User Manual

Program Mode
Function Soft Buttons
6-55
Setting Up The Sync Square Oscillator:
The Sync Square oscillator is actually comprised of two oscillators, a master and a slave, set up to
emulate the way sync square oscillators worked on classic analog synthesizers. To create a
program using Sync Square, select Default Program, #999. Select “none” on the keymap page.
Select “user” on the Ampenv page for an amp envelope. On the ALG page, select Algorithm 5 at
the top of the page. Use the cursor buttons to select the function block and use the alpha wheel to
select the “SYNC SQUARE (master) >>” function. Next, press the << soft button to change soft
button pages until you see “DupLyr”. Press DupLyr to duplicate the layer, creating layer 2. In
layer 2, on the ALG page, change the function block to “>> SYNC SQUARE (slave)”, and set the
Alt Input parameter to “Layer 1”. The nal step is to go to Layer 1’s DSPCTL page and turn the
Level parameter all the way down, to -96dB (this ensures that you will only hear the output of the
slave oscillator on layer 2, which is the intended function of Sync Square.)
Now the Sync Square oscillator should be working. The “Synco” parameter, Sync Oset, is the
main parameter for shaping the tone of this sound. Synco sets the sync oset between the
master and slave square waves in each corresponding oscillator, which changes the shape of the
waveform output by the slave oscillator. The Sync Square oscillator is most expressive when the
Synco parameter modulated during performance. Use the DSPMOD page to assign an
envelope or continuous controller like the Mod Wheel for this parameter to hear the eect (see
The DSP Modulation (DSPMOD) Page on page 6-30, as well as The DSP Control (DSPCTL) Page on
page 6-29 and Common DSP Control Parameters in Algorithm Basics on page 6-23, for details on
setting up modulation and other ways to control parameters, and see The Envelope 2 (ENV2) and
Envelope 3 (ENV3) Pages on page 6-44 for details on using envelopes as modulation sources.) See
Advanced Use Of KVA Oscillators below for some similar examples of how to set and control
modulation for oscillator specic functions and other parameters.
To add a DSP function to the Sync Square oscillator, you’ll need to use cascade mode. For
example, to add a lter, duplicate one of the layers to create layer 3. On layer 3, select the ALG
page and choose one of the cascade mode algorithms, algorithms 101-131. For this example, lets
use alg 105 with the lter “4Pole Mogue LP” selected for the function block. For the Alt Input
parameter, select Layer 2. This routes a pre-Level parameter copy of Layer 2’s output into Layer
3. Go to layer 2’s DSPCTL page and turn its level down to -96dB (otherwise the un-ltered sound
from layer 2 will be audible as well as the ltered sound in layer 3.) Now you can hear the Sync
Square from layers 1 and 2 running through the lter in layer 3. See Advanced Use Of KVA
Oscillators below for examples of how to set and control modulation of lter parameters.
Advanced Use Of KVA Oscillators
Read the KVA sections above before moving on to this section.
If you have tried the program described above in Basic Use of KVA Oscillators, you may have
noticed that there is no variation in the notes played aside from pitch. Layers and programs
created with KVA oscillators can become much more expressive by introducing variation with
DSP modulation. For a KVA oscillator layer, you can use DSP modulation just as you would for
keymap layers (see Common DSP Control Parameters in Algorithm Basics on page 6-23, The DSP
Control (DSPCTL) Page on page 6-29, and The DSP Modulation (DSPMOD) Page on page 6-30.)
Several KVA oscillators also have their own modulation parameters that must be accessed to
control the oscillator’s intended function. Aside from these methods, KVA layers can also be
altered by using keymaps with natural amplitude envelopes. See below for details on each
method.
Examples of Simple DSP Control and Modulation:
Select the program 1019 VA1NakedPWMPoly, and press the Edit button. Press the ALG soft
button to view the algorithm and function blocks in use. The 3 block PWM oscillator that you see
is generating the sound in this program. Select the empty function block to the right of the PWM
block, and use the alpha wheel to scroll to the LOPASS function. You should immediately hear a
dierence in the sound of the program, because the LOPASS function is set by default to cut some
of the high frequencies from any signal that passes through it, in this case the PWM signal is