1 module, so any effect sends and processing set in that module will apply to the playback.

"Save Sounds (record protect)"
When activated, these buttons will protect the corresponding sample slot from being overwritten. If the automatic "next slot" functions for selecting a sample slot for recording wants to select this slot for recording, the next non-protected slot will be used.

"Hide Sounds (don't use)"
When activated, these buttons will keep the corresponding sample from being used by the automatic/random selection functions for the R.Play modules. By combining the use of "Record Protect" and "Hide Sounds" you can keep some sounds in memory that you want to use later in your perfomance as "main themes" for example, while you continue to develop an evolving section of the music.
When a sound is explicitly selected by e.g. a Grain module, "Hide Sound" will have no effect.

"Clear Sounds"
Buttons used for clearing the contents of each sample slot. If a sample was previously stored in the corresponding slot, the "Sound Length" value field will update to show zero (0.) when the slot is cleared.



Modules

This is where you'll find most of the playback modules.
This section has the following tabs
R.Play 1, R.Play 2,
Grain 1, Grain 2, Grain 3, Grain 4,
RAGrain (Random Access Granulator)
Pad
Drumloop

R.Play
Random Player
This module gets its "start" impulses from the Rhythm Phrases found in the Rhythm Section.
On each "start" trigger, it checks if it has available polyphony, and if it has it selects a sound at random. The random selection is done from a limited set of sounds that you decide to let it choose from.
"First Sound" is the first sound/slot you want it to be able to choose
"Last Sound" is the last sound/slot you want it to be able to choose
"Polyphony" is the number of simultaneous sounds you will let it play, use this to control density of the sound image the module produce.
The button "Selection of the Shortest sounds" will cahnge the selection to e.g. the four shortest sounds stored, instead of sound slot number 1 to 4 (provided you has first sound = 1 and last sound = 4)

Transposition of the sound can be done via the dial/knob, or in semitone intervals via the buttons named 0 to 14.
There's a fairly illogical thing about the numbers on these buttons.... number 7 is "no transpose", 8 is a semitone up, 6 is a semitone down. and so on.
"Inv" button plays the sound backwards

Frequency Modulation
You can use FM on the playback of the samples, choose a modulator waveform under "Mod Wave" (saw,tri,sin,sqr), then choose a modulation index (amount), and a modulation frequency.
Enable Frequency Modulation with the button "FM on/off"
The controls to the right set up enveloping functions on the Frequency Modulation, you can set start value, middle value and end value, as well as "thru point" (the point in time where the middle value is reached. Time is relative to the length of the sample played. Enveloping are avilable both for modulation index and modulations frequency. Enveloping values are multipliers, so that a start value of 2 sets the modulation frequency to twice the value specified with the knob/dial "Mod Freq".

SV Filter
A three band filter where you can select one band at a time for output.
The controls are Cutoff, or center frequency of the filter, and Q or sharpness of the filter.

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.

Grain
This module cuts the input sound into small grains of sound. Grains can be taken from any part of the input sound, so it is possible to "stand still in time" in the sound, or do independent transposition and time streching. If the rate of new grains is slow, you will hear each segment of the original sound clearly. If the rate is fast (faster tham about 60 grains per second), the original sound will start to disintegrate and a new sound will emerge with pitch equal to the rate of new grains. If you transpose when using a high grain frequency, you will get harmonic sweep effects like overtones.
"input sound" select the sound to be processed/played back. Sound no. zero (0) will select the latest recorded sound.
"Grain Freq" already explained, the rate of new grains being generated.
"Octaviation" changes the effective grain frequency by fading out every 2nd grain, a range of 5 octaves is allowed here.
"Transp" transposition or pitch, can also be done with "semitone transpose"
"Inv" each grain will play the sound backwards
"Gliss" pitch glissando within each grain
"Inv" the direction of the glissando, up or down
"semitone transpose" changes transposition in semitone steps, like the same function in the Random Play module

"Bandwidth", "Rise", "Dec", and "Duration" controls the shape of each grain.
I consider these "advanced" controls, if you are not experienced with granular synthesis I'd suggest you leave them untouched for a start.

Time Controls
"Lfo Amt" and "Lfo Frq" controls amplitude and frequency of a Low Frequency Oscillator.
The LFO are used to modulate the "time pointer" into the input sound.
"RndAmt" sets the random amount of "jumping around" in the sound
"TimRatio" sets the relative time it will take to play bakc the sound, if "manual time point" is not enabled.
A TimRatio of 1 will play back at original speed, a ratio of 2 will play back twice as fast etc.
"Man TimPoint" Manual time pointer, if the button is enabled, the slider can be used to point to a specific part of the sound.

