Ensoniq Corporation Transoniq Hacker Archive Issue #081 081

Ensoniq Corporation Transoniq Hacker Archive Issue #081 th_081 Ensoniq Corporation - Transoniq Hacker Archive - Issue #081

Ensoniq Corporation Transoniq Hacker Archive Issue #081 th_081 Ensoniq Corporation - Transoniq Hacker Archive - Issue #081

User Manual: Ensoniq Corporation Transoniq Hacker Archive Issue #081 Ensoniq Corporation - Transoniq Hacker Archive - Issue #081

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.

Chorusing and Flanging Effects on the

SQs -The Plot Thickens

Welcome to this month's installment of

"Programming The SQ When You Should

Be Looking For A Real Job." So far we've

talked about how to route voices to the ef-

fects busses and how to work with the

reverb parameters to customize reverb ef-

fects. This time out, let's move on to some

of the other on-board effects.

I

Q

The SQ includes a number of effects that

are delay-based and, as such, can be ap-

proached in very similar ways. Among

these are the chorusing, flanging and rotary

speaker effects. The rotary speaker and

flanger effects are found only in combina-

tion with other effects -primarily the

reverb. The chorus, while it is found in

combination with other effects, also pre-

sents itself as a single effect -the 8-Voice

Chorus. We'll start out by examining this

effect first.

As I've already mentioned, chorusing is a

delay-based effect, made possible through

the use of delay circuitry. A delay is

generally used to create echo-type effects.

You put a signal into a delay, and what

comes out is generally the same signal, but

later -the signal has been delayed. If you

mix this delayed signal back in with the

original signal, the resulting sound might

Clark Salisbury

give the impression that the original signal

is echoing. This simple approach yields the

original signal and a single echo. If one

wishes to create the sound of multiple

echoes, one need only route the delayed sig-

nal back into the delay itself. This delayed

signal is then again delayed, yielding a

second echo, and since the output of the

delay is routed back to its own input, this

second echo is again delayed, and so on.

The process of routing a delayed signal

back into the delay is referred to as

"regeneration" or "feedback."

If this regenerated signal is routed back into

the delay at full intensity, however, the

echoes will continue to multiply at full

volume until the sound finally becomes a

wash of echoes. This is generally not a very

pleasing effect. For this reason, provision

must be made to attenuate (turn down) the

delayed regenerated signal. The result is a

series of echoes that get progressively

quieter, eventually decaying to silence -a

much more natural-sounding effect. We can

hear this process in action by performing a

few simple adjustments to the SQ's 8-Voice

Chorus.

First, select a sound to experiment with.

ROM sound 00, Dynamic Grand, should do

nicely. Press the Edit button, then the Effect

button. If you are not at the top of the effect

menu pages, press button 0 also -you

should be seeing the effect name, 'Concert

Reverb', in the display. Select the effect

name, and use the up/down arrow buttons or

the slider to change it to '8- Voice Chorus' .

We now have a piano sound that's being

processed with a fairly straightforward

chorus effect. Press button 1 -you'll find

that chorus rate and depth are both set to 20

The Independent News

Magazine for Ensoniq Users

Inthis issue

Articles:

Chorusing and Flanging on the SQs

Clark Salisbury cover

DP/4 Specifications

Ensoniq "9

(More) "Hidden Waves" on the VFX

Walter Cooper ". 14

Sample Variations

William PonJ ".. 15

Pickin' on EPS Bass Sounds

TomShear "17

Reviews:

Le Cover Dust Covers

Steve VincenJ 4

Basement Tapes: G2

Daniel Mandel 6

Jazz Through MIDI

Daniel Mandel 7

Giebler's SQ80VFX

Ed Lecuyer ,10

Ensoniq's SC-4 for SQs

Jeff Rhoads "11

Ensoniq's VSD-I00l for VFX-sdjSD-l

Jeffery P. Fisher 13

3D Sounds for Samplers

Barbara Ockel 18

Robo Bop for ESQ-l & SQ-80

Brian Rost 19

Regular Stuff:

RandomNotes "3

Hypersoniq 4

Current O.S. """"""""""""""""""""'" 30

Hard Drives List " 30

Classifieds 20

Hackerpatches

Sam Mims &Jeffrey Rhoads 21

The Interface 24

HackerBooteeq "31

ISSUENUMBER81, $2.50 MARCH,1992

------

-------

-we'll be talking about these parameters in a moment. For now,

though, set the Chorus Depth parameter to 0, and press button 2 to

move to the next menu page.

Here we are presented with two parameters -Chorus Center,

which should be set to 20, and Feedback, which should be set to

+00. Select the Chorus Center parameter, and set it to 99. If you

now playa few notes on the keyboard, you'll hear the piano sound

and a single, quick echo. This is because Chorus Center actually

controls delay time -the amount of time between the original sig-

nal and its delayed counterpart. The highest value is 99, so we

have set the delay (which is the basis for the chorusing effect) to

its maximum delay time. The delay is now long enough that we

can hear it as a discrete echo.

Now select the Feedback parameter, and see what different

parameter settings do. You'll find that as you increase or decrease

the value for this parameter from its initial setting of +00, you will

begin to increase the number of repeats from the delay. A setting

of +99 or -99 will give you positive or negative feedback at full

gain, completely unattenuated. The effect will be that the echoing

continues until you change the value for the parameter, select a

new sound, or turn the SQ off.

Leave the Chorus center parameter set to 99 and set the Feedback

parameter to a value of +90 for now. Press button I to move back

to the Chorus Rate and Depth page. Chorus rate should still be set

to 20 -set Chorus Depth to 99, and playa note. The echoes are

now shifting in pitch -moving up and down in a fairly regular

way as they decay. What's happening here is what sets chorusing

apart from simple delay effects -the delayed portion of the signal

is being modulated. To be more precise, the delay time itself is

being modulated -in this case by a sine wave. The effect is that

delay time is being shortened and lengthened cyclically -as the

delay time gets shorter, the pitch of the delayed signal rises, and as

it gets longer, the pitch of the delayed signal gets lower. Any of

you who have played with the time control and digital, analog, or

tape delays will recognize this effect. The theory is that if you mix

this pitch-shifted version of the signal back with the original sig-

nal, the result will sound like more than one voice sounding in

unison -a "chorus" of voices, each one slightly off-pitch from

the others.

Of course, the effect that we've put together here is a bit exag-

gerated - for most typical chorusing applications we'll want to be

a bit more subtle. For example, try setting the. Chorus Depth

parameter back to a value of 20, and hit button 2 to move back to

the Chorus Center and Feedback page. Try setting the Feedback

parameter to a value of +35 or so. The chorusing will now be quite

a bit more subtle, although there will still be a rather pronounced

"slapback" echo at the beginning of the signal. This heavily

chorused sound, with the slapback echo at the beginning is a

popular effect among many electric guitarists -you might want

to check this out with some of your favorite guitar patches. If the

slapback is bothering you, you can shorten it by adjusting the

Chorus Center parameter -lower values will cause the initial

echo to shorten, finally becoming so short as to be imperceptible

as a separate echo.

The Chorus Center parameter has another use, besides that of in-

troducing a slight echo into the chorused signal, and that is to

"tune" the chorusing effect. Different settings for the Center

parameter yield chorusing effects that seem to be "tuned" higher or

lower in the frequency spectrum.

-

To become proficient with chorusing effects, you should also be-

come familiar with the interaction of the Rate and Depth

parameters. You'll find that these two parameters interact when

you are attempting to arrive at a pleasing chorus effect. Increasing

the depth, for example, may necessitate a corresponding decrease

in the rate, and vice-versa. Also, the overall amount of chorusing

should be taken into account. In the case of the 8-Voice Chorus ef-

fect, this is programmed from the first effect menu page - press-

ing button 0 will take you there. With the multiple effects that

include chorusing, chorus amount is controlled from within the ef-

fect menu pages - the parameter for controlling chorus amount

will be presented as "Chorus LeveL"

Flanging is very similar to chorusing - in fact, it is nearly identi-

cal. As such, all the parameters that we've talked about in our dis-

cussion of chorusing will apply to the flanging effects. The only

real difference between flanging and chorusing is that flanging ef-

fects are achieved using shorter delay times than would be used for

chorusing effects. The effect of sweeping these shorter delay times

is easy enough to make apparent by example. Starting with the

same sound, ROM 00 Dynamic Grand, hit the Edit, then the Ef-

fect, then the 0 button to move to the rust page of the effect menu.

Select the effect type, and change it to Flanger+Reverb 1 -the

flanging effect should be immediately apparent if you listen to a

few notes from the SQ.

Now hit button 2 to move to the Flanger Rate and Depth page. Set

Flanger Depth to 00, and hit button 3 to move to the next page. Set

Feedback to +00, and select the Flanger Center parameter. Set it to

00 as well. Now, increment the Flanger Center parameter one

number at a time while repeatedly striking a key on the SQ key-

board. You should hear the sound go through a number of fairly

subtle tonal changes. What is happening is that the signal, having

been very slightly delayed and mixed back with itself, is exhibiting

amplitude changes in a variety of frequencies. When you mix two

identical waves, one slightly delayed from the other, certain fre-

quencies will be amplified and others will be attenuated. This is

because at some points in the two waves' cycles, both waves will

be traveling in the same direction. In this case, adding the waves

together at this point will result in those frequencies being at

greater amplitude than in either wave taken separately. If we use a

sine wave as an example, we find that adding a sine wave with an

amplitude of +10 with another identical sine wave with an

amplitude of +10 will give use a sine wave with an amplitude of

+20.

At other times, the waves will be traveling in opposite directions

-one might be going positive while the other is going negative

(remember, since one wave is delayed from the other, it might still

be moving in a positive direction while the original wave has taken

a turn to the negative). Adding the two waves together at this point

will have the effect of cancelling some or all of the frequencies

out. For example, adding two identical sine waves, one with an

amplitude of +10 and the other with an amplitude of -10 results in

a wave with an amplitude of 0, or no wave at all.

Of course, the waves that we are mixing together in our flanger are

much more complex than sine waves, so this phenomenon of fre-

quencies accentuating and cancelling each other sounds much

more complex. And I should mention that this is not limited to the

flanger only -both the chorusing and rotary speaker effects will

exhibit some of this effect. But the characteristic sound of flanging

(Continued on page 6)

2

Front Panel

RND(J'J'J')

Ensonlq News

[Ed. -Last month we mentioned that Ensoniq has become the

authorized distributor of all C-Labproducts andpromised more

newsthis month...]

Yes, it's true - Ensoniq Corp has been appointed the official US

distributor for C-LAB Software. This popular line of Atari soft-

ware includes Notator, the premier sequencing/notation package

available in the world. Other titles include Creator (sequencing),

Aura (ear-training), Midia (MIDI education and analysis) and

Notator Alpha (educational version of Notator). All current

C-LAB owners will now be serviced by Ensoniq, and updatesl

upgrades are available to OS version 3.1.

Errata: In the last issue Pat Finnigan gave a wrong answer to the

question, "Why can't I use the Data Entry Slider as a Timbre

modulator?" The answer he gave described the functionality of

the X-Control modulator, which is the ability of the SQ-l (or any

of our products) to take an external MIDI controller source (such

as a breath controller) and route it into the voice architecture to

change any modulatable parameter.

To use the Data Entry Slider as a Timbre modulator you must put

a Sound into a Preset, and then press the Edit Sequence button,

Bank button 7 (Mix), and Screen button 4. While you are on this

screen you can move the Data Entry Slider and your sound will

change.

Of course if a sound does not have Timbre implemented as a

modulator of one of the parameters this may still have no effect.

In that case you would have to re-program the sound to take ad-

vantage of Timbre as a modulation source. -

NEW SOUND .RELEASES

EPS-16 PLUSIEPS

SL-10 thru 13 String Sections -These are the long-awaited new

string section samples from the sessions that were held last year

with legendary producer, Phil Ramone. Each volume is dedicated

to a different section of the string orchestra; basses, cellos, violas

and violins, and includes a multi-disk expressive instrument, a

smaller section for workstation sequencing, and various articula-

tions (spiccato, colegno, glisses and more). Sequences were per-

formed by the session arranger, Claude Gaudette (Sig Series).

Each set contains 5 disks and a sound manual w/performance

notes and background on the session. Suggested retail: $39.95.

SL-14 Solo instruments-Includes lead trumpet, piccolo, trum-

pet, flugelhorn, soprano alto and tenor saxes, bassoon and oboe.

Contains 5 disks and a sound manual w/performance notes and

background on the session. Suggested retail: $39.95.

ESS-18 Jeff Lorber Signature Series -Jeff is one of LA's top

session players and producers, having crafted hits for many ar-

tists as well as his own solo career. This 5 disk set features

drums, drum loops, basses, keyboard,pad and lead sounds. Also

included is a sound manual w/performance notes and a biography

of Jeff. The package includes artwork from famed artist, Peter

Max.

SQ Series

SC-6 - 160 Sounds for the SQ series keyboard and rack,

programmed by Eye & I Productions. Includes a sound descrip-

tion sheet. Suggested retail: $99.95.

SD-IIVFX-SD

VSD-1003, 1004 - 120 sounds per disk, covering a wide

spectrum of styles and sounds. Includes a sound manual w/per-

formance notes. Suggested retail: $19.95 per disk.

Hacker News

Now that we've started adding "Drives Reported to Work by

Readers," to our listing for EPSs, we have to be extra careful -

the Burnoulli 44M (removable) that was reported to work does

work, but required special formatting at a computer lab. Don't try

this at home!

Third Party News

Radio Ready, who's been selling samples for the EPS, seems to

have a disconnected phone at this point. They may be just

moving or whatever, but, at least till we hear what's going on,

caution is advised before ordering any sounds.

TRANSONIQ.NET

HELP WITH QUESTIONS

All of the individuals listed below are volunteers! Please take

that into consideration when calling. If you get a recording and

leave a message, let 'em know if it's okay to call back collect

(this will greatly increase your chances of getting a return call).

ALLENSONIQGEAR- EnsoniqCustomerService.9:30amtonoon,1:15

pm to 6:30 pm EST Monday to Friday. 215-647-3930.

SQ-SO QUESTIONS - Robert Romano, 607-533-7878. Any 01' time.

HARD DRIVES & DRIVE SYSTEM -Rob Feiner, Cinetunes. 914-963-

5818.11 am - 3 pm EST.

EPS!EPS-16+ QUESTIONS - Erech Swanston, Maestro Sounds. 718-

465-4058. Call anytime. (NY) ITmessage, 24-hr callback.

VFX QUESTIONS - Sam Mims, Syntaur Productions. 818-769-4395. (CA).

10 am to 11 pm PST.

SQ-80 QUESTIONS - Michael Mortilla, 805-966-7252 weekends and after 5

pm Pacific Time.

EPS & EPS-16 PLUS QUESTIONS - Garth Hjelte. Rubber Chicken Soft-

ware. Pacific Time (WA). Call anytime. ITmessage, 24-hour callback. (206)

467-5668.

ESQ-1 AND SQ-SO QUESTIONS - Tom McCaffrey. ESQUPA.215-

830-0241, before 11 pm Eastem Time.

ESQ-1 QUESTIONS - Jim Johnson, (503) 684-0942. 8 am to 5 pm Pacific

Time (OR).

EPS!MIRAGE!ESQ!SQ-SOM.U.G. 24-HOUR HOTLINE - 212-465-

3430. Leave name, number, address. 24-hr Callback.

3

SAMPLING & MOVING SAMPLES -Jack Loesch, (201) 264-3512. East-

ern Time (N.J.). Call after 6:00 pm.

MIDI USERS - Eric Baragar, Canadian MIDI Users Group, (613) 392-6296

during business hours, Eastern Time (Toronto, ONT) or call MIDILINE BBS

at (613) 966-6823 24 hours.

MIRAGE SAMPLING - Mark Wyar, (216) 323-1205. Eastern time zone

(OH). Calls between 6 pm and 11pm.

SQ-! QUESTIONS - Pat Finnigan, 3'17-462-8446.8:00 am to 10:00pm EST.

ESQ.!, MIDI & COMPUTERS -Joe Slater, (404) 925-7929. Eastern time

zone.

HYPERSONIQ

NEW PRODUCTS

Nightwind Sound, ("Eccentric Samples for Mirage and EPS"),

has released Demo Tape Vol. III for the EPS - containing An-

cient Greek, Medieval, Ethnic and Industrial Percussion sounds.

$6. For more information contact: Nightwind Sound, 170 Mar

Monte Ave., La Selva, CA 95076.

CHANGEOFADDRESS

Please let us know at least four weeks in advance to avoid missing

any issues. The Post Office really will NOT reliably forward this

type of mail. (Believe us, not them I) We need to know both your

old and your new address. (Issues missed due to late or no

change notification are your own dumb fault - we mailedtheml)

Something is going down at

L.B. Music

Get the same quality and services now at a

new lower price! !!

