fxpansion DR-008 DR-008 Advanced Rhythm Production Station User Manual version 1.10 - 07/06/2002 THIS MANUAL IS COPYRIGHT (C) ANGUS F. HEWLETT / FXPANSION AUDIO 2000-2002. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION. VST® TECHNOLOGY BY STEINBERG MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES AG. ALL TRADEMARKS ACKNOWLEDGED www.fxpansion.
1. Welcome 2. Getting Started 2.1 Installing 2.2 The Configuration Screen 3. In use Finding your way around 3.1 Main Controls 3.1.1 View Modes 3.1.2 Program Name readout 3.1.3 Menus 3.1.3.1 Loading a kit 3.1.3.2 Saving a kit 3.1.3.3 Wizards Importing an LM-4-kit Clear All 3.1.3.4 Controllers (see also Automation) 3.1.3.5 Config 3.1.3.6 Samples 3.1.3.7 Browser 3.1.3.8 About 3.1.4 Padlock 3.1.5 Multimutes 3.1.6 Rude Solo Light 3.1.7 Octave buttons 3.1.8 Window Selectors 3.2 Workspace and View Modes 3.2.
fxpansion DR-008 3.2.4 Mix Mode 3.2.5 Edit Mode 3.3 The Browser 3.4 Automation and controllers 3.4.1 Full Automation 3.4.2 16-way Mapped Automation 3.4.3 128-way Map and Controllers 3.4.4 MIDI NRPN Implementation 4 The Modules 4.1 Working with modules 4.2 Samplers 4.2.1 Easy Sampler 4.2.2 Ultra Sampler 4.2.3 Quad Sampler 4.2.4 Velo Sampler 4.3 Synthesizers 4.3.1 The Eights Bass 4.3.2 HiHat 4.3.3 SnareDrum 4.3.4 809 Bass 4.3.5 809 Snare 4.3.6 808 Hat 4.3.7 HX-Bass 4.3.8 HX-Drum 4.3.9 Tambourine 4.3.
1 Welcome. Thank you for purchasing the DR-008 Advanced Rhythm Production Workstation from FXpansion Audio. DR-008 is a VST2.0 VST Instrument and Dxi DirectX Instrument compatible with all known VST2 and Dxi host applications, including:- • Steinberg Cubase VST 3.7x and 5.x • Steinberg Cubasis VST • Steinberg Nuendo 1.5+ • Emagic Logic Audio series v4.5+ • Cakewalk SONAR and Home Studio 2002 • ImageLine Fruity Loops 3.
fxpansion DR-008 The following files and folders will be installed: • DR-008.DLL - the main engine and VST interface. • Dr8Dxi2.DLL - the Dxi interface. • MODULES Folder - the folder where all the modules are kept. New modules from FXpansion or third parties can be placed in here. • WIZARDS Folder - the folder where DR-008's import wizards are kept. New wizards. • PRESETS Folder - where presets for all DR-008's modules are stored. Please take time to register DR-008.
OUTPUTS and AUX SENDS let you set, respectively, the number of output and aux send destinations you want DR-008 to provide in the host’s mixer. Note that this is only supported in multi-out enabled hosts – currently that means Cubase, Nuendo, Cubasis and Orion Pro. Outputs beyond the first stereo pair, as well as all Aux Sends, are unavailable in some versions of SONAR, Logic Audio and Fruity Loops. This is an unfortunate limitation of these hosts, and something they all plan to address at a later date.
fxpansion DR-008 OPEN ALL EDITORS IN SAME WINDOW – when this box is checked, all popup Editor Windows are opened in the same window frame - so in effect, as you open a new popup editor, the last one closes. Good if you’re short on screen space and/or hate ‘screen clutter’. ENABLE ANIMATION – when checked, the pads in the workspace light up whenever that pad is triggered.
3.1 Main Controls This section deals with the various controls on the ‘frame surround’ the grey outer area around the outside of the Workspace Area. 3.1.1 View Modes These controls let you select which view mode the Workspace is currently in.
fxpansion DR-008 find the files; because only references to the files are stored in the bank, not the files themselves, editing or deleting the wave files used in the bank will change the way the banks sounds. • ‘Save settings and clone samples’ saves the bank as above, but creates a new copy of all the wave data (in a subdirectory relative to wherever you save the new bank file), and stores references to the new copy of the wave data in the file.
