VFX/Transoniq Hacker Volume 1

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Transoniq Hacker (usa) soundbank - Volume 1

Here is a 32 VFX patches soundbank gathering all the sounds published in the Transoniq Hacker issue (american independent news magazine for Ensoniq users) during the 1990-92 years. Most of them are readers' creations. I carefully programmed all of them manually with scanned documents extracted from the original issues.

Bank 0	TROMBONE	FLUTE-VOICE	*ALL WAVORG**	FESTIVAL	STEELBITE	BIG THICK
Bank 1	CLAVMATIC	BRASS GAS	K. EMERSON	SAMS PIANO	ULTIMABASS	1999
Bank 2	SINGIN.PNO	ATLANTIS	HAREM BAND	LEGION	TRANS-AM	REALSTRINGS
Bank 3	MONKEYORG*	D HEAVENS	THX BRASS	BANG THIS 2	STAR-TREK-1	FIREBIRD
Bank 4	WHEELSTEREO	BANG IT	BABY-BABY	RHODES TINE	TARKUS	HAMMOND C3
Bank 5	LEANFLUTE	TREMSTRINGS
Bank 6
Bank 7
Bank 8
Bank 9

Comments (as published in the original issues):

Bank 0-1: TROMBONE Sam S. Mims, Syntaur Productions (n°55 - January 1990)
I created this patch from the factory SOLO TRUMPET. TROMBONE uses the TRUMPET sample waveform, but I essentially lowered the sample by modulating it downward in pitch via ENV1; this bypasses the multisample split points and gives the sound of a larger and lower instrument. The tuning parameters were then used to get the correct pitch back. Voice 2 is the main component here, and is the only one used for the solo trombone. Voice 3 is used as the right patch select, and gives a "scooped" attack to the note, characteristic of trombone playing; this is done with ENV1, which is still lowering the sample as well. Finally, Voice 5 is used as a solo trumpet (left patch select button). It is not a monophonic sound,like the factory trumpet. By pressing both patch select buttons, you can play the trumpet and trombone together, an octave apart.
Bank 0-2: FLUTE-VOICE Sam S. Mims, Syntaur Productions (n°56 - February 1990)
This patch is a melding of flute and voice sounds, to give a smooth breathy pad. Pressing the left patch solo button gives a solo flute, an octave higher than the main sound. Pressing both patch select buttons combines the original vocal sound with this higher flute, creating more of a flute/voice layered sound instead of a blend of the two. The right patch select button combines voices 1 and 2, which are both vocal pads, and which are very slightly detuned from each other. The result is a flanging effect, which works very nicely with the breathy vocal sound. No fancy programming tricks were used here - jsut the tasteful combination of some relatively basic patches. And other combinations work well, too; try changing the VOCAL-PAD waveforms to VOX-OOOHS, MARIMBA. KALIMBA, ANVIL-LP and the SYNCHRO-X transwave for added pleasure.
Bank 0-3: ALL WAV*ORG Bradley Kaufman, Fair Lawn, NJ (n°57 - March 1990)
I spent $2000 to get a great organ sound! The ALL-WAVES organs (numbers 112 and 103) are brighter and fuller than their WAVEFORMS counterparts. The MARIMBA wave adds a percussion sound to the fifth. Timbre controls a half-baked filter sweep. The best feature is the detuning caused by the mod wheel which tunes the two "main" sounds in opposite directions to fatten the sound. The ENV3 release values of 06* removed a click caused by releasing the keys; the RESONANT1 sound still clicks anyway, but adds character to the 0* patch select. Pressure controls the roto-speaker rate. Keyboard scaling seems important in making the bass end sound halfway decent on this keyboard.
