VFX/Transoniq Hacker Volume 2

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Transoniq Hacker (usa) soundbank - Volume 2

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 1992-96 years. Most of them are readers' creations. I carefully programmed all of them manually with scanned documents extracted from the original issues.

Bank 0	CATHEDRAL	PIPE ORGAN	MEGA-SYNTH	INST-OCT	*SAMSPIANO**	GOODOLDAYS
Bank 1	WIND	QUEST	LFO/VELCTY	SWEEPER	GHOSTS	VOXC 16+8+4
Bank 2	VOXC IV MIX	VOXSC16+8+4	VOXSC2+3MIX	POTS-N-PANS	KEY-UP VFX	SEM-BASS
Bank 3	CLAVINET D6	SYNBASS+STR	EQCLV-ECHO	TWILIGHT ZN	*CHORUSB3**	THE UNKNOWN
Bank 4	VIBRASLAP	VOLUMECURVE	THROWOUT	*ANALOG2**	BY-THE-SEA	LARGE-SOUND
Bank 5	CHURCHBELLS	VOX-JAGUAR
Bank 6
Bank 7
Bank 8
Bank 9

Comments (as published in the original issues):

Bank 0-1: CATHEDRAL   Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°90 - December 1992)
(*0) selects subdued timbre. (0*) selects single flute sound. (**) selects thinner sound. TIMBRE slider fades sound.
Bank 0-2: PIPE ORGAN   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°91 - January 1993)
Comments by Sam Mims: This is a great patch with some nice bottom and rumble, some wailing pipes, and a beautiful cathedral reverb effect. It was a challenge to find anything to hack! My only real suggestion is to change the ** patch select. The woodwind sound alone didn't do much for me. I like the idea, though, of having a sparse sound to contrast the big 00 patch select. My favorite choice was the pipe organ sound of Voice 6; the organ of Voice 3 is also nice, especially in the lower register. Adjust the Decay parameter on the first Effects page if you need to change the "size" of your cathedral, and let the pipes sing!
Bank 0-3: MEGA-SYNTH   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°92 - February 1993)
This is a collection of traditional analog synth sounds. The mod wheel controls the delay time of the effects. For an aptional mono lead sound, on Voices 1 and 3, change GLIDE on the Pitch page to MONO.
Comments by Sam Mims: Steve's patches remind me of the Oberheim analog synths. They are fat, punchy, and biting. The main patch select actually uses the mod wheel to close down the filter. On patches *0 and 0* the delay time is controlled by the wheel, which makes the sound bizarro if the wheel is moved by playing. Good or bad, depending on how you look at it. If you fall in the latter category, change MODSRC to *OFF* on the third Effects page, and MODSRC to WHEEL on the first LFO page of Voices 1,2,3 and 6. This adds a mod wheel vibrato; crank down the LFO rate on these voices if it is too fast. Changing Voices 1 and 3 to a mono portamento sound is nice, but the attack was a bit slow for lead work. Snug up the ATTACK time (second ENV3 page) on these voices to 07 or so, and see if that works for you. You might also raise the INITIAL value a bit.
Bank 0-4: INST-OCT   James Samp,Fond du Lac, WI (n°93 - March 1993)
I programmed this patch to satisfy my peculiar desire to jump an octave while keeping my finger on the same key. Unlike most programs which bend the pitch up, applying pressure to any key will instantly raise the pitch one octave, hence the title "Instant Octave". Polykey pressure enables you to play six-note arpeggios with a simple triad, though it takes a while to learn to do this smoothly. 0* gives a somewhat caustic lead sound with a truly unique aftertouch. *0 is a common Minimoog sound, but pressure stair-steps the note downward one octave; this could be used to simulate fast woodwind lines. With very slow pressure modulation, ** will bring you bagpipes from space. I love the polykey chords on this one!
