9

An old trick, which delivers a punchy attack, was used—to create an effect that the use
of a naked wave wouldn’t deliver, even with the best and fastest filters available: You
use an envelope (in this case, Env 1) for a quick “push” of a wavetable’s window—or all
wavetables together, where it makes sense.
Set up Envelope 1’s decay time for this short push by moving the wave selectors for all
oscillators. (Although it makes no sense to do this on the synced sawtooth oscillator,
Osc 2, use the envelope trick regardless.)
This allows you to vary the punchiness of the content between:
• Envelope 1’s contribution to the overall attack noise and changing decay length—a
short decay results in a peak, a long decay results in a growl, as Envelope 1 reads a
couple of waves from the wavetable.
• Modulation destination—you can always assign this to each of the oscillators separately.
• Start point—you vary the wave window start with minimum and maximum control of
EG1/Osc.waves modulation: negative values for a start wave before the selected wave,
positive values for a start wave from a position behind the selected wave that rolls the
table back.
Feel free to experiment with this wavetable-driving trick. The growl effect works well for
brass sounds, and some organs absolutely shine with a little click, courtesy of a wavetable
push.
Envelope 2, which controls the filter, provides a slight attack when used for “slapped”
characteristics. Setting it to the fastest value eliminates the wah-like attack, while retaining
the punch.
For playing purposes, you’ll find that LFO 2 is used as a real-time source for vibrato. It is
assigned to the mod wheel and pressure.
Don’t concern yourself too much with the different wheel and pressure settings. Feel free
to change them.
Velocity is set up to be very responsive, because many synthesizer players don’t strike
keys like a piano player would with a weighted-action “punch.” Therefore, you should
play this patch softly, or you may find that the slap tends to sweep a little. Alternatively,
you can adjust the sensitivity of the filter modulation’s velocity value to match your
personal touch.
Feel free to increase the Voices to maximum—six strings should be enough for a guitar,
but for held or sustained notes, a few extra voices may come in handy.
123Chapter 5 ES2