The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

From: "Phil" <accession@...>

> Just curious...
>
> How do the Filters in the EX5 compare to the AN1x? Are there more types?
Or,
> do you find they sound better??

I find it hard to say whether they are better or not. I would imagine that
they don't differ that much from those in the AN1x. But still, they are very
different instruments and complement each other pretty well.

By the way, the EX5 has an AN engine that is 100% identical to the one in
the AN1x. The only difference is the polyphony, which is only one fifth, and
thus there's no unison mode. There's also no FreeEG, but these aren't really
part of the engine - they're more like external controllers. But it uses its
own filters, own amplifier stage... only at the layering stage (with AWM
elements) it comes into the 'main stream'.

The AWM part of the EX5 has both static and dynamic filters. Static filters
just cut away a bit of your frequency spectrum, regardless of what you
play - there are no envelope or controllers to control it. There's a L/H
shelf, 2L shelf, 2H shelf, LPF (resonant), HPF (resonant), BPF (resonant),
inverted LPF (er... inverted resonant), PEQ (parametric equaliser, for one
frequency), no filter, plus boosts of 6, 12 and 18 dB. You could, for
instance, make a 'telephone voice' with a BPF.

Dynamic filters work like the ones on the AN1x. There are two 24 dB LPF
filters: one 'analogue' and one 'digital', with more pronounced resonance.
Then there's LPF18, LPF12, LPF6, HPF, BPF, BEF, or none. With the exception
of the 24 dB and 18 dB filters, you have a second filter which can be LPF,
BPF, HPF or BEF. These filters can be in a parallel or serial configuration.

Then, all envelopes, including those of the fiters, can be influenced by the
way you play. For instance, you can have a steeper attack and slower decay
when you hit the keys harder. Also, the envelopes can start at another value
than 0, and you can divide the keyboard into four parts where
pitch/filter/amp get raised or lowered by a fixed amount.

Summarising, one might say that you have lots more options of controlling
the filters. Actually, the whole thing is bewildering in all its functions.

- Peter