Main

The Main OSCILLATOR ZOOM Sub-Page contains many of the controls already present in the Layer Page, with some additions and a different layout.

TRANSPOSE

TRANSPOSE works like MIDI transposition and pitch changes are made in semitones. Changes in pitch don’t affect the sound quality of the Oscillator. This control is most often used to set the Oscillators at different semitone values, such as octaves or other intervals. TRANSPOSE offers the best available sound quality, but it is not modulatable.

Range -24 ~ +24 semitones

COARSE

The COARSE control operates in a similar way to FINE, but with a much larger range. Unlike TRANSPOSE, using COARSE does affect the sound quality of the Oscillator, but it is a modulatable control. COARSE is useful for wide-range pitch modulation FX.

Range -4800 cents ~ +4800 cents

FINE

The FINE control is the most precise, changing the pitch in 1cent increments. The most common use of a fine pitch control is to detune the oscillators a small amount (less that 15 cents) from each other, causing them to sound richer.

Range -100 cents ~ +100 cents

TRACKING

If the TRACKING (also known as Keyboard Tracking) switch is enabled, the pitch of the Oscillator will track the keyboard, meaning the root pitch will be changed with each key. When TRACKING is disabled, the Oscillator will not track the keyboard.

If a Soundsource is loaded, depending on the map, some keys may have static pitches.

Disabling Keyboard Tracking can be useful for drones, unusual sound effect or strange tonal combinations.

SOUNDSOURCE DISPLAY

The Soundsource Display area displays an image of the loaded Soundsource. The steppers on the right allow you to step through Soundsources. Clicking on the displays brings up the Soundsource Browser.

REVERSE

The REVERSE button appears at the bottom center of the of the Layer Pages and the Oscillator Zoom when the SAMPLE tab is selected. When engaged, it reverses the playback of the selected Soundsource for that Layer. The button is highlighted in yellow when it is ON.

When REVERSE is enabled the loop points become inactive for the following reasons:

• You normally want to hear the attack when playing a sample in reverse, and it will not play if loops are active.
• Many times the looped section occurs at the tail of the sound, so that is all you would hear if loops were active.
• Samples which play something worthwhile when looped generally don’t sound much different when played forward or backward.

TIMBRE

The TIMBRE slider alters the tonal characteristics of the Soundsource in different ways. There are two TIMBRE modes, CRUSH, and SHIFT. The center-point of this bidirectional slider is null—meaning no TIMBRE change will occur.

• CRUSH – Polyphonic Bit-Crushing (Distortion) and filtering are applied to the Soundsource. Bit-Crushing with a Low-Pass Filter is applied left of the center-point. Right of the center-point, Bit-Crushing with a High-Pass filter is applied. Timbre Crushing works effectively with any Soundsource.
• SHIFT – Transposes the mapping of the samples in one direction and changes the pitch in the opposite. This results in significant harmonic changes in the Soundsource. Moving the TIMBRE slider to the right will transpose the sample mapping down and the pitches up and vise versa when moving it to the left. When SHIFT is applied in either direction, the character of the Soundsource can change significantly. When SHIFT is used as a modulation target, the character of the Soundsource can change dynamically. The more samples that are mapped across the keyboard, the more pronounced the TIMBRE SHIFT effect will be. Conversely, with a texture or other Soundsource that only contains a single sample, SHIFT will have no effect.

NOTE: Because of the way TIMBRE SHIFT works, changes to the modulation of the TIMBRE slider must be re-triggered to hear the effect. TIMBRE changes cannot be heard on a sustained note.

START

The START control determines where in the sample its playback will start when the Oscillator is triggered. Among other things, it can be useful to remove sharp attacks or clicks at the start of a sample. The range of this setting will vary depending on the number of samples in the Soundsource.

Experimental Soundsources such as the Metasonix sounds might have a single sample mapped across the entire keyboard whereas other types of ultra-realistic instruments such as the electric and acoustic basses have a great many mapped sample ranges. These ranges are called “Zones.”

The number of Zones determines the range of the Start control. Depending on the number of Zones contained in a Soundsource, its range can vary from 1 second (when there are many Zones) to as much as 90 seconds (in the case of one Zone).

*To add interesting motion to the more experimental Patches, try moving the Start Slider to the mid-range and modulate it with the Mod Source, “Random,” then turn the Arpeggiator ON.

START FADE

These are mode switches that control the shape of the start point. This can be useful for eliminating clicks that might happen at certain START offsets. These three mode switches set the duration of the fade-in:

	No Fade-in
	Medium Fade-In
	Maximum Fade-In