.Now with full documentation

.MasterCard and Visa accepted

.Toll-free order line (orders only please)

1-800-3LB-MUSIC

1-800-352-6874

L. B. Music Sequences

P.O. Box 261, Clifton Heights, PA 19018-0261

215-626-8890/215-533-7122 (Technical Support)

.IL n(VISA J

Keyboard Covers ForThose Who Would

Rather Pay Someone Else To Do It

Steve Vincent

Product: Custom keyboard dust covers.

For: Ensoniq keyboards -among others.

From: Le Cover Company, 1 North 353 Bloomingdale Rd, Carol Stream,

II...60188, phone: 1-800-228-DUST.

Price: $24.95 plus $4 sth.

Question: Do you use protection?

The January Hacker contained my easy-to-do-it-yourself in-

structions on how to make your own dust cover for your key-

board. If you want to practice Safe MIDI and protect your

expensive, sensitive gear from dust, animal effluvia or salivat-

ing voyeurs but would rather not mess with fabric stores, glue

guns and seal-a-meals, then check out this item.

I will spare you additional horror stories about cats marking

territory and just review the product. The Le Cover dust cover I

have for review fits both my ESQ-l and my EPS perfectly. It is

snug, it won't slip or blow off (for those windy outdoor gigs)

and Le Cover thoughtfully designed cut-outs for the cables

sticking out the back of your board. It is made out of durable

vinyl with a nylon exterior, making it both waterproof and

scratch-resistant. Also important: This is a very classy-looking

cover. I hate to admit it, but next to Le Cover, my home-made

dust cover looks, well, home-made. The Le Cover comes in a

number of snazzy colors; mine is a very rich looking burgundy.

And it does keep the dust off your keyboard.

The Le Cover Company manufactures custom coversfor a wide

variety of electronic equipment, including most well-known

boards, drum machines, mixers and amps. They will also

custom-make a cover for other oddball gear like your sitar/ac-

cordion hybrid MIDI controller, according to the dimensions

you send' em.

This is a quality product: low learning curve, well-written

manual (you real hackers can just dive right in and put the

cover on your board without consulting the manual), and it

adds class and protection to your studio. Two thumbs up. -

Rio: Steve Vincent is a marriage andfamily therapist with an

addition to MIDI, and is the compiler of the Hacker Compila-

tion Tape.

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

12 MONTHLY ISSUES

us: $23/year. All others: $30Iyear. (Please use International Money

Order, payable in US funds.) Please make payable and mail to:

TRANSONIO HACKER

1402 SW UPLAND DR., PORTLAND, OR 97221

4

VFX.sd. SD.l/SD.l (w/32 voices) .EPS/EPS.16+

Korg T-1-2-3. Korg Ol/W. Yamaha SY77

Alesis Data Disk. Proteus

Dedicated Sequencers

If goodmusicturnsyouon,giveyourselfthetoolsto makeit easier.Callour800linebelowfor hot newsounds.

EnsoniqSQ-1/2/R 1m~I1ftf

Disk: S44.98 (Reg.$49.95)RAM: S89.98 (Reg.$99.95)

,MASTERAMCollectionI-Unique hybridtextures,includinganalogand digital

textures,forallcutting-edgeroc~ pop,newage&:soundtrackapplications."This

collectionisawesome.Thesesoundsaredrippingwith inspiration11fthemodwheel

controlledabsolutelynothing,thisvolumewouldstillbewortheverypenny.Justbe

warnedthat thisisn'toneof thosecollectionsthat offersten differentversionsof

violin.I'm talkingimaginationandvariety.Asa result(of the programming),a

deeperpersonalityof the SQ-1 isrevealecf.II-TransoniqHocI<er.(SQO1)

,Film Textures-The most twisted material devised yet for the SQfilm composer.

Includeshauntingsoundscapes,bright orchestralsoundsandmuchmore.Great

foraggressivenewagecompositions!(SQ02)

,R&:B/Top4O-The hippest soundsof the airwaves-and someyou've never

heard-pulsatefromthiscritically-acclaimedcollection!Contains80programs

featuring classic R&:Banalog synths, brass, percussion and strings; ultra-mOdern

synthetic sounds perfect for industrial, hip-hop and acid house styles; and more

mainstream sounds suitable for a variety of R&:B,Top 40 and pop genres. (SQ03)

oil'

EnsoniqEPS18Plus

5-disksets:S83.98 (Reg.$79.95)

, AtmosphericCollection-Thesemoodytexturesareperfectforalltypesofsound-

trackandnewageapplications.(EPSSf6)

,WaveformConstructionSetI 'Waveform Construction Set II-These digital

building blocks are designedfora widevarietyof music genres. Usethese waveforms

to create your own complex synth stacksat the touch of a button! (EPS517, EPSS18)

.Pop/Rock Drums-These are the no-nonsense drum samples you've been looking

fori Thesefive disksincludeelementsfor four discreetkits, aswell asoverlaysof

individualpercussiongroupings.Crispanddean!(EPS519)

,Horns, Natural/Synth- Trumpets, trombones, saxesand other solo instruments as

wellasentirehornsection.Includesdigitalhornsfor alternativetastes.(EPS520)

,Acoustic/ElectricCollection-Each of thesefive diskshasa multi layer sample

samplepatchwhich presentsa stringedacousticor electricinstrument.Includes

piano, bass and guitar patches. (EPS521)

.FamousSynthsI (Analog)-Thoseclassicsoundsofyesteryeararenowat your

fingertips!Includesanalogpads,rockorgans,chiffpianosandmore!(EPS522)

.FamousSynthsII(Digital}-Thiscontemporarycollectionofdigitalsynthpatches

includes expressive, dramatic pads, lush strings, and percussive sounds! (EPS523)

,Famous Synths III (Hybrid}-Don't try to classify these unusual textures! Breathy

pads,strings,pianosand metallictype texturesareincluded!Terrificfor cutting-

edge,alternativeapplications(EPS514)

:1

i1iII

EnsoniqVFXlVFJPD/SOI

Disk: 848.97 (Reg.$69.95)

,Samplers &:Synthesizers-These sounds range from popular di9ital and analog

instrumentstoacousticinstrumentsandsoundFX.Fairlight,Kurzwell,Roland,Korg,

Yamaha,Moog, Sequential,Oberheim,Kawaiand E-mutextureshavebeen reo

createdforyouruse.SoundsrangefromTop40 standards(DX7&:MKS/RDPianos,

KurzweilStrings,E-muorchestrahits/brass,Mini Moog Emersonleads,etc.) to

motion picture soundtracktype textures.Many new soundsand specialFXnot

possiblebeforetheintroductionoftheVFXarealsoincluded."Thesoundsarereally

good, with fine dynamicqualities.Thequalityof the sounds,andthe descriptive

natureofthenames,madeworkin~withthiscollectionquitepleasant.Indeed,many

of the soundsbringforth memonesof instrumentsI'veknownandloved:

-ElectronicMusician,July 1990 (VIOl)

Ensoniq EPS1X 2x 4x

5-disksets: 838.97(Reg. $64.95)

'Synthesizers (EPSSO1)'Orchestral (EPSSO2) , RhythmSection(EPSSO3)

'Symphonic (EPSS04) 'M1 ClassksI (EPSSO5) , M1 ClassksII (EPS506)

, M1 ClassksIII (EPSSOl)'M1 ClassicsIV (EPS50B).M1 ClassicsV (EPS509)

,M1 ClassicsVI (EPS5IO)'U-20 CollectionI (EPS51!)'U-20 CollectionII (EPS512)

,DX7ClassicsI (EPSS13)'DX7 ClassicsII (EPS514),DX7ClassicsIII (EPS515)

FORMATS: Voice Card ' Macintosh' IBM/MS-OOS, Atari ST' AJesisDataDisk

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Brother MDI40' Brother PDC100 'DXlll MDR' EPSMDR' Data Cassette 'Internal Disk

In U.S.orCanada,callMonthruFri,

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Chorusing and Flanging on the SQs (Continued from page 2)

is most closely associated with this process.

Most of your considerations when using the flanging effects will

be identical to those when programming the chorus -flanger rate,

depth, center, and feedback all function identically to their

counterparts in the chorusing algorithms. The main difference is

that flanging uses much shorter delay times than chorusing effects

-although there can be some overlap between the two types of

effects. In addition, the flanger presents a parameter not contained

in the chorusing algorithms, the Input Invert parameter, and what it

does, simply put, is to invert the polarity of the delayed (or

flanged) signal. Its effect is to reverse the pattern of affected fre-

quencies - notches in the frequency spectrum will become peaks,

and vice-versa.

At any rate, this should give you a good start at making up some

new and cool effects. Don't worry that we haven't spent time yet

on the distortion, phase-shifting, compression, and rotary speaker

effects -we'll be getting to them all in good time. So stay tuned,

and I'll be seeing you later...later...later...later...-

Bio: Clark Salisbury is a partner in the MIDI Connection, a

Portland-based consulting firm. He has been actively involved in

the composition, performance, and recording of electronic music

for over 7years and is now producing his own pop-oriented com-

positions. Hisfavorite color is chrome.

HACKER BASEMENT TAPES

Slice 0' Sibs

Tape: G2.

Artists: Mitchell and Mark Gennaine.

Contact info: Mitchell (708) 498-5604, Mark (708) 948-7662.

Equipment: EPS w/4x expander, Casio CZ3000, Yamaha

RXll, Quadraverb, MXR 1100 digital delay, Teac 16 Band

EQ, Sansui WSX-6 6 Track Cassette, Tascam 234 4 Track Cas-

sette, Teac 2300 R-to-R. (Using the standard sound library in-

cluded with the EPS, plus the Rubber Chicken VFX Volumes I

and II. Rock guitar, Super Bass and Fretless Bass are public

domain sounds.)

This issue brings us a team of brothers who found that they en-

joyed working with each other! They have a rich history of

playing in bands, writing and singing -but not necessarily

together. On this project they bring their different musical tas-

tes together, mix it up, and the result is G2.

Note: All of the songs were recorded live from the EPS sequen-

cer in 20 voice mode. The only overdubs were for vocals and

lead solos on each song. Most songs consisted of 4 to 6 sequen-

ces strung together in song mode on the EPS.

A significant characteristic of this tape is its heavy-footed tem-

pos and unpolished vocal performances. Yet despite these

problems there were some good performances and songwriting.

The first song, Nostradamus, has some interestingly awkward

rhythmic moments almost tripping over itself. I don't know

why this wasn't caught before the vocals were laid down. The

second song, Tonight, effectively utilized the technique of

maintaining interest through change in tempo. In the third song,

Emotions, they showed they've got a good sense of how to

"hook" the listener, ever an important event. The fourth song,

Times We'Ve Shared Together, was the best of the bunch.

This is a collection of well-constructed listenable songs. The

Daniel Mandel

piano patches used worked wonderfully and the instrumental

performances, live and sequenced, were very solid, if oc-

casionally sluggish. The overall choices of which patches to

use was conservative but well thought out. An admirable at-

tempt was made at producing a "natural" sounding sax solo

with solid attention paid to the phrasing, the musical "sentence

construction." This was also helped by the placement in the

mix. The sax patch was not as obvious as the other instruments.

This is a well constructed "demo" tape with the right number of

songs. From what I can hear the songs are probably representa-

tive of the talents of these two. There is a consistency of style

here. If I were an A & R man looking for a new act, I could

easily place this sound into a single category -probably easy

listening, light jazzy pop. If I could hear more of the songs that

this duo has produced I'm not sure I would have chosen these

four particular ones, but this slice does show their wares fairly

well. If a little more work could have gone into finding that

great vocal performance on each song, this tape might have

been even more successful. -

If you want your tape run through the ringer, err, Hacker, just

mail it off to: Basement Tapes, Transoniq Hacker, 1402 SW

Upland Dr., Portland OR 97221.

Bio: Daniel Mandel is a songwriter,

sound designer. and has sold pro

audio and keyboard equipment and

produced demo tapesfor local bands.

6

Jazz Through MIDI

Product: Learning Jazz through MIDI- jazz improvisation lessons.

Price: $49.95.

Source: New Sound Music, P.O. Box 37363 Dept. 11, Oak Park, MI

48237. Phone: 313-355-3643.

Keyboards: BPS, VFX-SD, SQ-80.

Hmmm. Wouldn't it be great if my synthesizer, which I invested

some serious bucks in, was continually offering me new ways to

use it, new ways to interact with it, and different reasons for

having it? I mean more than just playing a lot of sounds, even

though I can use each sound in a different way. What if I could

actually learn from my synthesizer/MIDI equipment!

We buy our synths for a variety of reasons. Many of the people

who've sent tapes into the Hacker Basement tapes really started

out as guitarists. A few are pianists/keyboard players. But how

often do we think of our synth as being a fine instrument the

same way we might consider a guitar or even a Rhodes electric

piano or a set of vibes? Every once in a while a product comes

along which makes us take a second look at the way we use our

equipment. (Who would have ever thought we'd be making

phone calls from our cars?)

Jazz Through MIDI is a wonderful concept which takes your

synthandrethinks its functionfrom the ground up. Using the se-

quencer in your rig, you're shown examples of standard jazz

scales,chords, voicings, bass lines, andplaying styles. The pur-

pose here is to provide the musician with a sequencer-based

learningsystem - a low-cost,non-tedious way to improve your

jazz chopswith minimalpain.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the "P" word yet. Okay, now

hang in here: This concept does not work without the sometimes

regarded as horrifying times ink we musicians refer to as prac-

tice! Now we all know how difficult it is to be really committed

to improving your abilities, but the fact here is this. If you prac-

tice these scales, chords and styles of playing, eventually you

yourself are gonna be producing what you heretofore were only

hearing.

There is musical notation to go along with every section. In order

to put this across New Sound Music has been very thorough in

providing everything that you need except for a mother's sweet

voice to shout, "Daniel, I don't hear you practicing!" If you

don't read music, there are definitely good books that give you

the basics. Remember forewarned is forearmed, Jazz through

MIDI requires at least a basic knowledge of music notation.

I know that in my own rocky road to musicianship I've gotten

discouraged many times when even after an excellent lesson

whereI wasreallygetting it, I would get home andI just couldn't

"hear" the rhythmquite right or I wouldmisread a note andprac-

tice it that way! What a help it would have been to go back and

hit PLAY on my sequencer to remember how it's supposed to

Daniel Mandel

sound. This method also helps you getting over that hump of

"seeing" how it sounds. Remember the movie Amadeus? I was so

envious of how Mozart could just look at an entire score and

know how the music would sound. What a trip! This method

brings you one step closer. I know this brings up the whole issue

of do we have to read music to be good musicians. Regardless of

where you stand, I think the fact that this narrows the gap is good

news for both sides.

OK, so you're saying to yourself -what do I really learn from

this stuff? What do I really come away with after I've sat down

for a half hour with this disk in my synth? "DANNY, I STILL

CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" your mother shouts ever so politely.

Well, let me tell ya - it's all aboutjazz. Each section discusses

how what your learning fits into Jazz music.There's a section on

the blues as well. New Sound Music has really put together an

amazing package. You may have to go to your local library or

university to get the cultural and sociopolitical perspectives on

Jazz -but for the price of this package it's quite a deal, you're

getting a lot. For the beginner, especially, what a great way to

learn about a style -from good examples coming out at you

fromyour own gear!

Now a note about the MIDI in Jazz Through MIDI. New Sound

Music has left no channeluntumed in their efforts to satisfy you

guys. Every instrument(and often there are several instruments)

are put on different MIDI channels with drum mapping given

special consideration. This is there in case you can afford more

equipmentthanI can andyou have a controller or sequencerrun-

ning more than one synth and a rhythmunit or twol

One problem, although this is a minor aspect -the production

value of the literature and written music that goes along withthe

disk is where they saved their money. It is not a fancy package,

but it is well put together. If their entire book read like their ad-

vertisement you'd probably pay more for it, and it would look

nicer. So if you're an image monger, you might hide the book

under your bench when your friends come around.

The sequences themselves are wonderfully constructed. While

not the sort that will wow your socks off, they are the standards

to learn by. There is a percussion patch included for drummap-

ping for the VFXdisk.

I was very inspired by this package. If I had known it was avail-

able I would have purchased it long ago. When you consider the

alternatives, probably nothing will out-teach a real live teacher

who can listen to you play and guide you away from your mis-

takes and toward your strengths. This alternative is a viable, in-

expensive and authentic learning experience.

If I had a rating system New Sound Music would get many, many

high numbers! I can't say much more than send in your money,

besides I gotta go... "DANNY! ARE YOU UP THERE?" -

7

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8

Ensoniq DP/4 Parallel Effects

Processor Specifications

In Issue #76 Ensoniq announced their new DP/4 Parallel Ef-

fects Processor. Here is an up-to-date listing of the specs. Intro-

duction is set for March, 1992. A review will follow shortly

thereafter.

