Beat Repeat is a beat loop effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Loops the last fraction of a beat over the end of the bar, rolling as it goes.
Runs live on video, images, a camera or generated art. Stack it with any other effect, and route LFOs, envelopes or any of ten audio bands to its controls so it moves with the music.
Over the end of every four-beat bar, replays the moment just before the gate opened, over and over. Slice sets that loop from an eighth of a beat to a whole one, Gate how much of the bar it covers counting back from the barline, and Roll halves the slice as the gate runs. Flip reverses every other repeat, and Slip offsets bands of the frame in time and sideways.
Using Beat Repeat
Where it works
Builds into a drop and the last bar of a phrase, where the picture stutters the way a DJ's loop roll does. Needs footage or a moving stack to show more than the Slip bands.
With the music
Follows the beat grid by itself, or 120 BPM when there isn't one. MIDI-map Gate to a fader so you choose which bars stutter, and put a four-bar synced LFO on Roll so the stutter only accelerates at phrase ends.
Starting point
Slice at a quarter, Gate at centre, Roll at centre, Flip at a quarter, Slip at a quarter, Direction on Rows.
Controls
Slice
Length of the loop, from an eighth of a beat to a whole one.
Gate
How much of each bar the repeat covers, counted back from the barline.
Roll
Halve the slice as the gate runs, for the accelerating stutter.
Flip
Run every other repeat backwards.
Slip
Cut the frame into bands that sit at different moments.
