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■ Made in Sweden

Version
, Menu and Dialog Reference
2.1
Change the tempo of a groove without altering its pitch – and vice versa! , Change the feel of your grooves, or quantize them! , Create endless variations and fills out of a single loop! , Total Loop Control
Operation Manual by Synkron:
Ludvig Carlson, Anders Nordmark and Roger Wiklander.

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and

does not represent a commitment on the part of Propellerhead Software AB.
The software described herein is subject to a License Agreement and may not
be copied to any other media expect as specifically allowed in the License
Agreement. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or
otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written
permission by Propellerhead Software AB.

© 2003 Propellerhead Software and its licensors. All specifications subject to

change without notice. Reason is a trademark of Propellerhead Software. All
other commercial symbols are protected trademarks and trade names of their
respective holders. All rights reserved.
1 D The ReCycle Menu
 About ReCycle... Preferences - General
D When “Always Move Left Locator to First Slice Point” is activated,
Selecting this brings up a window showing you the version of the program and a ReCycle will automatically place the Left Locator on the first slice
list of the fine people involved in creating it. point when you Open or Receive a sample.
If this is not activated when you Open or Receive a sample with no loop set-
To close the About ReCycle window, click anywhere in it. ting, or the loop start is just at the beginning of the sample, a dialog appears
suggesting you should let the program move the Left Locator to the first
slice point. This is to avoid very short slices at the beginning of the sample, It
is recommended that you do this, unless you have a good reason not to.
Preferences D If “Set Bars to 1 in New Documents” is ticked, any new audio file
will open up with Preview mode activated, and the Tempo calcu-
The Preferences dialog is used to make audio settings, to set some general op- lated to the length being one bar.
tions for how the program operates, and to customize the look of the waveform Note that this will lead to files playing back at the wrong tempo if the loop
display. isn’t exactly one bar! You can always change the number of bars later of
course, and the tempo will be recalculated according to the bars setting.
Preferences - Audio D If “Export as one Sample will Crop to Loop” is activated, the end of
a file will be cropped exactly at the Right Locator position, omitting
Selecting an Audio Driver any stretch tail that may be present beyond this point.
All available drivers are listed on the Audio Card Driver pop-up menu. D If “Use large Toolbar icons” is checked, the size of the Toolbar
icons will become slightly larger.
D If you are using audio hardware for which there is a specific ASIO
driver, you should select this. D If “Show Status Bar” is unchecked the Status Bar will be hidden.
With an ASIO driver written specifically for the audio hardware, ReCycle 2.1
can communicate more or less directly with the audio hardware. D The “Units on Horizontal Ruler” allows you to set whether Time (in
seconds) or number of Samples should be displayed on the hori-
D If you plan to use the internal audio outputs on your computer, zontal ruler.
please select “Built-In Audio Controller”.
This is named “CoreAudio” driver under certain versions of OS X. Preferences - Waveform
D If you have some additional audio hardware (such as USB-speak- You can customize the look of the Waveform window by using the settings at
ers) installed, please select “SM Device Name”, where “Device the bottom of the Preferences dialog:
Name” is the name of your audio hardware.
D If you have an audio card with multiple outputs, you can select The “View stereo files as sum of L+R” Option
which output pair you wish ReCycle to use by clicking the “Chan-
nels...” button. If this item is ticked, the left and right channels of stereo files will be summed to
This item will not be selectable if you use a card with only a regular stereo one channel, instead of being stacked on top of each other. Note that this is a
output. display option only, the actual audio material is not affected.

Setting the Buffer Size Waveform Color

You can adjust the latency value by using the Buffer Size slider. The highest and Click this button to select a new color for the waveform. This brings up a stan-
lowest possible values depend on the driver. dard OS X color dialog. A color field shows you the current color selection.

2 THE RECYCLE MENU

Waveform Look
Use this pop-up menu to select one of three different waveform “looks”; Plain,
3D or Shaded. Plain displays the waveform with normal graphics, 3D adds a
depth effect to the graphics and Shaded adds a progressive shade to the lower
part of the waveform.

Contrast Slider
This slider sets the amount of contrast between the background display and the
waveform. For maximum contrast, position the slider all the way to the right. Mov-
ing the slider to the left progressively adds more of the chosen waveform color
to the background display.

