Fantom Tweakbook Artemiy Pavlov Getting the most out of the Roland Fantom-S, Fantom-X, Juno-G and SonicCell synthesizers 5th edition
Fantom Tweakbook This book is intended for people who want to explore the deepest corners of their Fantom-S, Fantom-X and Juno-G synthesizers from Roland. It opens many invaluable sound design secrets in form of deep but easy-to-read, illustrated articles on synthesis, effects processing and sampling. Additionally provided are lots of example patches, templates, raw sample materials and audio demonstrations. The Fantom Tweakbook covers an overwhelming amount of topics, including subtractive, additive and vector synthesis, ring modulation, analog sound replication, envelope, LFO and matrix modulation, using effect processors as synthesis blocks, sampling and re-sampling, advanced processing of internal and external sounds, using in conjunction with other gear and much beyond. Combined with featured dictionary and parameter map, it is a great knowledge resource for both newbie and hardcore Roland users.
Copyright All contents and materials of this book are copyright 2004-2008 Artemiy Pavlov, all rights reserved. Redistribution or publishing of this book in whole or part, in any form, without an agreement with the author is strictly prohibited and is subject to prosecution by law.
About The Author Artemiy Pavlov was born in 1981 in Kharkov, Ukraine, in a family of an electronics engineer and a math teacher, both of which were also musicians. He naturally paid a lot of interest in sound both as an art and as a physical phenomenon, and nowadays it’s both his passion and profession. In the field of sound design and development, Artemiy worked with companies like Roland, Native Instruments and Spectrasonics, and created a number of successful products for his own Sinevibes, such as books, sound libraries and software plug-ins. He also is a PhD student at the Kharkov National University of Radioelectronics, doing research in the field of electromagnetism and artificial structures. Artemiy is married since 2001, with two daughters born 2004 and 2007. You can read more about Artemiy Pavlov at these sites: ‣ www.artemiypavlov.com ‣ www.sinevibes.com ‣ www.sineshine.com
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Contents Introduction
5
Everything Out Of Nothing
7
Unisonic
7
Wave arithmetics, part 1
8
Addi(c)tive synthesis
9
Delayed tones
10
Flange ensemble
11
Ring the bell
12
Low modulator
13
Lord of the ring (modulator)
13
What's that noise?
15
Wave buster
15
Syncopea
17
The steeper, the better
18
Count to 303
19
A different filter
20
Can you see a DC?
22
Selfish oscillation
23
Buenos notches
24
Stereotonic
25
Modulation Magic
26
Pitch envelope vs. TVF/TVA envelopes
26
Shaping envelope and LFO forms
26
Get clicky
27
Deeper pitch slides
28
Retro beatbox
29
Sequential world
31
Wave arithmetics, part 2
32
Controlled time stretching
34
Freeze, froze, frozen
35
Left plus right
36
Vectorize
37
LFO by LFO
38
Envelope’d LFO
39
Vari-filter
40
Velocity games, part 1
41
Velocity games, part 2
42
Monster FX
44
3
A fat recipe
44
Acid empire
44
Talking synth
45
Monster filter
46
Triple notch
48
Time machine
48
Moving shadows
49
Be shifted
50
True Lo-Fi
51
Infinity
52
Effected tail
52
Six voices
53
Tweak, Sample, Repeat
54
“Doctor, they are everywhere!”
55
Han Solo
55
D-tune
58
Feedback wizardry
58
Synthisphere
59
Antiverb
61
Partially processed
61
COSMic Synthesis
62
COSMic filter
62
LFO to MFX
64
Phase control
65
Retro Sci-Fi
66
Key gate
68
Recording Trick-o-logy
69
Rock your Fantom
69
Sound multiplication
70
External processing
70
External vocoding
71
Dictionary
73
Parameter Map
74
Acknowledgements
77
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Introduction Get prepared To be able to read and understand this book in full, you need to be familiar with the patch, effects and sample editing modes of your synthesizer. Also, it is assumed that words and abbreviations like “envelope”, “LFO” and “filter” are in your vocabulary. To help you out, there is a little Dictionary, as well as a Parameter Map at the end of the book. Before you start creating a patch by following the steps described in a given article, you must first clear (initialize) it, so that all parameters get reset to their default values.
Example patches and templates The example patches and templates for this book come in three different formats, and you can choose the one that’s most appropriate for you. Please remember to back up your data before loading these patches, otherwise you may loose some important work. ‣ SVD format: copy the SVD file to the /ROLAND/SND folder of either user or card area of your synthesizer. ‣ Librarian format: connect your Fantom or Juno-G to your computer in USB MIDI mode, launch the Librarian software and transfer all or select patches from the Librarian file to the user area. ‣ MIDI file: copy it to the /ROLAND/SEQ/SNG folder of either user or card area of your synthesizer, and then play it back. To recreate the Solo Synth patches, simply open up the Solo Synth editor screen and enter the parameters from the table.
Waveforms In many of the articles we will be using the so-called "basic" waves to synthesize sounds. In general, the basic waves are: sine, triangle, saw, square, pulse, pink and white noise, and DC (“direct current”, which basically is an eternal pulse). In the wave ROM (bank A) of Fantom-based series there is a vast selection of basic waves, with lots of variations per wave (for example, there is over a dozen saw waves). Wave variations are similar in shape, but derive from different sources and have their own unique spectrum and character. Waveform
Number (Fantom-S/X)
Number (Juno-G)
Sine
578-579, 1223
64-66, 1262
Triangle
574-577, 1224
60-63, 1263
546-558, 1217-1219
1-19, 1256-1258
455-463
20-28
560-567, 1222
36-50, 1261
Saw Super Saw (unison saws) Square
5
Pulse
568-573, 1220-1221
51-59, 1259-1260
Pink noise
596, 1226
91, 1265
White noise
595, 1225
90, 1264
1227
1266
DC
Envelope forms In many of the articles, you'll read about different kinds of envelopes, such as "falling", "slow" or "rising". For further convenience, below are the approximate ADSR values (Attack time, Decay time, Sustain level, Release time) for creating such envelopes. Note that not all synths offer the ADSR shortcuts, so you should know these correspond to envelope parameters Time1, Time3, Level3 and Time4, respectively.
Falling
Rising
Falling and rising
A=0, D=35, S=0, R=5
A=35, D=0, S=127, R=5
A=30, D=30, S=0, R=30
Pushing
Slow
A=0, D=15, S=100, R=5
A=70, D=0, S=127, R=70
Patch structures Most of the articles in this Tweakbook include drawings of patch structures that help you understand what's going on, which synthesis block is doing this or that function. In order to make things more simple, the structures include only those blocks (e.g. WG, TVA, TVF, LFO) which take an active part in creating a given sound. For example, when we use just a wave and a filter, the TVA, LFO and other "bricks" are not pictured because their settings are left default. This doesn't mean that, for instance, TVA doesn't take part in synthesis of this given sound - it certainly does, but for simplicity it is omitted from the structure drawing(s). Also, for the shown synthesis blocks and effects units, only those parameters are given which have values different from the default.
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Everything Out Of Nothing Creating great new sounds with simple tools.
Unisonic The first thing we will do, and the most simple way to create a new sound, is mix and detune several different waveforms. Just by adding a filter with an envelope, you can get a wide variety of classic analog-type sounds. As you may know, detuned waves cause the so-called "beating" effect that adds amplitude modulation to the sound at a frequency equal to the difference of the detuned waves (this effect appears anywhere two waves oscillate, not only in a Ring Modulator). The more waves you mix up and the more widely you detune them, the thicker and more pulsating the sound gets. In analogue and virtual analogue synthesizers, when two or more waves are detuned, it is also called a "unison" mode. Start away and create a simple unison sound: ‣ Set the waveforms of tones 1 and 2 to saw. ‣ Increase the Fine Tune of tone 2 slowly while auditioning the patch, and hear how the resulting sound changes as the frequency ratio grows. ‣ Copy tone 2 to 3 and 4, and detune all four partial tones by setting the Fine Tune to -40, -15, +15 and +40, respectively This is the most simple unison sound, yet it can be used as a classic trance synth, especially if you add a low-pass filter with medium resonance, route it into a tempo-synched delay processor and tweak the filter cutoff while you play it. But, let's do a little research. Do you hear that the very beginning of the sound is kind of weak? Why is that? The thing is that in analog synthesizers, oscillators always generate sounds, and they are always out of phase. But in PCM-based synthesizers like the Fantom, a generator starts playing a sample only when you press a key – thus, with very same waveforms being detuned, the first few cycles appear to be almost in phase, there is not much detuning happening and the sound is not as rich as we'd want it to be. Fortunately, there is a way to go away from this: Roland engineers put multiple variations of saw, square and other basic waveforms, and since they all have different spectral characteristic, there will be no weakening effect at the beginning. Basically, this way you can create many analog-type synths, basses and pads. For instance, let's make a classic 3-oscillator bass sound with two detuned saws and a square one octave down:
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Just three oscillators, three filters, and a classic synth bass is ready
‣ Take a square wave for tone 1. ‣ Add two different saw waves on tones 2 and 3 and detune them (set Fine Tune to about -10 and +10, respectively). ‣ For all tones, set Filter Type to LPF, Cutoff to 75-80, add a falling filter envelope (A = 0, D = 25, S = 0, R = 25) with Env Depth set to +15. And a fat, rich synth bass sound is ready! As you will see in further, using this technique, and a few tricks you'll learn in the next articles, you can recreate a large part of the whole spectra of classic analog synthesizer sounds. You can layer several unison patches in performance mode and have several dozen detuned oscillators for a really huge sound. ‣ 001 Trance Saw is a classic trance synth. Listen to Trance Saw (Same).mp3 and Trance Saw.mp3 to hear what difference it makes when you detune same saw waves or several variations. 184 Bass Phat (demo in Bass Phat.mp3) is a simple but fat analog-style bass. SupaSynth.mp3 is an example of what can be done if you layer several unison patches. ‣ 244 TempSuperSaw will help you get started.
Wave arithmetics, part 1 As you understood from the previous article, mixing and detuning waves can produce some interesting results. However, another tweak-worthy thing is to mix two of the same waves, one usual and one phase-inverted, at different pitches. Luckily, your Fantom has two mutually inverted saw waves in the ROM – they are “Calc Saw” and “Calc Saw Inv”. Let's hear and see what happens if you detune them. ‣ Set tone 1 and tone 2 to saw and inverted saw waves, respectively. You can play this patch and hear a very silent saw wave – in an ideal situation, the product of mutually inverted saw waves would be silence. ‣ Press a key, and start detuning one of the tones with Fine Tune while hearing what an interesting morphing saw you get - simply because the two base tones are phase-inverted. 8
‣ Reset the Fine Tune back to 0, and set Coarse Tune of tone 2 to -12. What you hear now can remind you of a sound common to the Juno series synths from Roland – and you can view the new waveform you've just created below.
Summing differently-pitched phase-inverse saw waves can give some interesting results (note that ROM waveforms all start from 0 amplitude value) ‣ The 155 Juno Lead patch is just a “sum” of a saw wave and inverse saw wave one octave down, with some additional fine-detuning and vibrato added by LFO1. Audition this patch in JunoLead.mp3. ‣ 256 Temp Juno is a useful start for a Juno-like bass sound.
Addi(c)tive synthesis Without any doubt, one of the most widely-used sounds on a sample-based synthesizer like Fantom or Juno-G is Hammond organ (like that of the famous B3 model). It's sound, in a nutshell, was formed using what is now called “additive synthesis” - the tone wheels generated signals close to sine waves and then several of them pitched at different frequencies were mixed with the “drawbars” to get the final sound. At the beginning of each key press, a so-called “percussion” section also added a short sound tuned at a fifth an octave or two above the first drawbar. You may not know it yet, but it is possible to create a very convincing B3 organ emulation using your synth, and all you need is... you guessed, a bunch of sine waves! ‣ Set all tones to sine waves. ‣ Set their Coarse pitches to 0, +12, +24 and +19. ‣ Tone 4 will be used as a percussion generator but also will sustain to be the fourth tone wheel. So create a falling envelope with a little sustain for it: A = 0, D = 25, S = 30, R = 10. ‣ Using the TVA Level parameters of the tones as the drawbar sliders, form your own Hammond organ sound. ‣ Now route this patch to Rotary MFX and you're done. As you hear now, you got a very realistic Hammond organ. Try different tone levels and coarse tune settings to get other variations of this sound.
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‣ 181 It's a B! (demoed in It's a B.mp3) is a nice emulation of the all-time classic Hammond B3 organ sound. ‣ 243 Temp Hammond will help you get started with creating nice additive organ patches.
Delayed tones Since the middle 1990s, Roland's PCM-based synthesizers featured tone playback parameters, namely Tone Playback Mode and Tone Delay, and they are still here in the Fantoms. The first one lets you set up a tone play on key release instead of playing on key press, and the second allows for creating delay effects right on patch level (plus it can be synchronized to the MIDI clock). Let's see how these can be used. By using two or more tones mutually delayed with Tone Delay time, it is possible to create sounds with delay effects not possible otherwise – like having different waveforms on different delay taps, also pitched/filtered in different ways.
Filling the gaps with a “reversed” tone
One interesting trick with Tone Playback Mode is making one tone with a falling filter and amplifier envelopes playing normally, another tone with reversed envelope times and set to play on key release: ‣ Set tone 1 waveform to a super saw. ‣ Set Filter Type to BPF, Cutoff to about 65, add a falling envelope (A = 0, D = 35, S = 0, R = 35) with a depth of +15. ‣ Create a slightly longer falling TVA envelope: A = 0, D = 40, S = 0, R = 40. ‣ Now copy this tone to tone 2 and reverse both envelopes by swapping their Decay and Attack parameters. ‣ Finally set Tone Playback Mode to OFFN (KEY-OFF-NORMAL) for tone 2.
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Try this patch and you will hear tone 1 when you press the keys, and tone 2 when you release them, making it a really interesting and fun realtime performance. ‣ 173 D-laid uses four saw-based tones with different coarse tune and filter settings to create an interesting patch. The patch 202 Bell Strums quickly plays several bell sounds as a strumming sound. 185 Mega Synth adds delayed and release-triggered reversed tones results in a massive sound without any effects used. ‣ 242 Temp Reverse and 241 Temp Echo are good templates for further experiments.
Flange ensemble You may not know this yet, but the “flanger” effect essentially is a delay line whose delay time is controlled by an LFO. It produces periodic spectral changes because the original signal and the one delayed appear out of phase (and eventually with inverse phases). One of the many secrets Roland's PCM synths hide is that you can create a very similar effect on the patch level, but not using the tone delay feature. If you take a waveform with a rich spectrum, like a super saw synth, or a percussion loop, assign it to two tones and then slightly detune them, you will already hear a flange-like effect – this is due to the fact that one of the samples is played back slower and thus it appears that each portion of it sounds delayed compared to the first sample that is faster. As you keep holding the key, the delay time will increase and after a few seconds the flange effect will go away leaving you with a usual delay effect. But to make it work like a flanger, you should simply use an LFO to detune one of the tones cyclically. For example, creating a simple synth sound using this trick takes just two steps: ‣ Set tone 1 and 2 to a super saw waveform. ‣ For tone 2, set a triangle LFO with a Rate of 30-40 and Pitch depth of about +3. Just make slow TVA envelopes for both tones (A = 60, D = 0, S = 100, R = 80), add some delay and reverb,and you have a wonderful pad sound ready.