Comments by Sam Mims: It's nice to see some unique uses of controllers, for a change. James has done some clever programming here. The patch was a bit too swimmy for me overall, so I first tried turning the reverb DECAY time down. What worked much better, though, was to turn the FX1 MIX to 20; the reverb is still long, but much less obtrusive. Another useful tweak would be to adjust the tuning of the overall patch; all voices except Voice 6 are tuned 10 notches sharp. Detuning voices in opposite directions (i.e. +07 and -07, for instance) fattens the patch up while keeping it centered on A440. Finally, the ** patch is interesting, but when I muted Voice 5 and layered the patch with another keyboard, I really had some fun. The brass swell was great, but the stereo aftertouch effect knocked my socks off!
Bank 0-5: SAMS*PIANO   Sam S. Mims, Syntaur Productions (n°94 - April 1993)
Here is an acoustic piano patch that will hopefully satisfy the pending Hacker Request for "a piano patch better than the standard Classic Piano". It is a modification of SAMS PIANO, which was published in Isuue #64, but which had several typos that had quite an adverse effect on the sound. The patch uses the standard VFX piano waveform, but does some pitch shifting (via ENV1) in Voices 3 and 4 to slide beyond the normal split points of the multisample. I think you'll like the result. The 0* patch select gives an acoustic piano an octave lower, the *0 select gives an electric piano, and the ** patch select combines both grand and electric. The mod wheel turns the grand into an out-of-tune upright. I like this piano patch because it has the sustain that the SD-1 pianos seem to lack. I tried substituting the PIANO-16 waves from the SD-1 (or MEGA-PIANO VFX-SD) and still liked the original better. For the electric piano sound, however, the EPNO-SOFT and EPNO-HARD waves from the SD-1 work nicely replacing the DPNO-TINE of Voice 6. I also had fun replacing this waveform with CHIFFLUTE, OCARINA, VOX-OOOHS, MARIMBA, KALIMBA, SYN-PLUCK, PLINKHORN and 1+2 HARMS (all from the standard VFX). That should give you a pile of new sounds!
Bank 0-6: GOODOLDAYS   Bradley Kaufman, Fair Lawn, NJ (n°95 - May 1993)
Be sure to try aftertouch on this synth patch.
Comments by Sam Mims: This is a great sonic reminder of the Good Ol' Days of fat analog synth timbres. Dr. Brad uses a recipe of Sawtooth and Pulse transwaves for the meat of the sound, with a dash of Resonant transwave for that "Owwww" flavor in the bass. This is a split patch, with the resonant bass on bottom, and a punchy synth brass on top. Aftertouch adds vibrato. The ** patch select changes the patch on the upper split. I'd pipe these two voices (1 and 4) through the FX1 bus (Output page) like the 00 upper sound. The other two patch selects are silent, so let's give them a say by letting 0* play voices 1, 5, 3 and 6 and let *0 play voices 3, 4, 5 and 6. Since the modwheel isn't really doing anything, I'd change the LFO Level MODSRC to WL+PR (when I play analog synth pathces, it just feels natural to add vibrato with the modwheel...). Dr. Brad did a fine operation here, and I'd leave everything else alone - don't fix it if it ain't broken.
Bank 1-1: WIND   Bradley Kaufman, Fair Lawn, NJ (n°96 - June 1993)
In a recent edition of the Hacker, a writer to the Interface column wanted a VFX/SD-1 patch for the sound of blowing wind.
Bank 1-2: QUEST   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°97 - July 1993)
QUEST is one of those filmscape textures with lots of bell trills. Velocity controls the bell sweep. It is from Latter Sound's Vol.1 of VFX patches.