Comments by Sam Mims: I'm surprised at how much I like the Leslie effect controlled by key pressure - it really allows another degree of expressiveness. The marimba layer here is a nice touch as well, adding in a percussive attack. The mod whell detuning doesn't have any effect in the 00 patch select, other than slighlty raising the pitch, and it seems to heavy on other patches; I tweaked these simply by changing MODAMT on the PITCH MOD page to -12 for voice 4 (ORGAN-V.3) and to +06 for voice 2 (ALLWAVES). Other than that, I like this organ a lot; it's got tons of character, and a good supply of punch.
Bank 0-4: FESTIVAL   Sam S. Mims, Syntaur Productions (n°59 - May 1990)
FESTIVAL began as a flute sound with a metallic attack; I needed a flute that would really cut through a rock-band, and this one seems to do it. Because the usable range left a lot of space on the bottom range of the keyboard, I threw in a tambourine and a handbell sound, with some festival from the Middle Ages in mind. I took a string patch as well, and used that as a patch select. Other patch select removes the flute attack, and layer the flute and strings. The strings are routed to the FX2 bus for reverb only, while the woodflute is routed to FX1 for reverb and chorus.
Bobby Blues note: as I own a VFX non-SD model, I replace the Wave 1 "TAMBORINE" by "RACK-BELL"
Bank 0-5: STEELBITE Jim Johnson (n°60 - June 1990)
Voice 1 provides the basic STEELDRUM waveform, with no filtering or detuning, and a plausible amplitude envelope (the ENV1 modulation of pitch provides a littel subliminal interest to the attack). Voice 2 is set to produce a very short INHARMONIC wave, which produces a sort of buzzy, metallic click. The high pass filter (FILTER 2) removes the fundamental of the TUBULAR-L sound, making it less bell-like. The result is something that sounds a bit like the metal buzz in a lower-quality steeldrum, and which blends well with the straight sample.
Bank 0-6: BIG THICK Jim Johnson (n°60 - June 1990)
Voice 1 uses the DOCTOR-X transwave to provide the meat of the sound, and the second uses KAGONG to provide a short chiff on the attack. The third component brings in a rather pure tone tuned to the harmonic, a few seconds after the initial attack. The envelopes are used to vary the levels of the three components as the note evolves. The settings of ENV3 for the first two components are designed to bring the chiff component's level down as the transwave is brought up.
Bank 1-1: CLAVMATIC Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°61 - July 1990)
Select 00 has CLAV-WAVE & CLAV-VAR velocity cross-faded; key pressure brings in OMEGA-X wave. 0* has the same clav sound with added sine wave for thicker sound; *0 is a clavpiano with flange & delay; pressure brings in the PULSE.1-X transwave. ** is the same flanged clavpiano & delay, with added sinewave; pressure brings in both OMEGA-X & PULSE.1-X.
Comments by Sam Mims: This one is big 'n beefy. The fade-in of other sounds with key pressure is a nice touch, though they seem to come in a bit loud for me. I therefore changed the OUTPUT VOL of voices 2 and 6 to 50 for a more subtle effect. The key pressure also modulates the transwaves themselves, giving the sound a great deal of timbral modulation. Note that with the 0* patch select, only the aftertouch effect is echoed (by routing it to FX1). Pretty cool.
Bank 1-2: BRASS GAS Bradley Kaufman, Fair Lawn, NJ (n°62 - August 1990)
Here is a simulation of a live brass ensemble. Realism is enhanced by NOISE modulation of voices 3, 4 and 5 in the PITCH MODS section. LFOs modulate the pitch of saxophones, and the pitch and filter frequency of trumpets at different rates. Poly Key pressure makes each note distinct as in a live brass section. The mod wheel and timbre control mix the volume of sax/trumpets, affect the LFO rates, and more. Velocity opens the sax filter. Combine BRASS GAS with the VFX ROM sound BE-BOP BASS as a performance preset, split with the bass on the bottom part of the keyboard (change BRASS GAS timbre level to 99), for the ultimate swing sound!
