DivSkip is a four‑channel trigger machine dressed in a dazzling festival of lights. It bombards you with the flashing possibilities and colourful trigger patterns of an all‑night rave. The functionality is based around the tilting and balancing of two outcomes: A or B. Through multiple modes and a handful of mathematicians we get to craft fascinating patterns from Bernoulli coin tosses, Turing algorithms and Euclidean rhythms. They are immediately useful as a source of probability‑led drum triggers but can also ramp in ratchets, patterns and retriggers in response to stimulation.
The workflow is nicely straightforward. Each channel has a trigger input and two resultant trigger outputs, A and B. Between input and output is a bedazzled knob that guards the entrance to the party. The knob can be CV controlled via the slightly confusingly named Probability input, but it makes sense when you use it. There’s a global trigger/gate switch where trigger mode sends a pulse on every event, and gate mode changes from high to low.
There are eight modes in total. To choose your mode, you hold down the clickable knob for more than a second, and the halo of 16 LEDs changes to a multi‑coloured array where each one represents a selectable mode. The first mode is Bernoulli Gate, which tosses a coin to decide whether output A or B gets the trigger. It’s fabulous for all sorts of things: kicks and snare, open and closed hi‑hats, competing filter patterns, or simply to add a bit of probability to a stream of triggers. Turning the knob weights the toss towards either outcome.
Mode 2 is a useful clock divider and Mode 3 mimics the classic Music Thing Turing Machine’s random generation. Modes 4 and 5 are variations of Euclidean patterns. ‘Euclidean split’ distributes three triggers for both sides in the space set by the knob. With Euclidean Classic, output A gets a choice of 32 classic distributed rhythm patterns, while output B is the inverse.
In Ramp mode, the DivSkip causes 16 triggers to occur in response to an input trigger... making wonderful cascades of events reminiscent of twanging a ruler on a desk.
Modes 6 and 7 do interesting things with the incoming trigger rather than seeing them as a clock. In Ramp mode, the DivSkip causes 16 triggers to occur in response to an input trigger. These will either speed up over time, speed up then slow down, or slow down, making wonderful cascades of events reminiscent of twanging a ruler on a desk. Retrigger mode is mild in comparison, giving you a ratchet‑style burst of triggers. The last mode turns DivSkip into a pre‑programmed four‑channel drum machine, where each channel outputs one of 24 patterns designed for either kick/snare, hi‑hats or percussion.
One very cool feature is that you can mute any channel by pushing down on its knob. There’s also a switch for a second mute mode so you can switch between two different mute configurations: superb in live performance.
Each channel is a party of functions that offer myriad ways of handling two outcomes. The patching possibilities that come from this one module are very exciting, and I keep coming up with new ways that one or more channels can drive a patch. At all times, the bright LEDs visualise what’s going on, combining the dance of the halos with the flashing of the A/B indicators. It can initially be bewildering as you take your first skips into the functions, but very quickly DivSkip becomes a solid dance partner.