1. Who am I and how did I create SawCutter?
3. Can you make SawCutter into a plug-in or VST instrument?
5. How do I access the different types of envelopes?
6. What are the four different types of envelopes?
7. How do I change which effects are controlled by the 2D effect controller?
8. I'm having trouble downloading.
9. SawCutter unzips fine but crashes when I try to run it.
10. How can I get rid of the clicking noise?
11. How do I use imported waves?
12. How does the sequencer work?
13. How do I change the BPM (beats per minute)?
If you have any additional question please email me at sawcutter@hotmail.com
1. Who am I and how did I create SawCutter?
Hi, I'm Larry Zitnick. In real life I'm a grad student in robotics doing research in artificial intelligence and computer vision. If you're curious about my research you can look here. I first started coding SawCutter in December of 2000 to explore some ideas I had in sound creation. At some point I decided to release it as freeware to see if I could get any interesting feedback/ideas. SawCutter is coded using Visual C++ and is tweaked to run on my 700Mhz machine. If you have any ideas for SawCutter or sound creation in general let me know.
SawCutter was created to explore different ways of creating sounds. If you're tired of the same MIDI sounds and 303 look-a-likes SawCutter is for you. You will need a basic understanding for how sounds are created. You should be familiar with different types of waveforms, envelopes and effects such as low and high pass filters. You'll also need a decent machine to run SawCutter on. A screen size greater than 800x600 is needed and a processor faster than 500Mhz is a good idea. Sorry to everyone who's running a smaller or slower machine. The sounds are created directly from mathematical functions and not from sound files so SawCutter can be a processor hog.
3. Can you make SawCutter into a plug-in or VST instrument?
When I first created SawCutter I didn't want to be restricted by a plug-in interface. At this point a plug-in version could be created, unfortunately life is pretty busy right now. It'll probably be awhile until SawCutter becomes a plug-in, if at all. Currently I'm working on new effect ideas and ways to control the effects. At some point MIDI control of SawCutter could become a reality.
The length of the envelope is specified over 4 steps (one beat) shown by the vertical white lines. There are three yellow or greenish lines running vertically that control how the envelope is used for a note. The right arrow > specifies the beginning of the sustain period, the left arrow < specifies the end of the sustain period and the double bar || is the end of the envelope. If the note is the same length or shorter than the envelope (in the above case 4 steps) the envelope will be used straight through until the note ends. If the note is longer than the envelope length two things can happen:
If the option 
is
chosen the envelope is stretched out between the start and end of the sustain
period.
If the option 
is
chosen the envelope is looped between the start and end of the sustain
period.
There are a couple of keyboard commands to help with drawing envelopes. Use "A" to average the envelope and "F" to step it (like the snap function in drawing programs.)
5. How do I access the different types of envelopes?
To access the different envelopes you have two choices:
You may toggle between them by clicking on the tabs to the left, or you can use the keyboard. Keys "Z", "X", "C" and "V" will switch between the four envelopes.
6. What are the four different types of envelopes?
Amplitude: The amplitude envelope controls the volume of the note or amplitude of the waveform.
Pitch: Controls the pitch of the waveform. If the waveform is of the hand drawn variety the values correspond to the following (assuming 1.0 is the highest value and 0.0 the lowest):
1.0 - One octave higher.
0.5 - No pitch change
0.0 - One octave lower.
If the waveform is from an imported file:
1.0 - play 3 times faster.
0.75 - play 2 times faster.
0.5 - play actual rate.
0.25 - speed is zero, no sound produced.
0.0 - play actual rates but backwards.
Cutoff: Specifies the cutoff frequency. I don't know what frequencies the actual values correspond to. The lower the value the lower the cutoff frequency. This envelope is used by the next envelope.
Freq Ratio: This envelopes controls the ratio of hi-pass to low-pass filters. The cutoff value of the filters is controlled by the cutoff envelope. A value of all blue means 100% low-pass and a value of all red means 100% hi-pass. If the value is half each the original sound is passed through (100% hi-pass and 100% low-pass.)