Comments by Sam Mims: Here is a fun combination of sounds. It takes a bit of time to get familiar with what patch select/timbre combination solos which instrument, but it's nice to have the versatility. I prefered to make one of the patch selects play all five voices. The clarinet (voice 3) vibrato was not convincing to me; I sped it up (LFO RATE=30) and turned the LEVEL down to 15. I also sped the trumpet (voice 5) LFO RATE up to 27. By "scooping" into an occasional chord with the mod wheel, you can really get the swing feel of a big band.
Bank 1-3: K. EMERSON Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°63 - September 1990)
Here it is, folks - a genuine Hammond B3 organ imitation (a genuine imitation?). This patch has all the bite and character of the real thing; it sounds like Keith Emerson's B3 sound found on all of ELP's early albums. The most important part of this patch is the waveform delay applied to the main oscillators - they kick in slightly behind the percussive hit which is comprised of two sinewaves and noise, much like the real thing. This is most noticeable with staccato notes. The overdrive effect also helps, giving some bite and fattening it up a bit. This sound uses a lot of oscillators which limits polyphony, but it's really worth it. The patch select buttons choose variations of the basic organ sound. Also, the TIMBRE slider fades out the percussive hit. The mod wheel toggles the speed of the speaker rotation.
Comments by Sam Mims: Slammin! This is definitely an organ with punch, and the patch selects are all very useful. I have two minor suggestions. First of all, the voices are routed MEDium priority (on the third OUTPUT page); by rating some at LO priority - the NOISE-LP voice, for instance - you can cheat a bit more polyphony out of the patch with minimal adverse effects. Secondly, I hate having to send my left hand to the mod wheel to control the Leslie speed. By assigning MODSRC=PRESSURE on the second EFFECTS page, and MODE=SWITCH or CONTIN (whichever suits your playing type), the Leslie speed can be controlled from aftertouch for a much more expressive effect. The distortion adds an agressive growl to the sound, merely switch the effects type to ROTO-SPKR+DELAY, with the same parameter values.
Bank 1-4: SAMS PIANO   Sam S. Mims, Syntaur Productions (n°64 - October 1990)
This is an acoustic piano patch that I developed when I didn't find one I liked in the VFX factory programs. Several people who have heard it encouraged me to publish it, as they also felt the need for a better piano. The VFX piano samples have a very rich and wonderful lower range, but suffer in the upper register, and fare even worse in the middle of the keyboard. My approach was to make up a piano of two components, one which serverd the low end well (Voice 2), and a second component which added the necessary punch to the high end (Voice 5). An earlier version actually added a third component which helped out the midrange a bit, but this was later abandoned in the interest of greater polyphony, The trick to Voice 5's high end (it helps out in the mid as well) is raising the multisampled GRAND-PNO wave by modulating it upward with ENV1, so that it plays beyond the range of its normal split points. Another trick to getting the piano sound richer was adding a hint of chorusing. For slight detuning, add in a bit of the mod wheel. The 0* patch select simply drops the whole piano an octave. The *0 select plays a fairly standard electric piano sound, and the ** select combines acoustic and electric pianos.
Bank 1-5: ULTIMABASS Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°65 - November 1990)
I put four of the bass sounds I use the most into on program. Pre-gain is turned on in all voices to cut through the mix (who needs another wimpy bass sound?). Pressure brings in vibrato.
Comments by Sam Mims: There are enough basses here to get you to home plate. The effects add a lot to this sound, but I felt that the reverb was too long for a bass patch, so I turned the reverb decay time down to 33 for a cleaner sound. The *0 patch select packs a mighty punch, but again, I felt that the effects settings - in this case, the digital delay effect - would muddy the bass line during a song. My cure was to turn the delay time to 22; this left the slapback as part of the sound, but made it extremely short so that the sound has more of a double attack rather than an echo. If your music doesn't call for an upright bass (the 00 patch select), you might try changing the waveform of voice 6 to PICK-BASS.