Memory

.400 Presets (200 ROM, 200 RAM)

. 100 each (50 ROM, 50 RAM) of the following:

> 1 Unit Presets

> 2 Unit Presets

> 4 Unit Presets

> Config Presets (4 Units plus all the signal routing

parameters)

.256k words (512 kbytes) of delay memory

.Max delay time per unit: 1.6 seconds

.Max single delay time possible (no regeneration): 6.4 seconds

Algorithms

1) Small RoomReverb

2) Large RoomReverb

3) Hall Reverb

4) Small Plate

5) Large Plate

6) ReverseReverb

7) ReverseReverb2

8) Gated Reverb

9) NonLinReverb

10)NonLin Reverb 2

11)NonLin Reverb 3

12)MultiTap Delay

13)3 sec. Delay (2U)

14)Dual Delay

15)EQ-DELAY-LFO

16)TempoDelay

17) VCFPDistortion

18) Guitar Amp1

19)Guitar Amp 2

20) Guitar Amp 3

21) Speaker Cabinet

22) Tunable Speaker

23) Rotating Speaker

24) EQPChorusPDDL

25) EQPVibratoPDDL

26) EQPPannerPDDL

27) EQPFlangerPDDL

28) EQPTremoloPDDL

29) PhaserPDDL

30) 8 Voice Chorus

31) Flanger

32) Pitch Shifter

33) FastPitchShift

34) Pitch Shift 2U

35) Pitch ShiftPDDL

36) EQPCompressor

37) Inverse Expander

38) Expander

39) KeyedExpander

40) DePEsser

41) Ducker/Gate

42) Parametric EQ

43) Aural Enhancer

44) Vocoder

45) Sine/Noise Gen

Input/OutputSpecifications

.AID -D/A conversion: 16 bit linear

.Input Level: -12.5 dBV to +18 dBV

.Output Level: +15 dBV maximum

.Input impedance: 1 MO

.Output impedance: 2.6 kO

.Frequency Response: 2 Hz -18 kHz

.Dynamic Range: 96dB

.Signal to Noise ratio: -87dB

.THD+Noise: 0.005% (-86dB)

.Crosstalk between channels: better than -80 dB (1 kHz)

.1M distortion (SMPTE): 0.05%

MIDI

.Responds to 6 MIDI channels at the same time

> Each Unit can have its own MIDI channel

> A separate MIDI channel can be used for controller

information

> A separate channel can be used to send Config Preset

program changes

.Separate program change mapping tables available per Unit

.Responds to the following MIDI controllers for parameter

modulation or effect bypass:

> Controllers #000 -#127

> Pitch bend wheel

> Note number

> Velocity

> Pressure (channel/mono or key/polyphonic)

.Can save/load the following data types as MIDI Sys. Ex.:

> Single Presets

> Bank ofrelated Presets (I, 2,4 Unit or Config)

> System global data

> All data (all Presets plus System global parameters)

Front Panel Controls

.4 input, 4 output knobs

. 1 Hi-Z input (overrides Input 1 on back panel)

.Individual Peak and Signal LEDs for each channel

.32 character back-lit LCD display

.2 character LED display w/MIDI indicator

.Digital 32 step Data Entry Knob

.12buttons (Write/Copy, Cancel/Undo, Left Arrow, Right

Arrow, Select, Edit/Compare, System/MIDI,Unit A, Unit

B, Unit C, Unit D, Config)

. Active/Bypassed status LED for each Unit

.Power Switch

Rear Panel Connections

.(4) 1/4" Input connectors (can be grouped as 2 mono/stereo

pairs)

.(4) 1/4" Output connectors (can be grouped as 2 mono/stereo

pairs)

.Pedal/Control Voltage input (allows modulation from external

sources, such as the CV pedal)

. Dual/Single foot switch input (for use w/SW-5 or SW-2)

.MIDI In/Out/Thru

.AlC line connector

9

1

Get Your Transfer Ticket Punched!

Review:Giebler'sSQaOVFX

For: SQ-80; VFX-sd (or SD-l) and IBM (or compatible) with hard drive

and 3-112 inch floppy.

Product: SQ80VFX.

Price: $44.00.

From: Giebler Enterprises, 8038 Morgan Road, Liverpool, NY 13090,

(315) 652-5742.

Two months ago my "authorized Ensoniq dealer" was clearing

out VFX-sd's at an unheard of price - a price so low thatan

unemployed college student like me could buy one. So there I

was, back in my dorm room, taking off the SQ-80 that I had

befriended years ago off of my synth rack and replacing it with

a lovely VFX-sdII. After sending my SQ-80 to some lucky

new owner in Florida, I wondered if there was any way to

transfer two years worth of SQ-80 sequences into the VFX-sd.

Low and behold, I remembered such an item -Giebler

Enterprises' SQ80VFX program for IBM compatibles; so I

consulted my trusty Hacker collection and ordered the product.

Let me start off by saying that Gary Giebler is a master hacker.

Anyone who can completely figure out the disk formats for all

of the Ensoniq synths AND figure out how the SQ-80 and

VFX-sd sequencers store their events deserves a prize. We En-

soniq owners got the prize instead, wonderful software that

takes care of tedious tasks simply and effectively.

The SQ-80VFX program "says was it does and does what it

says." The user puts their SQ-80 disk into the IBM, Gary's

program displays the files on the disk, you press a key and the

program transfers the SQ-80 files to VFX-sd files.

Just how does it work? Well, first it converts the SQ-80 se-

quencer file into a Standard MIDI File (SMF) and .storesthose

files onto the hard drive. Next, the program converts the Stan-

dard MIDI Files into VFX-sd files and puts the results on the

hard drive. Finally the program copies the VFX-sd files from

the hard drive onto a VFX-sd disk.

So I've got an SQ-80 sequence transferred over to my VFX-sd;

now what do I do? Well, unfortunately you just can't hit

PLAY and expect to hear your favorite sequence magically

reproduce itself. The final step is to remap your sounds so that

what was once DRMSET on your SQ-80 doesn't play ALTO-

SAX on your VFX-sd. This is, frankly, not all that trivial a

step and I found myself reprogramming certain parts over

again just so it sounded better. Ah, KITCHN-SINK is much

better than DRMSET don't you think?

Now I wish I could end this review right here and say that the

product is perfect and everyone will be very happy with it. It's

Ed Lecuyer

good -but not perfect. There are a few drawbacks:

1. Speed - To do a transfer of a SQ-80 disk containing 5

songstookalmostan hour.Of course,this is muchfaster than

reprogrammingthestuff,but it seemsslow.

2. When doing a transfer, you have to transfer the whole disk.

An option to tell the program which files you want to transfer

would have been useful. And it would have been cool if the

option were there to format VFX-sd disks.

3. If the program fails during its final step (transferring the

converted file from the hard drive to the VFX-sd disk) due to a

bad sector on the VFX-sd disk, the transfer must be restarted

from scratch -the program will not give any sort of error

message "VFX-sd Disk Bad - Use Another" and wait until

you do; instead, the program just hangs in the final step.

Back to the kudos. Some of the program's other features in-

clude:

.Transfer of SQ-80 sequencer files into SMF. (It won't do

SMF to SQ-80 or VFX-sd transfers, however)

. Reads and displays the contents of any Ensoniq disk. (It

won't, however,copy or formatthesedisks, one of his other

programswill)

.The ability to filter whatever controller information that you

specify during the transfer.

.The automatic elimination of two concurrent key-on's that

play on the same note at the same time. I would have preferred

that this were an option, not a requirement as it sometimes

"picks" the wrong note to remove.

A feature to allow one to take sequencers from file A, and put

them into file B would be useful. When I write my sequences,

I put one song in a disk file, when I write my sequences, I put

one song in a disk file. When I gig, I try to cram as much into

the machine as possible to avoid that nasty dead time between

songs. I'm sure Gary (or Ensoniq) could make this task easier.

I realize that a lot of the things that Gary's program doesn't do

that I've mentioned could be done with some of Gary's other

programs. I would have rather paid a little more for this pro-

gram to have them included. I won't be ordering his Ensoniq

Disk Manager because I don't feel that I need it. But, if he had

charged on extra $10 to include some of that program's fea-

tures (disk formatting, etc.) into the SQ80VFX transfer pro-

gram, that would be an extra $10 he would have made from

me. He might be better off combining all his programs and

10

utilities into one huge program that "every Ensoniq owner

must have" and price it accordingly.

In closing, this program is a must-have for anyone who wants

to transfer SQ-80 sequences to a VFX-sd or into an SMF. I

hope Gary continues to develop useful products like this one

so we can spend less time doing the dirty work -and more

time making music. -

Riding the Edge

For: SQ-1, SQ-1+, SQ-2.

Product: SC-4 Sound card.

Price: $99.95.

From: Ensoniq Corp., 155 Great Valley Parkway, Malvem, PA 19355.

Accessories Order Line (800) 553-5151 or contact your local Ensoniq

dealer.

After the ideas or soundesigns for the SC-3 were "in the can,"

the marketeers at Ensoniq may have asked some questions

like "What does the SQ Soundcard series need now?" or "The

SC-l, 2 and 3 pretty well cover all the standard bases and then

some, so, what could the average, (possibly) red-blooded

SQ-head be looking for now?" or "Should we reinterpret

things like cellos, guitars, string pads etc, or can we afford to

be, well,... different?"

Enter the SC-4, a decidedly different soundcard that attempts

to answer these questions as well as some that haven't been

asked yet. Once again, Ensoniq has enlisted the help of a third

party -this time, Sound Source Unlimited. Sound Source

Unlimited already offers a Film Textures card for the SQs, as

well as a number of soundtrack patches for other keyboards,

so it might stand to reason that the SC-4 contains many un-

usual timbres. Expect the unexpected.

At the first sitting I wasn't real sure about this. Then, I let it

alone for a month and came back to it for another listen. Quite

simply, it sounded much better. It's not without its share of

problems but any card that bases itself on primarily subjective

material will likely reveal as many shortcomings as strong

points.

There are plenty of nice pads here; "Majestic Pad" and

"Freebird" have full, strong orchestral bases with flutish and

bell-like tones at the top. "Harmonica Dreams" works beauti-

fully. It shares a wide-envelope harmonica (courtesy of the

Vocal Ensemble wave) with a swirling backdrop that fades in

after a slight delay. How many of us would have thought of

using Synth Bass and Acoustic Bass waves to create a pad.

Bio: Ed Lecuyer is studying computer science and sound

recording technology at the University of Massachusetts at

Lowell. He keeps himself busy by disturbing the other people

in his dorm with his music and by blatantly plugging his tapes

in the "Hacker." He hopes that this is not how he will spend

the rest of his life.

J eft Rhoads

That's what they've done for "Impression 1," a foreboding,

complex mood (if you're in a minor key) with a slight attack.

But, voice 1 doesn't sustain all the way through. This is espe-

cially evident in higher registers. Adjusting an envelope chan-

ges this but then you ask yourself if that's a feature or simply

a programming glitch? See what I mean; highly subjective.

There are plenty of odd splits on the SC-4. Some are labeled

as such, some aren't. Among the most interesting are those

that seem to "crossfade" in the middle register. "Split 1" uses

a Breath wave across the entire keyboard with a percussive hit

from C4 down and a Doorbell wave faded into the upper oc-

taves. The result is a swirling metallic sound that's usable and

intriguing. But the same idea or voice is used too often within

a split. "Renaissance 1" uses a heavily modulated String En-

semble for its upper half, "Renaissance 2," an Acoustic

Guitar. They both use Claves and a Crash Cymbal below C#4

in their bottoms with the only apparent difference being gain

levels between the two. This would probably not merit a com-

ment if it just happened here but it happens more than once.

(One could argue that percussion is the logical bottom for

Renaissance 1 and 2 but even that's a bit of a stretch.) Similar

bottom or upper parts show up in more than one split patch

where they seemingly have no place. We're not talking about

Bass/piano type patches either.

The SC-4 rides that cutting edge and to a large degree is suc-

cessful. There are plenty of good robotic and industrial sounds

here. "Industry Job 1," "Musical Industry" and "Percs Plus 3"

all make good use of banging metal and off-harmonics. "In-

dustry Job 1" sounds particularly good when MIDIed to a

tonal instrument like a piano. Although "Robot Noises" is just

a variation of the SQ's Multi-Wave, the really twisted among

us might even try using it in place of a string or brass pad.

Percussive sounds abound on this card. In keeping with the

soundtrack theme, both "Movie Tribe Perc" and "Video Tribe

Perc" will conjure up fresh images of King Kong's Island or

Jamaican breezes. Even some of the better new age timbres

click and clang: "New Age Perc 2" uses fast, high, steel

drums atop a whooshing foundation. Cowbell is added to the

11

lower half, causing a more immediate, even sharper attack.

(Again, the splits that work don't really sound like splits.) Try

using this patch for ostinato patterns.

You won't find too many workhorse-type sounds on the SC-4.

Standard keyboard, fretted and horn patches are few and far

between and/or hidden under an off-title. And some of the

basses have very high velocity values. "Muted Bass" and

"Soul Bass" have to be hit rather hard to be heard at full filter.

Why? Not only does this hurt your fingers after a while but

it's hard on the keyboard. Most other recognizable band-type

instruments serve as part of more complex ideas: "Pans &

Brass," "New Aged Piano," "Saxesque" and so on.....

As you might guess a card like the SC-4 contains a lot of

"movie" sounds and effects, many of which might be used to

signal surprise or suspense. (There's even a patch called

"Suspense Hit") These patches are very good and probably

represent one of this card's strongest suits. "China Cityl,"

"Fright Night," "Old Movie," "Erie Tales 1," "Camp Noises,"

"Night Animals" bring to mind those things their titles sug-

gest while still managing to sound clever and musical.

Now, why is it important to know where the SC-4 fits into the

existing SQ soundcard family? The obvious answer is that this

new card should somehow add to, not copy, what's already on

the market. The SC-4 does not attempt to re-invent the basics.

That's okay, some of us like taking chances. But another

reason for wanting to know where the SC-4 "fits" is that there

aren't nearly as many third party sound options available for

SQ's as many of us had hoped there would be by now, though

Ensoniq's certainly taking up some of the slack here. So, each

new soundcard release from the factory is very important to

perspective buyers. Its sounds should probably be tight and

relatively accessible. The SC-4 is most certainly not as ac-

cessible, as they say, as its relatives. And, some of its entries

fall short because they sound strained or "rushed." Its good

patches are very good, though. I just wish that some material

had been designed with a little more consistency.

When you listen to the SC-4 for the first time, try to spend a

little time with it. I realize this is sometimes hard to do in the

music store but even a few extra minutes will help you decide

whether or not you can use it. There's lots of unfamiliar

material here so don't do too much fast driving the moment

you get your hands on it. Give yourself some time. Ensoniq

(via Sound Source Unlimited) has provided something a little

different for the SQ, stuff to promote new ideas rather than try

to fit old ones. If you're a composer, playing original

material, doing soundtrack work, or just savor the unusual,

take a listen -carefully. -

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,

" ~,

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;FOUR SIMULTANEOUS EFFECTS! ~~

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Mastercard or Visa accepted. c~

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To order call (215) 251-9562 c~

Or send cashier check or money order to: ~:

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The quickest way to make your

EPS 16 plus

an entirely new device,

Effecffi, effecffi,effecffi!

The WAVeBOY Parallel EffectsDisk

contains astoundingnew effectscombinations.

Thesealgorithms load right in - just like a sound. Butthey go way

beyond the 13 effectsthat come with the EPS16 plus. You getfour

different effectsat once, Imagine flanging the bass,adding a warm

chorus to the flute, putting the guitar though a preamp,a speaker

simulator and a digital delay, and still having a densereverb to usefor

drums! Or think what you could do with four different reverbsat once.

Or four stereobounce delays...you getthe idea. This one disk will

improve all your sounds,your sequences,and your life. Lotsof

parametersand innovative featureslike Ifo modulation of delay times

and separatepan control of wet and dry. You can't live without it.

The Parallel EffectsDisk 1.0 is just $39.95

including shipping. ForiegnOrdersadd $6.

PA ResidentsAdd 6% salestax.

12

Ensoniq VSD- 100 1 Sounds for the

SD-l/VFX-sd

For: VFX/sd, SD-l.

Product: VSD-1001 - 2 banks of 60 sound programs with 20 presets.

Price: $19.95. (Disk.)

From: Ensoniq Corp., 155 Great Valley Parkway, Malvem, PA 19355, or

contact your local Ensoniq dealer.

It's quiet in the house and my wife is still asleep. So, it's head-

phones, a cup of coffee and the VSD-IOOIprograms.

This is the second disk in Ensoniq's VSD library, with two

banks of 60 programs and 20 presets. Unfortunately, my review

copy of these sounds came sans manual. "Who cares?" you

might thoughtfully inquire. Well, Ensoniq's accompanying

manuals usually are fairly nifty little packages -not yellow

brick roads necessarily, but useful nonetheless. Anyway,

proceeding blindly onward.

VSD-1001-A

These programs are organized nicely: acoustic pianos, electric

pianos, other keyboards, rock guitars, acoustic guitars, basses

(bassi?), organs, sax, trumpets and brass, strings and drum kits.

