Old Free VSTi Gems From The Past

[pinkjimiphoton]

http://www.cubasetricks.com/plugins.php

looks just like the behringer list, lol...

also check:http://www.kara-moon.com/

look under developers..
a couple cool things NOT listed on the freebies page...

i copped 30 more today...LOL

[dreaddd]

Dreaddd,
thanks for the OT info...
way cool!

hey ya ...yw

BTW...was just listening to the mothers of prevention in my car about a week ago...
MAN!'

hehehe

hey... didn;t the original paax sampler come with preset banks built in that corresponded to the GM stuff ?

i think the original Paax 1 had only a piano patch downloadble from the kvraudio(not sure tho), while the only Paax version i saw with a bunch of presets was the Paax 2 CM included in CM mag...i may be wrong tho..

anybody got one of them by any chance??

the samplers or the presets?
if its a Paax sampler version you're after there should be version 2 downloadble for free here at
http://www.kotkasuniverse.com/paax_download.htm

Peace out

[chuck death]

http://www.cubasetricks.com/plugins.php

looks just like the behringer list, lol...

Looking at it a bit more closely it actually is the Behringer list! all the download are the same and the locations all start with behringerdownload.de.

[pinkjimiphoton]

Dreaddd,
thanks for the OT info...
way cool!

hey ya ...yw

BTW...was just listening to the mothers of prevention in my car about a week ago...
MAN!'

hehehe

you can clearly hear ol' al gore kissin his ass...

hey... didn;t the original paax sampler come with preset banks built in that corresponded to the GM stuff ?

i think the original Paax 1 had only a piano patch downloadble from the kvraudio(not sure tho), while the only Paax version i saw with a bunch of presets was the Paax 2 CM included in CM mag...i may be wrong tho..


i seemed to remember the Paax samp having a whole huge bank of patches when i first got it, then i tried and update and lost everything...

anybody got one of them by any chance??

the samplers or the presets?
if its a Paax sampler version you're after there should be version 2 downloadble for free here at
http://www.kotkasuniverse.com/paax_download.htm

thanks bro, already found that...and got the piano from KVR...it's the other presets i'd love to find...i should probably try and contact the developer!

Peace out

back atcha brother

[pinkjimiphoton]

http://www.cubasetricks.com/plugins.php

looks just like the behringer list, lol...

Looking at it a bit more closely it actually is the Behringer list! all the download are the same and the locations all start with behringerdownload.de.

yah, i saw that later....too funny!

[pinkjimiphoton]

Folks, here's a few more links...but if ya run windoze, make sure you run antimalware scans after visiting, just to be safe!!

http://www.trancetutorial.com/Downloads ... %201.0.zip

killer, post nuclear synth i had years ago but lost to a goddamn CD i had it backed up on going corrupt...i really dig this synth for it's total bloody anarchy in the face of convention!!

(comments below links)

http://postdawn.tripod.com/vsts/roland_ ... osynth.zip

a REALLY early build, it doesn;t even have the later GUI...


http://www.stormpages.com/edexter/Dexte ... 20free.zip

a useable bass synth, not too bad, but small..



http://www.dincise.net/trukayouth/deviances_vsti.rar

a pair of deviant synths, one is very cpu heavy but mild sounding...the other can load waves and tweek 'em..haven;t played much with them yet.


http://www.doveraudio.org/freeplugs/UTT ... _v0023.zip

this synth is cool....worth checking out, i'm not savvy enought to describe it well




http://soundvault.free.fr/vsti/v5vsti.zip

you may have seen this here, i believe the KVR link is dead tho


http://soundvault.free.fr/vsti/vrack10/vrack.zip

same with this one


http://www.quikquak.com/media/Glass_Vip ... ST_WIN.zip

(a demo, that one, but very cool)


http://membres.lycos.fr/scdevelop/plug/monoonev11.zip

nice monosynth


http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vst ... okKeys.rar

new version of the spook keys, i think i liked the older one better a little, but this one is wayyyyyy nicer...what do i know, i still use tubes fuzzboxes and echoplexes...LOL



http://www.djodin.com/ex048/EX-048.rar

forget...just download it (you know ya want to)

http://www.djodin.com/ex096/EX-096.rar

(see above)


http://www.music-boss.com/download/plug ... 3S_VST.rar

manytone's site is down or under reconstruction, but you can nab this killer little sucker here...
if all it does is make an unpleasant oscillation, change the setting in your host...it runs at 24 rather than the more usual 16.

have fun!

will post the big-ass list later...over 1300 i am up to now, obviously i can't and won;t share any that are disaalowed by eulas, but the rest i am willing to share if possible...and some i have download links to from lost-by-the wayside sites..

stay tuned...

jimi

[Asuyuka]

I can't JX16 to load under FL Studio, and I can't get any sounds out of the Ultimate Sound Bank thing on Steinberg's FTP. =/

(FL Studio 7 demo)

[wiz1der]

wow.. the archaeological dig goes on I see...... NICE!!

thanks to all!

[BFunKu]

JX16

That's the mda JX10 Synth that came with Steinberg Cubase and had a Custom GUI instead of No GUI at all like the JX10 version. Where did you find that one at???

[Asuyuka]

JX16

That's the mda JX10 Synth that came with Steinberg Cubase and had a Custom GUI instead of No GUI at all like the JX10 version. Where did you find that one at???

Steinberg's FTP...? XD;; I think...

[kosmix]

If anyone has a request for something thats old free and redistributable post your requests in the thread and I'll check my archives.

Best,
KoSMiX

The Human freeware rarity VST Plugins Encyclopedia

[pinkjimiphoton]

the steinberg USB only works in cubase or other steinberg products...
BIG ASS DOWNLOAD ON DIALUP FOR NADA!!!!
LOL...

i'm over 1400 now, still going....will post an updated HTML when i get to a point where i feel it's worth it.

i went thru my puter and found some really oddball stuff!!'

folders within folders of weirdness and intrigue...
and a couple cool looking synthies, but the are in source code format and need to be compiled, including what apopears to be a dead-to-right juno 6 vsti...

the dll is in there, but i can;t get it to load...anybody wanna take a crack at recompiling it, say the word, i'd love to get one that works...

off like a prom dress!!!
jimi

[chuck death]

including what apopears to be a dead-to-right juno 6 vsti...

I'm guessing it's probably this one: http://juno6.gruftie.com/index2.html . To be honest, if it is that one, I never thought it was particularly impressive and it never got a place in my VST folder. It's not a true emulation, it's more of a lookalike with similar features.

[pinkjimiphoton]

including what apopears to be a dead-to-right juno 6 vsti...

I'm guessing it's probably this one: http://juno6.gruftie.com/index2.html . To be honest, if it is that one, I never thought it was particularly impressive and it never got a place in my VST folder. It's not a true emulation, it's more of a lookalike with similar features.

nope....i have that one, too, and you're right...nothing to write home about..
this one is bundled with 3 or four other synths, they all share the same engine.
all but the 106 work great...the 106 i can't get to load the presets tho, so can;t tell...i don't even know if the site is still there

http://bristol.sourceforge.net


but i will check, and if not, if someone can be so kind as to compile it, that could be really freekin groovy.


beware...this guy goes into great length!!


peace!
jimi


Bristol Emulations
------------------

This is a write-up of each of the emualated synthesisers. The algrithms
employed were 'gleaned' from a variety of sources including the original
owners manuals, so they may be a better source of information. Some of them
were built just from descriptions of their operation, or from understanding
how synths work - most of them were based on the Mini Moog anyway. Many of
the synths share components: the filter covers most of them, the Prophets and
Oberheims share a common oscillator and the same LFO is used in many of them.
Having said that each one differs considerably in the resulting sound that is
generated, more so than initially expected. Each release refines each of the
components and the result is that all emulations benefit from the improvements.
All the emulations have distinctive sounds, not least due to that the original
instruments used different modulations and mod routing.
The filter, which is a large defining factor in the tonal qualities of any
synth, is common to all the emulations. The filter implements 3 different
algorithms and these do separate each of the synths: the Explorer layering
two low pass filters on top of each other: the OB-Xa using different types
depending on 'Pole' selection. The 3rd filter algorithm is a butterworth used
by for the Leslie rotary speaker crossover.