THE RECYCLE MENU 3

4 THE RECYCLE MENU
2 D The File Menu
 Open... About The Different File Formats
ReCycle can load mono or stereo files that meet the following criteria:
This dialog is used to load audio files from the hard disk. The dialog is a standard • The bit depth can be 8, 16 or 24 bits.
file dialog with some additions. • Sample rates between 11.025 kHz to 1.0 MHz are supported.
• The file is not longer than 5 minutes (regardless of sample rate and mono/
File Info stereo status).

When you select a file in the list, information about file type, length, etc is shown The table below shows the supported file formats.
in the lower part of the Open dialog.
For all recognized audio file formats, the following information is displayed: | Name | Extension | Comment
• File Type (see About The Different File Formats). ReCycle RX2/RCY/ REX2 is the native file format created when you
• Number of channels. REX save in ReCycle. RCY/REX are ReCycle files that
• File Length. were created with previous versions of ReCycle.
• Bit depth. Wave WAV The standard Microsoft file format for audio. May be
• Sample Frequency. in formats other than 16-bits.
• File Size, in Bytes (For REX2 files the data compression ratio is displayed in
Audio IFF AIF Audio Interchange File Format; Apple’s standard
parentheses. For example, 2.4:1 means that the file was 2.4 times larger be-
(AIFF) audio file format. May be in formats other than 16-
fore it was compressed).
bits.
If the file is a ReCycle file, the following additional information is displayed:
• Tempo.
About Split Stereo Files
• Time signature.
• Length in bars and beats. ReCycle can load Split stereo files (commonly used in Logic and Pro Tools).
• Usage, which tells you the size of the loop (i.e the audio between the loca- Split stereo files have the extension “L” or “R”. If you load a file with one of these
tors) in relation to the total file size in percent. extensions, ReCycle will automatically scan for a opposite match and load this at
• The number of slices in the file (only available if a REX2 file is selected). the same time. For the match to work, the split files have to have the same name
• Export Size tells you the size of the file if exported (only available if a REX2 (apart from the extension), size, bit rate and be located in the same folder.
file is selected).

Play and Stop buttons

When you click the Play button, the selected file will be played back. If you wish
Close
to stop playback before the file ends, click Stop.
This closes the active document. If there are unsaved changes, you will get the
option to save the changes or to cancel the operation.
Auto Play
If this option is on (ticked), playback will start automatically as soon as a new file
is selected from the dialog. If a new file is selected during playback, the previous
selection will stop and playback of the new selection will start directly.
You will not be able to play a file under the following conditions:
Save
• If the file is in a format ReCycle doesn’t support. This saves any changes made to the file since you last saved. If the file hasn't
been saved before, the Save dialog comes up asking you to specify a name and
• If there isn’t enough memory (RAM) left to load the sample.
location for the file. Files are saved as REX2 files, the native ReCycle file format.
• If the sample is longer than 30 seconds it won’t play automatically (but you
can audition it with the Play button).

6 THE FILE MENU

Save As... | Name
Mixman Track File
| Ext.
TRK
| Comment
Mixman TRK files are the building blocks in the
Mixman Studio and Mixman Studio Pro applica-
This dialog box allows you to save as a REX2 file to disk and specify the name
tions. To facilitate tempo-matching, the Mixman
and location for the file.
TRK files contain “slices” internally (somewhat
like ReCycle files). A single file is created. If the
exported document is based on a stereo file, an
alert box will appear informing you that the file
Save All will be mixed to mono, since Mixman files are al-
ways mono.
Save All saves all open documents. For new documents, that have not previ- SampleCell Instru- INS Digidesign’s SampleCell is a PCI based sampler
ously been saved as REX2 files, the Save As dialog is used. If Cancel is selected ment File card/software editor for both the Mac OS and
the entire Save All operation is cancelled. Save All is disabled on the menu if no Windows platforms. ReCycle exports an Instru-
open documents need to be saved. ment file plus one or several sound files, with
one slice in each file, depending on the “Export
as One Sample” setting on the Process menu.

