XY Reverse Slicer manual
Installing XY Reverse Slicer, what slice length and texture do, how the slices follow the song timeline, and the settings worth saving.
Installing
Windows. Copy XY Reverse Slicer.vst3 into
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, and XY Reverse Slicer.lv2 into your LV2
folder if your host uses LV2.
macOS. Run the installer, which places the VST3 in
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 and the Audio Unit in
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components.
Linux. Copy XY Reverse Slicer.vst3 into ~/.vst3 or /usr/lib/vst3, and
XY Reverse Slicer.lv2 into ~/.lv2 or /usr/lib/lv2.
The plug-in reports no latency.
The pad
X — Slice Length, 20 ms to 2 s. How much audio each slice holds. The range is skewed so that the centre of the pad is 250 ms.
Y — Texture, the crossfade between one slice and the next. At the bottom it is 1.5 ms — effectively a hard cut, with the rhythmic edge that implies. At the top it is half the slice length, so every slice laps well into the next one and the result smears.
Drag the pad, or double-click to return to the default.
The controls
| Control | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Mix | 0–100 % | Equal-power blend of the reversed signal with the dry. At 0 % the output is the input, bit for bit. |
| Bypass | on/off | Ramped on both edges; capture continues underneath, so returning is seamless. |
The Mix value can be typed into. A plain number is read as a percentage, so “40” and “40 %” both mean 40 %.
How the slicing is timed
- Transport playing: slice boundaries fall on a grid anchored to the song timeline, so a render matches playback and loops keep their place.
- Transport stopped, or a host that reports no position: the slices run freely from the moment processing starts, which is what you want on live input.
- After a locate or a loop wrap: the slices already playing run out against the dry signal and new ones start from the new position, within one hop.
- After loading or a reset: the first reversed slice arrives one hop in, rather than a full slice later.
Notes
- Changing slice length takes effect at the next slice boundary, so at a two-second setting a move can take up to two seconds to be heard. That is the hand-over working: it never cuts a slice short or leaves a gap.
- At low Mix settings, low-frequency material can comb slightly near slice starts, because the reversed copy begins one sample behind the dry. It is audible only on sustained bass.
- The reported tail is 4 s — the longest the effect can produce. Hosts use it when rendering or freezing.
Specifications
- Latency: none.
- Reported tail: 4 s.
- Slice length: 20 ms to 2 s. Texture: 1.5 ms to half the slice.
- Sample rates: 22.05 kHz to 384 kHz.
- Channels: mono and stereo.
- Formats: VST3 (Windows, macOS, Linux), Audio Unit (macOS), LV2 (Windows, Linux).