Not much on the picture, but quite some in your ears ‣ 174 Flangy Ens (demoed in Flangy Ens.mp3) is a very simple patch showing how a little trick can result in an interesting and very handy effect. ‣ 244 Temp Flange has this trick set up for you for an easy start. 11
Ring the bell I believe you have read or heard many times that the main purpose of the Ring Modulator is creating metallic, bell-like sounds. Since the Ring Modulator applies amplitude modulation to one input signal using another, the resulting spectrum contains many high-frequency harmonics not present in any of the input sounds. So, the common concept for creating bell sounds is to use a middle-frequency sine (which be the base-frequency signal) and a high-frequency sine (to add a metallic sound). Let's see how really simple it is. ‣ Set tone 1 and 2 to sine waves. ‣ Set tone Structure Type to 7. ‣ Adjust pitch Coarse Tune of tone 2 to about +15..20, and rehearse the sound – thanks to Ring Modulator, you got a metallic sound out of just two sine waves. Increase the Coarse Tune of tone 2 while listening to the sound and hear how the resulting sound changes. ‣ Tweak the TVA Level of tone 2 to vary the amount of modulation in applies to tone 2 and notice how the sound can change from smooth metallic to distorted. For smooth bell sounds, set TVA Level to 70-80. ‣ Create a falling TVA envelope for tone 2 (with decay time equal to release), and you have a simple yet nice and fresh synth bell sound ready. By setting the TVA Level of tone 1 and Coarse Tune of tone 2 to different values and also using different filters for tone 1 and 2, you can create a really wide variety of melodic and non-melodic bell and metallic sounds, from tubular bells and various percussion sounds to electric pianos and beyond.
Two sine waves and a ring modulator: all you need to create metallic bell sounds
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If you add a falling TVA envelope to tone 1 as well, the amount of modulation tone 1 applies will decrease with time (since this TVA resides before the ring modulator in this structure), and the sound will change as the envelope falls. You can also set an LFO to control the TVA level if tone 1 to add cyclic variations to the sound's character. When Wave Gain for Tone 1 is set to +6 or +12 dB, even more modulation is applied to Tone 2, and the TVA Level of Tone 1 can be used to go from soft bell to really harsh metallic sounds. ‣ Listen to and examine the patches 031 Ring EP and 032 Syn Tubular - they have been created using the techniques described above (demos are in Ring EP.mp3 and Syn Tubular.mp3). ‣ 253 Temp Ring 1 is a ready-to-tweak RM-based bell sound.
Low modulator You probably wonder what are those "low" waves are included in the ROM for - like "Low Sine" and "Low Saw". In the previous article you heard what the high-frequency waves can do with a Ring Modulator, now let's create a simple ring-modulator-based sound with a low-frequency sine wave. ‣ Select a Low Sine for tone 1, set Wave Gain to +12. ‣ Select a Sine for tone 2, leave Wave Gain at 0. ‣ Set the tone Structure Type to 7 (the one that has TVF 1 before and TVF 2 after a Ring Modulator). You can now hear that the tone 2 is amplitude-modulated by tone 1. ‣ Set the LFO1 Wave Form of tone 1 to Chaos and it's Pitch Depth to +63 (no need to touch the Rate parameter since it doesn't affect the Chaos LFO waveform). ‣ Adjust the Attack and Release times of both TVA envelopes to 60-70. What you now have is a beautiful and tender pad.
Chaotically-controlled Ring Modulation can lead to beautiful sounds ‣ The patch found in 127 Moonlite Pad is simple in structure, yet it is a very distinct pad sound. The MoonlitePad.mp3 file is a short demo of this patch.
Lord of the ring (modulator) The Ring Modulator can go far beyond bell sounds, especially when you use waves with more complex spectrums and also detune them. Detuning two waves with fine and/or coarse tune will give 13
you thousands of unique sounds. Here is a plain example with two square waves. ‣ Choose a square wave for the wave generator for tones 1 and 2, and then set Tone Structure to 7. ‣ Press a key. What do you hear? Almost nothing. The Ring Modulator takes most of the input signals' component frequencies out of the audible range. ‣ Now, set the Fine Tune of the tones to about -20 and +20, respectively. You can hear that you made an absolutely new wave - a very rich pulsating sound that resembles a pulse-width-modulated synth a bit, but it was created with two detuned square waves. Also, you can hear that the resulting wave is pitched one octave lower than the original waves - this is the result of "frequency shifting magic" produced by the RM.
Creating rich sounds with RM is simple
Just add a low-pass filter with a falling cutoff envelope and you have a very powerful synth sound ready. With slightly less fine detune and slow filter and amp envelopes you instantly get a warm pad or PWM-like synth strings. Also, starting with the same example as above, simply pitch tone 1 an octave above (e.g. set Coarse Tune of tones 1 and 2 to 0 and -12) and you instantly get a tube-sounding synth bass. Try picking pairs of different basic waves routed into a ring modulator and detuning them both with Fine and Coarse Tune. You'll be amazed with the amount of new sounds that can be created this way. ‣ 025 Techy Lead, 018 Tube Bass, 019 Ring Pad (demos in Techy Lead.mp3, Tube Bass.mp3 and Ring Pad.mp3, respectively) are three really great examples of the magic you can do with two detuned squares and a ring modulator. ‣ 254 Temp Ring 2 and 240 Temp PWM are two template patches for creating lush synth sounds based on the tricks described above.
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What's that noise? As you see now, the Ring Modulator veils many possibilities. Since the resulting sound depends on the variations in both input waves, you can also make some good noise with it. Let's try controlling the pitches of the waves using chaotic LFOs..
RM-based sounds can be very noisy, if you want
‣ For tone 1, choose a saw wave for the wave generator. ‣ Set TVF Filter Type to HPF, with Cutoff of 127 and Resonance to 15. ‣ Set LFO 1 Wave Form to Chaos and Pitch Depth to about +24. ‣ Copy this tone to tone 2, and then set it's TVF Resonance to 0. ‣ Now set the Tone Structure to 9 (both filters before the Ring Modulator). Now you can rehearse the resulting sound – a very rich noise that resembles electric shot noise or vinyl noise. The high-pass filter here helps leave only high-frequency portions of the waves before they reach the Ring Modulator and thus give us only clicks. By changing the wave form to triangle or square, tweaking the LFOs and HPFs, you can create different interesting noises ‣ 144 ElectricNz1: is a patch created using the techniques described above. It has two pairs of tones with randomly-controlled pans. You can hear this patch in the ElectroNoiz.mp3 audio file.
Wave buster We've already discussed many wonderful applications of the ring modulator. But what can you do with those two structures (3 and 4) which contain a signal booster? The booster basically does two jobs: first, it amplifies the sound according to it's gain setting (6, 12 or 18 dB) and then hard-limits the signal, “cutting” wave's amplitude and producing high harmonic distortions. This basically means the following things: since the booster strongly amplifies the signal it is very sensitive to any changes in sound's dynamics and spectrum, and it also shapes the wave to a more rectangular form (with the latter, for instance, a triangle wave turns into a trapezoid one). Let's start with a simple example: boosting two detuned waves.
15
Distorting two detuned waves is a yet another wave to create new waveforms
‣ Switch tones 1 and 2 on, and set them to saw waveforms. ‣ Set tone Structure Type to 4 and then play this patch and listen to how the sound changes while you increase Wave Gain for both tones and Booster gain in the tone structure. Note that since in the booster structures the TVA of tone 1 is placed before the booster, you can change the amount of distortion with this tone's TVA Level (as well as add slight tonal changes with an envelope, LFO, velocity etc.). ‣ Now try detuning the tones a bit, set Fine Tune to about -15 and +15 – you get a much more pulsating sound compared to clean detuned saws! Also, you can set Coarse Tune of one of the tones to a fifth above, an octave or two down etc. - this will give you very nice “roaring” waveforms. ‣ Now, leaving the resulting wave you like, set the filter of tone 1 to LPF with Cutoff: 50, Resonance: 20 and add a falling envelope (A=0, D=45, S=0, R=45) with a Depth of about +15. You can also duplicate the parameters and the envelope of this LPF to tone 2, to create deeper filtering (when you connect two -12 dB/octave filters in series, you get a steep -24 dB/octave filter). That's it, you created a new interesting synth sound based on a distorted waveform. With this method, it's possible to gain a wide variety of sonic heights and produce anything from fat vintage basses to dense but warm synth leads and even lush synth strings and pads – just use slight fine detuning, a bit of Analogue Feel and slight LFO pitch/level modulation to add more life to your creations. And now let's go further and think: what can be done if you have a filter before the booster? A filtered sound, especially with a bit of resonance and envelope/LFO modulation will be distorted and turn into a screaming acid lead. ‣ Set tone Structure Type to 3 and waves of both tones to saws. ‣ Set the filter of tone 1 to LPF with Cutoff: 65, Resonance: 60 and create a falling envelope (A=0, D=30, S=0, R=30) with a Depth of +4..7. 16
Booster is the key to those classic distorted acid sounds
What you have is that classic boosted acid saw sound, pretty over-used in many musical genres. But you can try different filter types for both tones and create various acid sounds, from light to fuzzy. The booster can also be used for “busting” drum and phrase loops – simply assign a sample as a wave, route it to a highly-resonant low-pass filter and then to booster (structure 3) and then play it while tweaking the filter and you'll be blown away. ‣ 166 MiniMe and 161 Sea Pad are two vintage-sounding patches created by feeding two detuned saw waves into a booster and then filtering the result with an LFP. 168 Razor Lead is a pretty well-known acid sound based on a saw wave fed into a resonant LPF and then boosted. These patches are demoed in MiniMe.mp3, SeaPad.mp3 and RazorLead.mp3. ‣ A good template for a booster-based acid patch is contained in 250 Temp Booster.
Syncopea Although the main synth engine of the Fantoms doesn't feature oscillator synchronization, it is possible to emulate sync-based sounds by routing a wave processed with a high-resonance filter into a booster. A boosted resonant peak will be the key part of this emulation, and BPF cutoff keyfollow needs to be set to +100 so it follows the keyboard the same way the tones' pitches do (this on alone will give you nice “crunchy” leads). And then if you send an envelope or LFO to filter cutoff, you will get those typical sync sweeps which sound quite realistic. ‣ Switch tones 1 and 2 on, and set them to saw waveforms. ‣ Set tone 1 filter to BPF, Cutoff to 80, Resonance to 80. ‣ Now set this filter's Cutoff Keyfollow to +100 – a key point to make this “a-la sync” patch sound realistic across all keys, as usually both sync'd oscillators follow the pitch on the keyboard. ‣ Create a falling envelope for TVF: A = 0, D = 30, S = 0, R = 0 and set it's Depth to +3..5. ‣ Finally, set tone Structure Type to 3 and adjust Booster gain to +18 dB. What you can hear now is a very convincing emulation of a sound based on oscillator sync. 17
From this point, you can also add an LPF with a falling envelope with tone 2 and also beef it up with a plain sine wave on tone 3 – you'll get a cool bass sound.
Simulating oscillator-sync sounds with high-resonance BPF and booster ‣ 034 JP-8 Sync is a patch closely simulating a classic sound based on oscillator sync. You can also hear it demoed in JP8Sync.mp3.
The steeper, the better As you may know, the Fantom series, like all previous XV, XP and JV synthesizers, feature filters with -12 dB/octave slopes. But thanks to the tone structures which let you set two TVFs in series, you can easily create a deeper -24 dB/octave filter provided that they have same cutoff/resonance values. And since -24/octave filters are more typical to analogue synthesizers, this lets you create very warm, vintage-sounding patches. ‣ Set tone 1 to some rich synth waveform like square or saw. ‣ Set TVF Filter Type to LPF, Cutoff to 50-60, Resonance to about 20. ‣ Now create a falling TVF envelope (A=0, D=40, S=0, R=40) with a Depth of +10..15. ‣ Copy tone 1 to tone 2 and then set tone Structure Type to 2. That's it, play this patch while simultaneously adjusting parameters of both filters and notice how deeper it sounds compared to if you switch tone 2 off and thus disable the second filter. Try also creating a -24 dB/octave HPF or BPF by connecting two of such filters in series. And of course you can create more complex filter slopes if the two serially-connected filters are of different types and/or have different parameters for cutoff and resonance. Note that the COSMic filter article in the COSMic Synthesis section describes how to use the MFX Super Filter instead of the TVF – the Super Filter features -12, -24 and even -36 dB/octave slopes.
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Creating steeper filters by connecting two of them in series ‣ Check out the patch 171 Deep Bass (demo in DeepBass.mp3) – it is just two square waves processed with serially-connected low-pass filters, but nevertheless sounds like a real analogue synth bass. ‣ Two low-pass filters are already chained in the template named 255 Temp -24dBLP.
Count to 303 Roland's TB-303 Bassline made in early 1980's is a very simple monophonic synthesizer with a sequencer, yet this little beast is still among the most beloved pieces of gear for many musicians including your truly – of course for it's signature squelchy sound. It's really great that the Fantom's and Juno-G's ROM includes the original raw saw and square waveforms from this legendary synth. However, in order to closely emulate the original TB-303 sound, you have to take into account some of it’s other unique properties and recreate them on the Fantom accordingly: ‣ TB-303's filter is -18 dB/octave low-pass. On the Fantom, you can simulate this slope using two serial LPF's, one with resonance, and second without resonance and with it's cutoff frequency slightly shifted up. ‣ The filter envelope modulates not only the filter cutoff but also the resonance. This means you need to route the filter envelope to the resonance parameter as well - this can be done via Matrix Control. ‣ TB's filter envelope also has a slight attack which gives the sound a little more “squelchiness” - on the Fantom, this corresponds to envelope Attack value of 2 and should also be compensated with an Attack of 1 for the TVA envelope. ‣ TB-303 has an “Accent” parameter which increased filter cutoff and resonance modulation depth by the envelope generator. So, you should set up the filter's envelope velocity sensitivity (F-Env V-Sens) to around +25..30. And now, let's create a square wave TB-303 acid bass sound keeping in mind all the properties listed above: ‣ For tone 1, set waveform to "TB Square HD". ‣ Set TVF Filter Type to LPF, Cutoff to 75, Resonance to about 40..45. ‣ Create a falling TVF envelope with short attack (A=2, D=25, S=0, R=10), set it's Depth to 19
+5..6 and F-Env V-Sens to +25..30. ‣ Set TVA envelope Attack to 1. ‣ Now copy tone 1 to tone 2, and for tone2 set the TVF Cutoff to 95 and Resonance to 0. ‣ Set tone Structure Type to 2 (serially-connected filters). ‣ Finally, in Matrix CTRL1, set Source to TVF ENV, Destination to RESONANCE and Depth to around +20, but leave in ON only for tone 1.
A truly close TB-303 emulation
Now, to finalize this patch, set the mono/poly switch to mono, portamento and legato on, and set portamento time to about 10 – you are ready to create really convincing TB-303 basslines, with accents and slides just like on the original. And don't forget to tweak the filter cutoff and resonance in realtime – it's very good for your health. You can set the structure type to 3, which has a booster between the filters, then set boost to +6 dB, and you get a classic distorted 303 acid sound. Increase the booster gain and resonance to make it scream. Also, read the Acid empire article in the Monster FX section to find out how to create fantastically exciting acid sounds by processing 303-like patches with effects algorithms such as Guitar Amp Simulator and LoFi Radio. ‣ 005 True TB-303 (audio demo in True TB-303.mp3) is a very realistic emulation of the TB-303 square-based acid sound, ready to create squelchy basslines.
A different filter A usual low-pass or band-pass filter has one resonant peak in it's frequency response. But there are filters which have several of them, some of them are the so-called “formant filters”, which add a more distinctive character to the sound. Their sound is typically associated with a human voice, 20
simply because the latter is formed in a similar way – vocal folds serve as an oscillator, but chest, throat and mouth act as filters and add resonant peaks here and there. On your Fantom, it is possible to create a very formant-like filter by using parallel low-pass and band-pass filters, with the latter having a cutoff frequency shifted slightly to higher frequencies, so that the resulting spectral picture looks like below:
Low-pass and band-pass to join their resonant peaks
With an example below, a simple saw wave will begin to sound like a “talkbox”: ‣ Set generator on tone 1 to a saw wave. ‣ Set TVF Filter Type to LPF, Cutoff to 60 and Resonance to 40. ‣ Create a “ducking” filter envelope (A = 10, D = 30, S = 0, R = 10) with Env Depth of about +10. ‣ Copy this tone to tone 2, switch it's Filter Type to BPF and shift the Cutoff to 75. You can also use a downwards saw LFO instead of the filter envelope to create a pulsating talkbox synth.
