Count title card: the module name over a six channel clock descriptor, with the narrow panel alongside showing six rows of div, mask and output

Count is a narrow clock. Set a tempo, or patch one, set a number of STEPS, and each of the six outputs plays its own rate and its own mask over that cycle.

8 HP. Two knobs per output, so six outputs is twelve knobs and no menus.

Div and mask

DIV is that output’s rate, from /64 to x64, including 1.5, 3 and 5 each way, so you get triplets and quintuplets alongside the powers of two.

MASK picks which of that output’s own pulses actually sound: all, odd, even, pairs, threes, fours, front half, back half, three Euclidean patterns, bursts, the downbeat, or none.

Each output counts its own pulses. An output at x2 runs the cycle twice as fast, so its mask repeats twice as often rather than being stretched over the bar. That is the whole trick: the two knobs compose instead of fighting.

The Euclidean masks take their density from STEPS, which is why there is no second selector for them.

Clocking

With nothing patched, BPM sets the tempo. Patch CLOCK and Count locks to it at one pulse per beat, landing each beat exactly on the pulse.

RESET returns every output to the start of its cycle.

Controls

BPM, STEPS, and a DIV and MASK for each of the six outputs.

Inputs and outputs

Inputs: BPM CV, Steps CV, Clock, Reset.

Outputs: six gates.

Gate length: half the pulse by default, or a 5 ms trigger.

Per-output rotation and offset: rotation walks a mask round the bar every cycle, an offset shifts it once and leaves it there.

Patch ideas

A kit from one module. Six outputs into six drums. Kick on the downbeat mask, hat on all at x2, snare on the back half, and a Euclidean on the percussion.

Polyrhythm without arithmetic. Leave every mask on all and set DIV to x3, x5 and x1. The three drift against each other and come back together on the cycle.

One pattern, moving. Turn on rotation for one output. Its mask walks round the bar a step at a time, so the part changes every cycle without you touching it.

Slaved to the patch. Meter’s quarter into CLOCK and Count inherits the patch’s tempo, including anything Meter is doing with time signatures.