Bristol is in no way related to any of the original manufacturers whose
products are emulated by the engine and represented by the user interface,
bristol does not suggest that the emulation is a like representation of the
original instrument, and the author maintains that if you want the original
sound then you are advised to seek out the original product. Alternatively a
number of the original manufacturers now provide their own vintage collections
which are anticipated to be more authentic. All names and trademarks used by
Bristol are ownership of the respective companies and it is not inteded to
misappropriate their use here. If you have concerns you are kindly requested
to contact the author.

The write-up includes the parameter operations, modulations, a description of
the original instrument and a brief list of the kind of sounds you can expect
by describing a few of the well known users of the synth.

Several emulations have not been written up. Since the APR 2600 was implemented
it became a rather large job to actually describe what was going on. If you
really want to know about the synths that are not in this document then you
might want to search for their owners manuals.

All emulations are available from the same engine, just launch multiple GUIs
and adjust the midi channels for multi timbrality and layering.

It is noted here that the engine is relatively 'dumb'. Ok, it generates a very
broad range of sounds, currently about 15 different synthesisers and organs,
but it is not really intelligent. Memories are a part of the GUI specification
- it tells the engine which algorithm to use on which MIDI channel, then it
calls a memory routine that configures all the GUI controllers and a side effect
of setting the controllers is that their values are sent to the engine. This is
arguably the correct model but it can affect the use of MIDI master keyboards.
The reason is that the GUI is really just a master keyboard for the engine and
drives it with MIDI SYSEX messages over TCP sessions. If you were to alter the
keyboard transpose, for example, this would result in the GUI sending different
'key' numbers to the engine when you press a note. If you were already driving
the synth from a master keyboard then the transpose button in the Brighton GUI
would have no effect - the master keyboard would have to be transposed instead.
This apparant anomaly is exacerbated by the fact that some parameters still are
in the engine, for example master tuning is in the engine for the pure fact that
MIDI does not have a very good concept of master tuning (only autotuning).
Irrespective of this, bristol is a synthesiser so it needs to be played,
tweaked, driven. If you think that any of the behaviour is anomalous then let
me know. One known issue in this area is that if you press a key, transpose
the GUI, then release the key - it will not go off in the engine since the GUI
sends a different key code for the note off event - the transposed key. This
cannot be related to the original keypress. This could be fixed with a MIDI all
notes off event on 'transpose', but I don't like them. This effect is also in
part due to the Brighton model for the keyboard - you have to click a key 'on',
and then click it 'off' again. There have been requests for key-off on button
release, but this prevents you playing chords from the GUI. Perhaps it should
be a GUI option, your input would be appreciated.





Moog Mini
---------

It is perhaps not possible to write up who used this synth, the list is endless.
Popular as it was about the first non-modular synthesiser, built as a fixed
configuration of the racked or modular predecessors.

Best known at the time on Pink Floyd 'Dark Side of the Moon' and other albums.
Rick Wakefield used it as did Jean Michel Jarre. Wakefield could actually
predict the sound it would make by just looking at the settings, nice to be
able to do if a little unproductive but it went to show how this was treated
as an instrument in its own right. It takes a bit of work to get the same sweet,
rich sounds out of the emulation, but it can be done with suitable tweaking.

The original was monophonic, although a polyphonic version was eventually made
after Moog sold the company - the MultiMoog. This emulation is more comparable
to that model as the sound is a bit thinner and can be polyphonic. The design
of this synth became the pole bearer for the following generations: it had
three oscillators, one of which could become a low frequency modulator. They
were fed into a mixer with a noise source, and were then fed into a filter
with 2 envelope generators to contour the wave. Modulation capabilities were
not extensive, but interestingly enough it did have a frequency modulation (FM)
capability, eventually used by Yamaha to revolutionise the synthesiser market
starting the downfall of analogue systhesis twenty years later.

All the analogue synths were temperature sensitive. It was not unusual for the
synths to 'detune' between sound test and performance as the evening set in.
To overcome this they could optionally produce a stable A-440Hz signal for
tuning the oscillators manually - eventually being an automated option in the
newer synths. Whilst this digital version has stable frequency generation the
A-440 is still employed here for the sake of it.

Modifiers and mod routing are relatively simple, Osc-3 and noise can be mixed,
and this signal routed to the oscillator 1 and 2 frequency or filter cutoff.

The synth had 5 main stages as follows:

Control:

Master tuning: up/down one note.

Glide: (glissando, portamento). The rate at which one key will change its
frequency to the next played key, 0 to 30 seconds.

Mod: source changes between Osc-3 and noise.

Release: The envlope generators had only 3 parameters. This governed whether
a key would release immediately or would use Decay to die out.

Multi: Controls whether the envelope will retrigger for each new keypress.

Oscillators:

There are three oscillators. One and two are keyboard tracking, the third
can be decoupled and used as an LFO modulation source.

Oscillator 1:
Octave step from 32' to 1'.
Waveform selection: sine/square/pulse/ramp/tri/splitramp
Mod: controls whether Osc-3/noise modulates frequency

Oscillator 2:
Octave step from 32' to 1'.
Fine tune up/down 7 half notes.
Waveform selection: sine/square/pulse/ramp/tri/splitramp
Mod: controls whether Osc-3/noise modulates frequency

Oscillator 3:
Octave step from 32' to 1'.
Fine tune up/down 7 half notes.
Waveform selection: sine/square/pulse/ramp/tri/splitramp
LFO switch to decouple from keytracking.

Mixer:

Gain levels for Oscillator 1/2/3
Mixing of the external input source into filter
Noise source with white/pink switch.

Note: The level at which Osc-3 and noise modulates sound depends on its
gain here, similarly the noise. The modulator mix also affects this, but
allows Osc-3 to mod as well as sound. The modwheel also affect depth.

Filter:

Cutoff frequency

Emphasis (affects Q and resonance of filter).

Contour: defines how much the filter envlope affects cutoff.

Mod - Keyboard tracking of cutoff frequency.

Mod - Osc-3/noise modulation of cutoff frequency.

Contour:

The synth had two envelope generators, one for the filter and one for the
amplifier. Release is affected by the release switch. If off the the sound
will release at the rate of the decay control.

Attack: initial ramp up of gain.

Decay: fall off of maximum signal down to:

Sustain: gain level for constant key-on level.

Key: Touch sensitivity of amplifier envelope.

Improvements to the Mini would be some better oscillator waveforms, plus an
alternative filter as this is a relatively simple synthesiser and could do
with a warmer filter.

The Output selection has a Midi channel up/down selector and memory selector.
To read a memory either use the up/down arrows to go to the next available
memory, or type in a 3 digit number on the telephone keypad and press 'L' for
load or 'S' for save.