Export Sound SoundFonts 2 Banks SF2 SoundFont is a file format for storing wavetable
synthesized sounds. Effectively, this turns an or-
dinary sound card into a sampler. Creates a sin-
The Export Sound dialog is used if you want to save your files in other formats for gle SF2 file when exported, with the option to
which the program saves audio files on your computer’s hard disk. export a MIDI file with the same name.
Akai S5000/S6000 AKP Exports a program file together with one or sev-
File Formats Program Files eral audio files, with one slice in each file, de-
The File Format pop-up is where you select the file format you wish to export the pending on the “Export as One Sample” setting
file as. The following file formats are supported: on the Process menu.

| Name | Ext. | Comment

Before exporting a file in one of the supported formats, the Export Settings dia-
Standard MIDI File MID Allows you to export a Standard MIDI file. This
can be used if you only want to create a MIDI log is shown. This contains the following options:
File (for example when using ReCycle to create
“groove maps”). D Two pop-up menus allows you to change the sample rate and/or bit
depth when Exporting.
Wave WAV The standard Microsoft file format for audio. Ex-
ports one or several files, with one slice in each D An “Export MIDI File with Same Name” checkbox.
file, depending on the “Export as One Sample” When checked, a MIDI file with the specified name will be generated to-
setting on the Process menu. gether with the exported file.

Audio IFF AIF Audio Interchange File Format; Apple’s standard

(AIFF) audio file format. Exports one or several files,
with one slice in each file, depending on the “Ex-
port as One Sample” setting on the Process File Quick Selection List
menu.
The most recently loaded files are listed on the File menu. Selecting one opens
it.

THE FILE MENU 7

 Quit
This simply quits the program. If you have any unsaved changes you will be
asked whether yo want to save them before quitting.

8 THE FILE MENU

3 D The Edit Menu
 Undo/Redo Invert Selection
Virtually all actions in ReCycle 2.0 can be undone. You can undo up to 10 ac- If you have a selection of markers, you can invert the selection by using “Invert
tions. Selection”. After this operation, the markers that were previously selected are
now deselected, and vice versa. This is mainly useful together with Silence Se-
D To undo the latest action, select “Undo” from the Edit menu or lected, to extract individual sounds from a loop.
press -[Z].
The action to be undone is indicated next to the Undo command on the Edit
menu.
D To redo the last undone action (“undo the undo operation”), select
“Redo” from the Edit menu or press [Command]/[Ctrl]-[Y].
Similarly, the action to be redone is shown on the Edit menu.

Copy Loop
You can use “Copy Loop” to copy the entire loop (i.e. all waveform data be-
tween the left and right locators) to the Clipboard. You can also use the key
command -[C] for this item.

Paste as New Document

If the Clipboard contains data, this can be pasted into a new (automatically cre-
ated) document window by using the “Paste as New Document” menu item.
You can also use the key command -[V] for this item.

Delete
“Delete” will delete all selected slice markers. You can also use the [Delete] but-
ton on your computer keyboard for this.

Select All
The “Select All” menu item will select all slice markers in the active document.
You can also use the key command -[A] for this.

10 THE EDIT MENU

4 D The View Menu
 The Effects Activating Effects
Effects can be active regardless of whether the panel is visible or not. There are
The Envelope, Equalizer and Transient Shaper items open the effect panels for two ways you can activate effects:
the respective effect. These menu items do not activate or deactivate the ef- D By clicking on the Effect On/Off button for an open panel.
fects, they only bring the effect panels into view. When an effect is on (activated), the On/Off button is lit up, and a blue dot is
ReCycle features three effect processors, Envelope, Equalizer, and Transient shown in the effect button for the corresponding effect.
Shaper, that can be used to further manipulate audio loops. D By holding down [Option] (Mac) / [Alt] (Win) and clicking on an ef-
D All effects are applied globally, i.e. they will affect all slices equally fect button you can toggle the effect on and off.
in a loop. The green dot in the corresponding Effect button is greyed out if the effect is
deactivated.
D To be able to apply the effects, Preview mode must be activated.
To activate Preview mode for an audio file (as opposed to a ReCycle file) About the Presets
you must first have set up the left and right locators, specified the length and
time signature of the loop and created a sufficient number of slices (see the For each Effect there are a number of preset settings available.
previous chapter). You could also load ReCycle files for further processing,
in which case these settings have already been made and you can apply ef- D To select a Preset, click on the Preset button beside the Effect On/
fects in Preview mode directly. Off button.
A pop-up menu appears with the available Presets listed.
D When using effects, the principle “what you hear is what you get” The Effect Presets button.
applies to the end result when saving the file.
! It is not possible to store user presets.
! For a full description of each effect see Effect Parameters.