These are quality patches. There're no surprises here - noth-

ing exotic. These sounds were evidently designed to show how

good the VFX-sd or SD-l can sound. These are probably the

types of sounds you'd use for club dates, wedding bands, home

recordings -any time you need a selection of basic,

Top-Forty-type patches. They are meant to be imitative acous-

tic sounds and they are. But since the ROM presets (and other

sounds shipped with your keyboard) also do a fine job of

providing good imitative instruments we better see what else

this disk has to offer.

:;

ORCHESTRA-l layers velocity-sensitive percussion sounds on

top of strings. You get different drum waves with every string

note. It's an unusual approachthat requires good keyboard con-

trol technique. SULTRY-SAX is a mellow horn with a pleasing

delay effect. ROCK-ORGANis properly nasty and distorted for

those Emerson licks, The pianos are fme, especially the electric

pianos. Interestingly, the programmer used a heavily filtered

kick-drum waveform for the mechanical "thump" at the start of

the sound It's a very clever and realistic effect.

Minor complaints -Acoustic twelve-string guitars have only

four sets of strings tuned in octaves and the remaining two sets

of strings, everything above B4, tuned in unison. This set's

12-STRING-2 doesn't really follow this too closely. Maybe

this is one of those cases where the name of the sound is what

throws you rather than the sound itself. And in some of these

Jeffrey P. Fisher

patches the aftertouch routed to vibrato was somewhat oversen-

sitive. Just a little press and STRING-PAD, for instance, goes

wildly out of tune. And the patch selects oft times subtract

waveforms creating a thinner sound -not necessarily the most

creative or subtle variation.

VSD-1001-8

The literature says these are unusual and soundtrack programs.

Got that one right, all right. Some of these are so weird that it's

not all that obvious where to use 'em. There're lots of old

analog sounds using buzzy sawtooths, some "synthy" sounds

circa 1979, and wavestation-type loops. If you've got the time

and inclination to personalize and mold some of these patches

to your own taste it can be quite a learning experience -you'll

really appreciate them. Otherwise, I think you might be using

the VSD-lOOI-A sounds more.

Special Note

These sounds are compatible with both the VFX-sd and the

SD-l. However, certain programs (indicated with an asterisk)

use waveforms and/or effects that are exclusive to the SD-l.

The VSD-I00I-A has 21 (!) such patches. The pianos will use

the Megapiano waveforms (if you have a VFX-sd 2.0) but the

lead guitars need the SD-l 's distortion algorithm to sound

good. And one bass, one vibe, and some string sounds look for

the SD-l 's new waves. VFX-sd owners get the infamous "UN-

KNOWN" wave cycle.

SD-l users will really appreciate the patches that use the new

waves/effects because the rest of the available library, obvious-

ly, doesn't. This compatibility problem is going to haunt

VFX-sd owners with every new sound program release. So

keep in mind that over one-third of these sounds weren't really

designed for your VFX-sd and it may be time to consider

upgrading. Still, on the other hand, two-thirds of the patches

ARE new for the VFX-sd and the price ain't bad and it's not

like there's a huge supply of new sounds from which to choose.

Yeah, be glad there're there but think about upgrading.-

Hearty thanks go to SOUNDPOST

Music in La Grange, [Lfor their as-

sistance in the preparation of this

artic/e.

Bio: Jeffrey P. Fisher is a composer

and sound designer for commer-

cials, industrials andfilm.

13

"..

Iav s"e

The Exploration Continues

It's early Saturday morning. I'm dressed and walking toward the

home studio. The night before I had been working on my first

volume of sounds for the VFX-sd. Let's see if that xylophone

patch really sounds that good. I call up xylophone 1 on the DX and

compare. Ummmm, I like mine better...am I sure? Yeah, I'm sure.

Okay, check out the sax sound...it's good too. What's next?..

Agogobels?..The wave's there. Why not?

I load my initiate program from disk and begin working. Turning

to page 8-9 of the VFX-sd manual I find the agogobel wave under

percussion wave class. Using voice one and calling up the wave

page I find the agogobel wave on the synth. Since the program is

initialized there is no sound. Umm! Do this to envelope 3 and that

to envelope 1 and so on. I hear something. Sounds like percussion

but very faint...Next step, make a copy of all voice parameters and

copy to voice two. After turning voice two on, the volume is

doubled. The output is reading 99 so I can't boost it farther. Okay,

how about copying all parameters to voice three. Bingo! More

volume... Yeah, the volume slider is not all the way up now. Oops.

I pushed the data slider all the way up. The wave class now reads

Multi-drum. Why not press the wave button and move the data

slider all the way up just to hear each wave as I truck back down to

agogobel?..Okay! The wave now reads (unknown)..(unknown).

Huh? Looks like time to abandon ship. If I press the wave class

button the keyboard will only recalibrate itself. I'll have to start

over again...But what if the wave class comes up after pressing the

button? Okay, press it. The wave reads PERCUS PE. I don't

remember this wave listed. Nope, it's not in the manual.

This was Christmas, 1991. Since that time the cat has been

released from the bag as it were. Joseph Travo, in the January '92

issue has accessed two of these waves (UNDTUNED and STRING

SO) via a VFX, an SD-l, and a ram cartridge. There are five addi-

tional waves and the order of all seven is as follows:

PERCUS PE(148)

UNDTUNED(147)

BREATH(146)

SS-SOUND(145)

SOUND BA(144)

UNDBRASS(143)

STRING SO(142)

(Ed. -Note the run-on names here.]

These waves are completely programmable and appear on the

wave page under the Multi-Drum class even though (UNKNOWN)

appears on the voice select page.

How does one access these waves? If you have a VFX-sd Version

I, try the following procedure. Using any sound get to the wave

page and select the wave class parameter. Move the data slider all

the way forward. I know, I know, just do it. The wave should read

PERCUS PE. These waves are only accessible via the data slider.

The up cursor will only take you to Room kit wave #141. To enter

the remaining waves simply press the down cursor one increment

at a time. I tried this method on three Version Is without a hitch.

Okay, you have Version n. The following method works, (sorta).

Find someone with a VFX-sd, Version I. Create a patch using the

on the VFX-sd

Walter Cooper

Version I method. Name the patch "HIDDEN WAVE" or "WALT

COOPER" or something. Save this sound to disk under one pro-

gram bank. Next, load this program into your Version n. Now fol-

low the Version I steps.

Why "sorta"? Well, I've created patches using my Version I and

loaded them into Version lIs with the following results. On some

instruments the patches worked fine and on others no sound was

produced or was not quite the same. In all instances these waves

appeared on the wave page.

You have an SD-l, you say. Sorry, folks, I've been busy program-

ming and fooling around on my SQ-l and SQ-R. As soon as I can

experiment with the SD-l I'll pass it on. And what about you

original VFX owners? Refer to Travo's method and try using your

data entry slider and cursors to uncover the one wave above and

the four in-between. The waves lie between Room kit wave #141

and the mega piano waves (Version 11).-

Bio: Walter Cooper is minister of music at his local church, dis-

trict minister of music for twelve churches, a music teacher and

owns Latter Sound Productions, which markets sounds for Ensoniq

products.

~///~,..,

Samples

for the EPS 16+

ONLY $1O!J°

PER DISK

~

.SR-16 Drums

.Percussion 1+2

. HR 16B Drums

. Akai S-1000 Drums

. Fat Analog

. Strings

. Wall Bass

. AltoSax

. Much More

Call or write for

complete list

MasterCard and Visa

Accepted

All Disks contain

Demo sequences

and are extensively

programmed

-- '- -""---

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IVIUSIC, INC.

1280 Terminal Way, Suite 3

Reno, Nevada 89502

(702) 333-5979

FAX(702) 329-0852

14

I!

.

Sample Variations

One of the first things I tried out on the VFX-sd was its Multi

Wave and the Transwaves. What a surprise those Transwaves

were to me. One of the biggest sounds on my EPSQ-80 disks is

one called MWSWEEP. Based on an SQ-80 sound this patch

was created by taking a sample of the sawtooth wave with the

resonance filter being modulated by the Mod Wheel. A fast spin

of the wheel and a short sample later yielded the very first physi-

cal transwave ever in 1988, but of course I never thought of it

that way. Ensoniq did however and provided keyboard players

with an innovative new technique now known as Dynamic Syn-

thesis. The slow modulation of the transwaves makes the sound

alive with constantly changing timbres. The same, albeit to a

lesser extent, can be said of the Multi Wave. When I decided to

also sample this machine's ROM I thought that by sampling the

Multi Wave my job would be over in a minimum of time. Well,

so much for that theory...

First of all; the MW does not contain all the transwaves (17) and

single waveforms appear to be missing as well. Additionally, not

all the samples play back at unity when playing the MW, result-

ing in some samples playing at too Iowa playback rate and

others too high. Sampling the MW at 39 kHz produces 3 disket-

tes of one sample and besides that the MW is too long for even a

fully expanded EPS to handle unless you are satisfied with a

severely reduced sample rate. And the VFX is only a 12 Bit

machine!

Forget the Multi Wave; enter separate samples. If you have the

patience to painstakingly sample each raw sound (147 of them)

some of them consisting of up to 16 samples like the Mega Piano

or the Sax, good luck to ya! I did it, though and the result is ten

diskettes stuffed with samples. My eyes have permanent im-

prints of the ebony and ivory of the keyboard. Not to mention all

that looping....

If you are nuts enough to do what I did then this article is for

you, otherwise get outta here and bug your sound engineer.

Variants of samples are as the name implies, variations of a

sampledsound. VFX and SQ ownersknow what this is all about.

They all have seen names like Saxophone, Sax-var and Sax-var

2. Likewise, there is a Guitar and guit-var and there are others.

The timbres of the variants differ distinctly from the original as

a result of keyshifting and Ensoniq accomplishes this with a

methodthat is normallynot recommendedto samplists.Namely,

stretching a sample over a longer or different section of the key-

board than originally intended.It is a way of creating additional

sound waves in a synth's ROM without it costing significant

memoryspace in that ROM.

Well, recommendedor not, if manufacturers can do a neat trick

like that, then so can we, sample nerds and nerdettes.

Here is how. First ingredient required is the Master sample(s).

Say we have a saxophone sound consisting of 8 samples. Next,

William Pont

you need a pair of good ears. This particular kind of hacking

can't be done with visual editors at all as it involves subtle chan-

ges in the timbral characteristics of a sound and those need to be

heard.

If you are fortunate enough to own a Dynamic Component

Synth, like a VFX, SQ or SD type keyboard you might want to

check this out. Select a patch, set all parameters to neutral and

once you have a plain vanilla (remember to also remove the ef-

fects) select the Saxophone Wave in the wave page. Listen care-

fully then select Sax-Var. Notice the difference? Amazing isn't

it? What's even more astounding is the fact that you are listening

to exactly the same wave. The difference in timbre is caused by

the different keyboard mapping employed in this variant.

Sax-Var 2 sounds more different still and it, too, is a copy of the

first wave, Saxophone.

Now that you have sampled the Sax make two copies, layer 2

and layer 3. We will presume that you did a neat job of sampling

the first layer (all samples running in numerical order, more on

that in another article).

Press EDIT. Select layer 2 and underline WS=XX. Playing C2

should yield WS=9. (If it does not you definitely must read that

other article on organizing wavesamples.) On the VFX, select

Sax-Var and make sure that the octave setting is set to 00. Using

those excellent ears, determine the length of the synth's key-

board that the first sax-var sample occupies and make a note of

the last key. On the EPS, press KBD RANGE and set HI=XX to

that value. It is possible that this new setup (layer 2) of the first

sample (actually WS9) completely overlaps the second (WS 10)

but don't panic and don't delete WS 10. In the case of a total

eclipse you will have to go to the EDIT page and find the next

sample manually by pressing the UP or DOWN arrow key until

the display reads WS=10. The importance of keeping samples in

numerical order should now be fairly obvious. Press KBD

RANGE and set LO=XX to the next higher value. Going back to

the VFX, listen to the next stretch of the keyboard and make a

note of the last key of sample 2. Enter this value in the EPS -

HI=XX parameter. Do this with the remaining six samples and

presto, you have an exact copy of Sax-Var as it appears on the

VFX. Now treat the third layer in your new instrument the same

way using Sax-Var 2 and you are ready to create some serious

VFXlike Sax sounds. This method is applicable to all of the

VFX sounds that have 'Var' in the name. It saves a bundle of

memory. Both real-time EPS memory as well as disk space. -

Bio: William Pont runs Phoenix Audio which specializes in

sound re-synthesis. Also a co-founder of the South African user's

group EMMA (Ensoniq Musicians and MIDI Association) which

distributes and maintains all Ensoniq gear in Southern Africa.

Current project: African Sounds. Anyone interested can reach

him at 0112711 (11) 792-5996. You may also write to: Phoenix

Audio, PO Box 68950, Bryanston, 2021 Rep. of South Africa. Or

PO Box 534, Moorpark, CA 93021.

15

OPTICAL MEDIA INTERNATIONAL

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lE!nEicni~@

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Volume 2 . Stack Sounds in 28 categories

The Denny Jaeger

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Volume1.Acoustic Keyboard. Bass

Bells. Brass. New Age/Ethnic. Percussion

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Why isEverybody Alvvays Pickin'

on Me?

==t

As a former bassist, one of the first sounds I'm apt to check

on a keyboard is, yeah right, its bass sounds. Now, with a

great board like the EPS-16 PLUS, you oughta be able to

get perfect replicas right out of the box, right? Well, not

quite. You see, as a former punk bassist, I have developed

an affinity for fast, steady eighth or sixteenth note basslines,

most easily played with a pick. The problem: When you try

to replicate this on a sampler with most sounds, it just

sounds plain stupid. Luckily, however, this problem is not

without a remedy.

Before we go into how to fix the problem, let's examine

whatthe problemreally is. First of all, whenplayingany in-

strumentwith a pick, the player usually uses both upstrokes

and downstrokes. By their nature, these different strokes

have slightly different sounding attacks. Our bass sample

howeveronly has one attack and when you try to play like

Dee-DeeRamone, the sameold attack is being retriggered

over and over in a very unrealistic way. The other problem

is that most bass patches have little or no release to them.

When you pick a note, it "rings" until you either mute it or

play another note. So with this in mind, let's fire up our

EPSs and get busy!

First, find your favorite picked bass sample. If you don't

have one, you can use a normal (non-slap) bass sound, but

the results won't be quite the same. Use CREATE NEW IN-

STRUMENT to create a blank instrument template. Next,

use the COpy WAVESAMPLE command to copy the

wavesample(s) of the original bass sound into the new blank

template. This allows you to have the original, unaltered

copy of the bass sound and also makes it easier to program

the patch selects since you don't have to worry about "un-

programming" the old ones. Once you have your new in-

strument set up basically, CREATE a NEW LAYER and

copy the contents of LAYER 1 into LAYER 2. Now the fun

part begins.

,

Hit EDIT-INSTRUMENT so that you're on the 00 PATCH

page. Edit it so that only LAYER 1 is playing this way.

Next, select the *0 patch select and edit it so that both

LAYER 1 and LAYER 2 are playing when this patch is

selected. Use the right arrow key to get to the KEYDWN

LAYERS page. Edit it so that only LAYER 1 is playing on

the downstroke. Scroll over to the KEYUP LAYERS page

and make sure that only LAYER 2 is playing on the

upstroke. If you play this patch now, you will notice that a

note plays both when you press your finger down on the key

and when you lift it up again. This makes it easier for us

Tom Shear

keyboard types to play high speed lines without having to

have jackhammers for fingers. But, it still doesn't sound too

good yet.

So, hit EDIT again so that you're on the LYR=1 WS=1

page. Select LAYER 2 for editing and whichever

wavesample you wish to edit first. (I would suggest doing

them in numerical order.) Hit the WAVE button so that

you're on the LOOPMODEpage. Use the right arrow key

to scroll to the SMPLSTARTpage. Scroll over to the num-

ber in parenthesis, which should be 00. Hold down the *0

patch selectwith your lefthand andbumpthis numberup to

any number from 1 through 3. I've found that 1 usually

sounds the best, but after 3 it stops sounding realistic. Of

course, this number will vary depending on how long the

bass sample is, but as a general rule, edit this value just

enough that the the very first part of the attack is

eliminated,resulting in a less "sharp" attack.What we have

done here is to alter the attack of the upstroke without

having to take separate samples for it. Pretty neat, huh?

Nowgo throughthe rest of yourwavesamplesin LAYER2

and alter them usingthe samemethod.

Finally, we need a little ring for our notes, so select

LAYER=1 for editing and hit EDIT- ENV 3. Scroll to the

TIMES page and select the furthest number to the right (the

release time). Now, bump this number up until the note

rings on a little after you release the key. Make sure not to

overdo it, but your ears are probably the best guide here.

Repeat this process for LAYER 2. Press down the *0 patch

selects and there you go! You should have a pretty nice

sounding picked bass simulation. Play some steady eighth

and sixteenth note basslines and listen to how much better it

sounds than the original. Now you may use the other patch

selects to have muted or non-ringing versions of the sound

or do whatever you please.