A simple talkbox-like synth is a few easy steps ‣ 188 Talkbox Saw (demoed in Talkbox.mp3) has two pairs of tones with serial filters (one filtered with an LPF, another with BPF), for a deeper formant filter effect.
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Can you see a DC? While tweaking the patches you made with the previous examples, I bet you heard how the filter can “whistle”. This is because the filter starts to resonate so much that in generates a continuous sine wave: this is called “self-oscillation”. One really wonderful thing is you can use a DC wave, which basically is an eternal pulse, to trigger the filter self-oscillation, and obtain a pure sine wave. ‣ Select a DC wave for the generator, set Wave Gain to +12. ‣ Now set the TVF Filter Type to LPF, Cutoff to 70-80, and then keep on pressing a key while increasing the Resonance. Starting from the resonance value of 60-70 you will hear a sound that will remind you of a decaying sine wave. This is the starting point of LPF's selfoscillation. ‣ Keep on increasing the resonance until you reach the maximum value of 127 and hear an everlasting sine wave, then set Cutoff Keyfollow to +100 and you can play this sine as it is pitched across the keys.
Meet your very own sine wave
You probably are already asking yourself what this custom sine wave can be used for? First thing is that since it's generated by a self-oscillating filter, it's a very pure tone, a virtually perfect sine. But more important is that the filter's cutoff can be changed in realtime in the whole range, unlike the pitch of a PCM generator which is limited to +/- 2 octaves. This means you can do very “far” pitch tweaks and portamento slides much like on an analog synthesizer. Now you can use such custom sine oscillators in the same way you'd use PCM sines, for instance for organ and bell sounds as described in the Addi(c)tive Synthesis and Ring the Bell articles. This DC-triggered sine also has a nice attack to it which is even better for bell and electric piano type sounds. You may note that when you use a self-oscillating filter to generate a sine wave, it may not be pitched exactly at the same scale with the usual waves, as the filter cutoff cannot be tuned very precisely. But as always, there is an easy workaround: take a step LFO with all it's steps set to +1, set it's Rate to 0 and then use it's TVF Depth to fine-tune the filter cutoff. And one more idea: if you use a two-tone ring modulator structure with two such sine waves, modulating the level of the first tone in the 110-127 range will give a nice PWM-like effect, great for string sounds. ‣ 087 DC Bell, 089 Organic DC and 090 DC Strings are three patches made using DC waves, self-oscillating filters and the ring modulator. The latter implements the PWM-like trick described above. Audio demos of these are in DC Bell.mp3, DC Strings.mp3 and 22
Organic DC.mp3. ‣ In 246: Temp DCSine you will find a ready-to-use sine tweaked out of a DC wave.
Selfish oscillation As you have learned from the previous article, a self-oscillating filter can be used as a sine wave generator. But also, when the filter is resonating but is not yet in self-oscillation, it doesn't mute the original signal and basically presents an additional generator. All you need to do in order to use it is tune the Cutoff to the base pitch (or an octave or fifth below/above, etc.) and set Cutoff Keyfollow to +100). Let's see how easy it is to turn a saw wave into a nice Hammond-like organ sound. ‣ Select a saw wave for tone 1. ‣ Set TVF Filter Type to LPF. ‣ Now adjust filter parameters: Cutoff: 84, Resonance: 90-110, Cutoff Keyfollow: +100. With the Cutoff of 84, when you press C4, the resonating filter emphasises the frequencies around the frequency one octave above this key, and this new added tone shifts with the keys thanks to the set Cutoff Keyfollow parameter. What this technique means is that you can do additive synthesis with 8 generators within one patch – 4 from the waveform generators, and 4 additional from the self-oscillating filters.
A filter can do much more than "wow"
Now try out your creation. You can turn this sound into a nice retro organ or a very warm synth pad, depending on TVA envelope, filter cutoff/resonance and LFO pitch/filter depth settings (with some tweaks and a rotary effect it can be a really decent Hammond organ emulation). Use the tip from the Can you see a DC? article to fine-tune the filter cutoff with a stopped LFO when needed. Copy tone 1 to tone 2 and set a double-filter structure (2), then set Tone 1 TVF Resonance to 0-20 (otherwise you'll have way too much “whistling”). This will make the filter slope more steep and the sound will get softer. ‣ Check out the patch 008 Syn Hammond: it was created with two couples of tones: first one for the base tone, and second one to add more upper harmonics. You can also check out the 033 Syn Steel Dr patch which uses two saw waves and two resonating LPFs to emulate a steel drum. Demos of these patches are available in the SynHammond.mp3 and SynSteelDr.mp3 audio files.
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Buenos notches As you know, the notch filter is not available in TVF. However, there is really nothing to feel sad about here, as you can create a notch filter yourself! Simply combine the same wave processed with a low-pass and a high-pass filter, and with properly set cutoff frequencies you will have the resulting spectrum with a gap in the middle - which is the same thing you'd get with a notch filter. But also, not only you can adjust the frequency gap width, but you can make the edges resonant.
Spectrum of a Notch filter virtually is a sum of LPF and HPF spectrums
‣ Select the same wave or sample for tones 1 and 2. ‣ For tone 1, set TVF to LPF with Cutoff of 70. ‣ For tone 2, set TVF to HPF with Cutoff of 100.
Creating a custom notch filter with parallel LPF and HPF
Voila, thanks to the gap between the LPF and HPF spectrums, you have your very own notch filter ready. Play this patch while tweaking the filter cutoff with a knob, and hear how great it sounds. Depending on the difference between the cutoff frequencies of the low-pass and high-pass filters, you can get a narrow or wide gap in the spectrum. Also, if you raise the resonance of one or both of the filters, you can create a much more interesting effect, not possible with to a usual notch filter. To create a steeper-shaped notch filter, use all 4 tones with structure types set to 2 (serial filter connection) and then set filter to LPF on tones 1 and 2 and to HPF on tones 3 and 4. For very deep morphing sounds, you can also apply synchronized LFOs to LPF/HPF cutoff frequencies . If you want to add such a custom notch filter to more complex patch based on two-tone structures, you can duplicate tone 1 and 2 to tones 3 and 4 (respectively) and then form a notch with LPF and HPF on tones 2 and 4. ‣ 150 Notch Pad (audio demo in NotchPad.mp3) is a pad patch created simply by processing a unison saw wave by parallel LFO-controlled LPF and HPF. NotchLoop.mp3 contains a drum/phrase loop, firstly processed with a wide custom notch, and then with a narrow notch with resonant gap edges.
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Stereotonic In the Fantom’s patch, each tone consists of up to two waveforms, Wave L and Wave R (left and right waveforms). As you might have guessed, when both waveforms are used, they are treated as left and right channels of one stereo tone. This is typically used for waveforms and samples which have been recorded in stereo. And there is no reason why you can’t use totally different sounds for the left and right waveforms - this is especially great when you want your patches to sound more lush and massive (though, make sure to remember that each stereo tone eats two polyphony voices). However, setting Wave L and Wave R to the waveforms that are only slightly different will result in an extension of the stereo field. And the best thing about it is that there are no delay or detuning effects which you’d get with a “pseudo stereo” or a chorus processor - the typical candidates for when you want to turn a mono sound into a stereo one. To test this simple technique: ‣ Select any synth or synth bass patch. ‣ Turn all effects off. ‣ Set the Wave L and Wave R parameters to different variations of the same waveform (the waveform list will help you). And that’s basically it, you can hear right away that this patch got a wide stereo field. ‣ The patch 190 Stereo Saws (demo in Stereo Saws.mp3) is a good example of how stereo tones can be used to create lush patches without the help of any dedicated effects processors. It is a simple “dry” patch with 8 detuned saws for 4 stereo tones.
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Modulation Magic Advanced usage of envelope and LFO generators.
Pitch envelope vs. TVF/TVA envelopes The pitch envelope generator slightly differs from TVA and TVF envelopes. It can generate both positive and negative values (-63..+63), while TVA and TVF envelopes can only have a single polarity (0..127). What does this mean? Sometimes you want to modify a certain parameter "up and down" from it's original value. With TVA and TVF envelopes, you can only increase or decrease the value. However, with pitch envelope, it is possible to increase and decrease the parameter value from it's original setting.
Pitch envelope
TVA/TVF envelope
Difference in generated output values of pitch and TVA/TVF envelopes
The positive/negative value control range of the pitch envelope sometimes can be very handy mostly when you want to be able to start from or end at the original parameter value (0 level of the envelope), and be able to change the parameter up and down of this value - such a trick would not be possible with TVA/TVF envelopes. Thanks to the ability of the pitch envelope to generate both positive and negative values, you can almost instantly use it as a pan envelope: ‣ Select any desired waveform for the generator. ‣ Create a falling pitch envelope, but leave the envelope depth at 0. ‣ Go to Matrix CTRL 1, set Source to PITCH ENV, Destination to Pan, and Sens to +63 Done: the sound flies from left to right and back just as you control it with the pitch envelope. If you also send the pitch envelope to control pitch, and then add a raising/falling TVA envelope, you can easily create sound effects such as an airplane pass-by.
Shaping envelope and LFO forms Have a look at the list of available destinations in Matrix Control: you see such ones as TVA ENV D-TIME, TVF ENV A-TIME, etc. It becomes obvious that you can assign envelope times to be controlled by velocity or modulation lever, but more interesting is that you can route an envelope or LFO to modulate itself, and thus change it's shape. This process is often called “recursive modulation” and is used to make the envelope/LFO forms more convex (when self-modulation is positive) or concave (if self-modulation is negative). Some of the applications are making drastic parameter changes to produce “snappier” sounds, more typical to 26
analogue gear which usually have exponential envelope curves. Now let's make the TVA envelope modulate it's own delay time and hear what this gives. ‣ Choose a basic synth wave like saw or square. ‣ Create a short falling TVA envelope (A=0, D=40, S=0, R=5). ‣ In Matrix CTRL 1, set Control Source to TVA ENV, Destination to TVA ENV D-TIME, and Sens to about -10. By these means, the TVA envelope will be modulating it's own decay time. Play this patch while varying the control depth, and hear in what changes this results. Try the same for the filter envelope. Below are the approximate graphs of the envelope shape changes with positive and negative values of the Sens parameter (positive/negative self-modulation). You can see an example of how the decay of the envelope can change. The more it raises above zero, the more concave it becomes. It gets more convex as the self-modulation depth falls below zero.
-18
-8
0
+8
+18
Self-modulated envelopes (approximate Matrix Control Sens values are shown below the images)
In order to make it even more clear, here are the wave graphs of a saw wave played at C4 - the TVA envelope modulates it's own decay time which is set to 40. Below the images, Matrix Control modulation Sens values are shown.
-18
-8
0
+8
+18
Saw wave modulated by a TVA envelope with slope form depending on selfmodulation depth
The same technique can also be used to shape LFO waveforms. All you have to do is set the Matrix Control Source to LFO01/2 and Destination to LFO1/2 TVA/TVF/Pitch depth (depending on what parameter you want to be changing in a non-linear way). Fast-falling envelopes (with Sens set to -18..-15) are essential for creating snappy synth drum and percussion sounds, as well as punchy synth bass and acid patches.
Get clicky While the self-modulation trick described above works great in many occasions, there is yet a no possibility to make Fantom's envelopes be “clicky” as you'd want it to be when creating really 27
punchy synth bass sounds for example. But your Roland synthesizer never lets you down, and there is yet another trick of creating a clicky envelope. Note that this is different from using the ROM “TVF click” or similar waveform because you can shape the resulting sound to fit your target patch. What you should do is: ‣ Select a square wave for tone 1 generator (works best because it has an attack portion almost equal to a DC wave). ‣ Set the filter to LPF, Cutoff to about 10. ‣ Create a “click” envelope for the filter – Time1: 0, Time2: 0, Level1: 0, Level2: 127, Level3: 0, and set Env Depth to around +20. ‣ You may set tone Structure Type to 2, set tone 2 to the same square wave and use it's filter to remove higher frequencies and make this click sound softer. Now you hear a click sound followed by a decaying silent, filtered square wave. This sound now can be used to add “snappyness” to a bass or lead patch. For example, add a saw or square waveform routed to a low-pass filter (Cutoff: 60) with a falling envelope (Env Depth: +15) and you have a very warm, dense analog-like bass patch.
Creating an envelope click sound typical for analog synths ‣ 080 Square Vibe 1 (demoed in Square Vibe.mp3) has this click trick implemented on tones 1 and 2, and adds a filtered square on tone 3 to create a very good analog-like synth bass sound.
Deeper pitch slides The pitch envelope lets you sweep the pitch over two octaves maximum - from -12 to +12 semitones. But very often it's needed to modulate the pitch over a wider range of frequencies, and this is easily possible if you send the pitch envelope to control the pitch using Matrix Control as well:
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‣ Set wave generator to saw or sine wave. ‣ Create a falling pitch envelope: Time 1: 40, Time 2..4: 0, Level 0: +63, Level 1..4: -63, and set it's Depth to +63. Audition the patch – the pitch sweeps over two octaves. ‣ Now go to Matrix Control 1, set Source to PITCH ENV, Destination 1 to Pitch and Sens to +63. The pitch sweeps over a range of around 4 octaves.
Increasing pitch envelope depth with Matrix Control
This way you can create interesting synth effects with fast and deep pitch changes, e.g. like blips/zaps, and this is also a very good way to tweak samples, especially drum/phase loops - hear the examples. ‣ The patch named 050 Sweet 909 (demo in Sweet909.mp3) is a very nice TR-909-like kick drum sound synthesized using a wide-range pitch envelope applied onto a sine wave. The additional demos named AllStart.mp3 and AllStop.mp3 were created with up- and downpitch-sweeping of a sampled portion of a drum/phrase loop.
Retro beatbox One of the most interesting ways of using tempo-sync'd LFOs is to create rhythmical pulsating sounds. By using two LFOs that are available per tone, it is very easy to create various rhythmic loops. To achieve this, you need one LFO to create "pulses" of the selected wave, and a step LFO to mute and un-mute these pulses (or steps). Programming such a "beat box" resembles the TR-style programming method (used in Roland's TR-series rhythm machines). In the step LFO editor, each of the 16 steps represents one of the 16 steps of the bar, and you can mute and un-mute different steps as you want. However, it can be much more than just muting/un-muting sounds in time - since the step LFO has 73 different level values per step (-36..+36), you can add precise and lively accents to these rhythmic patterns. The next drawing will make things clearer for you. ‣ Choose a sine wave (not obligatory, just as an example) for the wave generator. ‣ Make the following settings for LFO1: Wave Form: SAWD (downwards saw), Rate: 16th note, Offset: -100, Key Trigger: ON, Pitch depth: + 63, TVA depth: +63. ‣ Now set up LFO2: Wave Form: Step, Rate: whole note, Offset: -100, Key Trigger: ON, TVA depth: +63. ‣ Go to the step LFO editor, and set all of the steps' values to -36. Now set some of the steps, say, 1, 5, 9 and 13 to +36. Press a key and you'll hear a 4/4 beat. This is where to start from: by adjusting the selected steps' levels you can mute, un-mute and accent the "pulses", steps of this synth drum sound.