Moog Voyager (Bristol "Explorer")
---------------------------------

This was Robert Moog's last synth, similar in build to the Mini but created
over a quarter of a century later and having far, far more flexibility. It
was still monophonic, a flashback to a legendary synth but also a bit like
Bjorn Borg taking his wooden tennis racket back to Wimbledon long after having
retired and carbon fibre having come to pass. I have no idea who uses it and
Bjorn also crashed out in the first round. The modulation routing is exceptional
if not exactly clear.

The Voyager, or Bristol Explorer, is definately a child of the Mini. It has
the same fold up control panel, three and half octave keyboard and very much
that same look and feel. It follows the same rough design of three oscillators
mixed with noise into a filter with envelopes for the filter and amplifier.
In contrast there is an extra 4th oscillator, a dedicated LFO bus also Osc-3
can still function as a second LFO here. The waveforms are continuously
selected, changing gradually to each form. The envelopes are 4 stage rather
than the 3 stage Mini, and the effects routing bears no comparison at all,
being far more flexible here.

Just because its funny to know, Robert Moog once stated that the most difficult
part of building and releasing the Voyager was giving it the title 'Moog'. He
had sold his company in the seventies and had to buy back the right to use his
own name to release this synthesiser as a Moog, knowing that without that title
it probably would not sell quite as well.

Control:

LFO:
Frequency
Sync: LFO restarted with each keypress.

Fine tune +/- one note
Glide 0 to 30 seconds.

Modulation Busses:

Two busses are implemented. Both have similar capabilities but one is
controlled by the mod wheel and the other is constantly on. Each bus has
a selection of sources, shaping, destination selection and amount.

Wheel Modulation: Depth is controller by mod wheel.

Source: Triwave/Ramp/Sample&Hold/Osc-3/External
Shape: Off/Key control/Envelope/On
Dest: All Osc Frequency/Osc-2/Osc-3/Filter/FilterSpace/Waveform (*)
Amount: 0 to 1.

Constant Modulation: Can use Osc-3 as second LFO to fatten sound.

Source: Triwave/Ramp/Sample&Hold/Osc-3/External
Shape: Off/Key control/Envelope/On
Dest: All Osc Frequency/Osc-2/Osc-3/Filter/FilterSpace/Waveform (*)
Amount: 0 to 1.

* Destination of filter is the cutoff frequency. Filter space is the
difference in cutoff of the two layered filters. Waveform destination
affects the continuously variable oscillator waveforms and allows for
Pulse Width Modulation type effects with considerably more power since
it can affect ramp to triangle for example, not just pulse width.

Oscillators:

Oscillator 1:
Octave: 32' to 1' in octave steps
Waveform: Continuous between Triangle/Ramp/Square/Pulse

Oscillator 2:
Tune: Continuous up/down 7 semitones.
Octave: 32' to 1' in octave steps
Waveform: Continuous between Triangle/Ramp/Square/Pulse

Oscillator 3:
Tune: Continuous up/down 7 semitones.
Octave: 32' to 1' in octave steps
Waveform: Continuous between Triangle/Ramp/Square/Pulse

Sync: Synchronise Osc-2 to Osc-1
FM: Osc-3 frequency modulates Osc-1
KBD: Keyboard tracking Osc-3
Freq: Osc-3 as second LFO

Mixer:

Gain levels for each source: Osc-1/2/3, noise and external input.

Filters:

The filters are two layered resonant lowpass filters.

Cutoff: Frequency of cutoff
Space: Distance between the cutoff of the two layered filter.
Resonance: emphasis/Q.
KBD tracking amount
Velocity: On/Off keyboard velocity tracking.

Envelopes:

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Amount to filter (positive and negative control)

Velocity sensitivity of amplifier envelope.

Master:

Volume
LFO: Single LFO or one per voice (polyphonic operation).
Glide: On/Off portamento
Release: On/Off envelope release.

The Explorer has a control wheel and a control pad. The central section has
the memory section plus a panel that can modify any of the synth parameters as
a real time control. Press the first mouse key here and move the mouse around
to adjust the controls. Default values are LFO frequency and filter cutoff
but values can be changed with the 'panel' button. This is done by selecting
'panel' rather than 'midi', and then using the up/down keys to select parameter
that will be affected by the x and y motion of the mouse. At the moment the
mod routing from the pad controller is not saved to the memories, and it will
remain so since the pad controller is not exactly omnipresent on MIDI master
keyboards - the capabilities was put into the GIU to be 'exact' to the design.

This synth is amazingly flexible and difficult to advise on its best use. Try
starting by mixing just oscillator 1 through to the filter, working on mod
and filter options to enrich the sound, playing with the oscillator switches
for different effects and then slowly mix in oscillator 2 and 3 as desired.

Memories are available via two grey up/down selector buttons, or a three digit
number can be entered. There are two rows of black buttons where the top row
is 0 to 4 and the second is 5 to 9. When a memory is selected the LCD display
will show whether it is is free (FRE) or programmed already (PRG).





Memory Moog
-----------

TBD





Fender Rhodes
-------------

Again not an instrument that requires much introduction. This emulation is
the DX-7 voiced synth providing a few electric piano effects. The design is
a Mark-1 Stage-73 that the author has, and the emulation is reasonable if not
exceptional. The Rhodes has always been widely used, Pink Floyd on 'Money',
The Doors on 'Riders on the Storm', Carlos Santana on 'She's not There',
everybody else in the 60's.

The Rhodes piano generated its sound using a full piano action keyboard where
each hammer would hit a 'tine', or metal rod. Next to each rod was a pickup
coil as found on a guitar, and these would be linked together into the output.
The length of each tine defined its frequency and it was tunable using a tight
coiled spring that could be moved along the length of the tine to adjust its
moment. The first one was built mostly out of aircraft parts to amuse injured
pilots during the second world war. The Rhodes company was eventually sold to
Fender and lead to several different versions, the Mark-2 probably being the
most widely acclaimed for its slightly warmer sound.

There is not much to explain regarding functionality. The emulator has a volume
and bass control, and one switch that reveals the memory buttons and algorithm
selector.

The Rhodes would improve with the addition of small amounts of either reverb
or chorus, potentially to be implemented in a future release.

The Rhodes Bass was cobbled together largely for a presentation on Bristol.
It existed and was used be Manzarek when playing with The Doors in
Whiskey-a-GoGo; the owner specified that whilst the music was great they
needed somebody playing the bass. Rather than audition for the part Manzarek
went out and bought a Rhodes Bass and used it for the next couple of years.





Hammond (modular)
Hammond B3 (dual manual)
------------------------

The author first implemented the Hammond module, then extended it to the B3
emulation. Users of this are too numerous to mention and the organ is still
popular. Jimmy Smith, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Kieth Emerson, Doors and
almost all american gospel blues. Smith was profuse, using the instrument for
a jazz audience, even using its defects (key noise) to great effect. Emerson
had two on stage, one to play and another to kick around, even including
stabbing the keyboard with a knife to force keylock during performances
(Emerson was also a Moog fan with some of the first live performances). He
also used the defects of the system to great effect, giving life to the over-
driven Hammond sound.

The Hammond was historically a mechanical instrument although later cheaper
models used electronics. The unit had a master motor that rotated at
the speed of the mains supply. It drove a spindle of cog wheels and next to
each cog was a pickup. The pickup output went into the matrix of the harmonic
drawbars. It was originally devised to replace the massive pipe organs in
churches - Hammond marketed ther instruments with claims that they could not be
differentiated from the mechanical pipe equivalent. He was taken to court by
the US government for misrepresentation, finally winning his case using a double
blind competitive test against a pipe organ, in a cathedral, with speakers
mounted behind the organ pipes and an array of music scholars, students and
professionals listening. The results spoke for themselves - students would
have scored better by simply guessing which was which, the professionals
fared only a little better than that. The age of the Hammond organ had arrived.