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.

RAGrain
A similar module to Grain, but this one needs rhythmic trigger pulses to create new grains. The pulses come from the rhythm generator in the Rhytm Section.

"input sound" select the sound to be processed/played back. Sound no. zero (0) will select the latest recorded sound.
"Transp" transposition or pitch, can also be done with "semitone transpose"
"Inv" each grain will play the sound backwards
"R.Pitch" Random pitch deviation
"Inv" the direction of the pitch deviation, up or down
"semitone transpose" changes transposition in semitone steps, like the same function in the Random Play module

Enveloping
"Rise" controls the "attack" time of each grain
"Duration" controls the duration of each grain
"Dec" controls the decay of each grain
"R.dur" controls random time deviation from Duration

StartPoint/Phase Controls
"Lfo Amt" and "Lfo Frq" controls amplitude and frequency of a Low Frequency Oscillator.
The LFO are used to modulate the "time pointer" into the input sound.
"RndAmt" sets the random amount of "jumping around" in the sound
"TimRatio" sets the relative time it will take to play bakc the sound, if "manual time point" is not enabled.
A TimRatio of 1 will play back at original speed, a ratio of 2 will play back twice as fast etc.
"Man TimPoint" Manual time pointer, if the button is enabled, the slider can be used to point to a specific part of the sound.

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.

Pad

A very simple synth pad, mostly for testing of audio out when not having audio in.
This is a "leftover" from earlier versions of ImproSculpt,
I will probably have it removed.
Push the buttons to start some notes.

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.

Drumloop

A drumloop player. Well, you could play back any audio loops really...
The loops must be loaded from disk when starting ImproSculpt, this is done automatically.
If you want to change the drumloops loaded, contact me for help.

The selected loop is started upon the beat of 1 in the next measure after the module has been activated.
Master "Rhythm On" must be activated for this to work,
and the Loop "On" button in the Mixer Section must also be activated.
The loop is restarted every 2nd measure, and it is pitched so that it fills exactly two measures.
This way, it will follow tempo changes done in the master rhythm section.

"Loop no" selects the loop from playback
"pitch/tempo" tempo multiplier, if set to 1 playback at original pitch, at 0.5 playbac at half speed and pitch.

BBCut parameters
There's a beat cutting algorithm, cutting the loop semi-randomly into smaller chunks and creating non-repeating variations on the preprogrammed loops. This is based on the Csound opcode bbcutm introduced by Nick Collins.
"subdiv" smallest subdivisions of a measure you might want to cut at
"barlength" this many beats to one bar
"phrasebar" max lenght of one cutting phrase
"num rep" max number of repeats in the cutting
"stutr speed" the algorithm can create faster repeating cuts at the end of each phrase, this controls the speed of the stuttering
"stutr chance" probablity for a stutter to occur
"envelope" select if each cut should get an "anti-click" envelope, or if you would like to use the clicks for creative purposes

"Clean/BBCut balance sets the balance between the clean uncut loop sound and the cut-up version of it. I find that values from 0 to 50 is to my liking.
"drumloop amplitude" is just an extra volume control, to be able to boost or dampen the drumloop material according to the levels of the sampled sounds.

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.

 

Pitch Tracker
(separate window)

A pitch tracker sampler.
Audio input is analyzed for pitch and amplitude, this information is stored in RAM, the rest of the audio information is thrown away by this module.
You can play back the pitch melodies recorded and use them to control various parameters in ImproSculpt playback modules.

Record
"Sample Pitch" acitvates the pitch tracking and storing
"Pitch mel.no" selects a "slot" where pitch and amplitude is to be stored
Beware, there's a bug currently making it impossible to store to more than one "melody slot" at a time.
If you first record something to slot 1, and then record something to slot 2, the info in slot 1 will become garbled.
I'm working ti fix this. For now, use only slot 1.

Playback
"Grain2Freq" uses the pitch information to control grain frequency of Grain2 module
"Freq Multi" transposes the pitch melody up/down in octaves
"Amp enable" enables the amplitude inforamtion stored with the pitch melody to control output volume of Grain2 module
"Amp Amount" factor for setting how much the output amplitude should be affected by the pitch melody amp
"Amp thresh" sets a lower threshold for the output amplitude of Grain 2 as controlled by pitch melody
"Pitch mel no" select which pitch melody to be used, use only 1 for now
"retrig measure" if this is set to zero (0), the melody will play once when the Grain2Freq button is pressed,
if it is set to a positive number, the pitch melody will be retrigged every so many measures. Useful for creating parameter change loops.