Comments by Sam Mims: I love this type of patch - one with lots of sonic diversity when even a single not is played. The wide-ranging tuning - the low BUBBAWAVE coupled with the high ESQBELL - makes QUEST a little weird at the extreme ends of the keyboard, but the wieth of the sound is worth the tradeoff. I found the bell (Voice 2) a bit too loud and too static, so I turned the Output Volume to 57, then added some LFO to the pitch (Pitch Mod page, LFO=+03). I tweaked the LFO RATE to 35 and the DELAY to 58. The static, rather extreme panning was the final rough slot for me. Since ENV1 is unused, I set it up with the Default SLOW LFO envelope (do this by going to the ENV1 page, then pressing Copy) to work some stereo motion on Voices 1 and 2. Put this into effect by going to the second Output page, setting the panning MODSRC to ENV1, and the MODAMT to +99 for Voice 1 and to -99 for Voice 2. Hit the Compare button and see what a great difference these subtle changes make.
Bank 1-3: LFO/VELCTY   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°98 - August 1993)
This is the sound effect that ushered in the computer age. Keep in mind that this patch is not finished sound, but only work patch that demonstrates the basic techniques (that's why no effects are applied on).
Bank 1-4: SWEEPER   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°99 - September 1993)
This patch is made up of all transwaves. As the name suggests, the transwaves are swept by envelopes, pressure and the mod wheel. ENV1 parameters can be used to pan Voices 2, 3 and 4 and to pitch modulate Voices 5 and 6.
Comments by Sam Mims: I like the ENV1 effects that Steve suggests, and I wonder why he didn't program them in. For the panning effects, set the PAN MODSRC (on the second Output page) to ENV1 on Voices 2, 3 and 4, and try a MODAMT of +99 for Voices 2 and 4, and -99 for Voice 3. For the pitch mod effect, I liked a subtle setting of ENV1=+03 on the Pitch Mod page of Voices 5 and 6. I thought the 3-octave tuning spread of the 00 patch select was a bit wide, so I changed OCTAVE to -1 on the Voice 3 Pitch page. The key-up sound of Voice 1 in the ** patch select is extremely cool. I just wanted to point out that you can throw that in with the other patch selects as well. Of course, you can simply enable Voice 1 for the other patches but you can also press and hold both patch select buttons while you're holding a note, and this will kick it in on the note release.
Bank 1-5: GHOSTS   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°101 - November 1993)
This is from Latter Sound's Volume 3 for the VFX. GHOSTS is my attempt to hang a few skeletons in the VFX's closet, and the name pretty much sums up the sound. Of course, moving the mod wheel forward then back adds a whole new dimension.
Comments by Sam Mims: If you are the audio portion of your family's Halloween festivities, then you'll definitely want to put these ghosts in your machine. The only thing that bothered me about them was that they settled down after a couple of seconds (after Envelope 1 completed its cycle of pitch modulation). The fix is simple; switch the MODE of ENV1 on Voices 1, 2, 3 and 6 to REPEAT, and the ghosts keep on howling. This introduces another artifact, though. The pitch now sweeps up rapidly when the key is released. Changing the RELEASE time of the same envelopes to 59 takes care of this. The mod wheel effect: very cool. It simultaneously drops the pitch (the WHEEL is the MOD SOURCE on the Pitch Mods page) and kick in the LFO (WHEEL modulates the Rate and Level on the LFO page).
Bank 1-6: VOXC 16+8+4   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°102 - December 1993)
VOX Continental 16', 8' and 4' voices.
Bank 2-1: VOXC IV MIX   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°102 - December 1993)
VOX Continental 4-rank mixture voice.
Bank 2-2: VOXSC16+8+4   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°103 - January 1994)
VOX Super Continental 16', 8' and 4' voices.
Bank 2-3: VOXSC2+3MIX   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°103 - January 1994)
VOX Super Continental 2-rank mixture and 3-rank mixture voices.
Bank 2-4: POTS-N-PANS   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°104 - February 1994)
Taking a page from Yamaha's 4-operator synths, here's a recreation of one of my favorite DX sounds. The pots 'n pans sound melodically cool. Of course, velocity is everything tho this patch.