Bank 1-6: 1999 George Benack,Bronx, NY (n°67 - January 1991)
This program is designed to simulate the synth used by Prince in the song 1999. I've added some percussive attack in the high end. It has a "zoom" in the lower register that can be removed by a patch selection. The mod wheel adds vibrato and filters out trebles
Comments by Sam Mims: The mod wheel actually adds highs to this patch rather than filtering them out, which is fine by me. But it doesn't really add a noticeable vibrato since the LFO parameter on the PITCH MOD pages is usually set to zero. Set these to +02 or so, and set the LEVEL parameters on the LFO pages to 20 or so for a bit more action. I preferred to change the WHEEL and WHEEL+PRESSURE values on the LFO pages to PRESSURE, so that key pressure controlled vibrato independently of the mod wheel's filter work.
The glide ("zoom") effect of Voice 4 is interesting for the bass notes, but is more of a special effect rather than something that should be there all the time. I therefore removed it from the 00 patch select (use Voices 3, 5 and 6 only). Another alternative is to simply switch the GLIDE of Voice 4 to NONE; this leaves the extra punch of the sax waveform without the glide effect.
The POTLID-HIT is a nice addition to the sound, in that it really helps to define the attack. But a little goes a long way here, and I felt it was a bit too loud in the sound. Turning the OUTPUT VOLUME of Voice 6 down to 60 did it for me.
Bank 2-1: SINGIN.PNO Brad Kaufman, Fair Lawn, NJ (n°69 - March 1991)
Here is another patch from the Fair Lawn Patch Farm. Enjoy!
Comments by Sam Mims: SINGIN.PNO is a nice collection of electric piano hybrids; the sounds aren't quite real electric pianos, but they are smooth and very pleasing. Note that key pressure adds in some subtle tinkling high frequencies to the 00 patch select that sound almost like breaking glass. What sounds like a slow square wave LFO modulating the filter is really the VOCAL-X transwave being shifted around by the mod mixer. This was a bit too noticeable for my ears, so for Voices 1 and 4, I changed SRC-2 of the MOD MIXER to PITCH, then cut the MODAMT on the WAVE page back to -50. The final result is more of a smooth phasing. The waveforms of Voices 3 and 6 can be changed for different attack transients (with the 0* and the *0 patch selects). My favorite was swapping PNO-PING for VOCALPERC, but many of the Percussion and Tuned Percussion waves work well here also.
Bank 2-2: ATLANTIS   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°70 - April 1991)
Here are vocal pads for all occasions.
Comments by Sam Mims: This program really demonstrates the sonic motion that is capable with the VFX. In this one patch, each voice has motion from dynamic stereo panning, from the flanging of the effect section (try setting MIN to 70 on the second effects page for even more), from modulators of the pitch, and from the sweeping of the transwave waveforms. The result is that no matter how long you sustain a note, it never gets static or boring. I thought Voice 5 should have been tuned up an octave - it mushes up the bottom half on the keyboard when the ** patch select is used - so I set OCT to 0 on the PITCH page. The transwaves give ATLANTIS most of its unique character, as they are modulated to give a constantly changing timbre. It's very easy to get a multitude of new VFX-ish pads by simply substituting other transwaves in these voices. Solo voice 2, for instance (by double clicking on VOCAL-X on the select VOICE page), go to the WAVE page, and scroll through all the transwaves until you find some you like. My favorites were the metallic DIGITAL-X, INHARM-X, SYNCHRO-X, FORMANT-X, ELECTRO-X and RESONANT-2, but several others work well also. Mix and match voices, and you've got a bevy of new sounds.
Bank 2-3: HAREM BAND   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°71 - May 1991)
HAREM BAND is part of the exotic collection from Latter Sound. The patch selects control timbre, octave and the effect of the processor. The mod wheel controls the rest of the band. While playing around a pentatonic scale (or use just black keys) in 4/4 time, move the mod wheel forward on counts 1 and 3 and back on 2 and 4. You will hear the hand drum while the wheel is moving forward and the whip when it is moved back. The faster you move the wheel, the more noticeable the effect.