"Grain2Transp" uses the pitch information to control grain transpose of Grain 2 module
- the rest of the parameters for this function corresponds to those described for Grain2Freq

"FMfreq" uses the pitch information to control modulator frequency of the FM send effect in the Mixer module
- the rest of the parameters for this function corresponds to those described for Grain2Freq

"RMfreq" uses the pitch information to control modulator frequency of the FM send effect in the Mixer module
- the rest of the parameters for this function corresponds to those described for Grain2Freq

"BassSynth" uses the pitch information to control pitch and amplitude of a Bass synthesizer
"Out Amp" sets the initial volume for the bass synth
"Amp Follow" sets the amount of amplitude variation allowed on the bass synth, amplitude variation is controlled by the analyzed amplitude of the input signal
- the rest of the parameters for this function corresponds to those described for Grain2Freq

Effect sends (for Bass synthesizer only)
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.

 

Pattern Sequencer
(separate window)

A step sequencer inspired by e.g. FruityLoops.
The numbered buttons corresponds to 16th notes in a grid,
making it possible to program patterns that will trig a certain sample.
Some controls are provided to change the sonic character of each 16th note trigged.
A sample trigged in this module will play for its full duration, care should be taken not to use too long samples as they will be layered on top of each other.
There are three identical "pattern track modules" for three independent programmable patterns
The master "Rhythm On" button in the ImproSculpt window must be aneble for thos mudule to work.

Patterns
"sample no" select the sound to be used in this pattern
"shortest" use the nth shortest sound instead of the sound stored at slot n
for example, you select 3 in "sample no", and enable "shortest", the third shortest sound recorded will be used for this track.
Buttons "1", "2", "3" etc. used to program the rhytmic repeating pattern, corresponds to a grid of 16th notes.
"fm freq" frequency modulation is available separately for each 16th note trigger, "fm freq" sets the modulation frequency
"fm index" master control for modulation index
Each of the 16 number boxes set directly to the right of "fm index" sets a multiplicator value that controls fm index separately for that 16th note
"filter Q" sets the Q or sharpness/resonance of a Low Pass filter
"cutoff" sets the cutoff frequency of the Low Pass filter.
Each of the 16 number boxes set directly to the right of "cutoff" sets a multiplicator value that controls cutoff separately for that 16th note
"fade in" optional fade in for all notes in this pattern, allowing for smooth non-attack patterns. The value is relative to the length of the sample used in the pattern.
"fade out" optional fade out for all notes in this pattern. The value is relative to the length of the sample used in the pattern.
Each of the 16 number boxes set directly to the right of "fade out" sets a multiplicator value that controls duration separately for that 16th note. Duration is relative to the length of the sample used in the pattern.

Effect sends
This controls the mixing of signals from this module into the main mixer, for dry signals and as sends to the effects processors.


Getting Started

Here's a few quick things to try, to get you started playing with ImproSculpt.

Test audio out:
1. Activate the "Rhythm On" button found near the top middle of the ImproSculpt window.
2. Activate the "Metro" button found a little way down from the "Rhythm On" button.
3. You shold hear a Bass Drum beating a slow steady rhytm.
4. Activate the Loop "On" button in the Mixer section
5. You should soon hear a drumloop playing in time with the Bass drum metronome
6. Activate the Pad "On" button in the Mixer section
7. You should hear a smooth synth pad note

Test audio in:
1. Activate the "Auto Sampling" button in the top left area of the ImproSculpt window, use the "Input 1" section to test. This corresponds to the "left" input on your audio card/hardware.
2. Check that you can see movement in the green level meter to the left of the "Auto Sampling" button, you should see the vertical green area become red corresponding to the audio input level.
3. Activate the "Auto Cycle Slot" button
4. Watch the numbers appearing in the value fields named "Sound Length" in the "Sound List" section, this is in the lower right area of the ImproSulpt window.
5. Activate the Rplay1 "On" button in the Mixer section
6. Activate the "Rhythm On" button found near the top middle of the ImproSculpt window
7. You shold hear a random but rhythmic pattern of the sounds you've just recorded