For those of you who can't get a decent picked bass sound

or who are simply too lazy to try this, I'll offer my version

of this sound to anyone who sends a blank disk and SASE.

My address during the school year is : 255 Small Road,

Syracuse, NY, 13210 and is P.O. Box 271, Lyme, NH

03768 in the summer. Good luck! -

17

~ ~Revievv

For: EPSs/Mirage/all samplers.

Product: CD #1 - Drums and percussion samples.

Price: $5 per disk, $40 for the CD.

From: 3-D Sounds, POBox 114, Station C. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

N2G 3W9.

What a collection of sounds!

Here I am sitting here in front of my computer, in word

processing mode for a change, with the speakers behind me

playing a collection of samples that, in a way, sounds like a

new age jungle sound track. The bass drums are incredibly

low and full, I suspect they have been equalized, and perhaps

additional processing added. At least in my own sampling ef-

forts from drum machines I have fOund that shaping the

sound to accentuate or sometimes change the characteristic of

the sound produces very defined crisp sounds. If no process-

ing is applied, (an incredible R-8 conga sound just distracted

me, and now those bright, bright bells), the sample is usually

just a somewhat lamer version of the original. Especially

from the standpoint of having many sounds requiring dif-

ferent processing all included in the same same drum kit, it is

most convenient to already have each sample sound the way

it should and only have to add some ambient reverb and a

very slight EQ to the kit.

At the moment I am hearing some drum sounds from the R-8

Power Drums that make my acoustic drums reverberate, now

some great hi-hats, crashes and rides, very clean with good

long decays, now a snare drum that any acoustic rock drum-

mer would be proud of. Now from the same kit some ethnic

drums, plops, cowbells, timbales, high bell and whistle. A

very long explosive sound that sweeps along with a lot of

white noise. Suddenly a loud, long buzzing electronic sound,

would be great for a science fiction movie, or as a back-

ground for avant garde theatre. These sounds jump out at

you, evoke images. I've always found that to be a good

measure of how much I like a sound. If my brain doesn't

respond to it, I have no use for it.

Now comes the DR-550, any R&B group could be very satis-

fied with these super-dry sounds. HR-16 is next and here's

my chance for a direct comparison, as I own an HR-16. It was

not really possible to distinguish a difference. One unfor-

tunate feature of the 3D Sounds CD is that the different

drums are not indexed, only each drum kit. You cannot put

the sound in a repeat mode on the CD player to conveniently

set the correct input level for a certain drum you want to

sample. Luckily for us EPS owners 3D Sounds saves us the

.....

Barbara Ockel

trouble doing that as they also provide these sounds on

EPS-16 disks.

The EPS does not sound as good as the CD. But that is to be

expected. The samples are very clean for the most part, loop-

ing is pretty good on cymbals, and the loop starts early with

good results, minimizing the memory the sound takes up. A

very important consideration. Rap Drums sound good too,

except on the bass drum there is a very bad click at the end of

the sample. I was able to lessen the click by playing with the

sample end, but couldn't get rid of it entirely. That should be

resampled. None of the wave samples are named. It would

have been nice to know what each sample is, especially when

you start mixing and matching sounds yourself. At least I like

knowing where a sound comes from, just for reference.

The R-8 Electronic Kit is excellent, as is the XR-IO Kit, a

great bunch of rap music sounds -very low and very dry

kick, Simmons toms, and very dry everything else. The 3D

Techno Kit, presumably an inhouse compilation of rap music

sounds, is truly outstanding. It is a very pleasurable ex-

perience indeed when you can use something just as is and

play. That is definitely the case for this kit.

Sample rates in all kits vary, sounds with more highs have

higher sample rates than lower sounds, which makes sense,

but they all seem to be around 30 -45 kHz.

Back to the CD. It contains 57 drum kits. The sheer quantity

is amazing, the sampling quality is uniformly good and a

great deal at only $40. The EPS disks are $5. each, also very

inexpensive. Not all samples from the CD are available on

disk, but many are. 3D Sounds also has a lots of non-drum

synth sounds available on EPS disks, which I suspect would

be worth checking out.

The CD continues to be a listening pleasure. All the "must

have" drum machines are covered, definitely in the R&B/Rap

genre. There are lots of rock, jazz and ethnic drums, although

not much in the very exotic category of the latter. Conclud-

ing, I wholeheartedly recommend these products, both are

well made and priced reasonably.-

Bio: Barbara Ockel has ventured into the world of visual arts

by combining her skills with those of computer animators.

She works on a Mac-based system using Vision and Micro-

mind Director and hopes to add Sound Tools,funds permit-

ting.

18

L

ROBO BOP

For: ESQ-l or SQ-80 and Atari ST computer.

Product: Robo Bop Rhythm Composition Program.

Price: $20 US.

From: Frank Vuotto, FlO Software, P.O. Box 2201, Taos, New Mexico

87571.

What I love about small software companies is that they often

come up with unique products that the larger companies never

think of. Robo Bop is just such a product -a sequencer spe-

cialized for programming drum tracks that runs on any Atari ST

computer, in either medium or high resolution.

ESQ-l and SQ-80 users know that sequencing drums from the

keyboard can be a royal pain in the butt. The ESQ-l sequencer

is not well suited for the task, since step editing is crude and

additive overdubbing (i.e., adding new data to an existing

track) is not supported. Robo Bop allows you to program your

parts on a grid, similar to the setup found on many Roland

drum machines, then dump the tweaked tracks over MIDI to the

ESQ-l sequencer. (I should point out here that Robo Bop will

work equally well with any sequencer that supports input from

the MIDI port or can import MIDI type 0 standard files.)

When you boot Robo Bop, you get a default setup for 13instru-

ments using the standard Roland drum kit mapping (it covers

all the instruments on a TR-SOSexcept the handclaps, one of

the two cowbells and the ride cymbal). A setup file for the Se-

quential Circuits Drumtraks machine is also provided. You can

edit any setup to taste, including setting the name, MIDI note

number, default volume (velocity) and MIDI channel for each

instrument in the setup. This setup can be named and saved to

disk, so it is easy to have templates for drum kits that you use

often. You may also choose to have one of your custom setups

be the default, simply by naming it DEFAULT. SUP when

saving it to disk. The velocity defaults may be overridden to get

more dynamic control when programming patterns. You also

have a choice of sending a note off immediately after the note

on or prior to the next note on if you would like to trigger

sounds other than percussion. As a "panic" button, hitting the

escape key sends an all notes off (which is of course meaning-

less to an ESQ-l, but if you have other MIDI boxes in your

setup you may frod it useful).

The grid always shows two bars but may be defined as half a

bar, a full bar or two bars, with four boxes per bar. If defined as

less than two bars, you may still place notes within the two bar

grid, which causes the bar length setting to be overridden. This

is sort of confusing. You can also shonen one and two bar pat-

terns if you like; the program simply truncates the programmed

Brian Rost

notes. I suspect most users will stick with doing things in two

bar increments most of the time, as it is less confusing to do so.

Two time signatures are available, 4/4 and 3/4. The 3/4 is

shown as four groups of 3 sixteenth notes each, which is con-

venient when you are trying to program triplets but confusing

when trying to do a waltz. The first sixteenth note of each

group is shaded to aid in keeping your place on the grid.

A click of the left mouse button puts a note onto a grid box, a

click of the right mouse button erases it. You get the default

velocity for the instrument unless you jump down to the'

velocity boxes shown below the grid to select a new value,

which is used until you select another value or another instru-

ment. However, itynot apparent from the grid what the

velocity value for any partieular note is, which can make doing

velocity edits tedious. The velocity boxes default to starting at

10, going up in increments of 10 until reaching 110, then going

up to 11S, 120 and 127. These values can be edited and saved

with your instrument setup as a custom velocity curve.

The bulk of the editing features are accessed by clicking on one

of a series of command boxes running along the left of the

screen. Most are self explanatory, although the brief documen-

tation is clear about all of the functions.

Up to 32 patterns may be in memory at once, selected by click-

ing on the appropriate box just below the grid (the patterns are

split into two banks of sixteen). Clicking on a pattern box and

then the PLAY box starts a pattern up, clicking on STOP or

certain editing functions halts the pattern. As an alternative,

hitting the space bar will start and stop playback also.

You can add and delete notes to the pattern while it plays. You

can also scale the velocity of a given instrument via a MIX

function by adding a fixed offset of -127 to +127 to the velo-

city of each note for that instrument in the pattern. You can

have the mix affect all patterns in memory if you'd like, which

can save time if the snare drum needs to come up in all thirty

two patterns. There is a copy feature which copies one pattern

into another, a quick way of creating a series of small varia-

tions on a basic pattern.

Once you have a few patterns finished, you can build them into

sequences of up to 1000 patterns in length. In the sequence

mode, you merely click on a pattern box and that pattern is

added to the sequence and the length counter is incremented.

There are insert and delete commands for fixing up sequences.

This feature makes it possible to build parts which are equal in

length to the sequences into which they will be recorded in the

keyboard's sequencer. You can only save sequences, not in-

19

dividual patterns, although creating a sequence of just one pat-

tern allows you to circumvent this problem. When you save to a

disk file, the instrument setup, patterns and sequence ordering

are all saved. You can save the data in a Robo Bop unique for-

mat, or as a type 0 standard MIDI file, for porting to other se-

quencers.

Robo Bop makes an interesting distinction between playing and

dumping. Playing sends note data out of the computer's MIDI

port, but no clocks. Dumping a sequence sends out clocks as

well as the note data. Dumps are how sequences are transferred

to the ESQ-1 sequencer. Since Robo Bop does not synch to in-

coming clocks, you must set SYNC on the CONTROL page to

MIDI CLOCK,both for recording the sequence as well as when

you want to just have your keyboard play along with the drum

tracks as you edit them.

One interesting feature of the program is you can use it to se-

quence melodic parts in step time as well as drums and percus-

sion. Since an instrument setup can specify any note number,

MIDI channel and default velocity you like for the 13 instru-

ments, you can assign the notes of a scale, for instance, and use

the program to step enter parts. You are restricted to a 13 note

window and sixteenth note resolution, however. By using the

mode where a note off is not sent after the note on, the duration

of sustained notes can be programmed by adding a new note

with velocity of 0, which is equivalent to a note off, at the ap-

propriate time. While perhaps not the most intuitive way to step

edit melodic parts, it does allow better control of entering

velocity than is possible by step editing on the ESQ-1 sequen-

cer, plus the grid makes it easy to see exactly where you are in

the bar. A setup file is provided with the program as an ex-

ample, defining a four piece drum kit on MIDI channel 10 and

one octave of notes for a bass line on MIDI channel 2.

Of course, some things are missing from Robo Bop. First, there

are no complex time signatures.You can splice together bars of

3/4 and 4/4 to create them, though. There is no provision for

subtle time shifting or a "swing" mode as found on some drum

machines. The minimum timing resolution is sixteenth notes,

which may not be enough for some folks. All of these cons

should be weighed against the very low price of this package.

If you would like to be able to sequence your drum parts with a

more friendly step editor than your ESQ-1 provides, Robo Bop

may be just the ticket. -

Bio: Brian Rost spends his evenings either hunched over his

SQ-80 or playing bass with the HUBCAPS, a Boston-based

roots rock band. To unwind during the day he designs com-

puters.

Classifieds

SAMPLES

HOT NEW SAX SAMPLES FOR EPS/16+111 Solo

soprano, alto, tenor, bari and sax sections in true

stereo! Buy individually or as a complete 7 disk set

($69 + $4 sib). Sax demo tape: $4. Complete library

demo tape: $12. Contact K. Thomas, PO Box 174,

Stratford, ON, Canada N5A 6Tl or phone (519)

Z71-7964.

Bob Clearmountain Pro Samples Vol. 1 & 2 sam-

pling CDs. Over 500 studio quality drum, percussion

& bass samples. New: $175, will sell for $100 or

trade for Alesis Micro-EQ, Ensoniq SW-5 foot-

switch, or VFX & ESQ RAM carts. (708) 4Z7-1615.

SP USERS I My new disk -"Keyboard" -contains

over 100 sounds on it including such classics as

Fender Rhodes Bass with Vox Organ (Doors), Red

Rubber Ball Organ, Nasty B-3 sounds, bunches of

different EI. Pianos, some futuristic sounds, nice Ml

and SY77 emulations, etc. Also, like all my disks,in-

cludes my runtime version of SP operating system.

Just boot up with my disk and GOIt Only $19 plus

$1 postagelbandling. Also, my library of "Lush,"

"X," "DeMiTy," "Addy," "Turbo" -$15 each plus $1

postagelbandling or all 5 for $69 INCLUDING

POSTAGEII Bob Spencer, 703 Weatherby Ln.,

Greensboro, NC Z7406.

Trade sounds by mail. I have over 1,000,000 blk

library I Many killer homemade and PD samples.

Send your list. Craig, PO Box 83164, Los Angeles,

CA 90083. Phone: 213-645-4181.

SOUND EFFECTS for EPS-16 Plus and EPS, very

high fidelity, ideal for studio and post-production

...

work. All effects are original digital recordings

sampled at 16 bit, 44.6 kHz, with mono and stereo

patch selects. Disks are $5.95 each, or $5.45 each for

six or more. Send SASE for free listing to: Syntaur

Productions, 11116 Aqua Vista #2, North Hol-

lywood, CA 91602, or call (818) 769-4395.

EQUIPMENT

SQ-80, CV pedsl, sound disks and cartridges, how-to

books and Hackers for the last three years. Excellent

condition. Stand also available. $850. (602)

952-9481. Judy.

EPS with 4x Expander & over 200 sound disks for

$1200. Mint condition. Will pay call, (509)

786-2323, after 6 PM PST. Ask for Cesar.

EPS-16 PLUS/Turbo Keyboard, 106MB SCSI hard

drive, 2 Meg of memory, 1 Meg of Flashbank, disks

and various manuals: $2350. 106 MB SCSI hard

drive, PS and case: $325. Rick, 603-885-0628.

Minimoog, excellent condition, just tuned and

calibrated, only $750 or best offer. Here's your

chance to sample the real thing I Call Chuck at

510-724-0804 for details.

WANTED

Wanted: SQ-80 users interested in trading patches.

Also VFX-sd patches available. (708) 427-1615.

Wanted: Samples for EPS-16 Plus, sound processing

software for Atari. Kervin Jeseph, c/o Bendtsen, Hej-

20

revej 35 2th, 2400 KBH NV, Denmark. Phone: (45)

31101165.

Wanted: Mirage Input Sampling Filter. (510)

652-2016.

Wanted: Yamaha MCS-2; MIDI control station,

working or not. Leslie organ spk. (mod.145). Call

Ed: 912-439-1345.

Wanted: Casio MG510 MIDI guitar (prefer black).

Mine was stolen and I'd like to replace it with one in

good condition. Will pay $350. 616-223-4327, Bob

Higgins, 861 6th Ave., Suite 411, San Diego, CA

92101.

Wanted: VFX-sd and SQ-80 patches for trade. (708)

427-1615.

Wanted: VFX programmers to trade their ORIGI-

NAL VFX PATCHES. (I have 105 HI-FI sounds,

wide variety). No tweaks / copyrighted sounds

please! Send VFX-SD-l or Alesis DataDisk format

to: Brad Kaufman, 11-26 Saddle River Road, Fair

Lawn, NJ 07410.

SOFTWARE

Midicaster is still available. The way-cool operating

system that turns your Mirage into a very capable

System Exclusive data librarian, a 20,OOO-note se-

quence player, a disk copier/formatter, and

wave-draw synthesizer is still available for a limited

time. For more information, or to order, contact Tim

Martin, 1510 S 5th W, Missoula, MT 59801. Phone:

406-542-0280 And thank you for your support.

PATCHES/SOUNDS

80 new SQ-l sounds from Mark Clifton. Past

Hackerpatches plus a multitude of solid usable

sounds. CV pedal required. Send $95 for RAM

card or send own card and $15 to: Mark Clifton,

11972HomeguardDr., Woodbridge,VA 22192.

60 VFX-sd patches created by Jim Grote. Wide

variety of sounds with complete documentation.

Call for free Information Packet, or send $30 for

VFX-sd disk to: Jim Grote, 3721 Frances Ave.,

Cincinnati, OH 45211. Phone: 513-661-8885.

A lot of songs & styles for Bachmann keyboards.

More than 52 disks plus new ones as they arrive.

Call or write to: C. Sansilvestri, Via Origoni, 9

21020 Barasso (Varese) Italy. Phone: 0332-

746060.

NEW SQ-80 SOUNDS from the Hacker's Sam

Mimsl Sound set 4 takes full advantage of the

SQ-80's unique waveforms, and brings "hidden

waveforms" to the SQ-80 for the first time. Forty

patches on disk, with 22-page booklet of program-

ming notes and performance tips, $17.95. Syntaur

Productions, 11116 Aqua Vista #2, North Hol-

Iywood, CA 91602, (818) 769-4395. materials and postage. M.U.G. Hotline: 212-465-

3430 or write: G-4 Productions, PO Box 615TH,

Yonkers, NY 10703. Attn: TH Back Issues. Phone:

(212) 465-3430.