Comments by Sam Mims: This is probably the most exotic use of the mod wheel I've seen. The motion of th wheel is actually used to produce a component of the sound. Surprisingly enough, it uses the effects processor to do this. Clav and fretless bass waveforms are combined for a middle-eastern sounding string instrument. Then, the sound is routed through a Flanger+Reverb effect, where the mod wheel controls the notch frequencies of the flanger in real time. Changing this quickly in opposite directions drives the processor bananas, and the result is the hand drum and the whip sounds. Pretty clever, though it requires an interesting playing technique... Note that the effects processor does not produce any sound on its own; it merely changes the existing sound so the drum and whip will not be heard unless a note is being played. But since these "extra" sounds are an artifact of the effects settings, they can be used on any of your favorite patches merely by copying the HAREM BAND's effects parameters to the other patch. Kinda neat! I didn't change much of anything on this patch. Instead, I played around with performance techniques. To emphasize certain notes in a melody (forget about the mod wheel for now), try flipping the pitch wheel fully forward on the attack of a note, then let it immediately bouce back. The bend range should be set to 02 (Master page), and the whole bend should take about half a second. This gives a very exotic flavor to the sound.
Bank 2-4: LEGION   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°72 - June 1991)
I did this one because I needed a tubular bell sound (patch select **). Since there were three patch selects left over, I did three more sounds.
Comments by Sam Mims: LEGON is a nice collection of four unrelated sounds. The 00 patch select is a rich plucked synth sound, almost guitar-like; 0* is a nice vocal pad; *0 is a bright synth brass; and ** is, as Kirk mentioned, the tubular bell sound. The effect of the pitch whell on the vocal pad is very nice - it modulates the filters to thin out the sound and make it very airy. I found that this pad had a more natural attack if the initial level of ENV3 was set to a value higher than zero, so I changed INITIAL to 50 on Voices 3 and 4. The attack of the brass sound was a bit harsh for me as well, due to the pitch "blip" created with ENV1, used as a modulator on the Pitch Mod page. So, for Voices 2 and 6, I set the ENV1 values on the Pitch Mod pages to +12 and -12 respectively. The pitch wheel effect is interesting on this patch select, affecting one oscillator but not the other. And on the normal patch select (00), the pitch wheel is used to sweep the transwave through its various timbres. Downright nice!
Bank 2-5: TRANS-AM   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°74 - August 1991)
TRANS-AM uses nothing but transwaves to create foru different sounds. With the 00 patch select, use the mod wheel to bring in more of the bell sound. With the 0* patch select, use the sustain pedal to bring in the glide (portamento). Key pressure modulates most of these transwaves, via the mod mixer.
Comments by Sam Mims: This is one of those sounds that really shows the character of the VFX. It is BIG, expressive, and the timbre can be moved all over the place as a note is sustained. I found the bell components of the 00 and ** patch selects to be a bit loud, and I wanted their volumes to be velocity controllable. Changing the VEL-LEV of ENV3 to 35, on voices 1 and 4, did the trick easily. The only other thing I could think of to do with this patch was to start playing some music...
Bank 2-6: REALSTRINGS   Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°75 - September 1991)
This is an example from my collection of 60 patches that I offer. It is a full string section. A light touch yields a slow attack. Playing with a heavier touch gives a responsive fast string attack that is very useable and realistic. The STRINGS wave has three multisample stretched across the keyboard. The middle sample is kind of weak, while the high sample is quite good. In particular, it has a very good attack. Therefore, I stretched the high sample down way below the original split-point. The left patch select cancels two oscillators for more polyphony and a thinner sound. The Timbre slider sweeps the filter cutoff frequency, muffling the sound.