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Using two LFOs for creating rhythmic modulation patterns
Using the described techniques, you can synthesize and layer different drum and percussion sounds, creating very interesting rhythm loops. Here are some example parameters for creating different synth drum and percussion sounds. Kick
Sine or triangle wave, LPF or peaking filter with Cutoff: 40..50; try LFO1 Pitch depth: +30..+60
Snare
White or pink noise; try peaking filter with Cutoff: 70..90, Resonance: 0..50
Hi-hat
White noise, HPF or BPF with high Cutoff (110..127)
Claves, congas, toms
Sine wave, slight FXM, BPF with Cutoff: 60..100, Resonance: 0..70
FX and other percussion
Sine, saw and noise square waves, deep FXM, BPF with a Cutoff: 70..80; try LFO1 Pitch depth: +20..+50
The double-LFO heart of pulsating sounds
To achieve even more interesting results, play with pitch, TVA, filter and pan depths of both LFOs - set them to high and low, positive and negative values. For example, when using a white/pink noise as a wave, you can combine an LFO-modulated pitch with an LFO-modulated self-oscillating 30
filter to create interesting kick drums and various blips/zaps. With Matrix Control, you can set the base pattern (saw or whatever) LFO to modulate it's own TVA depth and produce much more interesting, drastic or smooth pulsations (see the Shaping envelope and LFO forms article for more details). Also, try routing LFO2 to control LFO1 TVA depth this way you can control the length of each pulsation (rhythmic event) and add stunning variations: like for example, create closed and open hi-hats using a single tone, or hi-hat and snare sounds (just use an HPF for a noise wave and add TVF depth modulation in addition to TVA depth). ‣ You can check out the patches 097..103 (named Retro Box 1, 2, etc.). All of them are fourtone patches - each tone simulates a drum or percussion sound, so that the resulting patch sounds like a retro-analog beat-box rhythm. Several of these patches are demoed in RetroBox.mp3. ‣ In the template 252 Temp BBox you will find four drum/percussion tones (kick, snare, closed and open hats) which you can instantly use to program custom patterns.
Sequential world In the same fashion with rhythmic drum and percussion patterns, you can create various looping synth sequences by using a combination of pulsating and step LFOs. The main trick with creating really harmonic, not just random psychedelic synth lines, hides in the pitch depth used for the step LFO. ‣ Select a rich basic wave for the wave generator, such as saw or square. ‣ For LFO1, set Wave Form to downwards saw (SAWD), Rate to 16th note, Offset to -100 and TVA Depth to +63. This way we create our base pulsating synth sound. ‣ For LFO2, set Wave Form to Step, Rate to whole note, Offset to 0. ‣ And now, the magic number: set LFO2 Pitch depth to +51. This way the step LFO will control the pitch in a range of two octaves, so if you press C4, the value of -36 of the step will give you C3 and +36 will make a C5. Since we have 12 semitones in an octave, and 36 divided by 12 is 3, increasing or decreasing the value of a LFO step by 3 will walk higher or lower by one semitone. As an example, if the base note is C4, a step value of +15 will produce F4, and +27 will give you A4. ‣ Now draw some interesting step LFO pattern and you have your step-LFO-based synth line ready.
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Creating synth sequences and lines with two LFOs
You can create several tones within a patch, each playing a different melody. This way you can have a whole 4-part arpeggiating synth orchestra at a press of a key, which is great for creating lush synth parts by playing chords, for instance. Also, by changing the rate of the step LFOs to different values such as one bar, 1.5 bars and 2 bars you can create very interesting melodic loops. Use mono, legato, portamento and portamento legato for LFO-based synth lines. With such a patch, if you play different keys legato (releasing the previous key only after pressing the next one), you will get a wonderful effect of the pitch gliding from one note to another. Experiment with sending one or both LFOs of the tone to control TVF, pan, level, etc. to get much more interesting tonal variations in time. ‣ The 114 Mod Line 1 patch was created by combining two detuned square waves; step LFOs control pitch and filter cutoffs of both tones. The 093 Retro Sonic 1 patch has four tones with pitches, TVA and TVF modulated by different step LFO patterns. The filtertweaked demos of these two patches are available in RetroSonic.mp3 and ModLine.mp3. ‣ 252 Temp Arp will help you get started with making such melodic lines.
Wave arithmetics, part 2 As you learned from the Wave arithmetics, part 1 article from the Everything Out Of Nothing section, summing waves with different frequencies and phases can give some new interesting forms. If you apply these techniques to the LFOs, you can create complex modulation patterns that would not be possible to be created by other means, even with a step LFO. Basically, all you need is two key-triggered LFOs that should also be tempo-synchronized – so you can precisely set their rates to related values. However, in order to “engineer” a new modulation waveform, you have to first calculate the rates of the LFOs, and here's how. ‣ First you need to think about how fast the resulting pattern should be and determine a single rate measurement “unit” - since the LFOs are tempo-sync'd, it can be a sixteenth, eighth, quarter note, etc. ‣ Then you need to think how the rates of the LFOs should relate. If rates should relate as R1 to R2 (LFO1 to LFO2), you have to multiply R2 by the measurement unit to get LFO1 rate 32
and R1 by the unit to get LFO2 rate. For example, let the measurement unit be an eighth note, and rates relate as 3 to 4, then LFO1 rate should be equal to half note and LFO2 rate should be equal to dotted quarter note. ‣ The length of the resulting wave form in the measurement units can be calculated as R1 multiplied by R2. In the example above it will be 3 x 4 = 12 eighth notes (e.g. 1.5 bars). Now let's start by creating a patch with new modulation waveform created by summing a saw wave and an inverted square wave. ‣ Set tone waveform to saw or square wave. ‣ Set TVF to LPF, Cutoff: 70, Resonance: 30. ‣ Set LFO1 to downwards saw (SAWD), it's Rate to half note and TVF depth to +30 ‣ Set LFO2 to square, it's Rate to dotted quarter note and TVF depth to -30 (a negative sign for modulation depth is equal to inverting the LFO wave's phase). ‣ Don't forget to switch the Key Trigger parameter of both LFOs to ON. As you can hear now, you got a very interesting pulsating sound, and the resulting modulation wave form you got by summing saw and inverted square LFO waves is depicted below.
Summing saw and inverted square waves rates related as 3:4
However, there are more interesting waveforms awaiting for you if you not sum two waves, but use the Matrix Control to set one LFO to control the parameter modulation depth of another. Let's set up a square LFO to control modulation depth (Pitch depth, TVF depth, etc.) of a saw LFO.
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Creating new LFO forms by controlling LFO1 modulation depth with LFO2
As you see from the picture below, when the square wave is in it's positive semi-period, the saw wave is not changed, it's parameter modulation depth is positive. However, in the negative semiperiod, the square wave makes the saw wave depth inverted, literally “mirrors” it. The resulting modulation wave, if drawn, appears to be quite a pretty-looking one!
“Mirroring” a saw wave with a square wave of a different rate
This technique also gives interesting results if you use a saw LFO and a step LFO with evenlyrelated rates (16th and whole note, for example), and use the step LFO to control the saw LFO filter depth – this will let you program rhythmic upward and downward filter sweeps of different depths. ‣ Check out the patch 157 Movin' Keys (demo in MovinKeys.mp3) – it has been created by controlling two serially-connected LPFs with saw LFO waves whose cutoff depths are modulated by square LFOs (LFO rates relate as 4:5).
Controlled time stretching One of the most wonderful modulation destinations of Matrix Control is TIME - this lets you 34
change the amount of time stretching applied to a sample. By modulating this parameter with an LFO, it is possible to create really interesting sounds. ‣ Assign a drum loop or a phrase sample to a patch with Wave Tempo Sync set to ON. ‣ Set LFO1 to a square wave, Rate to 1/4 note, Key Trigger to ON. ‣ In Matrix CTRL 1, set Source to LFO1, Destination to TIME and Sens to +63. Now you can play the patch and hear how time stretching is cyclically controlled by the LFO. To add more radical changes to the loop, set LFO 2 to control the pitch: LFO2 Wave Form: square, Rate: 1/8 note, Key Trigger: ON, Pitch Depth: +63. Remember, pitch affects the sample's tempo, and the Fantom's sound engine adjusts the time stretching to match the current sequencer tempo in realtime, which leads to unique effects. There's a lot more interesting sounds to hear if you use random LFOs: you can set both LFOs to Random, with Rate of 90 for LFO1 and 110 for LFO2. With random LFOs, you get much more drastic pitch/time changes which result in tons of new sounds. Try chaos LFOs too. To go even further, you can change LFO waveforms to saw or triangle, adjust their cycle rates, then route them to TVF, TVA, etc.
Controlling time-stretching amount with an LFO
To go into more advanced tweaking, you can use a step LFO to control time stretching amounts and/or pitch for each of the drum hits of a drum loop. ‣ LFOStretched1.mp3 is a drum loop time-stretch-controlled by a square-wave LFO. LFOStretched2.mp3 is the same patch with a second square-wave LFO that controls loop's pitch. MadTime.mp3 demo is a drum loop whose pitch and time stretch have been controlled by random LFOs.
Freeze, froze, frozen In the previous article, we discussed controlling the real-time time stretching with LFOs. Now, let's see what can be done by assigning the TIME parameter to a physical controller. A very exciting thing is that when you use a controller to turn the TIME down to it's minimum value (-63), the sample wave freezes – the sound engine plays a single grain of the sample (grain length depends on the time stretch type set in sample parameter properties). Yet even more exciting is 35
that if you manipulate a beat or phrase loop this way, the sound engine will keep it up with the beat as you freeze and “let go” the sample – this has to be heard to be believed. If you assign a controller of choice to TIME, you can, for instance, freeze a beat or phrase loop at certain moments, adding cool sound variations. ‣ Assign a beat or phrase loop to a patch. ‣ Set Wave Tempo Sync to ON. ‣ In Matrix Control, assign CC01 (modulation) to TIME, with a Sens of -63. ‣ Now play the sound, and experiment with the modulation lever to slow down the wave, let it go. If you freeze and let it go fast, your wave will still keep up with the beat. Of course, you can program interesting modulation patterns in the sequencer simply by putting maximum controller values for the controller when you want to freeze the sample and minimum values to unfreeze it. ‣ In the Frozen.mp3 demo you can hear a drum/phrase loop being time-stretched and frozen in real time. FrozenSeq.mp3 has been created by freezing/unfreezing and pitch-bending a drum loop by putting control change messages in the sequencer.
Left plus right As you already know, the Fantoms' sound engine treats stereo samples as a combination of left and right channels. Despite what you may think against, this really gives many advantages over having a stereo wave as one whole – simply because you can manipulate left and right channels independently, creating interesting effects that wouldn't be possible otherwise. The first example here shows how you can create wonderful stereo-filter effects by applying phase-inverse LFOs to TVFs separately affecting left and right waves of a sample loop.
Processing left and right channels separately
‣ Select a sample, such as a phrase or a drum loop. ‣ Assign the left wave of this sample to tone 1 and the right one to tone 2 and set Wave Tempo Sync to ON if needed. 36
‣ Pan them left and right by setting the TVA Pan parameter of the two tones to -63 and +63, respectively. ‣ Set TVFs of both tones to HPF, then adjust Cutoff to 65 and Resonance to 60. ‣ Now set LFO1 of both tones to triangle (TRI) with a Rate of a quarter note and then adjust TVF Depth to -40 and +40 (respectively for tone 1 and 2). What you have now is two LFOs controlling the TVFs of the left and right channels with an inverse phase, resulting is an interesting filtering effect that floats between the channels. Of course, you can use these techniques to create sounds based on usual waves. Two inversephased LFOs set to control filters can make any lush pad sound truly fantastic, just as they can add a magic final touch to any synth lead. To go into more advanced channel-split processing, you may set up a performance with left and right waves played from two different parts, and then route these to two differently-modulated MFX, like Phaser or Flanger. ‣ Check out the audio demo LR-Filter.mp3 which is a nice examples of processing a drum/ phrase loop with the techniques described in the article.
Vectorize As you may know, vector synthesis is basically a method of creating sounds based on crossfading between multiple waveforms. Without any doubt, you can do basic vector synthesis with the Fantoms too! Thanks to the step LFOs which can be set to continuous mode, you can easily create a patch that would cross-fade between two, three or four tones – this, depending on the waves you have on these tones, can result in really great dynamic sounds. All you need as a start is a single tone with a continuous step LFO controlling it's level:
Single element (tone) of a vector cross-fade emulation sound
‣ Select a looped bell or basic synth wave for tone 1. ‣ Now set up LFO1: Wave Form: Step, Rate: 35, Offset: -100, Key Trigger: ON, TVA depth: +63. ‣ Go to step LFO editor and set Step Type to TYPE2. Now you have your basic element ready, it's time to copy it to other tones, select different synth waveforms for them and draw mutually cross-fading LFO forms. Let's go further and create a patch with three cross-fading tones:
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‣ Copy tone 1 to tones 2 and 3. ‣ Select different synth waves for tones 2 and 3. ‣ Go to step LFO editor and create LFO forms that would cross-fade the tones between each other. For example, let the tones cross-fade as 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2... - you can check out the example drawings for the needed LFO forms below.
Three synchronised step LFOs set up to cross-fade three waves (tones)
As you hear now, you have a sound that is created by cross-fading between three waveforms. With slow TVA envelopes and glassy waves you can instantly have a superb sparkling pad sound. You can switch the Key Trigger on step LFOs off – they will not be restarted on each key press, and all the notes and chords you play will change continuously (allowing polyphonic legato performances). Also, since you have one unused LFO per tone, you can assign different basic synth waves to the tones and apply LFOs on the filter's cutoff and resonance parameters – this can can be used to create really thick, evolving synth textures. ‣ The patch 149 Vectorise is a sparkling pad sound created with three bell/glass waves crossfading between each other by means of synchronised step LFOs, plus an additional sine wave on the fourth tone. Vectorise.mp3 is a demo of this patch. You can also give a listen to 151 SQR Morpher which is a patch based on four cross-faded square/pulse waves with LFO-modulated filters.
LFO by LFO Modulating LFO properties by another LFO can yet give more interesting possibilities than we discussed above. One of them that we'll discuss now is using a sample and hold (S&H) LFO with a zero rate and Key Trigger set to ON to generate a random value on each key press. Then, via Matrix Control, you can use this value for another LFO – for example, to vary it's filter modulation depth. And if the destination LFO is in one-shot mode, it's like having a filter envelope with a random cutoff frequency modulation depth – something you might have thought only modular synthesizers can do... until now.
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‣ Set the waveform to any basic one (super saw, for instance). ‣ Set Filter Type to BPF with a Cutoff of 70. ‣ LFO1 - Wave Form: SAWD, Rate: 1/4 note. ‣ LFO2 – Wave Form: S&H, Rate: 0, Key Trigger: ON. ‣ And now the core trick: in Matrix CTRL1, set Source: LFO2, Destination: LFO1 TVF DEPTH, Depth: +30.
Modular-synth style usage of LFO generators
On each key press, you will get a different filter modulation depth from LFO1. Play this patch polyphonically and each note will sound differently, giving you a really interesting sound. Add one or more tones to this patch with different filter settings and LFO1 rates to create massive pulsating synths. ‣ 186 Lush Mod (demo in Lush Mod.mp3) is a meaty motion synth which has two tones with different filter types and LFO1 rates. 187 Randomized uses one cycle of a saw LFO1 to create a random-depth filter envelope.
Envelope’d LFO In the same way an LFO can modulate some parameters of another LFO, we can control an LFO with an envelope. What it would give us, for example, is a possibility to bring the LFO speed up or down, or to vary it's modulation depth in time. ‣ Set tone 1 to any synth waveform. ‣ For it’s LFO1, set Wave Form to SQR, Rate to 83, Offset to -100 and TVA Depth to +63. This will apply cyclic level modulation to the sound. ‣ Create a falling TVF envelope (we will use it only for modulation purposes): Attack to 0, Decay to 65, Sustain to 0 and Release to 65. 39
‣ For Matrix Control slot 1, route the TVF envelope to the LFO1 RATE parameter with a Sens of about +25.
Controlling LFO speed with an envelope
As you can hear now, the LFO slows down as you hold down a key. You can also apply this TVF envelope onto pitch, filter cutoff or LFO modulation depth to create more synchronous changes to the sound. Envelope control of LFO speed is also useful for creating sound effects (such as a helicopter fly-by and so on). ‣ 198 Storm Pad (Storm Pad.mp3) is a supersaw-based patch with a slowing-down LFO and filter modulated with the same envelope.
