Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Aighty, essientially a copy of a letter I recently wrote to a mate of mine
concerning (mainly) a synth feature I recently ran into that I was pretty
darn excited about.  Perhaps some of you might find some of this interesting
as well.

-Al




The EMU CS/P2500 has once again come to shock me.  Despite being a CS owner
for what must be around 5-6 years now, I recently found a facet of it's
capabilities that I had never used or even known of.

First off, what's odd is I've had a hard on for two forms of synthesis
lately.  Vector (wave sequencing) and Transwave.  Excluding the Legacy
collection I recently got to help establish if I actually wanted to invest
in a Wavestation, about the closest thing I had to these two forms came in
the form of the Malestrom (though granted, I could build up some sort of
Vector type synth in Reaktor).

The feature the CS/P2500 had was right up this type of synthesis
alley......in a way it was more like vector synthesis than transwave, but
ultimately it's different than either ("Timbral Sequencing" might be an
adequate term).  Basically, there are numerous cross fading paramaters that
can be set between waveforms (ala vector synthesis), and these cross fades
can be modulated by any number of means (LFO, EG, knob, mod wheel, etc.),
thus, the placement of where things are in the "timbral sequence" can be
made to go back, forward, remain stagnant, etc. (ala transwave synthesis).
Ultimately you are limited to only eight of these crossfade types, so you
can't set up nearly as high an amount of cross fades as you could in the
wavestation; but unlike the wavestation, the waveforms are not limited to
being routed to just one filter and MANY modulation sources can be set (as
opposed to the Wavestation's two souces).  Ultimately, you can deal with
each waveform/oscillator on an individual basis; each having it's own filter
type, filter settings, EGs, LFOs, etc.  Thus why I say it's more like
"timbral sequencing", as it's more like each wave within a wavestation being
it's own synth and thus ultimatley, you shifting through synths rather than
waves.

I'd start off exploring this capability taking sort of a PPG/Microwave
approach (i.e. setting up the waves to function as wavetables), and met with
some pretty satisfying results.  On my second go, I wouldn't limit myself
nearly as much and lets just say that once again, the CS would once more
seem to scream out at me "I'm the most powerfull thing you've got....."

Well o.k., maybe not the most powerfull (I'll still give that to Reaktor),
but a hefty beast none the less....and a beast that I'd be hard pressed to
emulate even with things like Reaktor as CPU usage would just jump out of
the ceiling!  I actually have a Reaktor emulation made to emulate SOME of
the capabilities of the CS/P2500 filters, and this by itself carries a
load....multiplying the amount of these filters running at once by just 4
(never mind 8) would just make my system take  a crap I'm sure.

The second CS/P2500 has proved itself interesting as of  late as well.  It's
duty doesn't deal with synthesis so much as drumming.  It's finally capable
of carrying out most of it's duties, being an electronic drumming beast, and
a darn solid acoustic drumming module as well (though this is still being
expanded).  It's been sitting around doing nothing as I was still getting it
to the point of being able to carry out it's job, but with it now being
nearly complete, I took to the second phase of getting it ready and began
setting up patches and what not....on the electronic end, the result has
been a beast capable of some VERY interesting and unique drum timbres as
well as a decent 909 and 808 emulator.  The 909 and 808 emulation doesn't
stop at the sound though, as it finally gives me a 909 style sequencing
machine with quirks.  Head into record mode, and I'm free to start
sequencing drums in realtime in TR style...but I can also drop in and out of
record mode at will.  Dedicated knobs for every drum paramater I want
realtime access to (volume, tuning, decay amounts, AND EVEN FILTERING).  The
ability to expand and contract sequences on the fly (make a 1 measure loop
into a 8 measure [or more] loop and contract it back to 4 measures, 1
measures, 3 measrues, etc.) and ultimately, IMMEDIATE access to a selection
of 64 drum sounds at any given time (though it's only feasible to have up to
16 of these sequenced), dedicated mute buttons for the sequence of each
sound (or actually, 16 of them).....
Anyhow, absolutely BEASTLY.

Regards,

         Al
-- 
93/93


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