Clear All This Wizard clears all the pads and resets the DR-008. Before doing so, it will ask ‘are you sure’, so that you don’t accidentally lose work. 3.1.3.4 Controllers This menu allows you to access the automation and MIDI Controllers settings. See the ‘Automation’ section for more information. 3.1.3.5 Config This menu displays the Config dialog box. See ‘Config’ under ‘Getting Started’ for details. 3.1.3.6 Samples This menu is reserved for future functionality. 3.1.3.
fxpansion DR-008 3.1.5 Multimutes The Multimutes are eight programmable mute buttons which allow you to mute and unmute multiple pads at once. Right-click a Multimute to pop up a list of all the pads – any currentlyticked entries are controlled from that Multimute. Click on a note name in the popup menu to add that pad to the current Multimute. Left-click a Multimute button to toggle it on/off. When the Multimute changes state, it applies the same change to all pads assigned to it.
Mix – provides large, graphical volume and pan faders for fine-tuning the levels of each pad. Has a horizontal scrollbar, and allows you to jump between groups of pads using the octave buttons. Edit – provides a compressed version of the information in Mix mode, plus an edit area where you can modify the settings for the individual modules loaded on each pad. 3.2.1 Common features Regardless of which view mode you’re currently working in, some functionality is the same:- 3.2.1.
fxpansion DR-008 track. What it does, when activated (see Config) is to pre-load sounds or samples in to a pad as soon as you hilight them in the Open dialog box. This means that any MIDI data coming in to that pad now triggers the new, highlighted sound. Typically, how you’d use it is to set up a pattern in your sequencer with some basic sounds, run the sequencer, and then load new samples in to the DR-008 as the sequencer runs.
3.2.1.6 Using Drag and Drop DR-008 supports drag-and-drop between pads. When the padlock icon is disabled (un-illuminated and ‘unlocked’), you may drag any pad’s settings to any other, moving the module loaded in to that pad in the process. Hold down CTRL and drag to clone the settings, creating a new copy of the module in the destination pad. 3.2.1.
fxpansion DR-008 3.2.3 Details Mode Details mode gives you a more detailed view of each pad, showing the choke group, hold, aux, and output settings for the pad. The volume, pan, edit, mute, etc. controls work Pad Name/Parameter Value exactly as in Overview Mode. The Hold button, when activated, causes the pad to ignore any MIDI note-off messages and play to Volume Pan Note Solo the end of the sound or sample.
3.2.5 Edit Mode Edit mode provides the same controls as Mix mode, albeit in a somewhat compressed form. However, in addition it also provides an editor for the parameters of whatever module is loaded in to the pad (equivalent to the floating popup editor windows accessible from the ‘E’ button). Because of space limitations, it breaks them in to ‘pages’ of six parameters.
fxpansion DR-008 automation, or take advantage of SONAR’s superior NRPN handling and use the NRPN system. 3.4.1 Full Automation Full automation provides 128 automation channels for every pad, plus automation of volume, pan, aux1 level, aux2 level, mute and solo.
3.4.4 MIDI NRPN Implementation All DR-008 parameters can be controlled with MIDI NRPN messages. DR-008 understands the full 14-bits of controller select messages, but only 7-bit data entry messages (i.e. controller #6 only). The NRPN message is interpreted as follows:Coarse = 0..95: Pad select; Fine= 0..127: Pad parameter select Data = 0..127: Pad parameter data (0..1) Coarse = 96: Pad volume; Fine = 0..95: Pad select Data = 0..127: Pad volume data (0..1 = -inf..
fxpansion DR-008 The Modules 4 4.1 Working with modules If you haven’t already gathered, modules are of central importance to the DR-008 concept. DR-008 does not on its own posess any sound generating capability whatsoever – this is all provided by the various modules.
Vpi – Velocity to Pitch. When turned up, this control causes louder notes to be played at a relatively higher pitch. Fc – Filter Cutoff. This controls the cutoff frequency of the Easy Sampler’s simple Low Pass filter. When turned down, this control removes some of the treble frequencies from the sound, making it less ‘bright’. VFc – Velocity to Filter Cutoff. When turned up, this control causes louder notes to sound brighter than quiet notes, by increasing the cutoff frequency for the filter on loud notes.
fxpansion DR-008 VCA1 and VCA2 are amplifiers and amplitude envelope generators. The controls are fairly self-explanatory: attack rate, decay rate, release rate (rate of decay after noteoff), gain, and velocity->gain. This last control is used to make the Ultra Sampler respond to velocity in the normal way, playing higher velocities louder (or it can be set to work in reverse, if you prefer!).
