Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 22:57:15 +0000 (GMT) From: Ben Hall <cb170@city.ac.uk> X-Sender: cb170@swindon To: WaveStation List <wavestation@cloudfactory.org> Subject: [WS] General Effects Configurations - Part 2 (big-ish, sorry!) Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.94.961101225529.19374B-100000@swindon> MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: Owner-Wavestation@cloudfactory.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: wavestation@cloudfactory.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Generally you route patches to the FX busses within the performance Part Detail edit page. From the main performance select screen hit the EDIT softkey, position the cursor on the part you want to edit (there's up to 8 parts in a performance, remember), and then hit the DETAIL softkey. The "FX BUS" parameter is the one you're looking for, and it can be set to the following range of values:
BUS-A - The part is sent to bus A only
99/1 --> 1/99 - The part is sent to both busses
A and B, but panned according to
the setting. "99/1" is hard left,
"50/50" is dead center (left and right
equally), and "1/99" is hard right, for
example.
BUS-B - The part is sent to bus B only
BUS-C - The part is sent to bus C only
C + D - The part is sent to both C and D,
equivalent to a "50/50" setting
BUS-D - The part is sent to bus D only
ALL - Part is sent to busses A, B, C and D
PATCH - This sends the part to the FX busses
according to the settings in the patch edit
"FX BUS" page. I'll come to this in a
short while.
(When a patch is routed to busses A or B or between them (with a 43/57 pan for example) then the dynamic pan options become available, edited from the PATCH-->MACROS-->PAN screen. This lets you control the A/B pan position via keyboard position or velocity on a per-oscillator basis)
Using this table in conjunction with the effects diagrams you should be able to decide which settings you need for a particular routing.
Let's have an easy practical example, then. Suppose you want to, within a performance, have one patch (say, ROM-04 WS Strings) going through a reverb and being output on the main stereo outs, and another patch (say, ROM-21 E.Piano) going through a chorus and being output from the sub outs. For this you need to have the FX in parallel mode. Setup FX1 with a reverb, and FX2 with a chorus. Now set part 1 (the string patch) to "50/50" and part 2 (the elec piano patch) to "C + D".
This arrangement of routing each patch to different FX bus combinations is quite flexible, however there is extra flexibility in the "FX Bus: PATCH" setting mentioned a short while ago. From the performance edit page, select the patch you want to edit with the cursor, hit the PATCH and then "FX BUS" softkeys. Now each oscillator within a patch (1, 2 or 4 oscillators per patch) can be independently sent to any or all of the four FX busses.
The FX mix parameters give you a little more routing flexibility.
Basically the FX mix bus is another little mixer which combines signals from busses C and D and mixes them into the A and B buss. This means, for example, that you can use the FX in the parallel mode to process signals independently _without_ having to use outputs 3 and 4. Lets modify the previous diagrams of the effects section, and add in the FX mix bus, as a diagram gives a much clearer overview than any amount of text. Here's the one for the effects in series mode:
WS Sound Generator | | |----> FX BUS A ---> FX1 ------/--------> FX2 ----/-----> Output 1 |----> FX BUS B ---> FX1 ------|------/--> FX2 --|---/--> Output 2 | | | | | |----> FX BUS C ------> MIX3 -/------|----------/---|---> Output 3 -----> FX BUS D ------- MIX4 -------/---------------/---> Output 4
The MIX3 section mixes some of bus C's signal into the bus A signal, and there are two points of entry. You can set the FX MIX3 parameter to "OFF" (no mixing at all, C does not get mixed into the A bus), "DRY" (bus C is mixed _after_ FX2, and therefore does not go through either FX processors, but is still output from the main outputs), "WET" (the signal is mixed in _before_ FX2, and therefore does go through the second FX processor), and various combinations between dry and wet. You can also modulate the FX mix amount as it has a modulation source, so the mod wheel could control the mix amount.
With the "DRY" setting, it means that patches routed to bus C will not be processed by FX1 (whatever effect type it's set to) but _will_ be processed by FX2. MIX4 does the same thing but mixes bus D's signal into bus B, again before FX2.
This effects routing is useful if you want to have a specific effect on one patch (say a really drastic distortion), and then a blanket reverb processing on everything else. You'd send the patch to be distorted to busses A and B, and everything else to C and D, with FX1 doing the distortion and FX2 the reverb, with the final stereo mix output from outputs 1 and 2 (the main stereo outs).
Let's now have a look at the parallel routings, including the FX mix:
WS Sound Generator | | |------> FX BUS A -----> FX1 ------/--------/-------> Output 1 (left) |------> FX BUS B -----> FX1 -----|---/----|---/----> Output 2 (right) | | | | | | MIX3 MIX4 | | | |------> FX BUS C -----> FX2 ------/---------|------> Output 3 (left) -------> FX BUS D -----> FX2 ---------------/-------> Output 4 (right)
Now you can see that the FX mix lets you mix in the output from FX2 into the A and B busses, chiefly to offer independant FX processing from the two FX units and have them all come out of the main stereo outs. In this mode, both MIX3 and MIX4 have settings of "OFF" (as before, no signal from C/D is mixed into A/B), and various pan settings from hard left to hard right (unlike the series mode routings, bus C can be mixed into both A and B, and panned between them (dynamically as well, using the mod source), whereas in series mode C is only mixed into bus A).
So in summary, the FX MIX is simply a little mixing section that mixes busses C and D into A and B (and only that way around - A and B don't get mixed into C and D).
One practical use of the twin effects processors is in multi mode, where you have several different sounds being played at once, some of which need specific effects, and others need to be routed to the other outputs for adding external effects.
Now the main problem here (apart from not having enough FX processors!) is that some performances use specific effects routings/configurations to achieve their sound, and consequently sometimes it is impossible to get the routings you want whilst still keeping the same processing. This is one of the reasons why routing is not always straightforward. The other is that the FX bus routings are stored within each performance, and to change the routing you have to edit each performance (and if it's one of the ROM ones, you have to then resave the edited version in a RAM slot). And to make matters more complex, if the FX bus setting is "PATCH" then we may have to delve into patch editing to change the bus assignments. Khew, are you still reading this far? :)
Well anyway, let's start with a practical example. Let's say we want our multi to have four preset performances (on midi channels 1 to 4), with each one coming from a separate output, with no effects processing (useful for processing on the desk).
The performances that we would like to use are (all from the ROM bank for ease of demonstration): 4 Mini Lead, 17 Octave Strings, 26 Tine Piano and 37 Round Wound.
So switch to multi mode and place the performances in the appropriate multi slots, and init the effects.
Now if we have a look at the effects routings of each of these performances - to do this we have to temporarily switch back to poly mode, otherwise we can't inspect each performance's effects settings. Select the desired performance and hit the EDIT and DETAIL softkeys, and step through each of the parts to examine their FX bus parameter:
(Don't forget that whenever we change the bus routings it may well be upsetting the levels of the constituent parts of a sound, so you need to listen as you go to avoid changing the sound beyond recognition).
Now if we go back to multi mode we have each of our four sounds being routed to A, B, C and D respectively, meaning they will emerge from outputs 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Now you can play with the effects to add any processing you need. If you select two dual-mono effects you can process each of the four sounds independently.
As you can see from all of this, the effects section and routing is quite complex, and I cannot describe every possible way of using it here. I hope I have given some hints and tips on using the effects, and if you understand how it works you should be able to set up the routings you need.
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