Comments by Sam Mims: POTLID-HT has always been one of my favorite VFX waves, and Walt has made good use of it here. To get a vibrato in the sound, I changed the LFO to +07 on the Pitch Mod page of Voice 1 - but this only gives vibrato from key pressure. I wanted the wheel to add it too, so on the LFO page, I changed the LEVEL MODSRC to WL+PR, and set the RATE MODAMT to 0. If you want more upper notes and don't need the clangorous bottom range, change the Pitch OCTAVE to +1, or even +2; the high octaves are quite nice. For some free new patches, shift over to the Wave page and try SYN-PLUCK and PLINKHORN as waves. They both work most triumphantly.
Bank 2-5: KEY-UP VFX   Dara Jones, Dallas, TX (n°105 - March 1994)
Bank 2-6: SEM-BASS   Todd Speer, Syntaur Productions (n°106 - April 1994)
SEM-BASS, a patch from Syntaur's new VFX Set 2, is a set of bass sounds inspired by Oberheim's analog Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM). The sound is based on pulse-width modulation (PWM), which I emulated on the VFX by using the Transwave Pulse.1-X. The 0* patch select is a stereo-panned and detuned PWM bass that is accented by band-pass filtering as in the SEM. Move the mod wheel past the center and the oscillators suddenly switch to perfect tuning in octaves, panned to the center. Patch *0 is a wet resonant bass sound with PWM, and ** adds the SYNBASS-2 wave. Use the mod wheel to high-pass filter the SYNBASS wave for a wonderful noisy slap. Notice the tuning across the keyboard on this voice.
Comments by Sam Mims: Clever boy, that Todd. How can the tuning of Voice 6 act like a keyboard split? How can the mod wheel (0* patch) act like a switch, suddenly changing the tuning and intervals of the oscillators from one discrete value to another? The secret is in the Mod Mixer. In Voice 6, Todd used KEYBD as a modulator, then quantized it to create a step rather than a smooth range of values. Modulating the pitch with the mixer shifts the oscillator up an octave when it starts getting too low. A similar quantizing technique was used on the 0* patch, this time using the WHEEL as Mixer SRC-2. Wish I'd thought of that... Some people, particularly in the studio, prefer bass sounds to be completely dry. Even though the reverb decay time is set to 0 in this patch, the PRE-DELAY adds a slapback that you might need to pull off by setting it to 0. You could also pull the EARLY-REFL LEVEL to 0 while you're at it, but it sure adds a nice element to the sound wihtout sounding like an effect.
Bank 3-1: CLAVINET D6   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°107 - May 1994)
For maximum authenticity, set velocity response to "soft".
Bank 3-2: SYNBASS+STR   Dara Jones, Dallas, TX (n°108 - June 1994)
SYNBASS+STR is a split patch featuring a synth bass and strings. This patch has a nice percussive bass panned in stereo and chorused to give it a nice tight attack. The SYNTH-BEL wave is used to give the strings a subtle bite as well.
Comments by Sam Mims: What's a big bottom without a nice bit of wiggle to it? I wanted to be able to add a pinch of vibrato to the bass sound, so I restructured Dara's LFO on Voice 3. Try setting RATE=36, and the Level MODSRC=WL+PR; this allows the vibrato to kick in with either the mod wheel or key pressure. Also, the LFO WAVESHAPE should be set to TRIANGLE for a more natural wiggle. There is a slight problem on the Program Control page with the RESTRIKE parameter. When a note is struck twice rapidly, this parameter sets the release time to the first note. Set to such a high value (64), a rapid restriking of a key causes what sounds almost like a stuck note. For a better response, set this value to 42 or so. Since Dara used five of the six voices for the splits, she didn't program any patch selects. However, you might create some variations of the bass sound without Voices 1 and 2, and of the string sound without the synth-bell layer. I also went a step further, and made a sawtooth string wave to layer with the real strings, essentially by copying Dara's string voice, detuning it, setting the waveform to SAWTOOTH, and pulling the low-pass filter down until it blended well.