4.2.4 Velo Sampler The final sampler in the current version of DR-008 is the ‘Velo Sampler’. This is a velocity-switching sampler, providing up to 128-way velocity switching between samples. This is essential for realistic-sounding acoustic kits.
fxpansion DR-008 (‘Amp DC1’), and a slower linear decay ‘Amp DC2’ The ratio between these two envelopes – which, in effect, controls the shape of the overall amplitude decay envelope – is set by the ‘Amp Ratio’ control. 4.3.2 HiHat An analog-style hi hat tone generator, based on a tone signal and noise signal mixed and then fed through a high-frequency bandpass filter. NoiseDcy and ToneDcy control the decay rates of, respectively, the noise signal and the tone signal.
4.3.4 809 Kick The 809 Kick module is modelled on the classic Roland 808 and 909 drum boxes. Frequency’ controls the base pitch; ‘Sweep’ controls the amount of pitch envelope; ‘Dirt’ adds harmonic noise to the signal; ‘Click’ controls the level of the initial attack click; ‘Decay’ and ‘Release’ control how quickly the sound dies away. 4.3.5 809 Snare A snare drum based on the circuitry used in the classic Roland drum boxes.
fxpansion DR-008 4.3.8 HX-Drum HX-Drum is similar to HX-Bass (see left), but is tuned differently for producing hard-hitting synth tom sounds, rather than bass drums. 4.3.9 Tambourine A fairly simple module for generating tunable tambourine sounds. Parameters are tune, amplitude decay, and volume compression (allowing you to add sustain). 4.3.10 Stompin’ Kick Stompin’ Kick is a big, heavyweight kick drum generator, ideal for trance ‘four-on-the-floor’ kicks and suchlike.
by increasing the output level of each bandpass filter. This is useful for rim-shot sounds, and like the harmonics control can add ‘bite’. This is followed by a simple tone control filter. See the next two pages for more information on DrumSynth008.
fxpansion DR-008 DrumSynth008 signal flow diagram 4.4 Drum Deploy performance modules Drum Deploy modules provide a way to process incoming MIDI data in various ways, and re-route a single note to several different sound generator modules. Note that in the current version, DR-008 does not support ‘chaining’ of Drum Deploy modules – you can’t, for example, control a DD Layer from a DD Autoroll. Drum Deploy modules only allow you to control sampler or synthesizer modules. 4.4.
4.4.3 DD Alternator DD Alternator causes hits to be re-routed to one of up to four different pads. The first hit is routed to the first pad, the next to the second, and so on. Any empty entries in the DD Alternator’s selection boxes are skipped, so if only entries I and II are used, it will give a simple two-way alternation effect. DD Alternator is useful for creating ‘left-stick, right-stick’, effects, as well as breathing life in to otherwise ‘static-sounding’ patterns by providing variation in the hits.
fxpansion DR-008 sequencer, you can use the host to ‘chain’ patterns by triggering different DD Sequencer modules in sequence. Also, because DD Sequencers can be triggered/cut at any time, you’re not limited to a 16-step grid – you could equally well use it for 12-step or 8-step by adjusting the note length in your host sequencer. www.fxpansion.
5 Credits and Thanks Concept, engine design and main program code: Angus Hewlett Module design and coding: Paul Kellett, Bram de Jong, Angus Hewlett This Manual: Angus Hewlett - Ian Legge (Artwork) Sounds: Joeri Vankeirsbilck, Paul Kellett, Mikael Adle, Gareth Joseph, Ian Booth, Dave Culling, Hans van Even, Shane Etter, Angus Hewlett Sanity Checks/Reality Checks: Laura Porter Thanks in no particular order to:Joeri Vankeirsbilck, Merlijn Blauw, Patrice Tarabbia, Frederic Vanmol, Martin Fay, Chris Hornsby, B
Module Header There are a number of useful functions that can be accessed by clicking on 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 A B C D E F G these module header icons. Below is a description of the function of each icon:1. Load Preset - load a preset file in to the current module via an explorer-style dialog. 2. Save Preset - save the current preset. 3. Previous Preset - loads the previous preset in the current folder. 4. Next Preset - loads the next preset in the current folder. 5.
6 GForce Groove Library GMEDIA Music’s GForce Multi-Format Groove Library bundled with the DR-008 features fifteen different drum kits and more than 200 MIDI loops and grooves. Each MIDI groove triggers the appropriate drum samples either by loading in the whole kit as a .DR8 file, or by loading in the individual samples according to their note numbers (the number in brackets within the name of each sample).
