I loaded up a longish horn sample a minute ago, one that came with the LOOPMASTERS sample pack in the built-in sounds. It's not too material what the sample itself was, but I was interested in fooling around with a longer sample. This one was 2.5 seconds long and about 3 bars.
To load a sample you select the track machine by choosing, e.g., track 1 and then double-tapping SRC. You can choose a Static machine and then press right to choose the sample you need. It's a little confusing and I still haven't gotten the hang of it since it meshes the selection of a sample into the current project with the selection of the sample for this particular machine, but fiddling about and pressing yes whenever you think you've got it will work. To test, you can press the Trigger #9 key—9-16 trigger the playback of a machines 1-8. I'm not yet sure what trigger keys 1-8 do.
Anyway, what I wanted to talk about were two of the most obvious and cool parameters on the Static (and Flex) machines: PTCH and RATE which affect the pitch and the rate respectively. They kind of have similar roles, so it's worth talking about how they differ.
Principally, pitch changes the sounding pitch of a sample without affecting its rhythmic content (it does this with a kind of granular effect, I think?) whereas rate will actually slow down the playback (think: record slow down and stopping over a second or so, that sound). Additionally, rate can go all the way to 0 or even reverse whereas pitch only affects pitch up or down an octave (so, equivalent to doubling or halfing the playback speed, except without affecting rhythmic timing as noted). That said, it seems like there's no way to set an accelerated playback rate, just a slowed or reversed one.
Pitch is obviously good for chromatic playback of a vocal sample or a small, looping waveform (wavetable synthesis style). Again, worth noting you only get 2 octaves to play in, but that's often pretty good.
Rate creates lots of cool playback effects good for ambience and DJ-like tricks. It's really fun to assign it to a scene and play the crossfader. Take note however that rate will obviously distort the rhythmic position of the sample and it won't be restored until the next trig. This makes me think of designing a sample to trigger more frequently than once—even if only one trigger is strictly necessary—just so that the rhythm is better preserved during rate modulation.