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Yamaha CS80

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Message

The sound and "The Bump" (long)

2006-04-26 by faxiomas@virgilio.it

I have to beg your pardon if I was sometimes too heavy and too deep 
with concerns to some questions regarding the CS80 but, you know, my 
hunger for the knowledge of this special instrument sometimes made me 
loose my head.
So I have to apologize for my questions on the velocity 
settings: I stated that the presets had a "dedicated" velocity response 
meaning there was something in the presets that took them apart form 
the panel settings. That's right, both Crow and David and Juergen to 
tell the most skilled, have warned me that there wasn't such 
architecture into the CS80 but I was convinced there was something 
wrong: how could the plucked instruments sound so different and so 
punchy!??
I realised it while trying to reproduce the BASS preset on 
the virtual: you all know that the controls have an exaggerated range 
between minimum and maximum, much more than on the original; with the 
right adjustments and with refernce to the user manual of the Yamaha's 
I got myself into reproducing the BASS preset "as it should", with all 
the correct velocity settings; one thing I noted was that the filter 
envelope swept the right way but there was something that put the 
original preset apart.
By the way, this is a speculation but I guess 
I'm not far from truth;
I call it a "bump" on the attack of the 
waveform: this means there is a sort of non-flat velocity response that 
has to deal both with filter and VCA.
I measured this bump from an 
audio file in both time and amplitude domain: this bump should be 
around 60ms in time domain and approx. 3 dB higher than the actual 
level set both for AL and VCA level, with constant measures at higher 
velocities (the peak of the bump is always 3dB higher than the actual 
levels)
By talking with someone who could read the schematics , he told 
me that the TWS board , which is responsible for the encoding of the 
velocity voltage, has a charge-discharge circuitry which lets a sort of 
"fixed" sharp envelope out to the TRG boards.
This to me is responsible 
for this strange curve which reflects equally for the initial filter 
and VCA and maybe on the intial pitchbend causing some decimals below 
the pure half tone.
Anyone can share his experience on the CS80 about 
my speculation?
Let me know!
Max

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