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To drive the ES2 filter to self-resonance
µ
Turn on the Filter Reset button in the upper-right corner of the ES2 interface.
When engaged, each note starts with a trigger that makes the filter resonate immediately.
Using the ES2’s Fat Parameter to Compensate for High Resonance Values
Increasing the Resonance value results in a rejection of bass—low frequency
energy—when you are using lowpass filters.
Turn on the Fat(ness) button—below the other filter slope buttons—to compensate for
this side-effect and to obtain a richer sound.
Overdriving the ES2 Filters
The filters are equipped with separate overdrive modules. Overdrive intensity is defined
by the Drive parameter.
• If the filters are connected in parallel, the overdrive circuit is placed before the filters.
• If the filters are connected in series, the position of the overdrive circuits is dependent
on the Filter Blend parameter—as described in Filter Blend: Cross-Fading Between the
ES2 Filters.
The ES2 filter Drive parameter affects each voice independently. When every voice is
overdriven individually—like having six fuzz boxes for a guitar, one for each string—you
can play extremely complex harmonies over the entire keyboard range. They’ll sound
clean, without unwanted intermodulation effects spoiling the sound.
Furthermore, appropriate Drive parameter settings lead to a different tonal character for
the following reason: The way analog filters behave when they are overdriven forms an
essential part of the sonic character of a synthesizer. Each synthesizer model is unique in
the way its filters behave when overdriven. The ES2 is very flexible in this area, allowing
tonal colors that range from the most subtle fuzz to the hardest of distortions.
Tip: As Filter 2 can cut away the overtones introduced by the distortion, the Drive
parameter can be seen and used as another tool for deforming oscillator waveforms.
71Chapter 5 ES2