FREE SOUNDS with expander orders,

EPS/EPS-16+, VFX-sd/SD-l, SQ-l, SQ-2,

ESQ/SQ-80. EPS-16+ FLASHBANK and Sequen-

cer expansion available. Also expanders for AKAI,

CAS la, ROLAND, PEAVEY, and YAMAHA.

EPSIEPS-16+ Vol. I Sampling Made Easy & Vol.

II Advanced Sampling videos: $30 each or both for

$50. 100 Drum Patterns for EPS/EPS-16+,

VFX-sd/SD-l, SRI6/HRI6: $12. Best Prices.

Wildwood Sounds, 4726 Pebble Creek Terr., Pen-

sacola, FL 32526. Phone: (904) 944-6012, Tony,

after 6 pm.

Photocopies of out-of-print past issues of the

Hacker can be obtained by calling Jack Loesch,

201- 264-3512 after 6 pm EST.

Folks in the New York City area can get copies of

unavailable back issues of the Hacker -call Jordan

Scott, 212-995-0989.

INSTRUCTION FREE CLASSIFIEDSI

"The EPS Users Guide" for the original EPS is still

available. Price is $20.00 plus $2.00 for shipping

in USA. Shipping $6.00 for Canada, $15.00

Europe and $18.00 Australia. Send check or MO to

Gary Dinsmore, 33306 Bonneville Dr., Scappoose,

OR 97056, or call 503-543-2584 for COD costs.

Well,-within limits. We're offering free classifi-

ed advertising (up to 40 words) to all subscribers

for your sampled sounds or patches. Additional

words, or ads for other products or services, are 25

cents per word per issue (BOLD type: 45 cents per

word). Unless renewed, freebie ads are removed

after 2 issues. While you're welcome to resell

copyrighted sounds and programs that you no

longer have any use for, ads for copies of copy-

righted material will not be accepted.

OUT-OF-PRINT BACK ISSUES

M.U.G. will provide Out-of-Print issues for cost of

ESQ & SQ-80 Hackerpatch

SQ-SO Patch: HHSNAR

byDaveCamp,NewLondon,cr

By Sam Mims

The Hack

BY: Dav. Camp

There are many variations of this sound which you can get by sub-

stituting waveforms in OSC 2. Two that I liked were SNARE and

KICK 2, with OCT set to +1. It's nice to have different tunings on

different keys when you do this, but if you prefer constant tuning

across the keyboard, duplicate the KBD2 modulators from oscil-

lators 1 and 3 into OSC 2. With the SNARE substitute waveform,

turning on the AM mode makes a nice drum sound as well; with the

KICK 2 wave, you get popcorn popping. With Dave's original

waves, turning on AM creates an interesting drum/cymbal hybrid.

HIP-HOP SNARE is a "now" sound which has recently migrated

from rap to hip-hop to dance and finally to Top-40. It's tuned con-

stant across the uyboard so that you can split it up or down with

some other sound missing from your trusty beat box.

Sa-80 PROG: HHSNAR

FREQ

LFO1

~

LFO2 -

LFO3 -

RESET HUMAN WAY

L1 L2 L3 LV T1V

19

ENV1

ENV2

ENV3

ENV4

+63 +58 +50 OL

23R

Hackerpatch is intended to be a place where patch vendors can show their

wares and musicians can share their goodies and impress their friends.

Patches designated "ESQ-l" will also WOIKon the SQ-80. The reverse is not

always true. Once something's published here, it's free for all. Please don't

submit patches that you know to be minor tweaks on copyrighted commer-

cial patches unless you have permission from the copyright owner. All sub-

mitted patches are subject to consideration for mutilation and comments by

Sam MiIns-our resident patch analyst. If you send in a patch, please include

your phone number. Requests for particular patches are also very welcome.

+63 +63 +63 40L

T1

Bio: Sam Mims is a studio sessionplayer

and programmer in Los Angeles, and is

uyboardist for Richard Elliot. He owns

Syntaur Productions, a company that

produces music for film and TV and

maruts sounds for Ensoniq keyboards.

L1 DELAY L2 MOD

T2 T3 T4 TK

21

~ '" ..,c ~- --~~~~-~ ~

OCT SEMI FINE WAVE MOD'1 DEPTH MODI2 DEPTH

OSC1 -3 0 0 HI HAT KYBD2 -1 KYBD2 -63

OSC2 +3 00 METAL 'OFF' -'OFF' -

OSC3 0 0 0 THUMP KYBD2 -1 KYBD2 -63

LEVEL OUTPUT MOD'1 DEPTH MODI2 DEPTH

DCA1 63 ON 'OFF' -'OFF' -

DCA2 0 ON 'OFF' -ENV2 +63

DCA 3 63 ON 'OFF' -'OFF' -

FREQ QKEYBD MOD'1 DEPTH MODI2 DEPTH

FILTER I127 00 'OFF' -'OFF' -I

FINALVOL PAN PAN MOD DEPTH

DCA4 I63 8 'OFF'

SYNC AM MONO GUDE VC ENV OSC CYC

MODESI OFF OFF OFF 0 OFF OFF OFF ON

SPLIT/LAYER SIL PRG LAYER LPRG SPLIT SPRG SPLIT KEY

IOFF -OFF -OFF

SD & VFX Hackerpatch

SD &VFXprog: Flreblrd By: Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH

NOTES: TIlls is a sample from the collection of 60 VFX patches that I offer. It is a

potent, authentic orchestra hit, based on the opening "hit" in the fourth movement

of Stravinsky's Firebird Sui/e. It is designed to be played by hitting four octaves at

once (i.e., hit A2, A3, A4, and AS at the same time). I actually used the musical

score of Firebird to design this patch, programming the different sections of the

orchestra. If you're tired of the standard "rap" sampled orchestra hit, check this one

out.