Vari-filter In the Sequential world and Vectorize articles, you have learned a lot about complex sound animation. Yet the possibilities of the step LFO are endless, and here is another idea for making rhythmically-modulated patches. You can cross-fade (in smooth step LFO mode) or switch (in step mode) between several tones which have the same waveforms but are routed into different filter types. This will sound like you’re quickly changing the filter characteristics, which is definitely even more interesting than just modulating the cutoff and resonance. Try this trick out with three tones having same waveforms and different filter types: ‣ Switch the first three tones on and set them to the same basic waveform like saw or square. ‣ Set their filter types to LPF, BPF and HPF, with Cutoff values of around 50, 80 and 110, respectively. ‣ Now set the LFO1 of all three tones to STEP, Rate to whole note, Key Trigger to ON, Offset to -100 and TVA Depth to +63. The two latter parameter settings will allow us to use the step LFO as an on/off switch. ‣ Finally, in the step LFO editor, create three such patterns so that only one of them has a 40
value of +63 at the same time, with others set to -63. As you hear now, at each step of the LFO you get a sound with a different filter type. Note that each filter will react to the realtime cutoff and resonance tweaks in a different way, which sounds even more interesting. Also, if you combine this filter switching with additional modulation from LFO2, you can come up with really complex rhythmical synth and bass lines. ‣ The patch 191 FilterGroove (demo in FilterGroove.mp3) is a very interesting
Velocity games, part 1 Velocity is a special controller whose value corresponds to how hard you press the keys. It’s individual for each key, therefore it’s polyphonic. The typical uses of velocity is to apply it onto the sound level (the harder you play, the louder the sound), or onto the filter cutoff frequency (the harder you play, the brighter the sound). But thanks to Matrix Control, there are numerous other ways to make a patch respond to velocity. One example of unusual use of velocity is creating a sound which would have a long attack and decay at low velocity levels, and become shorter and more percussive as the velocity increases. Here is a quick tutorial: ‣ Set any waveform for tone 1. ‣ Create a rising and falling envelope for TVA: A = 50, D = 50, S = 0, R = 50. ‣ In Matrix CTRL1, set the Source to VELOCITY, and set up two Destination slots to go to TVA-ENV-ATK with a Depth of -25 and to TVA-ENV-DCY with Depth set to -20. ‣ Finally, to make this sound playable as a percussive instrument, set the Tone Env Mode to NSUS (no sustain).
Also, with velocity as a controller you can make the modulation faster the harder you press the keys. Let's try this with the filter cutoff: ‣ Set the wave of tone 1 to any basic form. ‣ Set the TVF Filter Type to LPF with a Cutoff of 50..60. 41
‣ For LFO1, select a triangle Wave Form with Rate = 40..50 and TVF Depth = +20..25. ‣ Finally, for Matrix CTRL1, set the Source to VELOCITY, Destination to LFO1 RATE and Depth to +20..25. One other very interesting use of velocity is creating a mutual crossfade between two sounds. This is done by setting the TVA Level of two tones to 0 and 127, respectively, and then routing the velocity to LEVEL with a depth of +63 and -63. As you play the patch from low to high velocities, you can hear the first waveform crossfade into the second one. ‣ The patch 194 PlayMeHarder (demo in PlayMeHarder.mp3) reacts to the playing velocity in a special way: the faster you play, the shorter the sound. ‣ 238 Temp VeloEnv is a patch template with velocity-sensitive envelope attack/decay times.
Velocity games, part 2 Continuing from the previous article, not only Matrix Control can make advanced use of the velocity value. The Tone Mix Table (TMT) allows you to define at which velocity range each patch tone will play, and this is usually called “velocity switching”. The Velocity Range Lower and Velocity Range Upper parameters define where the velocity range starts and ends, respectively, for each tone.
An example of velocity switching between four patch tones
Most frequently, velocity switching is used to re-create the nuances in instruments by sampling them at several different velocities. And you can try to use this technique to switch between totally different sounds. ‣ Set all four tones to different waveforms. ‣ Using the TMT, set their velocity ranges to 0-60, 61-80, 81-100 and 101-127, respectively. Now, when you play this simple patch, you will hear one of the four different waveforms depending on the velocity at which you press each key. But of course there are even more interesting tricks possible. For example, why not perform velocity switching on several tones that have different pitches? ‣ In the patch you’ve just created, set the pitches of the tones to -5, 0, +7 and +12 (fifth and octave detunes always give musical results when you mix them).
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‣ 193 VelocityBell (audio in VelocityBell.mp3) shows you the advanced usage of velocity switching. Only 5 keys are played in the demo, but thanks to the tricky response to the velocity you hear a really complex but musical performance. ‣ The template 239 Temp Velo Sw has four velocity-switched tones to get you started.
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Monster FX Getting the most out of the effects processors.
A fat recipe Chorus is probably the most widespread effect on synthesizers, and it has been featured on the very most of them since early 1980s. Traditionally it was (and is) used to fatten up the sound, turn it from mono to spacious stereo. It has also been used in analogue string machines to turn singleoscillator sounds into a lush ensembles. What the chorus basically does is mixing the original sound with a few of it’s delayed and detuned copies. But using chorus is not as simple as you may think! It is very easy to make any patch sound “cheesy” with it, and now we'll learn how to avoid this and also use chorus as a very interesting creative tool. ‣ Select a patch such as a simple saw-based synth lead (the best would be the one based on two detuned saw waves). ‣ Route it to MFX (or to the the system chorus unit) set to Chorus. ‣ You can see that the Chorus has a pre-effect filter, which lets you apply the chorus effect only to a certain frequency range of the input signal. And that is how to avoid your bass or synth lead sounding “cheesy”: make sure Filter Type is HPF and Cutoff Freq is at 600-800 Hz – this applies the chorus on frequencies above the low-mid range. ‣ Now, to turn this quite simple patch into a massive hoover synth, set Rate: 7-7.5 Hz, Depth: 20-22, Balance: around 50% (D50:50W).
Classic sound fattening based on high-rate chorus
A fast-rate chorus can also be used for making interesting backing drum/percussion loops, and even turn them from mono to stereo. Simply route such a loop into a chorus, set Rate to 8-10 Hz, Depth to 100-127 and Balance to D0:100W and you will hear yourself. ‣ 169 OldSkul Lead and 172 Trancy Lead (demo in TrancyLead.mp3) show you two classic but very powerful and spacious leads, both based on the above-described techniques.
Acid empire The now-traditional distorted acid sounds were born in middle 1980s when techno musicians 44
used to process their TB-303 synths and the like through guitar overdrive/distortion pedals. The very exciting fact is that with your Fantom you can do this too and even go beyond - since it features a unique Guitar Amp Simulator MFX algorithm which includes pristine-quality COSM models of vintage amplifiers (including Roland JC-120 and Marshall combos) and guitar overdrive/distortion pedals (like Boss OD-1 and OD-2 Turbo). ‣ Pick one of the TB-303-like acid synth bass sounds you've created while learning the Count to 303 article in the Everything Out Of Nothing section. ‣ Route it to MFX unit set to Guitar Amp Simulator and set Pre-Amp Type to JC-120 as a starting example, and (optionally) set Speaker Sw to OFF to get a clean sound out of the amp without speaker cabinet simulation. ‣ Adjust other parameters to get a moderate overdrive effect: Pre Amp Level: 60-80 (this controls signal gain before entering the amp and thus varies the amount of overdrive), Pre Amp Master: 100 (this adjusts the amp output level). Increase the Pre-Amp Presence parameter to emphasise the subtle levels of the sound. ‣ You can also play with Pre Amp Gain and Bass/Middle/Treble controls to shape the sound – note that this built-in EQ works before the amp stage and thus not only affects the sound's spectrum but the character of the overdrive/distortion effect.
Make your synth sounds roar with Guitar Amp Simulator
Try different synth bass and acid sounds and use different amp models while altering their parameters and you will realise that the Guitar Amp Simulator is a really amazing and flexible tool for sound design. Use it to create slightly overdriven fat bass parts, screaming acid lines, fuzzy distorted leads, whatever you desire. ‣ 163 TB303->JC120 and 165 TB303->OD1 (demos in TB303JC120.mp3 and TB303OD1.mp3) are very good examples of classic overdriven acid sounds, based on saw and square waves, respectively.
Talking synth The LoFi Radio MFX algorithm adds amplitude (ring) modulation by a high-frequency sine wave making your patch sound like it’s coming from an AM band of a radio receiver, and by changing the frequency of this modulator wave with the Radio Detune parameter you can make it sound like you are tuning a radio. But since this effect also degrades the sampling frequency, with such a combination of two effects it can produce vocal-like artefacts in certain input signals.
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Creating gritty “talking” sounds with LoFi Radio
The best way to obtain this kind of sound is to feed the LoFi Radio with a resonant synth sound which also has a filter modulated by an envelope. ‣ Create a saw-based TB-303-like patch and make sure it has filter Resonance set to about 40-60. ‣ Route this patch to MFX unit set to LoFi Radio. ‣ Set the Radio Noise level to 0 to get a clean sound, then play the patch while increasing Radio Detune up to the max – you will hear the sound starts “talking” when you reach the value of 50-70 and above, producing vowel phrases such as “eaw”, etc., with a nice gritty character thanks to the LoFi processor. Change the polarity of the filter envelope to reverse the resulting effect and thus, for instance, turn the “eaw” phrase into “wea”. Alternatively, you may also use a slow continuous LFO to modulate the filter and get interesting vocal-like morphings as you play the patch. ‣ 164 Talking TB has been created by routing a saw-based acid patch into a LoFi Radio MFX unit with a high Radio Detune value. This patch is also available as an audio demo in TalkingTB.mp3.
Monster filter Ask yourself a question: what if you connect three -36 dB Super Filters in series? Simple math gives the exact answer: you will get an enormous and super-steep -108 dB/octave filtering monster which will radically alter the sound's spectrum. ‣ Switch to performance mode, initialise it. ‣ Set all three MFX to a serial connection (structure type 11). ‣ For each of the three MFX units, set the algorithm to Super Filter, Filter Type: BPF, Slope: -36 dB, Cutoff: 50, Resonance: 0, Gain: +4 dB. ‣ For each of the three MFX Controls, set the control 1 Source to CC01: MODULATION, Destination to Filter Cutoff, Sens to +35 and MFX Control Channel to 1. ‣ Now pick up some synth sound or drum loop and assign it to part 1. Hold your breath, press a key and tweak the modulation lever.
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Super-deep -108 dB/octave BPF filter
clean
single BPF
double BPF (-72 dB/oct.)
triple BPF (-108 dB/oct.)
Spectrograms of a white noise
On the spectrograms above you can easily see how the spectrum changes as we stack on another -36 dB/octave band pass filter. The resulting band is getting more narrow, and the final -108 dB filter slope is really steep. You probably wonder if it's possible to use Matrix Control to assign an envelope or LFO of a patch to control these three filters simultaneously, so they still work as a single "monster filter". A little problem (that can be solved) is that from a given part, you can only use Matrix Control to control the MFX unit this patch is assigned (routed) to. Even if you set Control Channel to 1 in all three MFX units, only one MFX unit will "listen" to the Matrix Control on channel 1 - the unit that this part on channel 1 is routed to. However, there is a simple workaround. ‣ Prepare a patch with wanted envelope/LFO settings, and Matrix Control assigned to these envelopes/LFOs as sources and MFX CTRL 1 as destinations. ‣ Set performance parts 1, 2 and 3 to this patch. ‣ Route part 1 to MFX 1, part 2 to MFX 2 and part 3 to MFX 3. Set control channels of the MFX units to 1, 2 and 3, respectively. ‣ Layer these three parts, then turn the levels of parts 2 and 3 down to 0, so they only control the MFX and produce no sound. So now you have a single -108 dB/octave filter which is controlled by an envelope and/or LFO 47
and is processing part 1; parts 2 and 3 serve only as control sources. ‣ You will find two demos called -108dBBPFLoop.mp3 and -108dBBPFSynth.mp3 - these are a drum/phrase loop and a synth patch, respectively, filtered with a triple -36dB/octave BPF MFX setup.
Triple notch Let's go a little bit further from the previous example: we can create an interesting filter which will have three gaps in it's spectrum, and this can be accomplished if you set all three filters to NOTCH and set their cutoffs to about 30, 50 and 70, respectively. The resulting effect may remind you the sound of a multi-stage phaser. By adjusting the cutoffs and resonances to your liking, you get a really good processing method to radically shape the spectrums of your drum loops, synths, basses and many other sounds. You can also use the modulation LFOs (available right in the Super Filter algorithm) to add cyclic changes to cutoff frequencies, and by setting modulation rates of all three MFX filter units to different values, you can get a very cool morphing sounds.
Radically-shaping, triple notch filter ‣ 3xNOTCHLoop.mp3 is a drum/phrase loop processed/tweaked with three notch filters with different cutoff frequencies. 3xNOTCHPad.mp3 demonstrates how well this combination on filters works for creating beautiful, lush pads.
Time machine There are two MFX delay algorithms that let you change delay time in real time, just like on an old tape delay system - Time Control Delay and Long Time Control Delay. This means that with varying the delay time in real time, you can also change the pitch of the delayed sound, which leads to interesting speed effects. ‣ Route a drum loop into a Long Time Control Delay MFX algorithm with Delay Time set to 0 and a Feedback of 90. The Acceleration parameter specifies how fast the delay time will "catch up" with real-time control. The lesser it's value, the slower delay time changes over 48
time as you control it. Set Acceleration to the maximum value of 15, to be able to vary the Delay Time rapidly. ‣ In MFX Control, set the modulation lever (CC01) to control Delay Time with a Sens of +30. Now play the sound while rapidly changing the delay time with the modulation lever: this techniques can be used to create very interesting scratchy sounds and effects.
Speed control with Time Control Delay ‣ TimeCtrl1.mp3 and TimeCtrl2.mp3 are two demos of "scratching" a beat loop.
Moving shadows You might have heard of the term “shadow loop” - it basically means a sample loop that is used to add some space to your mix, both in terms of dynamics and stereo picture. It can be some rhythmic noise or high-pass-filtered distorted percussion loop - basically with a wide stereo base and soft dynamics, so that it increases the stereo base and fills the gaps in time and frequency domains. One of the most interesting ways to add a “shadow” to your drum/percussion part is to “chop” it's Gate Reverb tail (which is rhythmic already if Gate Time is short enough) with a Slicer and then beef it up with an effect like Phaser.
Creating “moving shadows” by slicing and phasing gated reverb tails
‣ So, route a tempo-synchronized drum loop to MFX 1 and: ‣ Set up a serial MFX connection: MFX Structure type 11. ‣ Set MFX 1 to Gate Reverb, set Pre-Delay: 0, Gate Time: 100 ms, and then set Balance to D0:W100 so that you only hear the reverberations.
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‣ Select Slicer for MFX 2, adjust Attack to 10-20 and draw some level pattern. ‣ Choose Phaser, Multi-Stage Phaser or Infinite Phaser for MFX 3 and then play your loop and hear how wonderfully it transformed into a “breathing” pattern. ‣ Reverb808.mp3 is a drum loop created using the techniques described above.