The company had a love/hate relationship with the Leslie speaker company - the
latter making money by selling their rotary speakers along with the organ to
wide acceptance. The fat hammond 'chorus' was a failed attempt to distance
themselves from Leslie. That was never achieved due to the acceptance of the
Leslie, but the chorus did add another unique sound to the already awesome
instrument. The rotary speaker itself still added an extra something to the
unique sound that is difficult imagine one without the other. It has a wide
range of operating modes most of which are included in this emulator.

The chorus emulation is an 8 stage phase shifting filter algorithm with a
linear rotor between the taps.

Parameterisation of the first B3 window follows the original design:

Leslie: Rotary speaker on/off
Reverb: Reverb on/off
VibraChorus: 3 levels of vibrato, 3 of chorus.
Bright: Added upper harmonics to waveforms.

Lower and Upper Manual Drawbars: The drawbars are colour coded into white for
even harmonics and black for odd harmonics. There are two subfrequencies in
brown. The number given here are the length of organ pipe that would
correspond to the given desired frequency.

16 - Lower fundamental
5 1/3 - Lower 3rd fundamental
8 - Fundamental
4 - First even harmonic
2 2/3 - First odd harmonic
2 - Second even harmonic
1 3/5 - Second odd harmonic
1 1/3 - Third odd harmonic
1 - Third even harmonic

The drawbars are effectively mixed for each note played. The method by which
the mixing is done is controlled in the options section below. There were
numerous anomalies shown by the instrument and most of them are emulated.

The Hammond could provide percussives effect the first even and odd harmonics.
This gave a piano like effect and is emulated with Attack/Decay envelope.

Perc 4' - Apply percussive to the first even harmonic
Perc 2 2/3' - Apply percussive to the first odd harmonic
Slow - Adjust rate of decay from about 1/2 second to 4 seconds.

Soft - Provide a soft attack to each note.

The soft attack is an attempt to reduce the level of undesired key noise. The
keyboard consisted of a metal bar under each key that made physical contact
with 9 sprung teeth to tap off the harmonics. The initial contact would generate
noise that did not really accord to the pipe organ comparison. This was
reduced by adding a slow start to each key, but the jazz musicians had used
this defect to great effect, terming it 'key click' and it became a part of
the Hammond characteristics. Some musicians would even brag about how noisy
there organ was.

On the left had side are three more controls:

Volume potentiometer

Options switch discussed below.

Rotary Speed: low/high speed Leslie rotation. Shifts between the speeds
are supressed to emulate the spin up and down periods of the leslie motors.

The options section, under control of the options button, has the parameters
used to control the emulation. These are broken into sections and discussed
individually.

Leslie:

The Leslie rotary speaker consisted of a large cabinet with a bass speaker and
a pair of high frequency air horns. Each were mounted on its own rotating table
and driven around inside the cabinet by motors. A crossover filter was used to
separate the frequencies driven to either speaker. Each pair was typically
isolated physically from the other. As the speaker rotated it would generate
chorus type effects, but far richer in quality. Depending on where the speaker
was with respect to the listener the sound would also appear to rotate. There
would be different phasing effects based on signal reflections, different
filtering effects depending on where the speaker was in respect to the cabinet
producing differences resonances with respect to the internal baffling.

Separate:
Sync:
No Bass:
The Leslie had two motors, one for the horns and one for the voice coil
speaker. These rotated at different speeds. Some players preferred to
have both rotate at the same speed, would remove the second motor and
bind the spindles of each speaker table, this had the added effect
that both would also spin up at the same rate, not true of the
separated motors since each table had a very different rotary moment.
The 'No Bass' option does not rotate the voice coil speaker. This was
typically done since it would respond only slowly to speed changes,
this left just the horns rotating but able to spin up and down faster.

Brake:
Some cabinets had a brake applied to the tables such that when the
motor stopped the speakers slowed down faster.

X-Over:
This is the cross over frequency between the voice coil and air horns.
Uses a butterworth filter design.

Inertia:
Rate at which speaker rotational speed will respond to changes.

Overdrive:
Ammount by which the applifier is overdriven into distortion.

H-Depth/Frequency/Phase
L-Depth/Frequency/Phase
These parameters control the rotary phasing effect. The algorithm used
has three differently phased rotations used for filtering, phasing and
reverberation of the sound. These parameters are used to control the
depth and general phasing of each of them, giving different parameters
for the high and low speed rotations. There are no separate parameters
for the voice coil or air horns, these parameters are for the two
different speeds only, although in 'Separate' mode the two motors will
rotate at slightly different speeds.

Chorus

V1/C1 - Lowest chorus speed
V2/C2 - Medium chorus speed
V3/C3 - High chorus speed

Percusion:

Decay Fast/Slow - controls the percussive delay rates.
Attack Slow Fast - Controls the per note envelope attack time.

The percussives are emulated as per the original design where there was a
single envelope for the whole keyboard and not per note. The envelope will only
restrike for a cleany pressed note.

Finally there are several parameters affecting the sine wave generation code.
The Hammond used cogged wheels and coil pickups to generate all the harmonics,
but the output was not a pure sine wave. This section primarily adjusts the
waveform generation:

Preacher:
The emulator has two modes of operation, one is to generate the
harmonics only for each keyed note and another to generate all of
them and tap of those required for whatever keys have been pressed.
Both work and have different net results. Firstly, generating each
note independently is far more efficient than generating all 90 odd
teeth, as only a few are typically required. This does not have totally
linked phases between notes and cannot provide for signal damping (see
below).
The Preacher algorithm generates all harmonics continuously as per the
original instrument. It is a better rendition at the expense of large
chunks of CPU activity. This is discussed further below.

Compress:
Time compress the sine wave to produce a slightly sharper leading edge.

Bright:
Add additional high frequency harmonics to the sine.

Click:
Level of key click noise

Reverb:
Amount of reverb added by the Leslie

Damping:
If the same harmonic was reused by different pressed keys then its net
volume would not be a complete sum, the output gain would decay as the
pickups would become overloaded. This would dampen the signal strength.
This is only available with the Preacher algorithm.

The two reverse octaves are presets as per the original, however here they can
just be used to recall the first 23 memories of the current bank. The lower
manual 12 key is the 'save' key for the current settings and must be double
clicked. It should be possible to drive these keys via MIDI, not currently
tested though. The default presets are a mixture of settings, the lower
manual being typical 'standard' drawbar settings, the upper manual being a
mixture of Smith, Argent, Emerson, Winwood and other settings from the well
known Hammond Leslie FAQ. You can overwrite them.

The Preacher algorithm supports a diverse set of options for its tonewheel
emulation. These are configured in the file $BRISTOL/memory/profiles/tonewheel
and there is only one copy. The file is a text file and will remain that way,
it is reasonably documented in the file itself. Most settings have two ranges,
one representing the normal setting and the other the bright setting for when
the 'bright' button is pressed. The following settings are currently available:

ToneNormal: each wheel can be given a waveform setting from 0 (square)
through to 1.0 (pure sine) to X (sharpening ramp).

EQNormal: each wheel can be given a gain level across the whole generator.