Bank 3-3: EQCLV-ECHO   Dara Jones, Dallas, TX (n°109 - July 1994)
Bank 3-4: TWILIGHT ZN   Walter Cooper, Latter Sound (n°109 - July 1994)
TWILIGHT ZN, from Latter Sound's Volume 3, is an attempt to recreate that solo Moog from ELP's Trilogy album. No VFX should be without it.
Comments by Sam Mims: Cool sound and it uses only one voice of polyphony! The Pulse Transwave was too tempting to leave unmodulated, though, so on the Waves page of Voice 4, I set the Mod Source to PEDAL, with a Mod Amound of +99. Now, pressing th CV pdeal sweeps through the transwaves - in this case, shifting from a square wave to a narrow pulse wave. For real authenticity (as opposed to fake authenticity?), you might want to axe the velocity response by setting VEL-LEV to 0 on the third Env 3 page of all voices. Also, changing the GLIDE setting to MINIMOD (?? - Bobby Blues note) on the Pitch Mod pages causes filter retriggering only on non-legato notes, another Minimoog characteristic. I wasn't crazy about Walt's choice of waveforms for the patch selects, so to keep in the Moog spirit, I changed them to basic synth waves. Setting the waveform of Voice 1 to SQUARE, for instance, makes the 0* patch select a smoother, fatter version of 00. Note that the transwave in 00 has a noticeable change in timbre between G#5 and A5; adding in the square wave smoothes this over.
Bank 3-5: CHORUS*B3   Roy Bertucci, Lafayette, LA (n°110 - August 1994)
This organ sounds good in mono and even better in stereo. It was modeled after Korg C2 portable organ, and was developed using the effects for movement and the LFO for the Leslie; the mod wheel controls the Leslie effect via the LFO's panning and output modulations.
Comments by Sam Mims: The organ sound is nice, but the overdrvien output adds a rather nasty crackling when several notes are played at once. Programmers should keep in mind that a vol setting of 99 on the output page should normally be used for a single-voiced sound. When other voices are added to the mix, the VOL levels should be decreased to compensate. An even more serious culprit is the Pre-Gain parameter. When PRE-GAIN=ON, a VOL of 62 is equivalent to full volume with the pre-gain off. Here, pre-gain is on for Voice 1, with the volume up to 82. So in Roy's four-voice patch, two voices are set to 99, and one is effectively set to 119! To eliminate the snap, crackle and pop, go to the Select Voice page, then double-click the Select Voice button. This should underline all four of the used voices in group edit mode. Now simply press the Output button about 15 times. Don't use the data slider, as this will change all four VOL settings to the same value, instead of keeping their relative values. Another problem, inherent to the keyboard, is that fast envelope releases cause a dirty clicking on key-ups. Setting the RELEASE time of Env 3 to 15 on all four voices help out.
Bank 3-6: THE UNKNOWN   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°112 - October 1994)
Bank 4-1 : VIBRASLAP   Brett Mehre, Milwaukee, WI (n°113 - November 1994)
This is an original SD-1 (VFX) patch that I have created. The Mod wheel closes down the low-pass filter, and the timbre slider pulls out the lower frequencies.
Comments by Sam Mims: This is a great use of the somewhat-intimidating Multi-Wave in the VFX and SD-1. This "wavefrom" is, in essence, all of the keyboard's sampled waveforms played back-to-back. By setting the lool legnth to 1 (on the Wave page), Brett has isolated just one percussive hit, which loops quite rapidly - sounding exactly like the little dealie boppers bouncing around inside a vibraslap. Quite clever! Pushing the Timbre slider all the way up axes the low frequencies from Voice 1, which sounds much more realistic to me. If your ears agree with mine, you may want to set the timbre value (in the Performance section of the keyboard) to 99. then re-save the sound. This way, if you ever want those lows back, they are just a flick of the slider away. Just for fun, solo one of the voices and scroll through different Start parameters on the Waves page (this selects which waveform gets rapidly looped). You can get some great sci-fi effects. But even better, you can add some other flavors to Brett's vibraslap. Try, for example, setting the Start parameter of Voice 2 to 30 for a vibraslap with more rattle noise.