WAVES 2 3 4 51 6

PITCH MODS

FILTER1 1 2 3 4 5 6

FILTER2 21 3 4 5 6

OUTPUT 1 2 3 4 5 6

VOL 99 87 98 99 82 65

MODSRC Press Tlmbr LFO Press Tlmbr Tlmbr

MODAMT +7 -86 0 +7 -64 -86

KBD Scale Zone Zone 0 Zone 0 Zone

~~~L~eY ~Q~~___9~~~___~~gr___~~~~---~~~Q___9~~~__-

Dest Bus FX1 FX1 FX1 FX1 FX1 FX1

Pan 50 50 50 50 68 50

MODSRC LFO LFO Keybd LFO LFO LFO

MODAMT 0 0 0 0 0 0

'Pre-Ga~ On ()rf ~f On On Off-----

Voice Prior Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium

Vel Thresh 0 0 0 0 0 0

LFO 1 2 3 4 5 6

Rate 38 38 38

MODSRC .Off. .Off' .Off.

MODAMT 0 0 0

Level 0 0 0

MODSRC W1+Pr W1+Pr W1+Pr

--~I~~ 9 ~ Q------

Waveshape Triangle Triangle Triangle

Restart Off Off Off

Noise SRC RT

22

THE HACK: This is, no doubt, the best orchestra hit I've heard

come out of a VFX. The sound is sort of a split, with one hit on the

top half of the keyboard, and another on the bottom. Individually,

they are nice enough, but pile them together and it's frightening I

The only change I might suggest is to eliminate the sustain of Voice

I; Jim lets the strings hang on after the hit as long as the notes are

held down. To make everything cut off together, change the Sustain

level of ENV 3 to 00. - Sam Mims

SELECT VOICE

00

O'

.0

~

2

~

2

11

11

11

1

~

3

~

3

~

4

4

4

~

5

~

~

~

6

~

~

ENV1 1 2 3 4 5 6

Initial 77 77

Peak 0 0

Break 1 0 0

Break 2 0 0

Sustain 0 0

Attack 13 13---

Decay 1 0 0

D~~2 0 0

Decay 3 0 0

Release 0 0

'KBOTrack O O----

Vel Curve Convx2 Convx2

Mode Finish Finish

Vel-Level 0 0

Vel-Attack 0 0

ENV2 1 2 3 4 5 6

Initial 0 0 0 0

Peak 99 99 99 99

Break 1 99 85 42 99

Break 2 99 64 28 99

Sustain 99 59 99 99

Attack O O O O----

Decay 1 28 32 28 28

Decay 2 32 29 32 32

Decay 3 66 42 66 66

Release 44 48. 44 44

KBOTrack O---2S 0 0----

Vel Curve Convx2Convx2 Convx2Convx2

Mode Normal Normal Normal Normal

Vel-Level 0 46 0 0

Vel-Attack 0 0 0 0

ENV3 1 2 3 4 5 6

Initial 99 99 99 99 99 99

Peak 58 99 53 58 53 99

Break 1 0 99 0 0 0 99

Break 2 0 99 0 0 0 99

Sustain 58 99 0 58 0 99

Attack 42 0---42 42---40---0----

Decay 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

Decay 2 0 0 0 0 0 0

Decay 3 0 20 0 0 0 20

Release O' 19. O' O' O' 19.

-KBOTrack O O O O O O----

Vel Curve Convx1 Convx2Convx1 Convx1 Convx1Convx2

Mode Normal Finish Finish Normal Finish Finish

Vel-Level 0 0 0 0 0 0

Vel-Attack 0 0 0 0 0 0

PGM CONTROL

Pitch Table Off

Bend Range

Delay

Restrike

Glide Time

EFFECTS (1

Effect

Decay

FX1

FX2

Concert Reverb

40

61

25

x4

0

0

EFFECTS(3 ----

FX2 Mode Nrml Stereo Send

HF Damping 13

LF Decay +10

EFFECTS (2

Pre-Delay 25

Early Rell Level 20

Early Rell Time 7

Diffusion 76

PERFORMANCE

Timbre 0

Release 0

Pressure Key

",

Wave Strings WoodFlute Orch Hit Rim Snare UnlBrass WoodFlute

Wave Class StrngSnd BreathSnd TunedPercDrumSnd BrassSnd BreathSnd

Delay 21 7 17 11 9 0

Direction Forward Forward Forward Forward Forward Forward

Start 0 0 2 00 0

Vel Start Mod 0 0 0 0 0 0

MOD MIXER 1 2 3 456

SRC-1 .OW .Off. .011*

SRC-2 Env1 Press Env1

SRC-2 Scale 1.0 4.0 1.0

SRC-2 Shape Quant 8 Smoother Quant 8

PITCH 1 2 3 4 5 6

Octave -2 +2 -1 -2 0+2

Semitone 0 0 0 0 0 0

Fine +2 +4 +8 +2 0 0

Pitch Table System System System System System System

1 2 3 4 5 6

MODSRC LFO Mixer LFO LFO LFO Mixer

MODAMT 0 +50 0 0 0 -61

Glide None None None None None None

ENV1 0 0 0 0 0 0

LF01 0 +6 0 0 +5 +6

- - - -

Mode 3LP 3LP 2LP 3LP 3LP 3LP

Cutoff 111 11 127 111 34 11

KBD 0 +66 0 0 +66 +66

MODSRC Press .Off. Mixer Press LFO .011*

MODAMT +16 0 +21 +16 00

ENV2 0 +99 +99 0+99 +99

- - --

Mode 1HP 1HP 2LP 1HP 1HP 1HP

Cutoff 0 0 127 000

KBD 0 0 0 0 0 0

MODSRC Tlmbr LFO Veloc Tlmbr LFO LFO

MODAMT +65 0 +49 +65 0 0

ENV2 0 0 0 0 0 0

SQ-l & 2 Hackerpatch Jeffrey Rhoads

prog: Ethereal By: Mark Creed Stansberry, Stow, Ohio

Notes: This patch demonstrates the SQ's ability to produce a

powerful, bigger than life sound. It works great with slow

chords. The modwheel drops Voice # I a whole step for a

dramatic detuning effect.

PITCH 2 3

1

ENV1 3

1 2

LFO 1 2 3 AMP 2 3

FILTER 12 3

1

OUTPUT 2 3

ENV2 1 2 3

1

Standard

Sound

Programming

EffectsProgramming

(To save space, only those

effects utilized are listed. A

complete blank form was

published in Issue #68.)

"

"

"

a.VOICE CHORUS

FX-1

FX-2

Chorus Rate

Chorus Depth

Chorus Center

Feedback

MOD (Dest)

BY (MODSRC)

MODAMT

70

50

13

31

76

+22

FX1-Mlx

Wheel

+10

The Hack: Ethereal probably works best when using nice, fat chords. Its

author demonstrates that even unusual patches may derive character from atten-

tion to detail: not only does Voice 1 drop a whole step (using the modwheel), it

also jumps just about a minor 3rd upon key release. This provides a sort of

"un-earthly" motion. Though no changes need be made to Ethereal, you can tailor

Voice l's key-release pitch shift by changing the ENV 1 value in that voice's

Pitch section. (Different values will produce different intervals.) Try setting

MODAMT (also in Voice l's Pitch section) to -55. Voice 1 will then fall a perfect

4th with the modwheel. This will yield yet more interesting results, particularly

when using open voicings. If you wish, soften the overall

mix. Go to the Output section for Voices I and 3, and

adjust VOL to 45 and 70 respectively.

SQ-1 & 2 Hackerpatches are published with the same constraints and

understandings as the ESQ, SQ-80, and VFX patches. The hacking

and mutilating part is being handled by Jeffrey Rhoads.

23

Jeffrey Rhoads

Bio: Jeffrey Rhoads has been a keyboardistlcomposer on

the Philadelphia Jazz and R +B scene for a period of

time resembling forever. He has an interest in cinema

and has developed some film courses. Jeff still believes

in magic and longsfor city lights.

~--~- - --- -~

.- . .r=_."""," ._.~- ~~

~ _.

WAVE 12 3

Select Voice On On On

Wave Class Waveform Trans Inharm

Wave Brass Org Pulse 1X ClusterLoop

Delay Time 0 0 0

Wave Direction - -

StartIndex 0

MODSCR -Llo

MODAMT 99

Restrk Decay 57 57 57

- -

Octave -1 -1 +1

Semltone 0 0 0

Fine -6 +6 0

ENV1 -60 -1 0

LFO +1 -1 +4

MODSCR Wheel Off Off

MODAMT -50 00 00

KBD Ptch Track On On On

Glide Off Off Off

Glide Time 000

- -

Initial 17 05

Peak 0 0

Break 0 0

Sustain 0 0

Attack 22 0

Decay 1 0 0

Decay 2 0 0

Release 0 0

Vel-Level 0 0

Vel-Attack 0 0

Vel Curve Conv Conv

MOde Norm Norm

KBD Track 0 0

LFO Speed 29 16 31

Noise Rate 00 00 86

Level 99 99 19

Delay 26 26 26

MODSRC - - -

Wave Pos/Slne Pos/Slne SlnelTrl

Restart On On ON

-

Filter 1 2Lo 2Lo 2Lo

Filter 2 2Lo 2Lo 2Lo

FC1 Cutoff 125 102 125

ENV2 99 99 00

FC1 KBD 00 -5

MODSCR Llo Lfo Off

MODAMT 99 25 00

FC2 Cutoff 125 83 125

ENV2 99 99 0

FC2 KBD 0 0 -5

FC1MOD-FC2 On On Off

Initial 00 00

Peak 50 50

Break 99 99

Sustain 99 20

Attack 50 59

Decay 1 50 60

Decay 2 40 24

Release 16 13

Vel-Level 00 00

Vel-Attack 00 00

Vel Curve Conv Conv

Mode Norm Norm

KBD Track 00 00

Initial 88 88 99

Peak 95 95 75

Break 99 99 50

Sustain 99 99 00

Attack 17 17 25

Decay 1 30 30 35

Decay 2 20 20 58

Release 60 60 20

Vel-Level 00 00 46

Vel-Attack 00 00 6

Vel Curve Conv Conv Conv

Mode Norm Norm Norm

KBD Track 00 00 00

VOL 67 54 86

Boost Off Off Off

MODSRC -- -

MODAMT -- -

KBD Scale 00 00 00

Key Range AOAO AOAO AOAO

Output Bus FX1 FX1 FX1

Priority Med Med Med

Pan +98 -98 00

Vel window 00 00 00

The Interface

Letters for The Interface may be sent to any of the following addresses:

U.S. Mail- The Interface, Transoniq Hacker, 1402 SW Upland Dr., Portland, OR 97221

Electronic mail- GEnie Network: TRANSONIQ, CompuServe: 73260,3353, PAN: TRANSONIQ, Internet (via CS): 73260.3353@compuserve.com.

This is probably one of the most open forums in the music industry. Letter writers are asked to please keep the vitriol to a minimum. Readers are

reminded to take everything with a grain of salt. Resident answer-man is Clark Salisbury (CS). Letter publication is subject to space considerations.

Dear Hacker,

I am sympathetic with Michael Schmitt's

review of Maestas' "The EPS Sampling

Book" which, fortunately, I did not buy.

Lorenz Rychner with Bobby Maestas has

published the "Ensoniq EPS-16 PLUS

Operations and Sampling Book" which, as

a novice, I found helpful in clarifying the

turgid information in the 16's Musician's

Manual and has been worth the investment

to me.

Can somebody point me to information

(and, hopefully, even review articles) on

editor(s) for the EPS.16 PLUS using an

IBM PC?

Richard Rawson

CS: [73607,3354]

[CS -We're starting to get a lot of inquiries

about IBM EPS stufffrom our readers, and

I'm afraid 1don't have much of a recom-

mendation to make, apart from the fact that

Turtle Beach Softworks put together a well

respected sample editing program which I

haven't seen advertised lately. And if

there's anyone else out there doing IBM

stufffor the EPS and/or EPS-16 PLUS, this

might be a great opportunity for you all to

get afree plug into the Hacker.

[TH -Turtle Beach's SampleVision was

reviewedway back in Issue #55 (January,

1990).J

[Ensoniq -The package from Turtle Beach

(Sample Vision) is currently available and

we recommend it highly to any IBM owners.

Their phone number is (717) 843-6916.J

Dear Hacker,

Living here in Australia, I'm at a bit of a

disadvantage when it comes to a lot of

American products since the support and

communication between users just doesn't

exist here. I am a happy user of both an

ESQ-l and an EPS.

I have an EPS with a 2x expander cartridge

and I would like to set up my own library

using my IBM compatible 286 AT. It has a

40 meg HDD which I don't really use and

so want to utilize it as a hard drive. No one

"

here seems to be able to see past Atari and

Mac and shy away from anything different.

I use a program called Cakewalk Pro which

I am also very happy with and don't want to

change.

What I would like to do is zone off a certain

amount of the (IBM 40M) HDD for use

with the Ensoniq EPS only but not ex-

clusively as I also use the computer for

Wordperfect and various other things.

Is this possible? Or is it necessary to buy a

separate hard drive?

I look forward to hearing from someone

who knows what's what.

Faithfully,

Russell James

[CS -Russell, I'm afraid you can't partition

your hard drive to work both with your IBM

and your EPS -it's gotta be one or the

other. Don'tfeel too bad, though. You can't

do this with Mac, Atari, or Amiga hard

drives either.

If you decide to purchase a second drive,

though, you might want to consider looking

into removable media drives. A removable

media drive would allow you to have dif-

ferent disks or cartridges or whatever for-

mattedfor different machines. For example,

I have an Eltekon 44 meg removable Sy-

Quest drive which I can use with any of

three different devices that support SCSI

data storage. Simply pop in the cartridge

that's formatted for the device in question,

and away you go.J

Hi Hackers:

Even though this magazine has less and less

relevance to me, an occasional Mirage and

Soundprocess user, I like to read about

home music making, people discovering ac-

cidental bugs, and letters from people

hundreds of miles from their Ensoniq

dealers with bad hardware. I've seen the

DP!4 at AES -very nice and smooth ef-

fects. Unfortunately, closed architecture.

Synth manufacturers: We're going to buy

general purpose computers for our synth

and effects needs soon. Get on the ball! Put

your chips on Nubus cards!

24

JHH Lowengard

NY,NY

[CS -I agree that open architecture designs

suit my needs best, too. Unfortunately. this is

not necessarily the case for the majority of

electronic instrument customers. For ex-

ample, how many musicians do you know

that currently have a place into which they

could plug a Nubus card?J

The Interface,

I totally agree with Mr. Schmitts' review of

the EPS Sampling Book in TH #77. I ordered

and received it a week before Transoniq

Hacker landed in my post. I wish I had

waited. Sniff, sniff. I would like to know if

there's some serious book explaining with

examples how the envelopes work. The

problem is that in low pitch of many

samples, mainly of my own, I can hear a

"click" when I release the key before the

sample ends. I've been working hard with

the envelopes to finally obtain altered

samples far from what they were at the

beginning. It's with sampled low drums and

basses from CD when I hear clearly that

click.

One thing that happens is that my portable

CD player outputs an almost inaudible car-

rier, a product of its own D/A converters or

maybe that's only high pitched noise in-

herent in the quality of the final audio stage.

Could it be aliasing produced for this noise

when sampled on the EPS? Does anybody

know of a suitable DIY HF filter/trap?

I'd like to know if TH has ever reviewed

software for the Amiga called Synthia Pro,

that load/save/edit/convert EPS 16+, Sample

Dump Standard, and other samples via MIDI

on the Amiga? Using this program, and here

we go with the Ensoniq questions, the EPS

gets completely boggled, sometimes writing

strange characters. "POWER OFF" is the

only cure. Is there any way to reset the EPS

without switching OFF/ON? I can copy EPS

disks with some Amiga copiers, but can't

look into. How is the EPS disk structure or-

ganized? I'd like to optimize EPS disks.

Concerning the O.S., I'd like to have the

"Stop Sequencer First" feature disabled on

new version and new SCSI commands, so

that a hard disk behaves like a monster flop-

;~=~~~~~~~=~1

I

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~ ~

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=Whatever your viewpoint,we have what you're lookin'g for. ~

;;

'

II

~ * SAMEDAYSHIPPINGON ITEMS '~

I

l-

IIORDEREDBEFORENOON

.*THEBESTVALUES

IN-STOREINVENTORY

~~ *OURSALESPEOPLEAREMUSICIANS

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=",..-~~-~ . -~

py. Not the kind of CD-ROM it seems to be

now. And for the future, I suggest the RAM

be expandable with standard chips (SIMMs,

DRAMs), or maybe through a SCSI port,

like Amiga's hard disks with memory in-

cluded. Stereo sample and "Sample Dump

Standard" would be welcome.

The last question: In 20 voice mode, does it

mean that the EPS 16+ can play no more

than 20 "wavesamples" at a time? I have a

guitar instrument, with 8 layers and 1

wavesample sound together. One single

note of guitar INST consumes 8 of the 20

voices. If so, how about a new EPS 32+

with, yes, 32 voices minimum. For now,

what about an EPS rack module player with

3-1/2 floppy, loads of RAM, 8 outputs,

double FIX, 16 instruments, 8 slave tracks...

for $1000 max.

Yours,

Gabriel Diaz

Barcelona, Spain

{CS -There are a number of publications

dealing with synthesis techniques, although

I know of none that deal specifically with

envelopes. Still, you should find a lot of

good information floating around out there

-you might check out Mix Bookshelf (6400

JAZZ

This truly original approach to

leamingJalZ Improvisation

can be used by players at all levels of ability.

This course features authentic Bebop, Blues,

Modal, Latin and Fusion riffs all professionally

recorded into your sequencer with excellent

rhythm section accompaniment. By using your

MIDI sequencer you'll he playing jazz in less

time, working at your QU'" pace and tempo.

JAZZ TIlROUGH MIDITM INCLUDES:

.60 professionally arranged solos with rhythm

accompaniment. bass. piano and drums

.Wide variety of popular jazz standards and

styles.

.Lead sheets for chords and solos are provided. as

well as tips on substitutions, chord voicings.

scales. turnarounds. walking IxlSs lines, and more!

.Beginning. Intermediate and Advanced levels.

.Program works with any MIDI set up and drum

machine. Ex. Proteus, MI. U220, K4. ete.

.Type 1 standard MIDI file fOl1)1at J(>r all

computer sequencers.

.Ability (0 edit the sequences imo your own

arrangemem and also create original jazz songs.

.Easy set up. Sequences are arranged in H, 12.

16. and 32 bar phrases, and are transmitted on

4 MIDI channels.

AVAUABLEDATAFORMATS:

Roland MC500/300/MC-50/w30 Kawai Q-HO

Korg T-Series Ale.is MMTH/DataDisk SQ/

Yamaha QX3ISY77/SY99 Ensoniq VFX-SD,

EPS, SQ-HO Macintosh, mM, Atarl, Amigo.

$49.95

VISA AND MASTERCARD ACCEPTED

NEW SOUND MUSIC

P.O. Box 37363 Dept.)1

Oak Park, MI 48237 Phone, (313) 355-3643

Hollis St. #12, Emeryville, CA 94608, (800)

233-9604). Or you might look no further

than the April through August issues (#70 -

#74) ofTH. In those issues you'll find a

detailed explanation of envelopes in the SQ

series of synths -and most of that informa-

tion will apply equally to the EPS and

EPS-16 PLUS (not to mention the VFX and

SD-I).

As far as the noise from your CD player,

it's impossible to tell from what you say

whether or not this will adversely affect

your samples. But before you go lookingfor

plans to build a brick-wall filter for your

EPS-16 PLUS, you might want to try

making a few samples of the same source

material, and experimenting with the filter

built into the EPS-16 PLUS. The input filter

has a pretty steep rolloff, and you can easi-

ly set the filter for a number of different

cutoff points, or bypass it completely.

Making a few samples for your CD player

with different filter settings should give you

a pretty clear idea of what the filter's

doing, and if it's providing any help.

As far as the click in the sound goes, I'm

not really sure what the problem could be.

The click could be the result of the en-

velope(s) resetting rather quickly -have

you tried changing attack and/or release

times? Some problems with clicks at the end

of a sound can be resolved by setting the

AMP envelope to afairly long release time,

and using the filter envelope to actually

control the sound's final decay. The idea is

that if the filter cutoff point is set pretty

low, you can use an envelope to "close

down" thefilter to turn a voice off. Be care-

ful not to set the amp envelope too long,

though, or you might enCOJ4nter some

problems with voice stealing -the EPS

might think that the voices you've filtered

out are-still sounding, since their AMP en-

velopes are still running through their

release stage.

While I have had no personal experience

with Synthia Pro, your EPS should not be-

come "boggled" under normal conditions,

whether you are using a computer-based

editor or not. I'd recommend getting in

touch with the Synthia people, and seeing if

they can shed any light on your problems.

You might also want to contact Ensoniq

Customer Service at (215) 647-3930, but

I'd recommend talking to Synthia first.

There is no way to reset the EPS without

powering off.

For information on diskformats for any En-

soniq products, the definitive source is Gary

Giebler, who published a series of articles

26

on this topic in TH, issues #73, #74 ,and

#75 (July through September 1991). I'd

suggest checking the articles out, but you

can also reach Gary at Giebler Enterprises,

8038 Morgan Road, Liverpool, New York,

13090-2009, through which he markets a

program for the IBM PC that will read,

write, and display information from En-

soniq diskettes -see his ad in the Hacker

Booteeq toward the end of this issue.

And by the way -for some time now, En-

soniq has been hard at work trying to get

the legendary "Load Sound While the Se-

quencer Plays" function. Considering what

this feature will mean to those who want to

have things like sampled sax solos and

background vocals that play along with

their sequences, let's hope they canfinish it

up pretty soon.

And the answer to your last question isyes.]

(TH -Synthia Professional was reviewed in

Issue #66 (December,1990).]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I recently bought an SD-l Ensoniq key-

board. Can you please help me with the fol-

lowing information:

1) Where can I get more sounds for my

SD-l1

2) Where can I get some house, dance, and

hiphop drum sequences for my SD-l?

3) Where can I get some sequences (Le.,

pop/rock, '60s, '70s, '80s, etc.) for my

SD-l ?

I also run my SD-l with an AtaTi using

C-Lab's "Creator" sequencing. Which is the

best way to set up the machine?

I look forward to your reply.

Thank you,

Brian Holding

Sydney, Australia

{CS -The first place to go for new sounds

is your local dealer. And if he doesn't stock

a collection of sounds, shame on him! En-

soniq has put a lot of time and effort into

producing large, professional libraries of

sounds for their instruments. The fact that

many dealers see maintaining sound

libraries for the instruments they sell as

more trouble than it's worth is unfortunate

and short sighted.

t

I

6

d

q

Still, ifyou wantto contactEnsoniqdirect-

ly, they will be happy to send you acatalog

chock full of new sounds and other acces-

sories for any of their products. And if you

find something that interests you, they'll be

happy to sell it to you direct (accessories

and sounds, that is. Sorry, no instrument

sales).

Since sequences created on the VFX-sd are

compatible with the newer SD-I, you

shouldn't have too much trouble locating a

source for this type of material -just check

the ads in TH! L. B. Music Sequences,

Triviatoons,andMusicMagicall springto

mind as regular TH advertisers -but many

other sequence-marketing companies offer

VFX-sd and SD-I sequences.

Insofar as setting up your SD-I with an out-

board sequencer, there are anumber of

possible ways to use this configuration. I'd

assume, though, that you wish to use the

SD-l's multi-timbral potential, so you

might want to try something like this: Plug

the Sd-l's MIDI out to the MIDI in of your

computer, and plug the MIDI out of the

computer back to the MIDI in of your SD-I.

Set up a multi-channel sequence in the

SD-I, with bass on one track, piano on

another, drums on another, and so on. Each

of these tracks should have aunique MIDI

channel number, and each should have its