DampNormal: each wheel has a damping factor (level robbing/damping/stealing)

BusNormal: each drawbar can be equalised globally.


ToneBright: each wheel can be given a waveform setting from 0 (square)
through to 1.0 (pure sine) to X (sharpening ramp) for the bright button.

EQBright: each wheel can be given a gain level across the whole generator.

DampBright: each wheel has a damping factor (level robbing/damping/stealing)

BusBright: each drawbar can be equalised globally.


stops: default settings for the eight drawbar gain levels.

The default is 8 linear stages.

wheel: enables redefining the frequency and phase of any given tonewheel

The defaults are the slightly non Even Tempered frequencies of the
Hammond tonewheels. The tonewheel file redifines the top 6 frequencies
that were slightly more out of tune due to the 192-teeth wheels and
a different gear ratio.

crosstalk: between wheels in a compartment and adjacent drawbar busses.

This is one area that may need extensions for crosstalk in the wiring
loom. Currently the level of crosstalk between each of the wheels in
the compartment can be individually defined, and drawbar bus crosstalk
also.

compartment: table of the 24 tonewheel compartments and associated wheels.


resistors: tapering resister definitions for equalisation of gains per
wheel by note by drawbar.

taper: definition of the drawbar taper damping resistor values.

Improvements would come with some other alterations to the sine waveforms and
some more EQ put into the leslie speaker. The speaker has three speeds, two of
which are configurable and the third is 'stopped'. Changes between the different
rates is controlled to emulate inertia. Another reverb is required, the existing
one was really to generate phasing/doppler on the leslie and not as a general
purpose reverb.

The net emulation is reasonable, it is distinctively a Hammond sound although
it does not have quite as much motor or spindle noise. It could do with a better
amplifier emulation for overdrive.

The damping algorithms is not quite correct, it has dependencies on which keys
are pressed (upper/lower manual). Options drop shadow is taken from the wrong
background bitmap so appears in an inconsistent grey.





Vox Continental
---------------

This emulates the original mark-1 Continental, popular in its time with the
Animals on 'House of the Rising Sun', Doors on 'Light my Fire' and most of
their other tracks. Manzarek did use Farfisa later, and even played with the
Hammond on their final album, 'LA Woman', but this organ in part defined
the 60's sound and is still used by retro bands for that fact. The Damned
used it in an early revival where Captain Sensible punched the keyboard
wearing gloves to quite good effect. After that The Specials began the Mod/Ska
revival using one. The sharp and strong harmonic content has the ability to
cut into a mix and make its presence known.

The organ was a british design, eventually sold (to Crumar?) and made into a
number of plastic alternatives. Compared to the Hammond this was a fully
electronic instrument, no moving parts, and much simpler. It had a very
characteristic sound though, sharper and perhaps thinner but was far cheaper
than its larger cousin. It used a master oscillator that was divided down to
each harmonic for each key (as did the later Hammonds for price reasons). This
oscillator division design was used in the first of the polyphonic synthesisers
where the divided note was fead through individual envelope generators and
a shared or individual filter (Polymoog et al).

The Vox is also a drawbar instrument, but far simplified compared to the
Hammond. It has 4 harmonic mixes, 16', 8' and 4' drawbars each with eight
positions. The fourth gave a mix of 3rd and 5th. An additional two drawbars
controlled the overall volume and waveforms, one for the flute or sine waves
and another for the reed or ramp waves. The resulting sound could be soft and
warm (flute) or sharp and rich (reed).

There are two switches on the modulator panel, one for vibrato effect and one
for memories and options. Options give access to an chorus effect rather
than the simple vibrato, but this actually detracts from the qualities of the
sound which are otherwise very true to the original.

Vox is a trade name owned by Korg Inc. of Japan, and Continental is one of
their registered trademarks. Bristol does not intend to infringe upon these
registered names and Korg have their own remarkable range of vintage emulations
available. You are directed to their website for further information of true
Korg products.





Sequential Circuits Prophet-5
Sequential Circuits Prophet-52 (the '5' with chorus)
----------------------------------------------------

Sequential circuits released amongst the first truly polyphonic synthesisers
where a group of voice circuits (5 in this case) were linked to an onboard
computer that gave the same parameters to each voice and drove the notes to
each voice from the keyboard. The device had some limited memories to allow
for real live stage work. The synth was amazingly flexible regaring the
oscillator options and modulation routing, producing some of the fattest
sounds around. They also had some of the fattest pricing as well, putting it
out of reach of all but the select few, something that maintained its mythical
status. David Sylvian of Duran Duran used the synth to wide acclaim in the
early 80's as did many of the new wave of bands.

The -52 is the same as the -5 with the addition of a chorus as it was easy, it
turns the synth stereo for more width to the sound, and others have done it on
the Win platform.

The design of the Prophet synthesisers follows that of the Mini Moog. It has
three oscillators one of them as a dedicated LFO. The second audio oscillator
can also function as a second LFO, and can cross modulate oscillator A for FM
type effects. The audible oscillators have fixed waveforms with pulse width
modulation of the square wave. These are then mixed and sent to the filter with
two envelopes, for the filter and amplifier.

Modulation bussing is quite rich. There is the wheel modulation which is global,
taking the LFO and Noise as a mixed source, and send it under wheel control to
any of the oscillator frequency and pulse width, plus the filter cutoff. Poly
mods take two sources, the filter envelope and Osc-B output (which are fully
polyphonic, or rather, independent per voice), and can route them through to
Osc-A frequency and Pulse Width, or through to the filter. To get the filter
envelope to actually affect the filter it needs to go through the PolyMod
section. Directing the filter envlope to the PW of Osc-A can make wide, breathy
scaning effects, and when applied to the frequency can give portamento effects.

LFO:

Frequency: 0.1 to 50 Hz
Shape: Ramp/Triangle/Square. All can be selected, none selected should
give a sine wave (*)

(*) Not yet implemented.

Wheel Mod:

Mix: LFO/Noise
Dest: Osc-A Freq/Osc-B Freq/Osc-A PW/Osc-B PW/Filter Cutoff

Poly Mod: These are affected by key velocity.

Filter Env: Amount of filter envelope applied
Osc-B: Amount of Osc-B applied:
Dest: Osc-A Freq/Osc-A PW/Filter Cutoff

Osc-A:

Freq: 32' to 1' in octave steps
Shape: Ramp or Square
Pulse Width: only when Square is active.
Sync: synchronise to Osc-B

Osc-B:

Freq: 32' to 1' in octave steps
Fine: +/- 7 semitones
Shape: Ramp/Triangle/Square
Pulse Width: only when Square is active.
LFO: Lowers requency by 'several' octaves.
KBD: enable/disable keyboard tracking.

Mixer:

Gain for Osc-A, Osc-B, Noise

Filter:

Cutoff: cuttof frequency
Res: Resonance/Q/Emphasis
Env: amount of PolyMod affecting to cutoff.

Envelopes: One each for PolyMod (filter) and amplifier.

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Global:

Master Volume
A440 - stable sine wave at A440 Hz for tuning.
Midi: channel up/down
Release: release all notes
Tune: autotune oscillators.
Glide: amount of portamento

Unison: gang all voices to a single 'fat' monophonic synthesiser.

This is one of the fatter of the Bristol synths and the design of the mods
is impressive (not my design, this is as per sequential circuits spec). Some
of the cross modulations are noisy, notably 'Osc-B->Freq Osc-A' for square
waves as dest and worse as source.

