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Chapter 5: Envelopes and Intensity

Pitch, Envelopes, and Intensity

Let’s start with [NEW] song again.

The first two knobs in the PITCH section is relatively simple. OCTAVE snaps to 5 different positions from low to high. PORTA is portamento, basically when you move between notes, it can make the pitch change glide instead of jump. Left is off, right is the slowest glide. 

The envelope is defined by ATTACK, DECAY, SUSTAIN, and RELEASE. These are common terms in the world of synths, there’s even a nice Wikipedia page. Your waveform is going to follow a pattern of volume changes when it is triggered (a note is pressed). Check out this chart that comes with the manual:


Attack is the start, rising in volume. Left is a sharp attack, it starts out at the full volume of your envelope and even has a bit of thump to how it starts. Moving right will make the rise more gradual, until you get all the way right and there is no attack at all. 

Decay is falling down to the sustain level. Left is quickest, fully right will skip the decay and sustain completely.

Sustain is the level the note will stay at for as long as you hold it down. It goes from nothing on the left to full volume on the right. It won’t go higher than the peak at the attack, because this is a very simple EG we are working with.

Release is really handy for recreating string sounds. Once you let go of a note, it will gradually reduce the volume, fully left goes straight to silent, going right makes the note last longer, fully right keeps it full volume forever, or until a new note is pressed and restarts the envelope.

What’s going on with the different EG INT knobs on the SYNTH screen were not immediately apparent to me. A quick glance at the manual says that the EG INT in both the PITCH section and the VCF section “adjust the amount of EG on a pitch” and can be “used for hitting sounds.” So basically, the envelope can shift the pitch, but how are these two knobs different? 

Experimenting around, the EG INT for PITCH is a bit like having an MG wave going into the VCO PITCH IN, only now the modulation is done by the wave that your Envelope is making. Now that chart is showing its worth, because it can show how not only the volume will change but also the pitch if the EG INT in PITCH is used. For this one, center is no pitch change, going right makes your attack rise in pitch, decay falls to the sustain pitch, and release falls from what your sustain was set to. Going left on this EG INT knob will do the opposite, meaning the attack will fall in pitch, decay will rise, and release will rise. Try these two configurations, holding down B for a few seconds, then letting the button go. 



The EG INT for VCF affects the CUTOFF, and seems to have the most noticeable change when the CUTOFF is set somewhere between left and center. Like this:



Try some PEAK in that configuration. That sounds pleasant. 

This EG INT does not have a reverse effect, its just a sliding scale of how much to raise (it never lowers) the CUTOFF, so set your CUTOFF knob set to your lowest desired position. On the PATCH screen, connecting EG to CUTOFF IN will get you the drop in CUTOFF by moving the knob towards the left. Try using both techniques seperately and together in different knob positions of CUTOFF, EG INT and the CUTOFF on the PATCH screen.  

On the PATCH screen, you can try connecting your EG to other things, the PITCH IN here has the same effect as we saw for the PITCH EG INT on the SYNTH screen, using both techniques together can make some interesting pitch changes. Remember PW IN only works on VCO1 in Pulse wave. Do this and you will see that in the left direction, your pulse gets fatter with attack, and to the right makes it get skinnier with attack. The oscilloscope on the top screen is magnificent!

If you connect EG to PITCH IN for just VCO1 and set up your synth so you have equal balance of both VCOs, you can have a changing pitch with a steady one. Turn on VCO SYNC and you just created a whole new wave that moves in pitch with no drone. I made one with both VCOs on triangle and it looks like a shark fin. I call it an ocean wave.


That’s all I can think to write about for this chapter. As you can see, EG Intensity can get really…intense. I’ll see myself out.


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