Be shifted Pitch Shifter is an effect algorithm which uses realtime time-stretching to vary the pitch of an incoming signal. And what makes it really interesting is a delay feature – since the shifted signal is delayed and sent back to the input, it gets shifted and shifted again according to the specified amount, and due to the way pitch shifters work each next sound becomes more distorted in a way very pleasant to the ear. Check out how it easy to create a nice sound using just a sine wave and a pitch shifter. In the example below, we will use a 2-voice Pitch Shifter algorithm which basically incorporates two separate shifter+delay effects and allows you to set delay times, feedbacks and pans for each of the shifted voices. ‣ Select a sine wave for the generator. ‣ Create a falling envelope for the TVA also with a slight attack to soften the sine generator: A = 1, D = 50, S = 0, R = 50. ‣ Set the MFX unit to 2-voice Pitch Shifter and set Pitch 1 Coarse: +7, Pitch 1 Delay: 1/8 note, Pitch 1 Feedback: +40%, Pitch 2 Coarse: +9, Pitch 2 Delay: 1/8. note, Pitch 2 Feedback: +40%. ‣ You can also pan both shifted sounds left and right - Pitch 1 Pan: 63L, Pitch 2 Pan: 63R.
In Roland's Fantoms, simple structure doesn't means simple sound
And here it is, a simple but very magic-sounding bell sound that fades and shifts away. Route it to a delay and reverb to add more space. ‣ 189 Shifted Drops (demo in ShiftedDrops.mp3) is a very simple patch that relies on a pitch shifter and an additional delay effect to produce a really cosmic bell sound. 50
True Lo-Fi In 1980’s, when samplers were just starting to go into masses, their technical possibilities were extremely limited by today’s standards. But their low sampling frequencies, laughable bit depths and cramped memory gave birth to an astonishing amount of great sounds which are gaining their second life today, and new ones are being created with the so-called “lo-fi” effects. However, to recreate the lo-fi sounds from the early samplers, you need to follow the same procedure sound engineers used back in those days. ‣ If the highest frequency of the sound is higher than half of the sampling frequency, it will be distorted. Therefore, to achieve a good final sound, the source must first be processed with a low-pass filter. ‣ The low bit depth (typically 8 bits, and later, 12 bits) was putting limitations on the sound‘s dynamic range: the portions which were too silent would get the lowest resolution and sound very noisy. The source sound needs to be compressed to overcome this. ‣ Finally, due to memory limitations, the sounds had to be rather short. The LoFi Compress MFX algorithm has several settings for sample frequency and bit reduction, and it has a pre-filter which also applies compression and adds a unique character to the sound. Combined with a low-pass filter and short TVA envelope on patch level, you can recreate all the above-mentioned limitations of the old samplers. Now, let's experiment and make a 1980's-style drum kit.
Recreating the Lo-Fi sampler sounds of the 1980’s
‣ Create a new or select an existing drum kit. ‣ Set the TVF Filter Type to LPF, and Cutoff to about 85..95.
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‣ Create a short falling envelope for TVA, with a slight hold after the attack portion: ‣ Set the Tone Env Mode to NSUS (no sustain). ‣ Set the MFX algorithm to LoFi Compress, set it’s Pre-Filter Type to 6 and LoFi Type to 5, then the Post Filter Type to OFF. So, congratulations, you’ve carefully re-created the limitations of the early samplers. Play with different Pre-Filter Type and LoFi Type values, and adjust the TVF Cutoff a bit to obtain a wider variety of lo-fi sounds, from soft to harsh. This technique can of course be used on all types of sounds to get that lovely 1980’s feel. ‣ 192 LoFi Kit (demo in LoFi Kit.mp3) is a simple old-school drum kit made using kick, snare and hi-hat samples processed with the technique described above.
Infinity One of my most beloved effects of all times is the Infinite phaser MFX algorithm: it has such a wonderful, fresh and "liquid" character that I wish I could listen to it forever. It sound like two phasers which are crossfaded between each other, for a filtering effect that is sweeping infinitely (hence the name). Depending on it's Rate polarity (positive or negative), the phaser will sweep up or down, and as you increase the Rate it will go from a very nice warbling sound to some mad ringing (especially when Resonance is closer to the maximum too). All this makes the Infinite phaser a really powerful creative tool. This effect algorithm works great for a wide variety of sounds, especially mellow ones like electric pianos, synth strings, electric guitars. It’s also one of the most fun effects to work with in realtime, just use the respective context knob or assign the Rate parameter to a controller of your choice to tweak it as the sound plays. With it’s possibilities for anything from subtle jet sweeps to really wild cosmic filtering, Infinite phaser will surely become your favorite effect too. ‣ Infinite Guitar.mp3 is example of how fun a guitar riff can sound if you route it into the Infinite phaser and play with it’s Rate parameter in realtime (especially when going from negative modulation to positive and back).
Effected tail It is no longer a secret that the Fantom synthesizers allow for rather complex effects setups on performance level. One other example of the available routing flexibility is putting the same sound into different multi-effects processors in parallel. Even though you can’t have one part routed into two MFX processors at the same time, you can overcome this by setting up two parts with the same patch assigned to both. This allows for some very interesting sound processing possibilities, such as processing the “tail” of a delay or a reverb effect using a phaser or a filter. Let’s try this trick out. ‣ In performance mode, assign the same synth sound to parts 1 and 2. ‣ Layer these parts by turning their keyboard switches on. ‣ Send part 2 to MFX1, and select the Modulation Delay algorithm. Adjust the Balance to D0:100W so that you only get the delay effect and no original sound. ‣ Set MFX structure type to TYPE02, now MFX1 output will be routed into MFX2. 52
‣ Select the Infinite Phaser algorithm for MFX2. Now part 1 produces the dry (clean) sound, while part 2 is used to form the delay tail which is then processed by a phaser, and the result is very interesting as you can hear. There are lots of other fun things you can do with such parallel processing. Try processing this delay tail with an LFO-modulated Super Filter, for example, and experiment with reverbs too. ‣ In the demo Phasey Echoes.mp3 you can hear a synth patch processed as described above.
Six voices As you have already learnt, the chorus effect can be used to thicken up synth sounds by mixing in several detuned copies of the input signal. A typical chorus algorithm features three voices (three detuned signals), but inside the Fantoms hides the lovely Hexa Chorus with a whole of six voices. In addition to an unusually lush and deep sound, it also has much more parameters to adjust: namely the so-called “deviation” parameters which, in simple words, define the pan and detuning spread between the six voices. And when you put it into mono mode with all voices blending together, you can get a really beautiful effect. Let’s try the Hexa Chorus on a pad sound. ‣ Select a soft pad sound. ‣ Route it into an MFX processor set to Hexa Chorus with a Balance of D0:100W (here we want a pure chorus sound with no original mixed in). ‣ Set the Pan Deviation parameter to 0 so that all six chorus voices are mixed together and produce a thicker effect. ‣ While you play the patch, adjust the Depth Deviation to about +5..+10 and speed the modulation up a bit by setting the Rate to 1.00..1.50 Hz.
Hexa Chorus can sound really lush
As you increase the Depth Deviation and Rate, you can hear how drastically this six-voice chorus effect changes, turning into something really lush. Hexa Chorus works brilliantly on pads, bells, as well as guitar and other soft sounds. ‣ 196 Hexa Crystal (audio in Hexa Crystal.mp3) is an example how a few simple waveforms can become a great pad sound by means of the Hexa Chorus MFX algorithm.
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Tweak, Sample, Repeat Creative sampling and re-sampling techniques.
Wave looping techniques Several sound creation examples below require you to be able to find the "perfect" loop points in a sample, in order to create looped waveforms. The portion of the wave to loop is usually a single cycle of the wave itself (if the wave is very simple), or one cycle of the wave beating (this can be thought of as a real or imaginary LFO that modulates one or several sound parameters). The procedure of finding the looping portion of the wave basically consists of these two steps: ‣ While using usual zoom values, you can visually find the repeating portion of the sample. Set the sample start and sample end points to select this portion, approximately for now. ‣ Zoom horizontally to the minimum (1:1) and vertically to the maximum (1:128). Now you can precisely set the start/end points to the values of zero level or close. Note that in order to avoid possible clicks when the sample loop restarts, the levels that sample start and end points are set to must be equal or at least very close. ‣ If you still hear slight clicking even if you set the looping points correctly, you may finetune the sample start, loop start and loop end points in the sample parameter screen. On the images below are two example images of a plain wave cycle and an amplitudemodulated wave - see how it's easy to visually find the repeating, periodic portion (periodic portions in more complex waves may be much harder to find, of course).
Simple-cycle wave
Amplitude-modulated wave Wave looping examples
After finding the "perfect loop" points, you may truncate the wave so that only a single cycle that is needed stays, and then save the wave. Note that you can also create new waveforms by selecting a non-perfectly-looping or even a random portion of some sample and looping it.
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“Doctor, they are everywhere!” Almost any sound you hear has a portion that you can loop and create a wave out of it. By sampling various sources and then extracting short wave cycles out of it, you can collect an unbelievably wide variety of raw waves that you can use to synthesize completely new sounds. This can even turn into a "wave hunt", as I call it, and simply take you away for hours, days and even weeks – so be careful! Here are some hints for how to find good sources of raw wave material. Analog hum. If you plug one jack of a jack-to-jack cable into the line input and touch the other jack's tip, you'll hear a typical humming and buzzing sound caused by the grounding of your house’s power supply. Sample it and you can now see that is a square-like wave with many "teeth" that add very nice buzz to the main square wave. It is very easy to select and loop one cycle of such wave and instantly turn it into a cool bass sound. You can also sample other hum sources - every electronic device produces hum and noise, you just have to raise the sampler's input gain in order to hear and sample such signals. AM radio. Even the most simple radio receiver is the source of a whole universe of raw sound material. If you have a receiver with short and medium ranges, turn it on in the night when more signals are able to reach it, and scrolling the frequency wheel will walk you through tons of delicious noises, buzzes and beeps to sample. Feedback waves. You know that if you put a microphone close to the speaker that outputs the amplified microphone signal, you will have a feedback effect due to the signal cycling from the microphone to the amplifier to the speaker and again to the microphone, and so on. The frequency of this feedback sound will depend on various conditions and equipment parameters. You can also use higher microphone input gain to create feedback with your headphones. By looping single cycles of feedback waves you can create many simple but rich waves. Also, you can route the external input to an MFX unit with some distortion or lo-fi algorithm, and then create a feedback effect that would cycle through the effect - you'll be amazed by the results.
Han Solo Inside the Fantom-S/X boards there is a built-in Solo Synth that can only be played using the infra-red D-Beam controller. Many people think it's a child's toy and forget about using it right after the first try. But they just don't realize what they miss! The Solo Synth is nothing but a stand-alone analogue-like monophonic synthesizer that is capable of creating synth waves which are absolutely impossible to create using the sample-based engine of the Fantoms. You can view the diagram that represents the structure of the Solo Synth below. Solo Synth's features are: ‣ Two detunable oscillators with saw and variable pulse waves. ‣ OSC1 can be hard-synched to OSC2; OSC2 level control. ‣ LFO that can modulate pulse width and pitch of the oscillators. ‣ Multi-mode (LPF/BPF/HPF/Peaking) filter with resonance. ‣ Chorus and reverb sends.
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Solo Synth: not a toy, not at all
Using the Solo Synth, it is possible to generate absolutely amazing and rich waveforms that can furtherly be used in the main synth engine to create really fresh sounds, from retro classic to cool new. Creating a synth wave and making a looped sample out of it is quite simple: ‣ Turn on the D-Beam's Solo Synth mode, enter the Solo Synth editor screen. ‣ Create a desired sound with the Solo Synth (check out example patches below). ‣ Before sampling, you need make the Solo Synth's keep it's pitch constant. The easiest way to do this is to put your hand right on the D-Beam, so that your hand touches the synth's front panel: if the Range is set to 2OCT and Coarse tune is at -12, it will produce C4. ‣ Resample this wave in mono mode. ‣ Set the playback mode of this new sample to forward loop, then find the looping portion of the wave, truncate and normalize it if needed. Now you can assign this wave as the source wave in a patch tone. To get you up and running, on next page are several example Solo Synth patches to create various classic synth waves. The common settings for all patches are: Filter: OFF, Range: 2OCT, Chorus: 0, Reverb: 0, Level: 70. Note that if you want to make the Solo Synth tuned perfectly, just create a sine wave patch, then play the C4 key with it simultaneously with Solo Synth, and, if needed, adjust the Fine tune of the Solo Synth to your ear so that there are no beatings heard between the two sounds. If you create a sound based on oscillator sync, you can turn OSC2 level down to 0 so you only hear the pure sound of OSC1 synchronized to OSC2.
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Patch name
Simple PWM
Detuned Saws
Dual OSC 1
Dual OSC 2
SQR
SAW
SQR
SAW
70
0
0
0
OSC1 PWM
+63
0
0
0
OSC1 Coarse
-12
-12
-12
-12
OSC1 Fine
0
-50
0
0
OSC1 Vib
5
0
0
0
OSC1 Sync
OFF
OFF
OFF
OFF
OSC2 Wave
-
SAW
SQR
SQR
OSC2 PW
-
0
0
0
OSC2 PWM
-
0
0
0
OSC2 Coarse
-
-12
-24
-36
OSC2 Fine
-
+50
0
0
OSC2 Vib
-
0
0
0
OSC2 Level
0
127
127
127
LFO Rate
45
-
-
-
Dual PWM
Pure Sync
PWM+Sync 1
PWM+Sync 2
SQR
SAW
SQR
SAW
70
0
0
0
OSC1 PWM
+63
0
+63
0
OSC1 Coarse
-12
0
0
-20
OSC1 Fine
0
0
0
0
OSC1 Vib
0
+35
+20
0
OSC1 Sync
OFF
ON
ON
ON
OSC2 Wave
SQR
SQR
SQR
SQR
OSC2 PW
30
0
0
70
OSC2 PWM
-63
0
+63
+63
OSC2 Coarse
-36
-36
-24
-36
OSC2 Fine
0
0
0
0
OSC2 Vib
0
0
0
0
OSC2 Level
127
0
127
127
LFO Rate
45
45
65
35
OSC1 Wave OSC1 PW
Patch name OSC1 Wave OSC1 PW
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To create very thick sounds, use both PWM and oscillator sync features of the Solo Synth, with different pulse width, PWM depth and LFO depth values on both oscillators. ‣ SyncSynth.mp3 and PWMStrings.mp3 are demos of synth bass and synth string sounds synthesized using Sync and PWM-based Solo Synth waves. ClassicBass.mp3 uses a wave based on Dual OSC 2 solo synth patch give above, plus the MFX Super Filter to create a truly analogue-sounding synth bass.
D-tune In the Unisonic article of the previous section, we discussed creating various detuned (unison) sounds. However, using lush unison sounds that span several parts is not that easy and they obviously will consume too much polyphony. By using resampling, you can “recycle” a unison waveform multiple times, creating thicker waveforms that will not be that polyphony-hungry. ‣ Create a four-wave unison patch. ‣ Resample it, then find the looping portion. ‣ Assign this newly-created unison wave to a patch, copy it to all four tones and then detune them again, using Fine Tune and also Coarse Tune to add tones shifted an octave or two lower/higher. ‣ Resample this sound and repeat the procedure to create a yet thicker sound. With this technique, it is possible to create really huge sounds and turn them into big basses, fat leads, enormous pads – whatever you desire. You can also easily recreate those famous “hoover” sounds originating from Roland's Alpha Juno series. As you detune the base waves, you can also process tones with filters resonating at different cutoffs, this will add more interesting character to the sound. ‣ Unisaw.mp3 contains a demo of a very thick hoover sound which was created by “recycling” a 4-tone unison saw waveform three times. The resulting waveform bases on 12 saw waves, and the final patch uses two octave-shifted tones (this gives 24 saw waves but only 2 polyphony voices per key).