The chorus used by the Prophet-52 is a stereo 'Dimension-D' type effect. The
signal is panned from left to right at one rate, and the phasing and depth at
a separate rate to generate subtle chorus through to helicopter flanging.

Memories are loaded by selecting the 'Bank' button and typing in a two digit
bank number followed by load. Once the bank has been selected then 8 memories
from the bank can be loaded by pressing another memory select and pressing
load. The display will show free memories (FRE) or programmed (PRG).





Sequential Circuits Prophet-10
------------------------------

The prophet 10 was the troublesome brother of the Pro-5. It is almost two
Prophet-5 in one box, two keyboards and a layering capability. Early models
were not big sellers, they were temperamental and liable to be temperature
sensative due to the amount of electronics hidden away inside. The original
layering and 'unison' allowed the original to function as two independent
synths, a pair of layered synths (both keyboards then played the same sound),
as a monophonic synth in 'unison' mode on one keybaord with a second polyphonic
unit on the other, or even all 10 voices on a single keyed note for a humungous
20 oscillator monophonic monster.

Phil Collins used this synth, and plenty of others who might not admit to it.

The emulator uses the same memories as the Prophet-5, shares the same algorithm,
but starts two synths. Each of the two synths can be seen by selecting the U/D
(Up/Down) button in the programmer section. Each of the two synthesisers loads
one of the Pro-5 memories.

There was an added parameter - the Pan or balance of the selected layer, used
to build stereo synths. The lower control panel was extended to select the
playing modes:

Dual: Two independent keyboards
Poly: Play note from each layer alternatively
Layer: Play each layer simultaneously.

In Poly and Layer mode, each keyboard plays the same sounds.

Mods: Select which of the Mod and Freq wheels control which layers.





Oberheim OB-X
-------------

Oberheim was the biggest competitor of Sequencial Circuits, having their OB
range neck and neck with each SC Prophet. The sound is as fat, the OB-X
similar to the Prophet-5 as the OB-Xa to the Prophet-10. The synths were widely
used in rock music in the late seventies and early 80s. Their early polyphonic
synthesisers had multiple independent voices linked to the keyboard and were
beast to program as each voice was configured independently, something that
prevented much live usage. The OB-X configured all of the voices with the same
parameters and had non-volatile memories for instant recall.

Priced at $6000 upwards, this beast was also sold in limited quantities and
as with its competition gained and maintained a massive reputation for rich,
fat sounds. Considering that it only had 21 continuous controllers they were
used wisely to build its distinctive and flexible sound.

The general design again follows that of the Mini Moog, three oscillators with
one dedicated as an LFO the other two audible. Here there is no mixer though,
the two audible oscillators feed direclty into the filter and then the aplifier.

The richness of the sound came from the oscillator options and filter, the
latter of which is not done justice in the emulator.

Manual:

Volume
Auto: autotune the oscillators
Hold: disable note off events
Reset: fast decay to zero for envelopes, disregards release parameter.
Master Tune: up/down one semitone both oscillators.

Control:

Glide: up to 30 seconds
Oscillator 2 detune: Up/down one semitone

Unison: gang all voices to a single 'fat' monophonic synthesiser.

Modulation:

LFO: rate of oscillation
Waveform: Sine/Square/Sample&Hold of noise src. Triangle if none selected.

Depth: Amount of LFO going to:
Freq Osc-1
Freq Osc-2
Filter Cutoff

PWM: Amount of LFO going to:
PWM Osc-1
PWM Osc-2

Oscillators:

Freq1: 32' to 1' in octave increments.
PulseWidth: Width of pulse wave (*).
Freq2: 16' to 1' in semitone increments.

Saw: sawtooth waveform Osc-1 (**)
Puls: Pulse waveform Osc-1

XMod: Osc-1 FW to Osc-2 (***)
Sync: Osc-2 sync to Osc-1

Saw: sawtooth waveform Osc-2
Puls: Pulse waveform Osc-2

* Although this is a single controller it acts independently on each of the
oscillators - the most recent to have its square wave selected will be
affected by this parameter allowing each oscillator to have a different
pulse width as per the original design.

** If no waveform is selected then a triangle is generated.

*** The original synth had Osc-2 crossmodifying Osc-1, this is not totally
feasable with the sync options as they are not mutually exclusive here.
Cross modulation is noisy if the source or dest wave is pulse, something
that may be fixed in a future release.

Filter:

Freq: cutoff frequency
Resonance: emphasis (*)
Mod: Amount of modulation to filter cutoff (**)

Osc-1: Osc-1 to cutoff at full swing.
KDB: Keyboard tracking of cutoff.

Half/Full: Oscillator 2 to Cutoff at defined levels (***)
Half/Full: Noise to Cutoff at defined levels (***)

* In contrast to the original, this filter can self oscillate.

** The original had this parameter for the envelope level only, not the
other modifiers. Due to the filter implementation here it affects total
depth of the sum of the mods.

*** These are not mutually exclusive. The 'Half' button gives about 1/4,
the 'Full' button full, and both on gives 1/2. They could be made mutually
exclusive, but the same effect can be generated with a little more flexibity
here.

Envelopes: One each for filter and amplifier.

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

The oscillators appear rather restricted at first sight, but the parametrics
allow for a very rich and cutting sound.

Improvements would be a fatter filter, but this can be argued of all the
Bristol synthesisers as they all share the same design. It will be altered in
a future release.

The OB-X has its own mod panel (most of the rest share the same frequency and
mod controls). Narrow affects the depth of the two controllers, Osc-2 will
make frequency only affect Osc-2 rather than both leading to beating, or phasing
effects if the oscillators are in sync. Transpose will raise the keyboard by
one octave.

Memories are quite simple, the first group of 8 buttons is a bank, the second
is for 8 memories in that bank. This is rather restricted for a digital synth
but is reasonably true to the original. If you want more than 64 memories let
me know.






Oberheim OB-Xa
--------------

This is almost two OB-X in a single unit. With one keyboard they could provide
the same sounds but with added voicing for split/layers/poly options. The OB-Xa
did at least work with all 10 voices, had a single keyboard, and is renound for
the sounds of van Halen 'Jump' and Stranglers 'Strange Little Girl'. The sound
had the capability to cut through a mix to upstage even guitar solo's. Oberheim
went on to make the most over the top analogue synths before the cut price
alternatives and the age of the DX overcame them.

Parameters are much the same as the OB-X as the algorithm shares the same code,
with a few changes to the mod routing. The main changes will be in the use of
Poly/Split/Layer controllers for splitting the keyboard and layering the sounds
of the two integrated synthesisers and the choice of filter algorithm.

The voice controls apply to the layer being viewed, selected from the D/U
button.

Manual:

Volume
Balance
Auto: autotune the oscillators
Hold: disable note off
Reset: fast decay to zero for envelopes, disregards release parameter.
Master Tune: up/down one semitone both oscillators.

Control:

Glide: up to 30 seconds
Oscillator 2 detune: Up/down one semitone

Unison: gang all voices to a single 'fat' monophonic synthesiser.

Modulation:

LFO: rate of oscillation
Waveform: Sine/Square/Sample&Hold of noise src. Triangle if none selected.

Depth: Amount of LFO going to:
Freq Osc-1
Freq Osc-2
Filter Cutoff

PWM: Amount of LFO going to:
PWM Osc-1
PWM Osc-2
Tremelo

Oscillators:

Freq1: 32' to 1' in octave increments.
PulseWidth: Width of pulse wave (*).
Freq2: 16' to 1' in semitone increments.