Comments by Sam Mims: Very nice! I prefer controlling the brightness with the mod wheel rather than the data (Timbre) slider, since it's easier to reach and not doing much anyway. To do this, change all the TIMBREs (FILTER 2 pages) to WHEEL, and change the MOD SRC of the LFO (voices 3 and 6) to PRESS. It's easy to get new pad sounds by clicking the SELECT VOICE button, calling up the WAVE page, and selecting different waveforms. (The SELECT VOICE double-click puts the VFX into Group Edit mode, where paramater changes affect all voices simultaneously). My favorite alternate waveforms were CLAVPIANO, GTR-HARMO, EL-GUITAR, FRENCHORN, CHIFFLUTE, VOCAL-PAD, DPNO-TINE and BUBBAWAVE.
Bank 3-1: MONKEYORG*   Brad Kaufman, Fair Lawn, NJ (n°76 - October 1991)
This organ sound has a good low frequency response and a roto-speaker effect activated by pressure.
Comments by Sam Mims: This is a beautiful "airy" organ sound that would work well for simulations of old-time merry-go-rounds and that sort of thing. But I think it could work nicely in contemporary tunes as well - it has a sort of "something old, something new" feel to it. It's interesting that the Leslie effect is done not ROTO-SPKR algorithm, but with a CHORUS+REVERB setting in which pressure controls the chorus depth, combined with a pressure-controlled LFO vibrato. I like the organ sound as is, but you may want to convert into more of a pad-type patch. To do this, set the VEL-LEV parameter on the last ENV3 page (for all voices) to 25 or so; this gives velocity control over the loudness of the sound. Then, set the ENV3 RELEASE times to about 42 to smooth out the end of the sound.
Bank 3-2: D HEAVENS   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°77 - November 1991)
D HEAVENS is one of the ethereal sounds from Latter Sound's Volume I collection. Moving the mod wheel forward brightens the sound. Play a chord and sustain it, then press patch select *0 and repeat the chord: you will hear the horns come in nicely.
Comments by Sam Mims: This patch sounds great for doing soundtrack work. I found the initial attack of the notes to wiggle a big too much in pitch, so for voices 1 and 3, I turned the LFO amounts (Pitch Mod Page) to -1 and +1 respectively. The other voices work fine once these are toned down a bit. The other thing I did was sacrifice the 0* patch select - barely distinguishable from the 00 patch - for a setting that plays only voice 2. This is a beautifully haunting sound using the Marimba waveform, yet enveloped to sound like a crystal wine glass being rubbed. Thanks to Latter Sound for releasing the patch to public domain.
Bank 3-3: THX BRASS   Sam S. Mims, Syntaur Productions (n°78 - December 1991)
THX BRASS is the sound that you hear in the movie theatres just before the feature presentation, to let you know that the theatre is equipped with the THX sound system. It's an analog brass patch, actually, where four oscillators slide into pitch from different directions. To get the effect, play an open fifths chord voiced (from the bottom note of the keyboard up): C, C, C, G, C. The patch is great for doing effects and things; we use it in our band's stage intro.
Comments by Sam Mims: This sound swells in slowly, and it would be simple to remove this swell effect, then reinstall it with mod wheel control. Removal: set the initial level of ENV3 (voices 1, 2, 3 and 5) to 99. Reinstallation: on the Output page (same voices), set MODSRC=WHEEL, and MODAMT=+99. Note that the 0* patch select gives you a normal analog brass sound (the other patch selects do nothing). Other than that, you're stuck making THX sounds with this one. Remember: the audience is listening.
Bank 3-4: BANG THIS 2   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°79 - January 1992)
This is a collection of loud, raunchy, electronic lead solo voices set up to play monophonically. The mod wheel modulates the pitch in voices 2 and 3, and also varies the effect parameters.
Comments by Sam Mims: This are definitely some rude lead sounds; they sound very industrial, and have no problem punching through a mix. I prefer to still have my lead patches polyphonic, though doing this to every voice here would eliminate the portamento effect. The answer is to perhaps change some - but not all - of the voices. Expermiment with what works best for your particular style. To make a voice polyphonic, go to the Pitch Mod page, and change the GLIDE parameter to NONE (I know that is about as non-intuitive as can be). I also wanted a more dramatic effect on these sounds, to complement their agressive nature. The factory settings of the DLY+FLANGE+REV3 worked well for me.