Feedback wizardry You have probably heard of a term “comb filter”. This is a type of a filter that, given that it's frequency response notches are tuned in such a way, can vary the harmonic content of the input signal. A comb filter is often implemented as a delay line which has it's repeat rate close to the signal base pitch frequency. When the delay time is very short and the feedback is close to 100%, you get two interesting effects: ‣ The original wave gets mixed with delayed waves, and since all these summed waves have different phases, this result in a new waveform (you already learned what this can give from “Wave arithmetic” parts 1 and 2). ‣ Delay repeats happen at a different frequency compared to the original wave's frequency, and this causes an effect similar to oscillator synchronization. So, since the Fantoms have delay effects, it is indeed possible to recreate a simple comb delay line. We will use the Time Control Delay algorithm as it gives us a possibility to set it's Time precisely
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by a step of 1 millisecond and also has good feedback feature. And, in order to make things simpler, we will route the TVA envelope to delay Feedback, so that the delay unit actually starts to repeat and mix sounds when you press a key, without having to manually adjust the Feedback from 0 to 99% and back. ‣ Set the wave generator to a saw wave. ‣ Route it to MFX unit set to Time Control Delay with the following parameters: Time: 10..50, Acceleration: 15, Feedback: 0. ‣ Now route the TVA envelope to MFX Feedback. In Matrix Control 1, set Source to TVA ENV, Destination to MFX CTRL 1 and Sens to +63. Then go to MFX Control and set Destination 1 to “Feedback”. ‣ In order to prevent the drastic attack/release of the sound to cycle due to delay feedback, set TVA envelope Attack to 50 and Release to 10. Now, in order to produce different new waves with this method, change the delay Time value, press and hold a key, then release the key, try different wave and effect settings again, and so on. Try different delay time values, ranging from very short (1-30 ms) to medium (50-200). As you hear, you can create many new waves this way, from roaring synths and oscillator-sync-like sounds to various bells and beyond. Use realtime pitch and filter tweaks to create really wild synth effects. You can also apply an LFO to pitch and/or filter to add more interesting pulsations to the sound.
Creating a comb filter with feedback delay line ‣ 153 FeedBack Syn is the patch described above. FeedbackSynth.mp3 has two audio examples: one is a clean synth wave created with the aforementioned patch, and the second one is the same wave processed with two envelope-controlled serial LPFs. FeedbackFX.mp3 contains some interesting sound effects based on the same tricks.
Synthisphere I believe you heard those rich one-key sounds typically used in house, techno and drum and bass styles, which sound like sampled synth chords (short hits, long atmospheres, etc.). There are several ways of creating such sounds.
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Hit-type sounds, for instance, can made made simply by playing a short 3- or 4-note chord with bass notes added using a fat synth with a falling filter envelope, and then sampling it. But more fun sounds can be created by routing a rich synth patch with a slow envelope into a delay processor with high feedback and also into a reverb with a long tail, and then playing many notes in a sequence (preferably forming a chord as you guess) – and then this repeating sound with many overdubbed notes can be resampled. If you also tweak the filter cutoff while you play some new notes into this “looper”, there will be even more interesting changes in the sound. See how easy it is to create these sounds: ‣ Set waveform to super saw. ‣ Set the Filter Type to LPF. ‣ Add a long TVA envelope (A = 70, D = 0, S = 127, R = 80). ‣ Now route this sound to a 3-Tap Delay, Modulation Delay or some other delay MFX algorithm, set Feedback to around 90% and Balance to D60:40W. ‣ Send the MFX unit to the reverb processor set to SRV Hall with a tail Time of about 90-100 and make it a little darker with HF Damp set to 8000..10000 Hz.
Creating synth atmospheres is fun
Now you are ready to go. For instance, play a minor 7th chord around C4, then the same chord around C5 or C6, then add C2 and C3. To make a more evolving sound, play some melodies, and you can do all this while tweaking the filter cutoff and resonance to add more motion. Remember to do all this in resampling standby mode, and start sampling when you hear a sound you like. You can then loop it to play like an atmospheric chord or a short synth chord/stab. ‣ 177 Cyclosphere is a good patch to start creating various atmospheric chords: a super saw wave with long envelope fed into a high-feedback delay and long reverb. Hear a demo of a atmospheric chord sound made out of fit: Synthisphere.mp3.
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Antiverb One interesting and widely-used trick with sampling through effects is creating reversed reverberation. In the resulting audio, the reverb is exactly the opposite of a normal reverb: it’s tail sounds backwards and precedes each sound (note this is different from a reversed reverb, since the latter still sounds after the audio). To achieve this kind of effect, you just need to reverse an audio sample, resample it through a normal reverb, and then reverse it again. ‣ Take any rhythm or phrase, and resample it. ‣ Set the sample playback mode to REV-ONE (reversed one-shot). ‣ Assign the sample to the keyboard, and route it into a reverb effect (the main reverb processor or an MFX processor with a reverb algorithm), adjust the tail length so it’s not too long. ‣ Resample the resulting sound. ‣ Now, set the sample playback mode of the new sample to REV-ONE as well. As you can hear now, the reverb sounds reversed and precedes each sound in a phrase. You can try this with different reverb algorithms and tail lengths, and this trick obviously works great on nonsustaining sounds (i.e. not long strings or pads) and drums. ‣ Antiverb Synth.mp3 and Antiverb Drums.mp3 are two very good examples of how interesting the reversed reverb effect can sound.
Partially processed In modern music, composers and performers often process parts of their tracks with various effects to add transitions, breaks or fill-ins. More than this, certain music styles even rely on heavy realtime and post-processing. On the Fantoms, you can easily create lots of such tricks. In order to process a portion of the whole song with some effect, you need to follow these few steps: ‣ Resample the portion you want to put an effect on. ‣ Assign this sample to a patch and apply the effects you wish, either on patch level, with MFX or both. ‣ Resample this patch, while tweaking the effect in realtime (like opening or closing a filter or sweeping a ring modulator to the end of the phrase). ‣ Insert this sample instead of the original non-processed portion of the song. Now you can use all the mighty processing capabilities of your Fantom described in this book to add different variations to your music. ‣ In the demo Post-Processed.mp3 you can hear a short track parts of which were processed using a filter and ring modulator by means of re-sampling and inserting the effected sample instead of the original portion.
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COSMic Synthesis Using the MFX processors as synthesis elements.
COSMic filter As a first example, we will create a simple synth bass patch that will not use the usual filters inside the patch, but will be routed through the MFX Super Filter instead and TVF envelope will be used to control this filter. You'll ask: why use the Super Filter instead of the TVF? There are two main reasons. First is that it can have an envelope slope with a -12, -24 and super-deep -36 dB falloff per octave, while TVF can only give -12 dB. Two TVFs in series will give -24 dB per octave, but it's still not as steep as -36 dB and you will need to sacrifice one extra wave generator (and, thus, halve the possible polyphony of the patch). The second reason is that the Super Filter sounds so much more warm and analoguish. It produces a very tasty filter effect, you simply can't compare it's distinct sound to the TVF. The only area where TVF beats the MFX filter is filter polyphony. There is one TVF for each voice, but there is only a single MFX unit that filters all audio on it's input. ‣ Select a square wave for the Wave Form parameter, and set Wave Gain to +12. Don't forget to set Analogue Feel to 30-40. ‣ Set TVF Filter Type to OFF. ‣ Create a short falling TVF envelope (A=0, D=30, S=0, R=18), but leave it's Depth at 0 (as we'll use it for controlling MFX, not the TVF). ‣ Set MFX1 type to Super Filter, Filter Type to LPF, Filter Slope to -36 dB, Cutoff to 30-35 and Resonance to 50-60. Go to MFX Control and set the first control Destination to Filter Cutoff. There's no need to set the Source and Sens, leave them default. ‣ The final and most important step. Go to patch Matrix CTRL 1, set it's Source to TVF ENV, Sens to +18-20 and Destination to MFX CTRL 1. Now press a key and check out your creation. The Super Filter is a much more rich filter compared to TVF, with more step curves and warmer sound. In order to enable velocity sensitivity for filter cutoff, go to Matrix CTRL 2, set Source to VELOCITY, Destination to MFX CTRL 1 and Sens to +8..10. Note that you need to lower the Super Filter cutoff a bit in order to compensate the deeper cutoff modulation now caused by both the TVF envelope and velocity. To set cutoff keyfollow, in Matrix CTRL 3, set the Source to KEYFOLLOW, Destination to MFX CTRL 1 and Sens to +5..6.
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Using the COSM Super Filter instead of a plain TVF
Of course, it is obvious that you can route an LFO to the Super Filter as well, and here is how you can advance to the next level of sound creation: ‣ Split two tones on the keyboard: for example, let tone 1 play on C2 and tone 2 on all keys above. ‣ Set tone 1 TVA level to 0 (we'll only need it as a modulation source). ‣ Set tone 1 LFO Wave Form: STEP, Rate: whole note, Key Trigger: ON, then go to step LFO editor, set Step Type to 2 (smooth) and draw some interesting LFO waveform. ‣ In Matrix CTRL 1, set Source to LFO1, Destination to MFX CTRL 1 and Sens to +30..40. ‣ Set tone 2 to some synth wave. ‣ Make sure that the MFX unit is configured as in the previous example. Now press and hold C2 with your left hand and play some melody or chords with your right hand – you can hear what nice morphing parts can be created this way. This way you can also process sample loops, using the step-LFO-controlled Super Filter as a cool dynamic filter bank. If you have a multi-tone patch that uses envelopes to control MFX, make sure that only one tone is sending it's envelope to MFX control (simply set CTRL switch to ON on all tones except one), otherwise you will have the destination parameter over-modulated (since multiple envelopes will be sending control data to this parameter). If you create a fast envelope and then raise the Super Filter's resonance to the maximum, you can create a wide variety of classic blips, zaps and even drum/percussion sounds. ‣ Have a listen at the patches 154 SH Bass 1, 159 SH Bass 2 and 157 Bass 202 (demos in SHBass.mp3 and Bass202.mp3) – these are pretty classic yet very cool synth bass sound which would not be possible to create with a conventional TVF. ‣ Check out the patch 125: HoldC2&Play and do what it's name says – one tone played from C2 controls the Super Filter with a smooth step LFO and the other tone is actually
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filtered with the MFX filter (this patch is demoed in DFSynth.mp3). DFLoop.mp3 is a drum loop processed with a step-LFO-controlled Super Filter. ‣ SuperFilterFX.mp3 has some classic synth effects created based on the described techniques.
LFO to MFX As you got from the previous example, just as we used a TVF envelope to control MFX, we can use an LFO to do the same. In this example, we will control the Detune parameter of the LoFi Radio MFX algorithm with a step LFO.
Controlling MFX LoFi Radio with a step LFO
‣ Set tone 1 TVA Level to 0 and route it to MFX. ‣ Set LFO1 Wave Form to STEP, Offset: +50, Key Trigger: ON, Rate: whole note. ‣ Go to step LFO editor and draw some interesting pattern. ‣ Set Matrix CTRL 1 Source to LFO1, Destination to MFX CTRL 1, Sens to +63. ‣ Select LoFi Radio for MFX, and then adjust LoFi Type to 5 and Radio Noise Level to 60-70, then in MFX Control set one of the Destinations to Radio Detune. Press a key and hear the sound. Once again, note that we don't use any wave generator here for the patch tone - just the step LFO to control the LoFi Radio detune, and you hear what interesting sound we got. Now, let's go further. ‣ Turn on Tone 2. Set it's Wave to white noise and route the tone to MFX. ‣ LFO1: SAWD (falling saw), Offset: -100, Key Trigger: On, TVA and Pitch depths to +63. Set it's rate to be of a 16th note, so that you have a pulsating noise. ‣ LFO2: STEP, Rate: whole note, Offset: -100, Key Trigger: On, TVA Depth: +63. Go to the step LFO editor and draw some wave to create a rhythmic pattern. For example, set level to +36 at steps 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13 and set other levels to -36.
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Processing a rhythmic noise with an LFO-controlled Lo-Fi radio simulator
There are only several MFX algorithms which offer you a built-in step modulator (like Step Ring Modulator and Step Pitch Shifter), but, as you see, a step LFO used with Matrix Control can compensate this and you can add stepped changes to any effect type. ‣ 106 AM Line 1 (demo in AMLine1.mp3) is a two-tone patch created as described in the latter example. The patch 107 AM Line 2 (demo in AMLine2.mp3) is similar - a bit changed step LFO line for AM radio, but a sine-wave bass line instead of rhythmic noise used for tone 2, and tone 1 also is a silent LFO-pulsating saw wave that adds a bit of growl. There is an additional demo named AMBreak.mp3 which is a drum loop processed with an LFO-controlled LoFi Radio.
Phase control Phaser effects typically have simple triangle waveforms to modulate the position of their frequency bands, and this is their classical usage. But since a phaser is a comb filter by it's nature, it would be very interesting to tame it, right? As always your great Fantom doesn't let you down - in the same way with the previous example, with Matrix Contol you can use an LFO or envelope from within a patch to modulate a phaser's frequency bands and create stunning motion sounds. ‣ Select a super saw waveform for the generator. ‣ Set LFO1 to a downwards or an upwards saw with a Rate of 1/4 note and Key Trigger switched ON.. ‣ Route this sound to a Phaser or Multi-stage Phaser MFX, set Manual (phaser's center
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frequency) to about 50 and cancel the internal LFO modulation by setting the Depth to 0. ‣ In the MFX Control slot 1, set Destination to Manual – this the connection spot to vary the phaser's center frequency via Matrix Control. ‣ Finally, in Matrix Control, set Source to LFO1, Destination to MFX CTRL 1 and Sens to about +20.
Controlling a phaser effect with your own LFO
Voila, when you press a key, you hear the phaser is now controlled by a tempo-synchronized saw LFO. You can also use a combination of two LFO's for more elaborate phaser modulations. However, note that since each key you press will send out control data to the phaser, the control value soon gets saturated – so you cannot play this patch polyphonically. A workaround for this is split two tones on the keyboard: use one with a zero level as a modulation source, and the second one as the actual sound. ‣ 183 PhaseCtrl C2 (audio demo in Phase Control.mp3) implements the trick also with the tip in the last paragraph: play the patch normally – only tone 2 works and the phaser is stopped, keep playing and then press the C2 key – the LFO from tone 1 starts controlling the phaser.
Retro Sci-Fi There are several MFX algorithms in the Fantoms that can change their main parameters depending on the level of the incoming signal, and one of them is Ring Modulator. By routing sounds like like drum loops into it and then increasing the Sens parameter, you can hear how it's internal modulator wave changes it's frequency as the sound plays, following the level of the latter. Let's dive a bit deeper and understand how this works and how can this be used. If some effect algorithm would react on the signal level directly, the level-sensitive parameter would simply be modulated at the frequency of the input signal. However, as you hear yourself, this is not the way it is in the Ring Modulator, as the frequency changes are of much slower rate – in sync with the rhythm of the loop. Instead of direct modulation, this effect uses a so-called “envelope follower” - a special part of it's algorithm that detects level peaks forming a low-frequency envelope of the incoming signal. This virtually lets you “extract” an envelope of any sound. It is also important to know that an envelope follower has it's attack and release times that let it not react to peaks that still occur at high rates. 66
It is quite obvious that you can process various loops with the Ring Modulator to create rhythmic Sci-Fi sounds, but there is another way of using the level sensitivity: if you route a very lowfrequency wave such as Low Triangle or Low Sine, you can modulate the Ring Modulator frequency directly. But also if you use a Low Square or Low Pulse wave, each drastic rise/fall of these waves' pulses will “re-trigger” the envelope follower, giving you yet more interesting sounds. ‣ Set waveform to Low Square and then adjust the Coarse Tune to +24. ‣ Route the patch to Ring Modulator MFX and then set: Frequency: 30, Sens: 50, Balance: D0:100W (so you only hear the ring-modulated sound without the original). Now hear your new creation, but so not stop here – let's apply a drastic pitch envelope to the wave generator: ‣ Create a falling pitch envelope (Time 1: 75, Time 2..4: 0, Level 0: +63, Level 2..4: -63) and set it's Depth to +63. ‣ In Matrix Control 1, set Source to PITCH ENV, Destination to Pitch and Sens to +63. As you see and hear, in just a few simple steps you created a very cool Sci-Fi effect. Play with Frequency and Sens parameters, and also try different waves like Low Triangle and Low Saw to get a huge amount of various sound effects.