Saw: sawtooth waveform Osc-1 (**)
Puls: Pulse waveform Osc-1

Env: Application of Filter env to frequency
Sync: Osc-2 sync to Osc-1

Saw: sawtooth waveform Osc-2
Puls: Pulse waveform Osc-2

* Although this is a single controller it acts independently on each of the
oscillators - the most recent to have its square wave selected will be
affected by this parameter allowing each oscillator to have a different
pulse width, as per the original design.

** If no waveform is selected then a triangle is generated.

Filter:

Freq: cutoff frequency
Resonance: emphasis (*)
Mod: Amount of modulation to filter cutoff (**)

Osc-1: Osc-1 to cutoff at full swing.
KDB: Keyboard tracking of cutoff.

Half/Full: Oscillator 2 to Cutoff at defined levels (***)

Noise: to Cutoff at defined levels
4 Pole: Select 2 pole or 4 pole filter

* In contrast to the original, this filter will self oscillate.

** The original had this parameter for the envelope level only, not the
other modifiers. Due to the filter implementation here it affects total
depth of the sum of the mods.

*** These are not mutually exclusive. The 'Half' button gives about 1/4,
the 'Full' button full, and both on gives 1/2. They could be made mutually
exclusive, but the same effect can be generated with a little more flexibity
here.

Envelopes: One each for filter and amplifier.

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Mode selection:

Poly: play one key from each layer alternatively for 10 voices
Split: Split the keyboard. The next keypress specifies split point
Layer: Layer each voice on top each other.

D/U: Select upper and lower layers for editing.

Modifier Panel:

Rate: Second LFO frequency
Depth: Second LFO gain
Low: Modifiers will affect the lower layer
Up: Modifiers will affect the upper layer
Multi: Each voice will implement its own LFO
Copy: Copy lower layer to upper layer

Mod 01: Modify Osc-1 in given layer
Mod 02: Modify Osc-2 in given layer
PW: Moduify Pulse Width
AMT: Amount (ie, depth) of mods and freq wheels

Transpose: Up or Down one octave.

The oscillators appear rather restricted at first sight, but the parametrics
allow for a very rich and cutting sound.

The Copy function on the Mod Panel is to make Poly proramming easier - generate the desired sound and then copy the complete parameter set for poly operation.
It can also be used more subtely, as the copy operation does not affect balance
or detune, so sounds can be copied and immediately panned slightly out of tune tto generate natural width in a patch. This is not per the original instrument
that had an arpeggiator on the mod panel.






Roland Juno-6
-------------

Roland was one of the main pacemakers in analogue synthesis, also competing
with the Sequential and Oberheim products. They did anticipate the moving
market and produced the Juno-6 relatively early. This was one of the first
accessible synths, having a reasonbly fat analogue sound without the price
card of the monster predecessors. It brought synthesis to the mass market that
marked the decline of Sequential Circuits and Oberheim who continued to make
their products bigger and fatter. The reduced price tag meant it had a slightly
thinner sound, and a chorus was added to extend this, to be a little more
comparable.

The synth again follows the Mini Moog design with three oscillators one of
which is dedicated to being an LFO, these fead into a filter and then an
amplifier. There is only one envelope generator that can apply to both the
filter and amplifier.

Control:

DCO: Amount of pitch wheel that is applied to the oscillators frequency.
VCF: Amount of pitch wheel that is applied to the filter frequency.

Tune: Master tuning of instrument

Glide: length of portamento

LFO: Manual control for start of LFO operation.

Hold: (*)

Transpose: Up/Down one octave
Hold: prevent key off events

LFO:

Rate: Frequency of LFO
Delay: Period before LFO is activated
Man/Auto: Manual or Automatic cut in of LFO

DCO:

LFO: Amount of LFO affecting frequency. Affected by mod wheel.
PWM: Amount of LFO affecting PWM. Affected by mod wheel.

ENV/LFO/MANUAL: Modulator for PWM

Waveform:
Pulse or Ramp wave. Pulse has PWM capabily.

Sub oscillator:
On/Off first fundamental square wave.

Sub:
Mixer for fundamental

Noise:
Mixer of white noise source.

HPF: High Pass Filter

Freq:
Frequency of cutoff.

VCF:

Freq:
Cutoff frequency

Res:
Resonance/emphasis.

Envelope:
+ve/-ve application

Env:
Amount of contour applied to cutoff

LFO:
Depth of LFO modulation applied.

KBD:
Amount of key tracking appliied.

VCA:

Env/Gate:
Contour is either gated or modulated by ADSR

Level:
Overall volume

ADSR:

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Chorus:

8 Selectable levels of Dimension-D type helicopter flanger.

* The original instrument had a basic sequencer on board for portamento effects
on each key. In fact, so did the Prophet-10 and Oberheims. This has not been
implemented on any of the synths and is a potential area for development.

The LFO cut in and gain is adjusted by a timer and envelope that it triggers.

The Juno would improve from the use of the prophet DCO rather than its own one.
It would require a second oscillator for the sub frequency, but the prophet DCO
can do all the Juno does with better resampling and PWM generation.






Yamaha DX-7
-----------

Released in the '80s this synth quickly became the most popular of all time.
It was the first fully digital synth, employed a revolutionary frequency
modulated algorithm and was priced much lower than the analogue monsters
that preceeded it. Philip Glass used it to wide effect for Miami Vice, Prince
had it on many of his albums, Howard Jones produced albums filled with its
library sounds. The whole of the 80's were loaded with this synth, almost to
the point of saturation. There was generally wide use of its library sounds
due to the fact that it was nigh on impossible to programme, only having entry
buttons and the algorithm itself was not exactly intuitive, but also because
the library was exceptional and the voices very playable. The emulation is a
6 operator per voice, and all the parameters are directly accessible to ease
programming.

The original DX had six operators although cheaper models were release with
just 4 operators and a consequently thinner sound. Each operator is a sine
wave oscillator with its own envelope generator for amplification and a few
parameters that adjusted its modulators. It used a number of different
algorithms where operators were mixed together and then used to adjust the
frequency of the next set of operators. The sequence of the operators affected
the net harmonics of the overall sound. Each operator has a seven stage
envelope - 'ramp' to 'level 1', 'ramp' to 'level 2', 'decay' to 'sustain',
and finally 'release' when a key is released. The input gain to the frequency
modulation is controllable, the output gain is also adjustable, and the final
stage operators can be panned left and right.

Each operator has:

Envelope:

Attack: Ramp rate to L1
L1: First target gain level
Attack: Ramp rate from L2 to L2
L2: Second target gain level
Decay: Ramp rate to sustain level
Sustain: Continuous gain level
Release: Key release ramp rate

Tuning:

Tune: +/- 7 semitones
Transpose: 32' to 1' in octave increments

LFO: Low frequency oscillation with no keyboard control

Gain controls:

Touch: Velocity sensitivity of operator.

In gain: Amount of frequency modulation from input
Out gain: Output signal level

IGC: Input gain under Mod control
OGC: Output gain under Mod control

Pan: L/R pan of final stage operators.

Global and Algorithms:

24 different operator staging algorithms
Pitchwheel: Depth of pitch modifier
Glide: Polyphonic portamento
Volume
Tune: Autotune all operators

Memories can be selected with either submitting a 3 digit number on the keypad,
or selecting the orange up/down buttons.

An improvement could be more preset memories with different sounds that can
then be modified, ie, more library sounds. There are some improvements that
could be made to polyphonic mods from key velocity and channel/poly pressure
that would not be difficult to implement.

