User Manual
Table Of Contents
- Evolver Operation Manual
- Dave Smith Instruments
- 1210 Cabrillo Hwy N
- Half Moon Bay, CA 94019-1449
- For Technical Support, E-mail to:support@davesmithinstruments.com
- Contents
- Quick Start 6
- Basic Operation FAQs 11
- Inside Evolver 12
- Signal Flow Diagram 13
- Main Parameters 14
- Sequencer Operation 18
- Program Parameters 21
- Modulation Destination Table 38
- Modulation Source Table 40
- MIDI Implementation 41
- Welcome…
- Register
- Version 3.0 Notes
- Quick Start
- Program Notes
- Bank 1
- Bank 4
- Programs 80 – 128 are sounds meant to played from a keyboard; some have sequences programmed, and some do not. Most respond in different ways to keyboard pressure and mod wheel.
- Special thanks to Program contributors, including:
- Craig Wiper
- Basic Operation FAQs
- The Analog Side
- The Digital Side
- Sequencer Operation
- While the sequencer is running, if you hold the Shift button when you hit the Stop button, the sequence will continue running until finished (according to the length of Sequence 1), and will stop after playing step 1.
- A simple “tap tempo” feature is available. With the sequencer off, hold the Reset button, and then hold the Start/Stop button for a count of four; then lift up the Start/Stop button in time. The sequencer will start with the new tempo. Note – the actual speed will depend on the Clock Divide setting. The count will match if Clock Divide is set to 4n. If set to 8n, it will play twice as fast as your “tap”, and so forth.
- Program Parameters
- Display
- Destination
- 0ff
- No destination selected
- 01F
- Oscillator 1 Frequency
- 0AL
- Oscillator All Level
- noL
- Noise Level
- El
- External In Level
- 01P
- Oscillator 1 Pulse width
- F43
- Frequency Mod (FM) Amount; Osc 4 -> 3
- F34
- Frequency Mod (FM) Amount; Osc 3 -> 4
- R43
- Ring Mod (Amplitude) Amount; Osc 4 -> 3
- R34
- Ring Mod (Amplitude) Amount; Osc 3 -> 4
- FL
- Lowpass filter frequency
- FLS
- Filter Split –separation between left / right
- Res
- Resonance
- UCA
- VCA amount
- Fbf
- Feedback frequency
- Fba
- Filter Amount
- Dt1
- Delay 1 Time
- DA1
- Delay 1 Amount
- L1f
- LFO 1 Frequency
- L2f
- LFO 2 Frequency
- L3f
- LFO 3 Frequency
- L4f
- LFO 4 Frequency
- Additional Sequencer-Only Modulation Destinations
- Display
- Destination
- CL0
- Sequencer clock (BPM) multiplier
- n0
- MIDI note number
- uel
- MIDI Velocity
- Modulation Sources
- Display
- Source
- 0ff
- No Source selected
- SE1
- Sequence 1
- fen
- Filter Envelope
- MIDI Implementation
- MIDI Messages
- System Exclusive Messages
- 0
- No destination selected
- 1
- Oscillator 1 Frequency
- 10
- Oscillator All Level
- 11
- Noise Level
- 12
- External In Level
- 13
- Oscillator 1 Pulse width
- 16
- Frequency Mod (FM) Amount; Osc 4 -> 3
- 17
- Frequency Mod (FM) Amount; Osc 3 -> 4
- 18
- Ring Mod (Amplitude) Amount; Osc 4 -> 3
- 19
- Ring Mod (Amplitude) Amount; Osc 3 -> 4
- 20
- Filter frequency
- 21
- Filter Split –separation between left / right
- 22
- Resonance
- 23
- Highpass Frequency
- 24
- VCA amount
- 25
- Pan
- 26
- Feedback frequency
- 27
- Feedback Amount
- 28
- Delay Time 1
- 29
- Delay Time 2
- 30
- Delay Time 3
- 31
- Delay Time All
- 32
- Delay Amount 1
- 33
- Delay Amount 2
- 34
- Delay Amount 3
- 35
- Delay Amount All
- 36
- Delay Feedback 1
- 37
- Delay Feedback 2
- 38
- LFO 1 Frequency
- 39
- LFO 2 Frequency
- 40
- LFO 3 Frequency
- 41
- LFO 4 Frequency
- Sequencer only destinations
- 69
- Tempo Clock multiplier
- 70
- MIDI Note Out
- Modulation Sources
- 0
- No Source selected
- 1
- Sequence 1
- 9
- Filter Envelope
Inside Evolver
Before going through the individual parameters, following is a brief description of
Evolver’s architecture. The signal flow diagram on the next page is a good starting
point for understanding how Evolver works.
The Analog Side
Evolver’s analog electronics consist of two identical (Left/Right) synth sections, each
with an analog waveshape oscillator, a 2/4 pole resonant lowpass filter, and a Voltage
Controlled Amplifier (VCA). Control voltages are generated by the processors to
control the analog components.
The Digital Side
Surrounding the Analog electronics is a high-speed Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
that both pre- and post-processes the audio signal. Since the DSP also computes the
control voltages for the analog circuitry, it can handle a wide range of modulation with
high precision.
The DSP provides audio functions such as the Digital Oscillators, Envelope Follower,
the Peak/Hold detector (and associated external trigger generator), Highpass filter,
Distortion (with noise gate), Pan, Delay, and Hack. It also handles the tuned
feedback, as well as the additional Delay feedback paths, and all the modulation
calculations (envelopes, LFOs, routing, etc).
Analog-to-Digital (A/D) and Digital-to-Analog (D/A) converters are used to connect the
analog and digital. As can be seen, there are two sets of stereo converters; they run
at 48 kHz sampling rate with 24 bits of precision for minimum impact on the analog
sound.
This architecture allows a great deal of flexibility in defining the feature set of the
synth. The analog circuitry is fixed, but all other features are software defined in
Evolver’s two processors.
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