Open the Effect Panels

The three Effect buttons (from left to right); Envelope, Transient Shaper and Equalizer.

The three effects each have their own panel, containing the parameters. By
clicking on one of the effect buttons located to the left of the transport controls,
the corresponding panel is shown below the toolbar. You can also open the ef-
fect panels from the View menu.
D The left to right order of the buttons also reflects the internal signal
path of the effects.
If all are activated, Envelope is always the first effect in the signal path, the
Transient Shaper is the second, and Equalizer is the last.

12 THE VIEW MENU

Effect Parameters The Amount of Stretch
The Stretch knob is used to set the amount of stretch as a percentage value.

Envelope
To open the Envelope processor, click on the Envelope button, or select Enve-
lope from the View menu.
The percentage values tell you how much longer the entire sample will be after
The Envelope Attack and Decay parameters govern how the volume of a slice stretching. If you select the largest value (100%), for example, the slice will be-
should change over time, from the time it is triggered (the slice note starts) until come twice its original length.
the slice note ends. This can be used to make a loop more distinct (by having a
snappy attack and a short decay time) or more spaced-out (by raising the attack D To decide how much stretch you need, lower the Preview tempo by
time). the same amount as you intend to use, and adjust the Stretch pa-
The Envelope panel also features a third parameter; “Stretch”, which is de- rameter as necessary.
scribed separately below. If there is a discernible gap of silence between slices you should raise the
Stretch setting.
D The Attack parameter determines the attack length (in millisec-
onds) for each slice. ! Note that Stretch is not Time Stretch! The Stretch feature doesn't
The higher the setting, the slower the attack. Parameter range is 0 - 430 ms. lengthen the whole slice, it only adds a portion of sound to the end
of it.
D The Decay parameter controls the length of the end portion (tail) of
each slice.
The more the knob is turned anti-clockwise, the shorter the decay. Range is Stretch and the old ReCycle Formats
27ms - Infinite (=full decay).
You should be aware of the fact that REX (as opposed to REX2) files can con-
This feature is used when you know you might want to lower the tempo of the tain certain settings that are irreversible. For example, if stretch was applied
loop in your sequencer. when the file was saved, the stretching is part of the actual REX file and cannot
be removed. It is possible, however, to apply more stretch, which may or may not
be what you want.
How Stretch works
D For REX files it is therefore advisable to try lowering the tempo in
When you slice up a loop and play it back from your sequencer, each sample will
Preview mode first, to see if you actually need to apply Stretch.
play in succession. At the original tempo, one slice will end exactly where an-
REX2 files however, only contains the actual audio file and the slices, the
other starts.
rest (effects, stretch setting etc.) is added when the file is loaded and can be
As you understand, when you then lower the tempo, there will be small gaps be- changed at any time.
tween the slices, which disrupts the flow of the audio.
Stretch is used to add an extra tail of audio to each slice, to lengthen it. This is
derived from the natural decay of the sound. This extra tail of sound then fills out
the gap between the slices when the tempo is lowered.

! Please note that the attack of the sound is not affected in any way.

