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RENDERWAVERENDERWAVE

Step Sequencer

The step sequencer captures snapshots of a shader’s parameter state into numbered steps, then plays them back in a loop with smooth motion between each one. Use it to turn a static look into a moving one. It also builds the saved looks on your Performance grid.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”

A shader can have anywhere from 1 to 16 steps, set from the step count menu in the sequencer panel.

  • Capture a step by long-pressing it. This records the shader’s current parameter values, and its current effect states, into that step.
  • Recall a step by tapping it. This loads the step’s saved values back onto the live parameters. Recall opens no editing session, so tweaks you make after a recall never write back to the step on their own. Long-press it again to re-capture and update it.
  • Clear all steps with the trash icon if you want to start a pattern over.

Playing it back

Section titled “Playing it back”

Press play and the sequencer advances through your steps in order, looping back to the first once it reaches the end.

Float and color parameters, things like scale, speed, or hue, blend smoothly from one step’s value to the next, so motion between steps reads as continuous animation instead of a jump cut. Whole-number and on/off parameters cannot blend the same way. They hold their current step’s value, then snap to the next step’s value partway through the transition.

Advance modes

Section titled “Advance modes”

Choose how the sequencer decides when to move to the next step:

  • Time. A fixed number of seconds per step, from 0.25 to 16 seconds on the duration slider.
  • 1 Beat / 4 Beats / 1 Bar / 4 Bars. Locked to the track’s tempo instead of a clock, so the pattern lands on the beat. See BPM and tap tempo and Beat-synced visuals for how RENDERWAVE tracks tempo.

Switching to a tempo-synced mode hides the seconds-per-step slider, since it no longer applies.

Sequencer presets: the saved looks on your grid

Section titled “Sequencer presets: the saved looks on your grid”

Saving a sequencer preset captures everything at once: the live parameter state, the step pattern, effect states, and audio modulation, bundled together under one name. This is the saved look that lands on your Performance grid as a playable cell, tap it and the shader, its parameters, its steps, and its effects all switch together.

This is a different, richer preset than the ones covered in Parameter presets, which store parameters and audio assignments only and never carry a step pattern or appear on the grid.

From the sequencer preset menu you can:

  • Save the current parameters and step pattern as a new named preset.
  • Apply a saved preset, loading its parameters and step pattern onto the live shader.
  • Set Default, marking one preset as the one that loads automatically the moment you select that shader.
  • Delete a preset you no longer need.

Sequencer presets are scoped to the show you build them in, just like bookmarks and MIDI mappings. See Shows for what that isolation means.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”