The addition of triangle of other complex waveforms could be a fun development
effort (if anyone were to want to do it).

The DX still has a propendancy to seg fault, especially when large gains are
applied to input signals. This is due to loose bounds checking that will be
extended in a present release.





KORG MONOPOLY
-------------

A synth suite would not be complete without some example of a Korg instrument,
the company was also pivotal in the early synthesiser developments. This is
an implementation of their early attempts at polyphonic synthesis, it was
either this one or the Poly-6 (which may be implemented later). Other choices
would have been the MS series, MS-20, but there are other synth packages that
do a better job of emulating the patching flexibility of that synth - Bristol
is more for fixed configurations.

As with many of the Korg synths (the 800 worked similarly) this is not really
true polyphony, and it is the quirks that make it interesting. The synth had
four audio oscillators, each independently configurable but which are bussed
into a common filter and envelope pair - these are not per voice but rather
per instrument. The unit had different operating modes such that the four
oscillators can be driven together for a phat synth, independently for a form
of polyphony where each is allocated to a different keypress, and a shared
mode where they are assigned in groups depending on the number of keys pressed.
For example, if only 2 notes are held then each key is sounded on two different
oscillators, one key is sounded on all 4 oscillators, and 3 or more have one
each. In addition there are two LFOs for modulation and a basic effects option
for beefing up the sounds. To be honest to the original synth, this emulation
will only request 1 voice from the engine. Korg is one of the few original
manufacturers to have survived the transititon to digital synthesis and are
still popular.

One thing that is immediately visible with this synth is that there are a lot
of controllers since each oscillator is configured independently. This is in
contrast to the true polyphonic synths where one set of controls are given to
configure all the oscillators/filters/envelopes. The synth stages do follow the
typical synth design, there are modulation controllers and an FX section
feeding into the oscillators and filter. The effects section is a set of
controllers that can be configured and then enabled/disabled with a button
press. The overall layout is rather kludgy, with some controllers that are
typically grouped being dispersed over the control panel.

Control:

Volume

Arpeg:
Whether arpegiator steps up, down, or down then up. This works in
conjunction with the 'Hold' mode described later.

Glide: glissando note to note. Does not operate in all modes

Octave: Up/Normal/Down one octave transpose of keyboard

Tune: Global tuning of all oscillators +/- 50 cents (*)
Detune: Overall detuning of all oscillators +/- 50 cents (*)

* There is an abundance of 'Tune' controllers. Global Tuning affects all
the oscillators together, then oscillators 2, 3 and 4 have an independent
tune controller, and finally there is 'Detune'. The target was to tune all
the oscillators to Osc-1 using the independent Tune for each, and then use
the global Tune here to have the synth tuned to other intruments. The
Detune control can then be applied to introduce some beating between the
oscillators to fatten the sound without necessarily losing overall tune of
the instrument.

Modulation wheels:

Bend:
Intensity: Depth of modulation
Destination:
VCF - Filter cutoff
Pitch - Frequency of all oscillators
VCO - Frequency of selected oscillators (FX selection below).

MG1: Mod Group 1 (LFO)
Intensity: Depth of modulation
Destination:
VCF - Filter cutoff
Pitch - Frequency of all oscillators
VCO - Frequency of selected oscillators (FX selection below).

LFO:

MG-1:
Frequency
Waveform - Tri, +ve ramp, -ve ramp, square.

MG-2:
Frequency (Triangle wave only).

Pulse Width Control:

Pulse Width Modulation:
Source - Env/MG-1/MG-2
Depth

Pule Width
Width control

These controllers affect Osc-1 though 4 with they are selected for either
square of pulse waveforms.

Mode:

The Mono/Poly had 3 operating modes, plus a 'Hold' option that affects
each mode:

Mono: All oscillators sound same key in unison
Poly: Each oscillator is assigned independent key - 4 note poly.
Share: Dynamic assignment:
1 key - 4 oscillators = Mono mode
2 key - 2 oscillators per key
3/4 - 1 oscillator per key = Poly mode

The Hold function operates in 3 different modes:

Mono: First 4 keypresses are memorised, futher notes are then chorded
together monophonically.
Poly:
Notes are argeggiated in sequence, new note presses are appended
to the chain. Arpeggiation is up, down or up/down.
Share:
First 4 notes are memorised and are thien argeggiated in sequence,
new note presses will transpose the arpeggiation. Stepping is up,
down or up/down.

There are several controllers that affect arpeggation:

Arpeg - direction of stepping
MG-2 - Frequency of steps from about 10 seconds down to 50 bps.
Trigger - Multiple will trigger envelopes on each step.

Effects:

There are three main effects, or perhaps rather modulations, that are
controlled in this section. These are vibrato, crossmodulated frequency
and oscillator synchronisation. The application of each mod is configured
with the controllers and then all of them can be enabled/disabled with
the 'Effects' button. This allows for big differences in sound to be
applied quickly and simply as a typical effect would be. Since these mods
apply between oscillators it was envisaged they would be applied in Mono
mode to futher fatten the sound, and the Mono mode is actually enabled when
the Effects key is selected (as per the original instrument). The Mode can
be changed afterwards for Effects/Poly for example, and they work with the
arpeggiation function.

X-Mod: frequency crossmodulation between oscillators
Freq: frequency modulation by MG-1 (vibrato) or Envlope (sweep)

Mode:
Syn: Oscillators are synchronised
X-M: Oscillators are crossmodulated
S-X: Oscillators are crossmodulated and synchronised

SNG:
Single mode: synth had a master oscillator (1) and three slaves (2/3/4)
DBL:
Double mode: synth had two master (1/3) and two slaves (2/4)

The overall FX routing depends on the SNG/DBL mode and the selection of
Effects enabled or not according to the table below. This table affects
the FX routing and the modulation wheels discussed in the LFO section above:

--------------------------------------------------
| FX OFF | FX ON |
| |----------------------------------
| | Single | Double |
---------------+--------------+-----------------+---------------|
| VCO-1/Slave | VCO-1 | VCO 2/3/4 | VCO 2/4 |
| | | | |
| Pitch | VCO 1-4 | VCO 1-4 | VCO 1-4 |
| | | | |
| VCF | VCF | VCF | VCF |
-----------------------------------------------------------------

So, glad that is clear. Application of the modulation wheels to Pitch and
VCF is invariable when they are selected. In contrast, VCO/Slave will have
different destinations depending on the Effects, ie, when effects are on
the modwheels will affect different 'slave' oscillators.


Oscillators:

Each oscillator had the following controllers:

Tune (*)
Waveform: Triangle, ramp, pulse, square (**)
Octave: Transpose 16' to 2'
Level: output gain/mix of oscillators.

* Osc-1 tuning is global
** width of pulse and square wave is governed by PW controller. The
modulation of the pulse waveform is then also controlled by PWM.

Noise:

Level: whitenoise output gain, mixed with oscillators into filter.

VCF:

Freq:
Cutoff frequency

Res:
Resonance/emphasis.

Env:
Amount of contour applied to cutoff

KBD:
Amount of key tracking appliied.

ADSR: Two: filter/PWM/FX, amplifier

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Trigger:
Single: Trigger once until last key release
Multi: Trigger for each key or arpeggiator step.

Damp:
Off: Notes are held in Poly/Share mode until last key is released.
On: Oscillators are released as keys are released.

This is more a synth to play with than describe. It never manag

[pinkjimiphoton]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

these are for LINUX!
but i got a couple of them running on my machine (xp) and they work great...
be preparedd to dig thru a LOT of directories!