Bank 4-2: VOLUMECURVE   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°114 - December 1994)
Here is an experimental patch that easily shows the effect of some different curves on volume. It uses the TIMBRE slider to change the volume of a basic sawtooth sound from zero to full on, using different curves or application in each octave. Each one sends the slider through the MOD MIXER set to a gain of one. Be careful using the slider - if you move it too fast, it won't keep up with you. The lowest octave shows how volume responds to a LINEAR curve. The nest-to-the -lowest octave has the slider sent thorugh a CONVEX-1 curve. The middle octave is just like the previous one except that it reverses the direction of the TIMBRE slider's volume control from the voice's output section. The nest-to-the -highest octave also has the TIMBRE slider reversed, but this time sends it through a CONCAVE-4 curve.
Bank 4-3: THROWOUT   Dara Jones, Dallas, TX (n°116 - February 1995)
For all those folks who have thrown a rod in their auto - now an organ patch that does it instead. This organ/electric piano patch, utilizing the Rotospeaker + Delay effect, throws the sound out toward you and quickly fades.
Comments by Sam Mims: This doesn't really strike me as an organ patch, but it is an interesting sound. The effects seemed a bit overwhelming, si I toned them down a bit by changing the Delay Time to 22, the FX1 Mix to 50 and the Hi Rotor Fast speed to 69. The mod wheel controls the rotor speed in a continuous fashion, so setting it halfway forward makes it spin halfway fast. The All-Waves waveform is definitely a lot of fun to play with. The Start parameter determines which of the single waves in the wavetable is playing; the Loop Length setting of 1 lets only one wave play in the loop, rather that a string of multiple waves. So, by changing the Start paramater, you can select different timbres and such. My favorite alternate settings for this parameter were 214, 211, 190, 182, 179 and finally 86 to create a strumming Oriental sound.
Bank 4-4: ANALOG*2   Steve Munro, Guilder Center, NY (n°117 - March 1995)
This is a blend of sawtooth and square waveforms in both keyboard and lead configurations. The mod wheel controls the delay time.
Comments by Sam Mims: The main patch select here is pretty squeaky clean; if you prefer a warmer, fatter sound, try detuning Voice 2 by going to the Pitch page and setting FINE somewhere between +01 and +09, depending on your taste. Another approach to warming this sound up is setting the effects to the CHORUS+REVERB 2 default. This negates Steve's cool mod wheel control of the delay time, but we can instead use the mod wheel to add more to the chorus effect. To do this, go to the second effects page and set the chorus RATE MOD to -10 and the DEPTH MOD to +45. The ability to switch instantly from the synth brass sound of the main patch to the monophonic lead sounds make ANALOG*2 very handy to have in your bag of tricks.
Bank 4-5: BY-THE-SEA Stephen Mugglin, Latter Sound (n°120 - June 1995)
I worked on this program because I like the sound of the surf. I didn't have to start from scratch because the folks at Ensoniq had already provided a jump start with a factory sound titled STL DRM + SURF. The seagull cry is very good. I adjusted it so the pitch sould be varied, but you'll still want to play it fairly close to C4. The factory surf sound is the starting point for three different waves, each with its own character. They generally sound best when played slowly, a note here and a note there, usually from about E3 to G4, mixing the various waves, and once in a while, the cry of the gulls.
Bank 4-6: LARGE-SOUND   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°126 - December 1995)
This is a Pulse-wave pad sound that I tried to make compatible with the SQ types (or at least translatable).
Bank 5-1: CHURCHBELLS Jim Grote, Cincinnati, OH (n°127 - January 1996)
Bank 5-2: VOX-JAGUAR   Kirk Slinkard, Lakewood, CO (n°129 - March 1996)