Creating Sci-Fi effects by triggering Rind Modulator MFX with a low-frequency square wave
In order to create more dynamic sounds, you can also use Matrix Control to route the pitch envelope, keyfollow and/or velocity to the Frequency and Sens parameters of the Ring Modulator. Use the Polarity parameter of the Ring Modulator to specify whether the modulator frequency will go UP the signal level rises or DOWN. Note that when you set this to DOWN, it is better to increase the Frequency to 90..127. ‣ The patch 160 Super Sci-Fi is basically the one described above, but it also has the pitch envelope and key velocity routed to Frequency and Sens parameters of the Ring Modulator MFX unit, respectively. You can hear different Sci-Fi effects created with this patch in SuperSciFi.mp3.
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Key gate Using Matrix Control, it's possible to animate the MFX processors using the envelopes and LFO's from the patch - you already know this very well. But we haven't yet discussed one other simple but very useful trick: modulating the effect dry/wet balance to switch it on and off using a dedicated key. Setting this up is exactly the same procedure as we used in the Phase control article above: ‣ Set tone 1 to any synth sound or a sample (a drum loop would be best). ‣ Route it into an MFX processor. We will use the Ring Modulator algorithm as an example, with Frequency: 65, Sens: 0 and Balance: D100:0W. ‣ In the MFX Control screen, modulation slot 1, set the Destination to Balance. ‣ Set the TVA Level of tone 2 to 0 and use Matrix Control to route it's TVA envelope to MFXCTRL1 with a Sens of +63. ‣ Finally, split the tones on the keyboard: set the key ranges of tone 1 and 2 to C#2..C7 and C0..C2, respectively.
An empty tone working as a “gate” for the MFX processor
Now, as you play tone 1, use tone 2 to switch the MFX processor on and off. It's a lot fun to do this rhythmically against a drum or a phrase loop. Also, by adjusting the attack and release times of the TVA envelope of tone 2, you can define how quickly the switching will happen. Also, of course you can use several tones each modulating the MFX processor in a different way: for example, one tone as an on/off switch, another to sweep a parameter with a second envelope, and yet another to modulate a parameter with an LFO. ‣ Ringulator.mp3 is a drum loop processed through a Ring Modulator which is being MatrixControlled using three tones as per the tips in the paragraph above (on B2, Bb2 and C3 keys). Use the patch 195 Ringlutator to assign a sample to tone 1 and experiment yourself. 68
Recording Trick-o-logy Using your Fantom with external gear.
Rock your Fantom I think you already know that it's possible to process any external signal using your Fantom's effects processor. You can just plug a guitar, bass, some other synth or anything else which makes sound and sample it through MFX, chorus and reverb. Let's have a look how you can make some really huge guitar sounds – thanks to Roland engineers who put the Guitar Amp Simulator algorithm which incorporates over a dozen fantasticsounding and highly tweakable models. There is also a 3-band EQ (bass, middle, treble) before the preamp to greatly shape the overdrive/distortion sound, and a speaker model . ‣ Plug in a guitar into the line input. You can also use some other synthesizer (analog or analog modeling monsters preferred) with an acid/303 synth patch. ‣ Switch the MIX IN on (for Fantom-S series, hold SHIFT and press INPUT SETTING). ‣ Hold SHIFT and press MIX IN to reach the input settings (for Fantom-S series, just press INPUT SETTING), make sure the input type is set to microphone. ‣ Now, to make the input sound more punchy before processing it, switch on the handy “Input FX” unit and set it to Compressor. ‣ Route the signal into an MFX unit and set it to Guitar Amp Simulator. Now you are ready to rock! I suggest you switch the Speaker Sw off to get a clean, rich sound of the preamp model first. Make some sound with your guitar or synth, select different models to see what a beast this effect is (Clean Twin, OD-1, OD-2 Turbo, Fuzz... so many too choose from!). The Preamp Volume parameter adjusts the input gain, the higher it is, the more distortion the preamp applies. Play with the EQ (Preamp Gain, Preamp Bass, Preamp Middle, Preamp Treble) to apply the distortion to different parts of the input signal's spectra. You will soon fall in love with this MFX algorithm if you haven't yet. Below are four example patches for the Guitar Amp Simulator, they work great with both guitar and synth sounds: Sound type
Soft drive
Bottom drive
Hard drive
Metal
Preamp Type
OD-1
CLEAN TWIN
OD-2 TURBO
FUZZ
Preamp Volume
45
70
90
75
Preamp Gain
Middle
Middle
Middle
Middle
Preamp Bass
115
90
75
75
Preamp Middle
65
80
90
90
Preamp Treble
75
60
70
70
Preamp Presence
0
0
60
45
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Sound multiplication When you are creating live sounds like hand claps and finger snaps, it usually requires you to invite some other people to help you with this. However, it is also possible to create quite realistic claps, snaps and other sounds on alone (with your Fantom of course): the basic idea is to add pitchshifted and delayed sounds to the original, which would result in virtual "multiplication" of the input sound You can do this easily with the 2-Voice Pitch Shifter MFX algorithm. ‣ Plug in a microphone into the line input. ‣ Switch the MIX IN on (for Fantom-S series, hold SHIFT and press INPUT SETTING). ‣ Hold SHIFT and press MIX IN to reach the input settings (for Fantom-S series, just press INPUT SETTING), make sure the input type is set to microphone. ‣ Route the signal into an MFX unit set to 2-Voice Pitch Shifter. ‣ For this MFX algorithm, set Pitch1 Coarse to +2, Pitch1 Delay to 25-30 ms, Pitch1 Feedback to +20%, then set Pitch2 Coarse to -3, Pitch2 Delay to 70-80 ms, Pitch2 Feedback to +20%. Now plug in a microphone and snap your fingers or clap your hands. Adjust the tunings, delay times and feedback levels to get the sound you like. You can also switch to performance mode, and set two or three MFX pitch shifter units in series to get even more lush sounds (use the panning feature of the shifters to make the resulting sound stereo). As you will hear, this is a simple yet effective way for creating various sounds that otherwise would require additional people involved.
External processing It should not be a secret for you that your Fantom is not only a great self-contained synthesis/ sampling workstation, but it also can be used in many different way with other gear. For example, you can use your board as a guitar or a bass guitar processor, simply by plugging it into the line input and routing into effects. But another cool thing is that since Fantoms have two dedicated outputs, you can process Fantom's sounds with an external effects unit (be it a rack-mount processor, a guitar overdrive pedal, or even another keyboard capable of processing external sounds), then route the processor's out to Fantom's line input and sample it. ‣ Connect Fantom's output B to external processor's input. ‣ Connect processor's output to Fantom's input. ‣ Now route some patch (part) to output B, then select/adjust some algorithm with the effect processor, tweak the Fantom's patch and create the sound you want. ‣ Go to sampling mode, and choose the Solo type – this allows you to play the internal patch (also with the sequencer if you need) which is routed to the external processor and sample the processed sound from the line input.
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Using an external processor with your Fantom
So, if you have any kind of sound effects processor lying around, even the oldest and dustiest one, it can be brought into life again and help you create yet new sounds. Note that if you process sounds pre-recorder into the sequencer, you can also process the signal coming from the external processor with another MFX unit, and also make it's parameter changes synchronized to the tempo. Use the Mix sampling mode to capture audio in such a configuration. ‣ In the Acid MT-2.mp3 you can hear a TB-303 patch from the Fantom routed into a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone distortion pedal, sampled with the Fantom itself.
External vocoding In a similar fashion with the previous example, you can use your Fantom in conjunction with a vocoder. However, a more interesting point is that when you use the output B in individual outs mode (two mono outputs, 3 and 4), you can make the Fantom generate both carrier and modulator signals, which lets you jump over the next sound barrier. ‣ Connect Fantom's output 3 (output B, left jack) to vocoder's carrier input and output 4 (output B, right jack) to vocoder's modulator input. ‣ Connect vocoder's output to Fantom's input. ‣ Now the easiest way to get started is to route the patch part to output 3 (carrier) and rhythm set part to output 4 (modulator). ‣ Create a rhythm loop with the rhythm part, then select a simple patch for the carrier and, while the rhythm plays, play some melodies and chords with this patch. ‣ When you get the sound you want, go to sampling mode (Solo type) and record your new creation.
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When used with a vocoder, Fantom can serve as a source of both carrier and modulator signals
You can also create a single patch with tones routed to outputs 3 and 4. This way both the carrier and modulator signals routed to the vocoder can change it's pitch following the keys and result in very interesting new melodic sounds. ‣ Listen to Vocoded Rhythm.mp3 - this one was made with a polyphonically-played saw wave as a carrier and drum loop as a modulator (coming from the Fantom), using a vintage analog vocoder.
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Dictionary Envelope
Defines how a certain characteristic of some sound changes over time.
Filter
A device that modifies the spectrum of the sound, removing a certain range of frequencies.
Generator
A device that produces the initial sound (for example, plays back a sample).
LFO
Applies cyclic changes onto a certain characteristic of sound.
Modulation
A process of one device controlling a parameter of another device.
Oscillator
A generator that produces a certain waveform in realtime by means of analog circuitry or computer analog modeling.
Resonance
An effect of high amplification of a certain frequency range, typically appearing in a device whose output signal is partially or fully fed back into the input.
Sample
A digital recording of some sound or music.
Slope
In a filter, a characteristic that tells how drastic the edges of the spectrum curve are.
TVA
“Time Variable Amplifier” is an amplifier with it’s own envelope generator.
TVF
“Time Variable Filter” is a filter with it’s own envelope generator.
Waveform
Typically refers to a sound with a static shape (i.e. that doesn’t change in time).
Cutoff
A parameter of a filter which specifies the frequency range it works in: which part of the spectrum it will pass through, and which it will attenuate.
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Parameter Map Patch edit (Fantom-S/X) Screen
Description
Parameters
General
Common patch settings
Octave Shift, Analogue Feel
Wave
Waveform settings
Wave Form, Wave Gain
TMT
Tone Mix Table
Structure Type, Booster Gain, Tone Key Range, Tone Velocity Range
Pitch
Pitch settings
Coarse Tune, Fine Tune, Pitch Keyfollow, Pitch Bender Range
Pitch Env
Pitch envelope
Pitch Env. Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain, Env. Depth
TVF
Filter settings
Filter Type, Cutoff, Resonance, Cutoff Keyfollow, Env. Velocity Sens.
TVF Env
Filter envelope
TVF Env. Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain, Env. Depth
TVA
Amplifier settings
TVA Level, TVA Velocity Sens., Pan
TVA Env
Amplifier envelope
TVA Env, Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain
Output
Output, effects sends
Tone Output Assignment, MFX/Chorus/Reveb send level
LFO1/2
LFO settings
Wave Form, Rate, Offset, TVA/TVF/Pitch/Pan Depth
Step LFO
Step LFO editor
Step Type, Step 1 .. 16 value
Solo/Porta
Solo/Portamento
Mono/Poly, Legato Switch, Portamento Type/Time
Misc
Miscellaneous
Tone Delay Mode, Tone Delay Time, Tone Env Mode
CTRL1/2/3/4
Matrix Control
CTRL1/2/3/4 Source, Destination, Depth, Switch
Patch edit (Fantom-XR) Screen
Description
Parameters
GENERAL
Common patch settings
Octave Shift, Analogue Feel
TMT
Tone Mix Table
Structure Type, Booster Gain, Tone Key Range, Tone Velocity Range
WG
Waveform settings
Wave Form, Wave Gain, Tone Delay Mode, Tone Delay Time, Coarse Tune, Fine Tune, Pitch Keyfollow, Pitch Bender Range, Pitch Env. Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain, Env. Depth
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TVF
Filter settings
Filter Type, Cutoff, Resonance, Cutoff Keyfollow, Env. Velocity Sens., TVF Env. Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain, Env. Depth
TVA
Amplifier settings
TVA Level, TVA Velocity Sens., Pan, TVA Env, Attack/ Decay/Release/Sustain
OUTPUT
Output, effects sends
Patch/Tone Output Assignment, MFX/Chorus/Reveb send levels
LFO1/2
LFO settings
Wave Form, Rate, Offset, TVA/TVF/Pitch/Pan Depth
STEP LFO
Step LFO editor
Step Type, Step 1 .. 16 value
MATRIX CTRL1/2/3/4
Matrix Control
CTRL1/2/3/4 Source, Destination, Depth, Switch
Patch edit (Fantom-Xa, Juno-G) Screen
Description
Parameters
(top)
Top patch edit screen
Structure Type, Booster Gain
COMMON
Common patch settings
Octave Shift, Analogue Feel
WG PRM
Waveform settings
Wave Form, Wave Gain
KEY RNG
Key Range
Tone Key Range
VEL RNG
Velocity Range
Tone Velocity Range
PITCH
Pitch settings
Coarse Tune, Fine Tune, Pitch Keyfollow
PCH ENV
Pitch envelope
Pitch Env. Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain, Env. Depth
TVF PRM
Filter settings
Filter Type, Cutoff, Resonance
TVF ENV
Filter envelope
TVF Env. Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain, Env. Depth
TVA PRM
Amplifier settings
TVA Level, TVA Velocity Sens., Pan
TVA ENV
Amplifier envelope
TVA Env, Attack/Decay/Release/Sustain
OUTPUT
Output, effects sends
Tone Output Assignment, MFX/Chorus/Reveb send level
LFO1/2
LFO settings
Wave Form, Rate, Offset, TVA/TVF/Pitch/Pan Depth
STEP
Step LFO editor
Step Type, Step 1 .. 16 value
PORTMNT
Portamento
Portamento Type/Time
CTRL
Mono/Poly, Legato
Mono/Poly, Legato Switch, Pitch Bender Range
MISC
Miscellaneous
Tone Delay Mode, Tone Delay Time, Tone Env Mode
CTRL1/2/3/4
Matrix Control
CTRL1/2/3/4 Source, Destination, Depth, Switch
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Effects edit (Fantom-S/X) Screen
Description
Parameters
Routing
Effects routing
MFX/Chorus/Reverb sends, MFX chorus/reverb sends
MFX Struct
MFX structure
MFX units interconnection
MFX 1/2/3
MFX settings
Settings specific to the selected MFX algorithm
MFX Control 1/2/3
MFX Control settings
CTRL1/2/3/4 Source, Destination, Sens, Control Channel
Effects edit (Fantom-XR) Screen
Description
Parameters
(top)
Top effects edit scren
MFX/Chorus/Reverb sends, MFX chorus/reverb sends
STRUCT
MFX structure
MFX units interconnection
MFX1/2/3
MFX settings
Settings specific to the selected MFX algorithm
MFX1/2/3 CTRL
MFX Control settings
CTRL1/2/3/4 Source, Destination, Sens, Control Channel
Effects edit (Fantom-Xa, Juno-G) Screen
Description
Parameters
ROUTING
Effects routing
MFX/Chorus/Reverb sends, MFX chorus/reverb sends
STRUCT
MFX structure
MFX units interconnection
MFX 1/2/3
MFX settings
Settings specific to the selected MFX algorithm
CONTROL
MFX Control settings
CTRL1/2/3/4 Source, Destination, Sens
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Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank my wife and daughters for giving me countless bright days which greatly inspire to explore and create. I wouldn’t have done anything like this without you! Great respect to Roland Corporation (especially the whole MI team) for their ever-flowing innovations and fantastic instruments. Personal thanks to (in alphabetic order): Ray Booker, Dave Boulden, Vyacheslav Cherkashin, Apple Computer, Jeff Easley, Audiofile Engineering, James Graves, Dmitry Jans, Eugene Korol, Manish Kurup, Roman Luchkovsky, Alexander Molnar, Jun Okuyama, Stephane Pigeon, Gordon Reid, HansJörg Scheffler, Nathan Sheldon, Lawrence Wilkes and Ace Yukawa. Additional thanks to all those who sent me their warm comments about the book.
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