Bank 3-5: STAR-TREK-1   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°80 - February 1992)
This program has six sounds spread out across the keyboard, and is based on the SQ-80 article in the August 1990 issue. Some of the sounds are more realistic with the VFX waveforms. All of the real-time modulators and patch selects are disabled. Octave 1 plays two different background sounds, octave 2 plays a boatswain's whistle, octave 3 plays a red alert klaxon, octave 4 plays the main viewscreen sound, and octave 5 provides the sound of a spectro-analysis view.
Comments by Sam Mims: These are great effects sounds, even for non-Trekkies (or Trekkers) like myself. The boatswain's whistle seems to cut off somewhat abruptly, so I altered it to sustain as long as the note is held down. On Voice 3, change the ENV3 DECAY to 99, and change the envelope mode to NORMAL to accomplish this. You may also want to speed up the klaxon somewhat; do this by changing ENV1's DECAY to 45, and ENV3's DECAY to 28 on Voice 4. These two parameters are intertwined such that only certain combinations work correctly.
Bank 3-6: FIREBIRD   Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°81 - March 1992)
This 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 Suite. It is designed to be played by hitting four octaves at once (i.e., hit A2, A3, A4 and A5 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.
Comments by Sam Mims: 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! The only change I might suggest is to eliminate the sustain of Voice 1; 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 ENV3 to 00.
Bobby Blues note: as I own a VFX non-SD model, I replace the Wave 4 "RIM SNARE" by "SNAREDRUM"
Bank 4-1: WHEELSTEREO   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°82 - April 1992)
WHEELSTEREO is reminiscent of the reverberators you would connect to your stereo in the '70s. The left hand is an acoustic bass, while keyboard variations are played - via the patch selects - by the right hand. Just make sure your VFX is hooked up in stereo (or use headphones), and turn the modwheel all the way forward.
Comments by Sam Mims: I found the aftertouch on the string bass to be kind of weird - it unpredictably detunes the note you play, dut to the slow rate of the LFO (which is used here to modulate pitch). Instead, I set it to a slow vibrato (LFO RATE = 29 for Voice1) and toned down the depth of the effect by setting MODAMT = +25 on the Voice 1 Pitch Mod page. Secondly, I wanted to fatten up the upper keyboard sounds, which are completely dry, so I changed the DESTINATION BUS to FX1 (OUTPUT page, Voices 2 through 6). Then, change the effect to CHORUS+REVERB.2, and you're in business. If you want a bit more chorusing, bump up the CHORUS DEPTH (on the second Effects page) to 06.
Bank 4-2: BANG IT   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°83 - May 1992)
These are loud, raunchy, electronic keyboard sounds. Not for the squeamish!
Comments by Sam Mims: Steve's description says it all - you probably won't be using BANG IT in a new age band or at your next wedding gig. But if you're into alternative rock or industrial music, these are some interesting sounds. I particularly like these sounds played as a single note, or as octaves, at the bottom range of the keyboard. You can tone these down a bit by substituting waveforms. For example, try replacing the SPECTRL-X of Voice 6 with VOCAL-X for a more mellow *0 patch select. But then, why would you want to? Raunchy is the name of the game here, and that's exactly what BANG IT delivers.
Bank 4-3: BABY-BABY   Eric Olsen, Pegasus Sounds (n°84 - June 1992)
This sound is an example from my collection of 120 sounds that I offer. This is the bellsy synth sound used in Amy Grant's song "Baby, Baby".