THE VIEW MENU 13

 Transient Shaper Equalizer
The Transient Shaper is a type of attack/release envelope control, which pro- The Equalizer allows you to cut or boost selected frequencies to shape the over-
duces a result that could be likened to compression. Compressors level out the all sound quality. To open the Equalizer, click on the Equalizer button or select it
audio, by making loud sounds softer and vice versa. The result is that the levels on the View menu. The parameters are as follows:
become more even and individual sounds can get more power and “punch”.
• “Normal” compressors are triggered by peaks and volume changes in the | Parameter | Description
actual audio. The Transient Shaper is instead triggered by the individual Lo Cut A highpass filter allowing you to set the lower limit
slices in the loop. of the overall frequency range. You can progres-
Regardless of method, if you have ever used a compressor, you will find that the sively cut frequencies from 15 Hz up to 12 kHz.
Transient Shaper will affect the sound in a similar way. It is, however, important Low Frequency The center frequency for the low-end parametric
to be aware of this difference, as the Transient Shaper won’t work as intended equalization. Around this frequency, the sound will
unless the file contains slices! be boosted or cut according to the Low Gain set-
To compensate for the volume loss that can be caused by this effect, the Tran- ting. The available frequency range is 20 Hz to 3
sient Shaper has automatic gain compensation, that raises the overall level by a kHz.
suitable amount. The parameters are as follows:
Low Gain Governs the amount of boost or cut around the set
frequency. The range is ± 18dB.
| Parameter | Description
Threshold This is the threshold level above which the effect sets in. Sig- Low Q Determines the width of the frequency band
nals with levels above the threshold will be affected, signals around the center frequency to be affected. The
below it will not. narrower the frequency band, the more drastic ef-
In practice, this means that the lower the Threshold setting, the fect of the boost or cut. Range is 0.5 to 10.
more the signal will be affected by the Transient Shaper. The
High Frequency The center frequency for the high-end parametric
range is -6 to -40 dB.
equalization. Around this frequency, the sound will
Amount This lets you specify the amount of gain reduction applied to be boosted or cut according to the High Gain set-
the signals above the set threshold. The range is 0 to 99. ting. The available frequency range is 1.5 kHz to 16
kHz.
Attack This governs how quickly the envelope will apply its effect
when signals rise above the set threshold. If you raise this High Gain Governs the amount of boost or cut around the set
value, the response will be slower, allowing more of the signal frequency. The range is ± 18dB.
to pass through unaffected. Typically, this is used for preserv-
High Q Determines the width of the frequency band
ing the attacks of the sounds. The range is 0 to 91 ms.
around the center frequency to be affected. The
Release When the signal level drops below the set threshold, this de- narrower the frequency band, the more drastic ef-
termines how long it takes before the Transient Shaper lets the fect of the boost or cut. Range is 0.5 to 10.
sound through unaffected. Set this to short values for intense,
Hi Cut A lowpass filter allowing you to set the upper limit
“pumping” compressor effects, or to longer values for a
of the overall frequency range. You can progres-
smoother change of the dynamics. The range is 13 ms to 1.4 s.
sively cut frequencies from 20 kHz down to 100
Gain meter This shows the amount of gain reduction or increase (in dB), Hz.
caused by the combined compression and gain compensation.

14 THE VIEW MENU

Magnify to Fit/Magnify to
fit Loop
If you select Magnify to Fit, the display will zoom out so that the entire sample fits
the window. If Magnify to Fit Loop is selected, the display will zoom in (or out) so
that the area between the left and right locators will fit the window.

Jump to Cursor
If this is selected, the window will scroll to the current play position, maintaining
the current magnification factor.

Show Grid
You must have set a loop length for this item to be available. When enabled, a
grid showing Bars/Beats/16th notes is shown in the waveform display.

Scroll during Playback

When you play back, the current position is indicated by a dotted line travelling
across the waveform. If the option "Scroll during Playback" is checked on the
View menu, the current position will always be displayed in the waveform dis-
play. This option can also be toggled on or off by pressing [F] on your computer
keyboard.

THE VIEW MENU 15

16 THE VIEW MENU
5 D The Process Menu
 Export as One Sample Silence Selected
When this function is activated, the slices that have selected markers will be si-
Deactivated lenced when exported or saved. Preview mode can be used to audition this
When Export As One Sample is turned off, the audio gets sliced into individual function.
samples when exported, and the MIDI files created will contain one note for
each of those slices.

! This is the preferred mode if you want to use your MIDI sequencer
to edit the loop, change its tempo or use the MIDI file as a groove.

Activated
When Export As One Sample is turned on, the program will save/export the part
that stretches from the Left Locator to the Right as one sample. Also, in this
mode, the MIDI File will only consist of one event, with the length set using the
Bars and Beats settings. When Silence Selected is turned on, the slices which have selected markers...

When should Export as One Sample be Activated?