7. How do I change which effects are controlled by the 2D effect controller?
There are ways to change which effects are controlled by the 2D controller:
You may toggle through the envelopes by pressing the buttons to the left and bottom of the controller or you can click on the name of the effect displayed above the effect control knobs.
8. I'm having trouble downloading.
If you're having trouble downloading the file let me know sawcutter@hotmail.com and I can email you the file.
9. SawCutter unzips fine but crashes when I try to run it.
Make sure your computer is using 16, 24 or 32 bit color, and that you are using a current version of DirectX. Try to reboot your machine too (the fix all for windows.) If you're still having problems you can email me some data about your machine (i.e. CPU, soundcard, OS, etc.) and I might be able to help. If you're computer doesn't have enough memory 32MB or too slow a CPU problems can occur.
10. How can I get rid of the clicking noise?
If SawCutter is making a clicking or static noise your CPU is running out of power or the volume is too high (the volume indictor is flashing red.) The CPU is easily stressed out at higher BPMs. To fix this you can try several things.
1. Under the Options menu set the Note Latency to 2 or 3.
2. Make sure the Sample Rate under the options menu is at 22050.
3. Remove some notes or use less chords.
4. Reduce the BPM.
5. If the volume indictor is flashing red, reduce the volume.
5. Quit other applications.
11. How do I use imported waves?
To import a wave, select a waveform (bottom right) to import the wave to. Then under the file menu select "import wave."
If the wave is mono it will look something like the above. A stereo wave will display two waveforms. To play the wave back at normal speed you can draw a note at middle C. Make sure the pitch envelope is set at 0.5 also. If the wave is too loud or too quiet you can use the up and down arrows keys to change the amplitude of the wave.
The length of the wave is scaled so that one horizontal gray line corresponds to one note step at the current BPM for middle C. If a note is drawn above or below middle C the length of the wave will be shortened or extended.
You can use the two yellow lines to control which part of the wave is played back. The beginning part of the wave to be used is shown by the left yellow line and the end by the right yellow line. If the note is longer than the part of the wave selected, the wave is looped. The wave is looped even if the wave is being played backward (the pitch envelope is near 0.0.)
12. How does the sequencer work?
The track on the left is the track currently being played. The tracks
are shifted left after the current track is finished playing. Two things
can happen to the track that is popped off the list (the track that just
finished playing.) If the 
option is chosen, the track will be removed from the list. If the 
is chosen, the track is added to the end of the list.
To add a track to the sequencer you must first select the instrument by either clicking on the instrument button or scrolling through the instruments using the space bar. The selected instrument will be highlighted (in the image above the green instrument is selected.) After the instrument is selected you may add a track by pressing one of the number keys 0 through 9. These correspond to the tracks on the top left of the screen:
To remove a track, you can left click on the track in the sequencer.
To fast-forward and reverse the sequencer you can use the left and right arrow keys.
13. How do I change the BPM (beats per minute)?
The BPM (beats per minute) can be changed by first left clicking on a number in the BPM window. The number will be highlighted green (3 in the above image.) You can change that number by pressing a number key on the keyboard 0 through 9. The BPM is restricted to the range 10.00 to 999.99. To unselect a number left click anywhere on the screen.
For higher BPM's it is possible that SawCutter will not be able to keep up with the rate and clicking will be heard. To fix this problem please see How can I get rid of the clicking noise?
When the recording button is pressed two things may happen. If SawCutter is not playing recording will begin immediately. If SawCutter is playing recording will begin after the current track is finished (the recording button will be yellow.) The number of recorded tracks is displayed below the recording button (175 in the above case.) To stop recording you can do two things: If you press the stop button recording will stop at the current note step. If you press the recording button, recording will stop at the end of the measure. You may press the "L" key to start/stop recording instead of clicking on it with the mouse.
When recording, the sound that you hear is exactly what is recorded. Unlike RB-338 the way the effect knobs are moved is not recorded, only their effect on the sounds. When SawCutter records, a temporary file is created in your c:/ directory. If you don't have a c:/ directory recording will not work. The sample rate of the recording is controlled by the "Sample Rate" option under the options menu.
To save a recording click on the "Saved Recorded Wave" option under the file menu.