track MIDI status set to either "WCAL" or

"BOTH." Oh -make sure the SD-I is in

"Multi" mode.

Now set one of the SD-I sequencer tracks to

EXT mode on the track MIDI status page -

this will be you control track. When atrack

is in EXTmode, it will send MIDI data, but

not respond to incoming MIDI. Select this

track when you want to play into your com-

puter sequencer, and make any track and

MIDI channel assignments from the com-

puter itself To hear what you're playing,

you'll need to have the computer "echo"

the incoming MIDI information on the cor-

rect MIDI channel -you should find this

explained in the owner's manual for "Cre-

ator."]

{Ensoniq - We should point out that we

don't sell sounds direct to customers out-

side of the US. For help with getting sounds

you should contact our distributor Electric

Factory, at 613-480-5988. The current

sounds available are as follows: VPC-1O2,

103,104, 105, IPC-I,2 (all cartridges w/60

Sound Programs each), VSD-IOOO,1001,

1002,1003,1004, ISD-3, ISD-4 (all disks

with 120 Sound Programs each -VSD-1O00

actually has over 300 sounds!), and many

demo sequences which should be available

at your local dealer.]

Q & A Department:

1) On the SQ.R+, how does the filter fre-

quency cutoff code (000 -127) translate to

Hz and kHz? To know would help a great

deal in visualizing sounds.

2) It seems like I could fry an egg on the

SQ-R+ after it's been on for a few hours. Is

this normal1 Frying an egg is an exaggera-

tion, but keeping my palm on it for more

than three seconds is painful. Pleasurable

effects can be obtained by sitting on it, but I

can't help but wonder if it will all blow up

one day.

Desperately seeking to be published,

Pascal Jasmin

Toronto, Ontario

{TH -Even in Toronto, there's got to be a

easierwayto growapalm.]

{CS -I've passed your request along to En-

soniq. They're checking to see if anyone

back there has areadable chart that trans-

lates SQ filter parameter numbers into ac-

tual cutoff frequency. And as for your SQ-R

PLUS, it will get hot at times, and it's noth-

ing to be overly concerned about. If you

have the unit in a rack, make sure that

there's alittle space around it so that it can

ventilate properly. And if you have alot of

heat-producing stuff in your rack, it might

not be a bad idea to investigate the pos-

sibility of adding asmall fan to your system

-all your rack gear will thank you, not just

your SQ-R PLUS.]

(Ensoniq -I) We don't have that informa-

tion readily available at this time. We'll see

about getting it together for apossible fu-

ture articlefor the Hacker.]

Dear Hacker,

I am very pleased to renew my subscription

for the 4th year to your excellent magazine.

Your authors are top notch -the best I've

seen in magazines like yours.

I have a couple of questions I hope you can

answer.

1) Why do some sounds I've copied from

EPS.16 disks sound "flat" on the original

EPS?

2) I have the SOUND BLASTER MIDI

adapter in my PC. Is there any sample edit-

27

ing software that works with this board?

3) Being more of an implementor than a

creator, I would like to see some program

listings in the Hacker that would allow me

to read EPS disks and display the data on

them.

4) I'm not complaining, and I'm sure the

response has been overwhelming for the

Basement Tapes section, BUT my brother

and I sent a tape one week after we saw the

article requesting them and we have not

seen anything yet. Is there some way you

could possibly print a list of tapes you've

received and are planning to review so we

can stop holding our breathl1? We think the

reviews are fair and we like to see what you

guys think of it.

Thanks for a great publication, keep it up.

Mitch Germaine

EPS (and only an EPS) owner and believer,

Northbrook, IL

{CS -There can be some problems

encountered when trying to play back

EPS-I6+ sounds on astandard EPS. The

first thing to check out is filter cutoff. On

the EPS-16+, filter cutoff goes from 0 to

1URN YOUR MIDI

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flowing to the top of the charts. A wide

variety of musical styles are featured,

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and percussion.

.Program works with any MIDI set up and drum

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.Chord charts are included.

.Excellent for increasing your repertoire of

original songs to show to publishers and

producers, and also for learning all styles of

music.

.Program also includes a compilation of breaks,

intros, endings, and 130 drum patterns

.Type 1 standard MIDI format for all computer

sequencers.

AVAIlABLEDATAFORMATS:

Roland MCSOO/300/MC-SO/W30Kawai Q-HO

KOIll T-Series Alesls MMTS/Data Disk SQ/

Yamaha QX3/SY77/SY99 Ensoniq VFX-SD,

EPS, SQ-80 Macintosh, mM, Atari, Amiga.

$42.95

VISA AND MASTERCARD ACCEJYfED

NEW SOUND MUSIC

P.O. Box 37363 Dept.)1

Oak Park, MI 48237 Phone, (313) 355-3643

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Treat Yours.elf!l

EPS116 PLUS

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ISO, whereas on the EPS it ranges from 0to

127. Consequently, if filter cutoff is set

higher than 127, the EPS may have trouble

interpreting the numbers. On the EPS clas-

sic, try moving the filter cutoff point all the

way to 0, then back up to a setting that

sounds good.

The other problem has to do with the fact

that the EPS-16+ has a new gain boost

parameter. If a programmer uses this

parameter to get a bit more volume out of a

sound, you may have trouble getting the

sound to play back at the correct volume on

the EPS classic. The solution is simply to

check and make sure that the volume for

any wavesample that seems to quiet is

turned up.

Of course, the fact that you may not be lis-

tening to the sound played back through the

EPS-16 PLUS's digital effects might have

something to do with it too.

..J

As far as the SOUND BLASTER thing goes,

I'm afraid I know of nothing that supports

it, but maybe one of our readers has heard

of something. In the meantime, there is a

program that will run on your PC that will

provide the data display functions you're

interested in -it can be ordered from Gary

Giebler -see Gabriel Diaz's letter above,

and check the Hacker Booteeq.]

{TH -Well, as luck would have it, your tape

is the one being reviewed in this very issue.

There was a flood of tapes received when

that announcement first came out. Our ex-

pectation is to get to them AU. But at the

rate of one or two per issue, it's going to be

a while before we catch up. Things have

calmed down a little since the initial surge,

but we'll probably still have to adjust our

review rate to match the steady-state inflow

or we'll just get behinder and behinder.

We're looking into publishing an (oc-

casional) listing of what's pending.]

Dear Transoniq,

I currently use the SD-l for my sequence

and song construction, and I really like its

ease of operation. However, it would be

nice if there were a few additional features

that maybe an OS update or an overlay kit

could fix. My suggestions are as follows:

1) Loop Start and Markers -where you

could define a location in a sequence or

song to do a loop style recording anywhere

within a sequence or song.

"The best thing I've heard out of any

.sequencer.Anywhere. Ever."

-Ji11lJo/msoll, Tl'flllsolliq Hackel; Oct. 1991

.~

"

!

I

~

TRI\l1ATOONSTM

Acollection of act-enhancingsequences,authenticallyrecreated

from America'sbest-lovedTVshows.

~

j;;

1

.~

~

LEAVEIT TO BEAVER

PERRYMASONTHEME

LOONEYTUNES I (BUGS)

LOONEYTUNES II (PORKY)

1WILIGHT ZONETHEME

BUIl.WINKLE I

20TH CENTURYFOXFANFARE

TONIGHT SHOWTHEME

PETER GUNN THEME

THREE STOOGESTHEME

FRACTUREDFAIRYTALES

ALFREDHITCHCOCKTHEME

THEME FROM 2001

STARTREK THEME

SUPERMAN(lV SHOW)

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

JAMESBONDTHEME

THEME FROM ROUTE 66

OUR GANGTHEME

THE HONEYMOONERS

I LOVELUCYTHEME

MY FAVORITEMARTIAN

THEJETSONSTHEME

AMERICANBANDSTAND

.SJ

1

Gf

~

'"

§

;G

Cboose any 5sequences for only $49.95

(Or, choose 10 and get 2FREE.)

To LISTEN10 an aulomaledDEMO Call: 215-889-97 46(24brs)

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28

2) Song Bar/MIDI Counter -useful when

copy, append, deleting and inserting events

within a song. For example, when copying

tracks within a song, the display asks you to

define the bars. With the counter you

wouldn't have to use a calculator.

3) Improved Song Insert -after construct-

ing a sequence to be a song and you're

doing the song recording and you decide

you want to insert a new sequence at the

intro, the song tracks should continue to

play at the original location and not offset

to make the step edits.

And for a new product -a "sample player

with resample effects feature." One to two

megs standard, expandable to 64 meg using

standard memory chips. 16 bits, 8 outputs

(or 4 stereo), samples recorded on an EPS

and linked via SCSI, 32 note polyphonic,

and pitch vs. time compression/expansion

for more natural key scaling.

And while we're at it, time compression/ex-

pansion per wave, 32 voice polyphony, and

direct read/write to the hard disk would be

nice for the EPS-16 Plus too.

Within my production setup I also have an

Amiga 500 that I'm using with an 8-bit

stereo digitizer and sound editor designed

by Aegis and called Audio Master IV. It has

some outstanding specs for a $99 unit such

as 56k sampling rate, 4x oversampling,

pitch vs. time compression/expansion, zoom

and other DSP functions. Well, I gavethe

company a call to see if they had a 16-bit

digitizer for Ensoniq samplers, and I was

told that the market for a 16-bit digitizer

and software was not there. I told them that

Ensoniq owners would love to get their

hands on such a system for under $500.

Well, if others in the EPS community are

interested, give a call or write: Oxxi/Aegis,

1339 E 28th St., Long Beach, CA 90806,

phone: 213-427-1227. Support 16-bit sound

editing!

Sincerely,

William A Dean

Dayton,OH

[TH -Now that we've all gotten our assign-

ments...)

[CS -We'll be passing your wish-list on to

Ensoniq.ln the meantime, you might want

to check out Gabriel Diaz's letter above. 1

think he may have stolen some of your

ideas...)

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29

S II OO/S I000 8 Meg Memory Card

S II OO/S I000 2 Meg Memory Card

SIIOO/SIOOO SCSI Interface Card

S950 750K Memory Card

MPc60 750K Memory Card

FZI Keyboard I Meg Memory Card

EPS 16 2X Memory Card

EPSI6 Term. SCSI2 Interface Card

EPS 16 112 Meg Flashbank

EPSI6 I Meg Flashbank

EPS 4X Memory Expansion Card

EPS Term. SCSI2 Interface Card

VJ'X-SD/SD- I 75K Note Seq Xpndr

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VFX/VFX-SD/SD-I 60/20 RAM Card

ESQ-I 20K Note Seq Xpndr

ESQ-I/M/SQ-80 160 Voice RAM Card

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Peavey DPM 1/2 Meg Sequencer Card

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SALES& SUPPORT

CustomerService:

DealerService:

MaartistsIncorporated,

2180PleasantHill Rd,

Suite189,Duluth, GA

30136USA

Tel:(404)623-1559

Fax:(404)623-1293

.~

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1-800-832-2737

1-800-338-3635

.

{Ensoniq -Thanks for the suggestions, but

these ideas are not easily implemented as

an OS update, as they are not part of our

current sequencer structure.We'll definitely

keep them in mindfor thefuture.

New product ideas -and of course you'd

want this all as an update for your current

EPS-I6 PLUS (just kidding)? It all sounds

great to us, now how do we get it to be af-

fordable enough for you Hackers to enjoy?

We'll keep working on it.]

Dear Hacker Interface,

I'll get straight to my point. In regard to

Transoniq Hacker not being included with

new products -it sucks. It stinks. Including

an issue with new products is by far the best

advertising your magazine, your adver-

tisers, and Ensoniq could ever ask for.

Sincerely,

Mark Schaefer

Pico Rivera, CA

{TH -We appreciate your springing to our

defense (and we *were* more than a little

concerned at first), but actually, from the

business end of things, it's starting to look

more and more like it really hasn't affected

things all that much. Not to worry.]

[Ensoniq -We still support the Hacker

(that's why you're getting a response), and

as loyal Ensoniq owners and Hacker

readers you still have a chance to be heard

by us, get your questions answered and

learn new tips, tricks and support products

for the instrument you purchased. S(lunds

like a good thing to us, and we want to keep

it that way. Whether we pack an issue or a

flyer, the support goes on, and the Hacker

goes on.]

Hello TH,

I just wanted to mention two things that

have been a constant source of problems in

my three to four years of working with the

EPS and EPS.16 PLUS.

First, when working on a sequence the GO

TO locator always resets itself to 1 after

you have started recording/overdubbing.

This doesn't help, especially when you are

punching in and trying several times to get

a part right. You make your attempt and

then reject what you played and want to try

again. You hit CANCEL-=OLD, and then

you have to start again (which is usually

deep in the sequence). Big pain. Why not

just leave the GO TO where it is, until you

leave that sequence and move to another?

Ensoniq software engineers -how about it?

Second, (and the biggest pain for me), why

isn't the SONG LOOP = ON or OFF pro-

grammable as part of the stored SONG in-

formation? I'm sure this was an oversight in

OS design. I should mention that it is not

programmable on the 16 PLUS at all, and

on the original EPS you can do it via a trick

(program the last sequence in the SONG to

LOOP = OFF,turn SONG LOOP = OFF,

and save to disk).

EPS

EPS-M

EPS-16 PLUS

MASOS

MIRAGE

ESQ

ESQ-M

SO-SO

Current Ensonlq 0.5.

2.49 VFX

2.49 VFX-SD

1.1 SQ-1

2.0 SQ-R

3.2 SQ-1 PLUS

3.5 SQ-2

1.2 SD-1

1.S

Thefunny thingaboutthis seeminglyminor

oversight is how much it affects a touring

musician using the EPS-16 PLUS to play

SONGS every night. Every time I boot up, I

go over to the SONG page, and turn the

LOOP = OFF. Sometimes I forget, or I have

to reboot later or during the show (cause it

crashed - grrr...),andit defaultsto LOOP=

ON, Suddenly my SONGS start over, and I

have to embarrassingly stride over and turn

the sequencer off. I can't tell you how many

times this happens. It's a constant pain. Can

anyone relate?

Now, Ensoniq, why is this so hard to fix?

Why is it that we have to wait one and a

half to two years for an OS update that fixes

everything, instead of an update that fixes at

least some of the problems while you work

on the understandably harder problems?

You left all the people who wanted to use

the original EPS with a computer sequencer

controlling the patch selects out in the cold

for two years after the EPS came out, just

because of an extremely minor OS glitch,

where you represented the 00 patch as 1 in-

stead of O.Is it not true that only a very few

people work on the EPS OS, so that the

software language is made consistent?

Seems like a 1 to 0 type of fix would take

maybe a day or so.

I know you are working on future products.

Great! I'll probably buy some. But please,

please! don't forget us owners! Please

support us -we have a hard enough time

making dough and being tempermental

musicians/artists who work only with the

left sides of our brains. Let's see some OS

2.1

2.1

1.01

1.02

1.1

1.2

3.00

Tested and Approved Hard Drives for the EPSs

The drives listed below are known to be compatible with the EPS and

EPS-16 PLUS at the time of testing. Changes in firmware or hardware by

drive manufacturers may make later versions incompatible (with the ex-

ception of PS Systems, Eltekon, and Frontera whose drives are con-

figured to work specifically with Ensoniq products). Drives not included on

this list may also work just fine. For up-to-date information about specific

drives call Ensoniq Customer Service: 215-647-3930.

MANUFACTURER

Dynatek

Frontera

PS Systems

Eltekon

Rodime

Microtech

PL1

Mass Micro

BACK ISSUES

Back issues are $2.50 each. (Overseas: $3 each.) Issues 1- 9,11,13 -

23, rt, 29, 30, 35 - 38,68,69, and 70 are no longer available. Subscrip-

tions will be extended an equal number of issues for any issues ordered

that are not available at the time we receive your order. ESQ-l coverage

started with Issue Number 13. SQ-80 coverage started with Number 29,

(although most ESQ-I coverage also applies to the SQ-80). EPS

coverage started with Number 30. (But didn't really get going till Num-

ber 35.) VFX coverage got started in Number 48. Permission has been

given to photocopy issues that we no longer have available -check the

classifieds for people offering them. Reprints in our "Quick and Dirty

Reprint Series" are available: Mirage Operations, for $5, and Mirage

Sample Reviews for $4. Each contains material from the first 17 issues.

MODEL

All Models

All Models

All Models

All Models

45plus, 60plus, 100plus, 140plus

R45,N20,N40, NSO,N100, N150

45 Meg Removable

Datapack 45

Drives Reported to Work by Readers

The following drives have been reported to work satisfactorily with

reader's EPS systems. No guarantees - but they'll probably work with

yours. Try to try before you buy.

Jasmine Direct Drive 100

PowerDrive44

Syquest 555 (removable)

Quantum 100M, 210M

Seagate SOM

Tech Data Model60e

30

updates. Your machine doesn't work cor-

rectly yet. I am dying for the LOAD FILE

EVENT option, too!

Happy Hackingl

Garth Hjelte

Rubber Chicken Software

On the road in Chicago, IL

{CS -As far as the GO TO thing goes, refer

to Ensoniq's response below.

And you're right about the Song loopfunc-

tion not being programmable. I use the

EPS-16 PLUS for live performance, with

many songs stored as individual sequences

to a hard drive, so I've never used the song

loopfunction in the same way you do. But 1

can see where you'd like to be able to save

its status along with the song, or at least to

save its default status when saving global

parameters. Oh well- maybe next rev.]

{Ensoniq -On units we've tested it on, the

Go To function works fine, it stays at the

last selected Bar no matter how many times

we re-tried a recording pass (either Replace

or Add mode). Have you used the Go To, hit

Stop/Continue to start playing at that

selected bar, and then entered overdub by

pressing Record? We can't find a problem,

give us a call to go over it if this problem

persists for you. Maybe you're doing some-

thing different than we are.

As far as updates are concerned, what may

seem like a simple fix in software code can

have an effect on other functions that you

never imagined. That's why we must test

every change we make thoroughly. You just

go in to switch that 0 to a 1 and find that a

disk doesn't load anymore (this is just a

hypothetical example, please don't write

in!) so we don't rush OS changes to market

without being sure they are as bug free as

possible. OS 1.2 for the EPS-16 PWS will

be out shortly. We know you want it now,

but we must be sure it's right.]

TH,

Can any of you guys tell me what "Error

144" means on my EPS.16 PLUS rack?

How about "Error 056"? My MIDI leads are

okay and there is no loop.

Kervin Joseph

Denmark

{Ensoniq -Error 144 means that too much

data was sent to the unit -in your situation,

probably too much MIDI data. You might

try taming your controllers, or thinning out

the MIDI data stream wherever possible.]

HACKER BOOTEEQ

VFX,VFX-sd,SD-l owners-

60 sounds, 20 presets, 3 demos,

docwnentation. 'Three volumes.

$40 each. Any two: $75. All three: $110.

SQ-l, 2, R, Plus owners-

Volume I: 80 sounds & documentation.

Disks: $50.

LATTER SOUND

PRODUCTIONS

2617 Ridgeway St.

Tallahassee, FL 32310-5169

(904) 575-5561

Florida residents add sales tax

ALL DIGITAL SAMPLES

We offer the only 16 bit computer

synthesized samples available for

your EPS or EPS16+."A great idea,

and some great sounds...veryclean...

wildly exotic." -Jim Aikin, Keyboard

July/91. Get a demo disk with seven

complete instruments for $6.00, or

write for our catalog.

FIRST GENERATION

P.o. Box 748

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EPSSAMPLES

AI".I'or: 5-550,5-330, W-30, and Mac, ISp,'dfyl

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iil1itmfiBIltlj

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lifRTtJ/.IA~--

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Read/Write/Format Ensonlq Disks on

IBM-PC's with our Ensoniq Diskette

Manager(EDM)software($22).

Transfer Sequences to and fromStandard

MidiFlies. Each package (VFXSMFfor

VFX-SDand SD-1 or EPSSMF for EPS

and EPS-16+) includes EDMand only

costs $44.

Convert SQ-SO sequences and songs to

VFX-SD or SMF with our SQSOVFX soft-

ware ($44).

Giebler Enterprises

8038 Morgan Road

Liverpool, NY 13090

(315) 652-5741

.HOUID BUYinG.AmPII.

BIIXPln.IYI?

We're N,O,T. like Ibat. You shouldn'thave10worry

aboot !he price at all. A vasl libmy of affordabl.

samples is whal we've always been about. JUSI send

os a postcard or letter asking for !he IntroPack and

we1! take care of !he rest. We spend !he time organiz-

ing a libmy for !he EPS so yoo can spend your time

making music,

AB.OIUTIIY D.Oe T.

NEANDERTHAL ORGANIZATION TECHNIQUES

PO Box 12.18

Hillsboro, OR 97123

SJEVJEJRJE SOUNDS

16+

From the company that pushes memory

efficiency to the extreme. Write or call

for our all new catalog of sounds

developed for the EPS-16 PLUS.

SEVERE SOUNDS

P.O.Box 14250, Austin, TX 78761

(512) 388-3808

--

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BULK RATE

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PORTLAND, OR

PERMIT NO. 11

TRANSONIQ HACKER

1402 SW UPLAND DR., PORTLAND, OR 97221, (503) 227-6848

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED SUBSCRIPTION MATERIAL

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