One obvious application of exporting as one sample (as opposed to separate
slices) is when you simply want to change the properties (like pitch and/or
tempo) of an audio file without otherwise changing it. Say you have an audio file
(Wave, Aif etc.) that you wish to use in a song. The problem is that the tempo
and/or the pitch of the file is wrong for the song, and you wish to fix this. The so-
lution is to open the file in ReCycle, then slice it up and set the length of the loop
using the normal techniques. Enter Preview mode, set the new tempo and/or
pitch, and lastly export the file (with Export as one Sample activated) in it’s orig-
inal format but with a new tempo and/or pitch etc. ...will be replaced by silence.
Export as One Sample cam also be used in conjunction with Silence Selected
This feature is probably best used when Export As One Sample is turned on, to
to separate sounds from a loop.
silence individual sounds in a longer sample. It can also be used to simply skip
unwanted sounds, when slicing.
But, Silence Selected works even if Export As One Sample is turned off. In this
case, the selected slices will simply be skipped when creating MIDI Files. This
will then create a “gap” in the MIDI File.

18 THE PROCESS MENU

Normalize Crop Loop
Normalize will change the gain to ensure maximum level. D Crop Loop allows you to trim files, by removing all audio data out-
side the left and right locators.
D When Normalize is selected, a dialog box appears asking if you If you have set up a perfect loop with the locators, and the file contains audio
want to Normalize the whole file or each slice. outside this locator range you can use Crop Loop to remove this superfluous
If you select the latter, and the selected file is a rhythmic loop, the normaliz- data.
ing will disrupt the inherent dynamics of the loop, since the gain of each slice
will be changed to more or less equal level.
Therefore, normalizing the whole file is probably what you would normally se-
lect.
D Normalizing each slice can be used when you use ReCycle to pro-
Remove DC
cess individual sounds that don’t belong to a loop.
This function will remove any DC offset in the audio. DC offset is when there is
too large a DC (direct current) component in the signal, sometimes visible as the
! Normalize can’t do miracles. If your recording contains unwanted signal not being visually centered around the “zero level axis”. DC offset can in-
noise, normalizing will increase the noise level together with the troduce clicks and it also affects zero crossing detection and certain processing
other audio material. functions such as Re-Analyze and Normalize.

Convert to Mono Re-Analyze

This item will convert stereo files to mono. It is only selectable for stereo files. Re-Analyze re-runs the slice-detection algorithm on the waveform data. You may
have deleted slices that were detected when the file was first analyzed. This
D The dialog lets you decide which channel(s) you wish to use as the command will ”re-discover” those slices.
basis for the converted file.
The options are Left, Right or a Mix of both Left and Right channels. D All slices discovered by Re-Analyze that lies on a position in the file
not already occupied by a slice will be added.
Note that these may or may not be visible, as this depends on the Sensitivity
setting!

Convert Sample Format

This item allows you to convert the sample rate and/or the bit depth of a file.
Lowering the sample rate will make files smaller, but it will also lower the fidelity Add Slices at Grid
of the recording (less high frequency material will be present).
This item is only available if “Show Grid” is activated on the View menu. This fea-
On the other hand, increasing the sample rate will not raise the fidelity of the
ture automatically adds a new slice at each 16th note position.
sample in any way. It is therefore not recommended to convert from a low rate to
a higher one, unless it is required by the application.
The same applies to bit depth; converting from 24 to 16 will reduce the size of
the file (at the expense of slightly lower fidelity) and converting a sample’s bit
rate from 16 to 24 bits will not increase the fidelity of the original sample.
Selecting this menu item brings up a dialog box. You select the format you wish
to convert to using the respective pop-up menus.

THE PROCESS MENU 19

20 THE PROCESS MENU
6 D The Windows Menu
 Document List
The Document List shows all currently open ReCycle documents. Selecting one
will make it the active document.

22 THE WINDOWS MENU

7 D The Contacts Menu
 Go to the Propellerhead
Homepage...
This launches the Internet browser you have specified as your preferred browser
for your computer. The browser then takes you to the Propellerhead web site.
Note that you need an active Internet account for this to work.

Download Drum Loops

This takes you directly to a page on the Propellerhead site that contains audio
loops in either the Wave or Aif format that are free to download.

ReCycle Tech Info and

Support
This menu item brings you directly to the ReCycle Support pages on the Propel-
lerhead web site. Use this option if you are having trouble with ReCycle and
need help!

Order ReCycle Now

This takes you to the “Prop Shop” where you can place orders for all cool Pro-
pellerhead products.

Register ReCycle Now

This is where you register your copy of ReCycle. Registering means that you get
access to product updates (when available), tech support and other goodies.

24 THE CONTACTS MENU