Thanks Bruce and Jerry for the advice and explanations...they are great!
I get kinda frustrated, cause no matter what I'm getting out of the An1x I know
in the right hands it could do so much more :-)
Still, after my last foray here, where I got a lot of great pointers and help (thanks all!) and then downloaded a lot of patches to hear and see what others do I am seeing the range of this instrument. Which seems to me to be considerable! One other thing...I am seeing the few limitations, like I have a feeling I will never be able to make a great acoustic piano sound on ths An1x...which is okay as I have a Roland keyboard that has some pretty nice piano sounds...and a piano with vibrato and pitch bend (and I WOULD be tempted you know) is just weird and probably best kept away from me.
But it still seems there are lots of oppurtunities here...even I, a guitarist by nature and not a great keyboardist, am finding I can jam with myself on the 8 track and use the meager controllers I can use realtime to good effect. I mean I am able to play some pretty things with lots of nuances....and do what I basically hear in my head.
It was kind of amazing to me how fast I got used to using the mod wheel and pitch bend and velocity..I thought it would be mechanically stilted as it wasn't natural for me but I found it felt very natural.
All in all I am very glad I bought the AN1x. Though I always have the feeling like it is a jet engine and I'm using it as a lawnmower....
I'll learn to live with it though, and thanks to this list and you guys I am making headway.
Jim
James R. Acker
jacker@... listen to my music at.....
==============================================================
My current songs can be now heard at my site:
http://home.sol.no/~jacker/ ----- Original Message -----
Fra: Jerry Aiyathurai <tuskerfort@...>
Til: <AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com>
Sendt: 3. juni 2001 05:53
Emne: Re: SV: [AN1x-list] Violin Sound
> > But your statement here was interesting too. I have only briefly
> played with the ribbon controller and meant to get back to it but
> have been busy with other, mostly using the modulator wheel. What is
> the advantage of the ribbon? Why is it (or is it?) more natural for
> example than a mod wheel....in what kinds of cases do you prefer the
> ribbon over the mod wheel?
>
> >>>>>>For me, the big difference is that you can attack the ribbon,
> anywhere along it's length. You don't have to slide up from zero or
> 64 to get there. This makes it great for trills, if it is assigned to
> pitch for example. As bruce said its good for fast stuff. The only
> weak point of it, is that it has only a 128 step resolution, so you
> have to keep the pitch range pretty small, if you are using it for
> pitch (the pitch wheel, by comparison has much more steps, I think
> 128 times 128 according to the midi spec, so you can do huge sweeps
> without a stepping sound). I find that for other things, the ribbon
> is pretty good, but again, you have to keep the range small, or the
> sound gets grainy.
>
>
> > While we're at it, I know I can assign most (if not all) parameters
> to a controller...but if anyone had a list over the TOP best things
> to assign to the mod wheel, and also to the ribbon controller I bet
> it would help....Anyone?
>
> >>>>>>>>>The mod wheel - I tend to use very traditionally. For more
> lead and bass typs sounds I use it for vibrato/tremolo application
> and for patch morphing. For pads, I sometimes program a timbral
> change (filter cutoff, pulse width, etc) so I can control the mood of
> the song.
>
> On the ribbon - I have a couple of tricks that are particular to the
> An1x. Basically the ribbon on the AN1x is great for triggering things
> like envelopes. One thing I like to do is create a pitch envelope of
> about 20-30 and a pitch depth of zero. Then I assign pitch depth to
> the ribbon (X axis). I set this value to "direct" so that the
> midpoint is no envelope, the left-hand-side of the ribbon is a sweep
> up and the right-hand-side of the ribbon is a sweep down. Now if you
> just control the pitch of both oscillators with the pitch envelope,
> you get regular results, but remember that the more synthetic-
> sounding features of the AN1x can be modulated by the pitch envelope
> also (FM, Oscillator sync etc). I usually just have one oscillator
> swept by the pitch envelope, so that the oscillators 'grind' against
> each other. So now when playing, your patch sounds normal (because
> the pitch envelope depth is zero), but if you tap the ribbon, you
> hear an explosion, as the pitch envelope creates FM, or other
> interesting sounds. Where you tap on the ribbon, determines the pitch
> and direction of the explosion. So you can have a lead sound and when
> you reach a climax, you can trigger these noises. A pretty cool
> synth, because it sounds like a modular with these effects.
>
> Also the Z axis is great for wah things like opening the filter.
> Especially if you have a lot of amplifier feedback (try the BEF
> filter with a lot of feedback), you can make it scream when you press
> the ribbon (Z pressure). Remember you don't have to use the LPF all
> the time, as you can control the brightness of the sound with the osc
> edge. Don't hurt your ears doing this. It can be really nasty.
>
> My $0.01. I hope these ideas help. I myself am learning a lot from
> these discussions.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jerry
>
>
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