The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

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
> 
> 
> Community email addresses:
>   Post message: AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com
>   Subscribe:    AN1x-list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>   Unsubscribe:  AN1x-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>   List owner:   AN1x-list-owner@yahoogroups.com
> 
> Shortcut URL to this page:
>    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AN1x-list
>  
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> 
> 
>