FUNKBOX Instruction Manual
CHAPTER 2: THE FUNK TAB
Figure 2: Funk tab screen
FUNK TAB DETAILS:
A: START/STOP BUTTON
Press this button to start and stop the drum machine. When the drum machine is playing, the LED should blink in time with the beat.
B: TEMPO/SWING ADJUST
Move the slider control to change the speed of the drum pattern to your desired tempo. The numerical value of the current tempo in beats per minute (BPM) will be shown in the LED display. The fine tempo control buttons can be used to nudge the tempo +/- 0.1 BPM. The tempo will be saved with the pattern.
As of v2.0, you can now also adjust the swing amount of the pattern here, by selecting the SWING button below the slider, and then adjusting the slider. Left (50) is a straight beat with no swing, as you move to the right the amount of swing will increase.
Another new v2.0 addition is tap tempo. If you press the TAP button the tempo slider will be replaced with a TAP TEMPO button. Tap on that button a few times to set the tempo by feel rather than numerically.
C: PATTERN SELECTION BUTTONS
Press any of the twelve colored button to choose the specific beat pattern to play and edit. You can switch back and forth between patterns in real time as the beat plays. Changes you make in the Mixer, Edit, and Box tabs will be automatically saved to this pattern, as will tempo and swing values.
A new fun v2.0 feature allows you to press multiple buttons at the same time. In regular queue mode (pattern queue switch is down), this will cause two patterns to play at the same time, much like you could do with older drum boxes by jamming a couple buttons together. The primary pattern (first button pressed) will play and set the tempo, the secondary pattern (last button pressed) will fill in if the primary pattern isn't playing anything. If the two patterns are set to use different drum boxes, it will allow both to play their own drum box sounds, so two different boxes at once, allowing you to get some more complex sound patterns going.
In pattern queue mode (pattern queue switch is up), pressing multiple buttons allows you to queue up multiple patterns to be played one after the other. Try this by pressing the FUNK-1 button and keeping it held down while you press the DISCO-3 button, then releasing them. FunkBox will play FUNK-1, then FUNK-2, then FUNK-3, through to DISCO-3, then start over again at FUNK-1. This allows you to get much longer pattern sequences running by chaining them together.
D: BANK SELECTION BUTTONS
FunkBox has 3 separate memory banks,and you choose them with these "A" "B" and "C" buttons. Each of those banks contains 12 patterns, represented by the colored preset buttons (C). So you have a total of 3 banks x 12 patterns, or 36 patterns loaded into memory at any time. As you switch between banks by pressing "A" "B" or "C", you will see the names of the pattern buttons change as well, for example from FUNK-1 to FUNK-3 to FUNK-5.
E: TEMPO LOCK AND PATTERN QUEUE SWITCHES
When the tempo lock switch is activated (up), the tempo and swing is kept constant even when you switch to other patterns using the (C) buttons. If it is not activated (down), when you switch to a new pattern the tempo/swing of the new pattern will be used, which can cause the tempo/swing to change abruptly.
When the pattern queue switch is activated (up), new patterns will not start playing until the currently playing pattern is finished. If it is not activated (down), FunkBox will immediately switch to the newly selected pattern. This switch also effects what happens when you press multiple pattern buttons at the same time, see section (C) for details.
F: PATTERN STORAGE AND COPY BEAT BUTTONS
The pattern storage button will bring up a new page that allows you to load and save your drum patterns. See the section of "Pattern Storage Load/Save" for more details.
The copy button allows you to copy a pattern from one slot to another slot. First select the pattern you wish to copy from by pressing its Pattern Selection Button (C). Then press the Copy Beat Button (F). The Copy Beat LED should now be flashing, indicating it is ready to copy a beat to a new location. Choose the destination pattern location by pressing a new Pattern Selection Button (C). Finally, press the Copy Beat Button (F) one more time.The beat pattern from the original slot you chose will then be copied from the original pattern to the new pattern, overwriting any existing data.