Comments by Sam Mims: BABY-BABY works quite well for doing a cover version of this song. It gets into a little bit of trouble, though, when it is played much beyond the range of Amy's chord line. The problem is the sampled UNI-BRASS wave used in Voice 2 - it doesn't transpose very well without sounding nasty (solo that voice and play the top octave of the keyboard for a painful illustation). The solution is to change UNI-BRASS to SAWTOOTH, the adjust FILTER 2 to thin out the waveform; I set the CUTOFF to 085, and left the other parameters intact. The sawtooth waveform unfortunately doesn't have the nice motion that the sampled brass wave does; by detuning it a fair bit (set FINE = -10 on the PITCH page) you can create a chorusing that approximate this. At this point, the patch plays pretty well except in the top octave-and-a-half, so I dropped the OCTAVE of all three voices one notch and got another octave of usable range on the bottom. The DOORBELL wave stil freaks out on the top few notes, though. Setting LFO=00 on the PITCH MOD page cures the problem, but at the expense of a nice subtle animation in the sound; I preferred to leave it alone and just stay away from those few notes.
Bank 4-4: RHODES TINE   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°85 - July 1992)
Rhodes Tine is a straightforward Rhodes piano. You can add some bite to this sound with velocity. Since the essence of this patch is transwaves, full velocity causes some weird ringing - but I like it.
Comments by Sam Mims: Here's one to add to the piano bank. This patch is a bit more synthesized sounding than a real Rhodes, but it's nice. You can get closer to the real thing by changing the waveform of Voice 3. Try using the transwave ESQBELL-X for a nice round sound. It's also interesting using other attack waveforms here for different effects; my faves were MARIMBA, DOORBELL, PNO-PING and GTR-HARMO (with the Pitch Octave set to 0 or +1 for these last three). I also found an interesting but subtle variation by switching the Effects setting to the stock PHASER+REVERB.
Bank 4-5: TARKUS   Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°86 - August 1992)
MOD and PRESSURE add vibrato. *0 adds a fifth, 0* adds a fifth and a fourth, 00 thinner sound.
Bank 4-6: HAMMOND C3   Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°86 - August 1992)
Modwheel switches Leslie speed. Timbre controls percussion attack.
Bank 5-1: LEANFLUTE   Dara Jones, Dallas, TX (n°87 - September 1992)
An all-occasion flute for all you polyphony misers out there.
Comments by Sam Mims: This quite a handy collection of flute sounds, a different one on each patch select. The aftertouch vibrato is very nice; there are very musical and expressive patches. I didn't want to change the sounds a bit. But I did fix one thing that seems like a simple oversight (TH - a last minute note from Dara also mentions and corrects this same glitch). On Voices 1 and 2, the VELOCITY THRESHOLD (third Output page) is programmed higher than zero, meaning that when a note is struck softly, the patch does not play. This is a useful feature for doing velocity crossfades between sounds, but not here. Set them to zero, and you can play at any level you like.
Bank 5-2: TREMSTRINGS   Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°88 - October 1992)
This is an example from my collection of 60 patches that I offer. It is a full string section playing tremolo, a technique where the bow is moved very quickly back and forth across the strings. I've tried to capture the the bright scratchy sound created by this technique. Try some chords around the lower middle of the keyboard. The left patch select cancels two oscillators for more polyphony but a thinner sound. Also, the TIMBRE slider sweeps the filter cutoff frequency, muffling the sound.
Comments by Sam Mims: I love the motion of this patch; you can play whole notes and still have excitement. There were two things that my ears wanted to hear differently. First of all, the decay sounded unnaturally long and a bit too swimmy. So I changed the FX1 setting of the reverb mix to 50 (on the first Effects page), and this helped a lot. Voices 3 and 6 still held on a bit too long for me; after all why simulate a reverb decay when you have the real thing? So I shortened the RELEASE time of ENV3 to 17* on both these voices. My final edit was to the pitch of Voices 1, 2, 4 and 5. These all sounded way too sharp, so I decreased the FINE value on their pitch pages by 5. A finyl quick suggestion might to be to program the mod wheel to control the volume (on the Output pages) negatively, so that sforzando chords could be played in this manner.